for about two hours. then after that they were called by their bosses to say, oh, wait a minute -- and unfortunately a lot of those anchors sent us letters saying that was one of the greatest meetings they've ever witnessed. they probably wished they didn't send us those letters of congratulations, but it was good. >> oh my goodness, that is wild. >> that is great stuff. goodness, that's awesome. anchors wrote me and said they were the great -- willie said it was the greatest thing they ever seen in their life. >> i dictated moo into you, you took it down long hand, western union. >> i think the hardest part -- >> do you think they brought it to him or sent it in the mail. >> mika you stepped on my line again, willie, go ahead, western union. tell them. this is what i said, you no at the hardest part of it was, willie, see, she messed up the punch line. >> timing, baby.

>> finding the russian translator so they'd understand it. boom. you stepped on that, so the whole thing just sort of spun out into space. so since you did that, we are going to talk about alabama. >> no. >> because the guys haven't been here since the alabama game. >> it's a little old. >> that was one of the five best sporting events i seen if a long, long time. >> how about a program, mika, where you can bench your stars, your quarterback. >> and take a little freshman. >> put a binch of freshman. >> he comes out in the second half throwing left handed. >> what happens to hertz now? >> he will be fine. >> personally i would transfer if i were him. he was such a class act. he a quarterback. you can be a class act and sprab three more national championships. >> he can be patient. tom brady was not a great quarterback at michigan.

>> he was better than his coach gave him credit for being and he hates the coach to that day. >> do you want to have three national rings or go to arkansas and struggle? >> he handled it well. >> what a classing a. the kid that won the game was such a class act and then hertz was a class act. >> did you notice in the fourth quarter, you had jalen hertz and joe scarboro, they were looking like bart star in 1978. >> we are done here. this is good. >> right? mick did you see any of that? >> no, then let's talk about "star wars". how would you have evolved in the last jedi i think it's

unfair lay slam. i think it's a great movie. they should have had the casino scene, but it was an entertaining movie. >> it was fun, it was a fine moviech it was badly written, the character is not that compelling t. casino scene was totally pointless. >> it was pointless. >> and "rogue one" is a much better movie. i hope there are more movies like that than "star wars". >> louis is every whoing, hoping to get on tv more. >> louis, can we show louis for a second? >> no, please don't. >> you want us to notice you were fixing a post the other day? >> you already did that. >> you took the picture. >> louis, when you do business news, can you not do your fake business news voice? >> yes. >> louis, just be louis. >> that itself the person we like. >> by the way, louis was -- this is football. >> that person we like. >> that person we leak. it was amazing, that was good work. you doing business needs work.

okay. with us on set, we have veteran columnist msnbc contributor mike barnacle. that will make him better. he se so-called. nick confesssori. heidi pryzbilla. >> heidi is a thousand percent on the last jedi. >> mika, that was an unusually punishing first segment. it's brutal. >> it's a trap, heidi. >> trust me, it's brutal. yes even hear it. >> politico reporter for the washington post and moderator of washington week on pbs bob costa. bob, it's fascinating when you said before that when you started talking to donald trump, he would talk to you about his great ratings. hey, look at my great ratings and you said you mean poll numbers? and here we have yesterday donald trump actually looking at the presidency, it's no

surprise, and that cabinet room as a sound stage. >> reporter: it was a surreal scene in american politics talking to aids to both democrats and republican the lawmakers who were in that him radio, they saiding well, maybe it can jolt us towards a deal. these discussions are so intricate, intense to have it play out on television. it boosted the president white house aids say in the sense he tried to combat this narrative that's been building in the media conversation about his fitness for office in the national political circle about his fitness for office. but whether this actually leads towards a deal on d.r.e.a.m.ers, it remains to be scene. they haven't made too much progress. the president continues to insist on having a border wall for a d.r.e.a.m. er deal. >> maybe that's what mize is about. maybe the democrats help young people that have come here to pursue the american dream and have done everything right and played be i the rules and maybe

republicans in exchange for that demand a wall that nobody wants, nobody needs and is not going to have any impact, if that's what the republican party wants, maybe that's the compromise, what i don't understand, bob, i want to go to heidi on this one, too. he sits there, he has this great meeting. he has this back and forth actually with dianne feinstein and then later in the day, he tweets a nasty tweet at dianne feinstein. explain the mindset there. >> bob or heidi in. >> bob then heidi. bob, why can't the guy actually take momentum and go with it? >> moderate republicans at the capitol, joe, they tell me, they think, they hope the president seems to be playing to his base as she doing these negotiations. they think a daca deal could be on the table and that amid all this, the president will do two things. he will keep taking shots-a

shots-at-democrats and insisting he is getting the wall. >> that doesn't mean there is a nuance or a possible nuance that the president could agree for a border package that isn't a physical wall across the whole u.s.-mexico border, but it's enough to get both sides to the table. this is all on thin ice. the president has to really try to bring this ship into port in a way he hasn't done in the past, bringing both parties together. >> by the way, nothing could help diane dine stein more than attacking her. she has been seen as anti-trump. >> it is. >> heidi, so what is the state of a deal on daca? house republicans came out on a herd line saying we're not in line with president trump with this outreach, with a path to citizenship. we have our hard line remains despite what the president said in that room two days ago. so where do they lie between the president and the house? >> reporter: there has been a deal to be had all along, which is some combination of increased

border security along with some of the things that the president wants like ending the visa lottery, addressing the chain migration issue. this all comes down to i believe what the president is willing to consider a quote/unquote wall. everyone, many, many people in his own party and jeff flake said the other day he got the president, we don't need a solid concrete structure along all of the 2,000 border of the u.s.-mexico border. yet he continues to say the wall. they thought republicans and democrats made a break through on that the other day in terms of getting the president to act knowledge. it didn't have to be a contiguous wall. you see this tug from the right. you see the freedom caucus and others saying, no, you said $18 billion price tag on this big beautiful wall. we want increased border security and then you have emboldened democrats on the left who are getting pressure from their base, who feel they should

have had a deal by the end of the year. >> right. >> and they want some of these things subtracked. they want what's called a clean daca deem. that's where we are left. i believe that if government functions as it's supposed to, which is that we come together in the middle, moderates, in both the republican and democratic party. there has been a deal to be had all along, but right now, i don't know, i guess i perceive some kind of a temporary spending bill, this potentially getting punted, especially with this court ruling coming down, it may take pressure off an immediate deal. >> i saw stories yesterday this deal wasn't going to happen, because stephen miller doesn't want it to happen. which reminds me of president bannon is stopping things in the white house. i was just a little congressman, but if anybody on my staff ever said, told somebody this isn't going to happen, because i'm not going to let it happen.

i would go up to him and say are you blanking blanking me. because if you ever do that again, i'm going to fire you so fast. like shut up and get out of the way. let's work together. you're a staff member. don't get in the way of the professional staff people and all the other people, but it's -- it's stunning that donald trump would allow stephen military get in the way of comprehensive immigration. is there us as one person in this white house that thinks they're smarter than donald trump? stephen miller will not allow comprehensive immigration -- i mean, how stupid is that? >> i think the president has tremendous respect for his vast experience. >> i'm just saying, i don't care who it is. you got one president -- >> i'm being sarcastic. he's like two. >> you got one president and yet you've got steve bannon and now

stephen miller blocking a comprehensive immigration reform that will actually help donald trump politically. >> remember the advice you said should happen after the meeting. >> that went down the toilet. you know the president did notice today, he was saying -- >> it only took an hour-and-a-half. >> 90 whole minutes. that's amazing, that shows incredible -- in his discipline. >> he's growing. >> listen, the president was talking about feedback. >> yeah. >> he loves feedback. >> everybody loves feedback. >> so we got some quinnipiac polls, new numbers out this morning. they show president trump's approval rating now sits at 36%. >> that sounds about right. >> that's down one point from almost three weeks ago, contrast that to where trump stood a year ago during his one week in office just like today 36% approved the president then but only 44% disapproved compared to 59% who disapprove today.

when voters were asked to grade trump's first year in office. 60% gave trump a passing grade. 39% gave him an f. trump's grade increased among republicans with 96% giving him a passing grade, compared to 65% of independents and 30% of democrats who gave trump a d or above. and among younger voters, do you want me to stop? >> no, i was getting nervous. >> that reminded me of all my report cards. >> right. i'm beginning to get hives, too, among younger voters, ages 18 to 34 -- this is important the president would know, that's the demo. that's like you want those numbers to be high in the television world because that apparently amounts to money in advertising.

his ratings are very bad. >> keep it right there. put those numbers back up again, mike barnacle, we're going to be talking about more republicans who are quitting the house. this is turning into a nightmare for the house republicans. and in large part, republicans appear to be headed towards a historic loss in the mid-terms because the suburbs even trump won by a couple of points last year have completely changed. obviously, there's more intensity among democratic voters, more intensity among non-white voters. more intensity also among millennials and this is, you know, it used to be, people say, well, young people don't vote. it's changing and millennials

will, i assume, be a larger dem grabbing group than baby boomers. which will mean this, put the numbers back up again, this is soon going to be republicans who are marching off a cliff for a life long democrat, who still thinks he's on a reality show. >> he may not be fit. >> this, mike barnacle, this group of people will be the largest demographic group of voters in american history and they are flying away from donald trump and the republican party as fast as they can. >> a couple of things, you get the sense or at least i get the sense of talking to people, they have over estimated the size and the strength of their base of donald trump's base. he's got a considerable base. i don't think it's 32 or 35%. the other aspect of the numbers that we've shown there and the presidency as it's been played out is they are out of tune, out

of sync in a large way with much of the rest of the country. this is everyday i think from anecdotal evidence talking to people again, is the other day, yesterday, or the day before, they had a raid on a number of 7-elevens around the country. okay. last year, in this country, there were 64,000 deaths from opioid abuse. that's what people are concerned about more than they are a wall or is there an illegal el salvador, is someone from el salvador working at the counter of 7-eleven. yet there is very little done about opioid abuse in this administration. >> nick, few go back and look at those numbers 67% among voters, 18 to 34. if you are a republican who cares about his or her party, who cares about the future of her party, of winning elections

to have your world view be the dominant one in this country. what are you thinking as you look at that number right there? >> i am thinking that president trump is branding my party for a generation. look, the president will be gone in three years or seven years and when he is gone, though the legacy of what he did and the image he created for his party among young voters will continue in the same way that it's worked in the opposite for a president like reagan, who created a positive image of the same voters in the ''80s. he is creating a disaster for his party. it is amazing to think in this mid-term the economy is growing pretty fast and jobs are growing pretty fast and there is no intern scandal in the house or kind of anyf these other things that we would normally associate with building into a wave. it is all trump. >> it is all trump. just like 1994, again the economy was strong but you had

bill clinton who seemed disconnected. i want to go back to what you said about ronald reagan. i was 18 the first time reagan was elected. everybody in my class, everybody in my class, a lot of them from democratic families, a lot of life long democratic people, everybody supported reagan. it was like, you know what, democrats are weak. this guy's strong. this guy is going to take care of the hostages in iran and he's going to take care of this and take care of that. and i read, you know, 20, 30 years later that your political, you know what you are politically at 18 is what you are politically, for most people, the rest of your life. >> yep. >> that's why, your point is important, republicans think right now they can just skate and donald trump can tweet misogynist things about democratic senators and he can tweet racist things.

he can go to charlottesville and find something nice to say about neo-nazis. and republicans think, you know, he'll be gone in a couple years. he is destroying the republican party for years to come. he just is. especially again bob costa among millennials, who just absolutely are repelled by him and it appears a lot of republican congressmen are starting to see this and understanding in a district that even resembles a swing district. they know they're going to get pounded by suburban voters, by black voters, by millennials, by hispanic voters, by women voters, around that's why you had another veteran republican yesterday announcing that he was wasn't going to seek re-election. okay, in talking about darryl isa, a well known congressman of

california, he says he will be leaving congress after this year. bob, this news comes two days after you had ed royce, one of the most senior powerful republicans in the california delegation stepping. so they're now 31 house republicans who said they're not going to seek re-election. 19 are retiring. and 12 are running for higher office and the last time this happened was 1994 when 28 democrats left and we know how that story ended. so what are the republicans in the house thinking? is there anybody with any hope that this is going to turn around or is there anybody, any leader thinking, okay, we can go along with donald trump's policies, but how do we start separating ourselves from the parts of his personality that are making republicans lose a generation of voters? >> well, here's what's interesting, joe, so many law

make, were retiring. they say president trump's conduct and his comments are very damaging for their re-election prospects and a lot are heading towards the exits because of. that when i say is donald trump changed the republican party. they say he actually does not have as much influence as ronald reagan had over the republican party. trumpism, this hard line on trade, on immigration, they don't see it seeping into the party. where are the think tanks for this brand of republicanism. where are the allies on capitol hill echoing president trump and his position? does president trump have a grip on the power in the party? certainly he does. whether he has a long-termesque on the ideological drip to the republican party. that hasn't been decided. >> that may be, heidi, because it's not clear what his ideology is, take that meeting two days ago, he opened 55-minute tv meeting he went back and forth on immigration and said a bunch of things that contradicted conservative ideology, his own comments in the past. so i'm just wondering about

these members of congress who have spent the last year not criticizing president trump. in fact, going along with most of the things he's done, even in easy moments like charlottesville, not going after him. do they worry about the kind of numbers we look like there with millennials, do they worry about their party when they see what they may be doing to the next generation and the generation after that? >> you look at they got the crown jerusalem of their agenda passed, the tax cuts, the economy is seemingly humming along with a low unemployment rate, yet this president is still stuck now in the 30s. but it's not just trump. it is the substance of that crown jewel, guys. i want to point you to specifics some of these seats in new york and california, whereby with this tax bill, the gop really helped to decimate some of these lawmakers because when you look at these districts, they are essentially socially moderate

districts. they tend to be, you know, pro lbgtq abortion, pro-choice on abortion issue, social issues, what do they really care about? boy, they read their tax bills. and some of these members that you see heading for exits, they're the ones that are really going to take it on the chin with this salt provision and tax bill. so that's one thing to watch. also when you look at the composition of the member was are retiring, they're going to be hard to replace, because they represent specific districts, key constituencies like ed royce and asian americans. ileana ross lighteightenen. you are seeing these ratings group change from lean republican to lean democratic and we're not even getting into yet some of these other

districts that have republican advantages but democrats will be really expanding the map to play in those districts as well. >> mika, for the life of me, we said it in real time. i can't imagine any republican in illinois, new york or other high tax states would have ever voted for a bill that a tax bill that made small business owners in their states go from paying the highest state taxes in america to the highest state x taxes plus this. basically this penalty that is assessed from this tax bill. it's political death. so, yeah, they're retiring. great. they probably should have voted against a bad tax bill. >> perhaps. still ahead on "morning joe," president trump tells republicans to quote take control of the russia investigation. we'll show you how capitol hill is responding to that, plus, kellyanne conway insists nobody in the west wing talks about

hillary clinton. >> all right. fair enough. >> apparently, she was watching something else all day yesterday. >> what do you mean? i don't understand. >> i am for the strongest military that the united states ever had. putin can't love that. but hillary was not for a strong military and hillary, my opponent, was for windmills and she was for other types of energy that don't have the same capacities at this moment certainly. ♪ (woman) one year ago today mom started searching for her words.

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when you talk about interviews, hillary clinton had an interview where she wasn't sworn in. she wasn't given the of the. they didn't take notes. they didn't record. and it was done on the fourth of july weekend. that's, perhaps, ridiculous. a lot of people looked upon that as being a very serious breach and it really was. i am prone to the strongest military that the united states ever had. putin can't love that, but

hillary was not for a strong military. hillary, my opponent, was for wind mills and she was for other types of energy that don't have the same type capacities at this moment, certainly. >> that is so pathetic and sad that he keeps going back to campaign talking about hillary clinton and wind mills. this is -- well, we were talking about football before. does anybody here think that nick saban is going to be obsessing over the georgia bulldogs a year from now or six months from now? >> i don't think he's thinking of them right now. >> do you think a ce that takes over another company and successfully takes over another company at six months after is thinking how to move his or her company forward? or are they obsessing over how they got the better company they took over. this is a real problem and a sickness with this guy.

>> it is. and there are two options here. >> i'm not saying mental sickness with this guy. it's a real problem. >> there is two options. one is he is obsessed with her. >> why is he so obsessed with her? >> hold on. >> that would be kind of strange and maybe something psychiatric. >> is he upset because she had more votes than him? >> also it may be, this we seen with people that feel they don't have capacity or command of the issues. they go to things that they can handle? so he can handle bullying hillary clinton, someone he beat, because that will fill time instead of actually having to talk about the content? >> it's like the washington post. >> i remember the hands. >> the op ed. >> when donald trump back in i think it was may of 2016 went before. >> the washington post editorial board. >> yeah. that's when he named p papadopoulos one of his two foreign policy people. you read the transcript. it was shocking. i have the most beautiful

hasn't, people come up to me. your hands, they're very strong, big, beautiful hands. he kept going on and on. i was reading. i said to mika, oh my god, he has completely lost her mine. she said, no, he hasn't, he is running out the clock. because he doesn't want them to ask him questions about policy. because he knows nothing about policy. >> so he made them laugh. >> he had to twist themselves in knots to get to hillary clinton. he asked about russia and military and got to hillary's wind and energy poise. so he goes there on his own volition not because he is asked to go there. >> it's not an obsession, he needs to talk about something he feels comfortable about talking. >> that would not be policy. >> mike, he talks ab hillary clinton all the time. >> well, his inability to in a phrase let it go is both troubling, mystifying and sort

of understandable a at another level. he clearly can't get over the fact she got a lot more votes. >> that's what i'm saying. she crushed in over 3 million, crushed him over 3 million votes. he lost by 3 million votes and every day it's in his way. when he goes to bed at night, he feels inadequate because hillary clinton, the worst presidential major candidate of our lifetime crushed donald trump by 3 million. crushed him and i think that's just hard for him to deal with the fact that he was crushed by somebody that he. says was the worst candidate of all time. crushed him. >> he apparently has no one around him with the strength of character tore put a hand on his shoulder and say, are you president of the occupation. okay. look in the mirror. you are the president. not her. you. >> i think they've tried. i think they are hopeless. there are some issues here. >> the main issue, i don't think i've said it before, but she

crushed him by 3 million votes. and it's hard for him to cope with that. when he goes to bed at night, he's like, god, i lost like 3 million people. >> there are morning hosts every day reminding him how 3w5d he lost. it has to be hard throwing it in his face there. >> nobody talks about it. he talks about it. >> it's good he doesn't watch, he would hear us speaking very clearly in language he might understand. >> can you imagine running into somebody you consider to be the worst candidate of all time and losing by 3 million votes. >> it's terrible. >> that has to stain. >> it's like being a loser. >> that hurts. >> stop talking to him. >> 3 million votes i'd bury my head. go and bury my head somewhere in the back yard, even i guess if i were president. so maybe it does make sense. he should be ashamed, losing to hillary clinton. >> the president obsessed about hillary clinton on mic. so you don't know exactly how

much of it happens on mic two times in the course of the day, it must be happening a lot off mic. >> he's obsessed with focusing on losing by 3 million votes to hillary clinton. >> in an interview last night, the president's senior adviser, the one i say is not credible enough to be on this show, because nothing she says is true. she said, quote, so many people simply can't get over the 2016 presidential election adding quote, thanks, kellyanne for more truths. we don't care about her. nobody here talks about her. i promise you. >> i promise you, so she gives a promise, heidi that night after her boss, her president obsesss in a press conference. >> was it in the west wing. >> over and over again. i think it was in the east room. >> oh. >> obsesss. he's obsessing over hillary clinton. >> can i just say one of the great ironies of the 2016

election is that in the postmortem, hillary clinton was really beat up for running a campaign heiling trump's temperament instead of the quote/unquote issues and now we have this pom coming out. and what is the number one issue at 81% of people saying that they believe that he's not levelheaded, that he doesn't have the temperament. >> i think young people especially. >> right. for the president's language, someone would have to say hot people. >> that might matter to him. >> but he likes young hot you know whatever. you know. >> are all the people in there hot? >> absolutely. they're young. >> quinnipiac, our annual -- >> hot miami don't like you, president. >> on the hot list. >> now that would matter to him. >> i'm confused. >> simple. >> nick, we have to go, he does have an obsession with hillary clinton. we only bring it up 8,000 times after he brings it up just to

have a little fun, but he is obsessed with hillary clinton but kellyanne conway, what does she call it, alternative facts? >> i believe there is someone else in the white house besides the president that obsesss, for the president, it's his happy place, his triumph over her is the great success of his career so far. he has not topped it as president in the oval office. he's had a rocky first year. i'm not surprised, i beater. i beat her. i boat her. >> it's funny, i don't know if you know this or not. you said the word victory. what? >> he is president. >> i don't know if you know this or not. >> there's 3 million -- >> i think so, where are the numbers, i wesh i knew how to go on to google. i think he lost by? >> popular vote. >> over 2 million. >> i think it's close to 3 million. >> were a lot of those people hot? >> i don't know, but they were smart. >> that's the total, his problem

with the russia investigation is not that russia interfered, it somehow delegitimizes his victory over hillary clinton. >> victory with an after the rick. you know, it's funny, yesterday, was it yesterday, he accused hillary of collusion with the russian? i think he accused hillary of collusion with the russians. he said i didn't collude, hillary. he has been doing that for weeks. >> it's funny because it's so sad. >> has the clown said, because it's true. can i ask a question? my daughter has written her first letter to the editor. >> oh, this is amazing. i know. >> i know. >> she told me. >> i know this is going to be shocking. you know kate. boy, she's calm. when she starts writing. i think she wrote the "new york times," a letter to the ed tomplt it's about the electoral college. she's against it. she thinks it undermines one

person, one vote. i was explaining why it was a good idea. after 30 minutes i started thinking in this century alone we have elected two presidents who lost the popular vote, now, that, the first time it happened it was a fallujia. i think it happened in 1876. i think tilden. i think, i'm guessing. but if that happens, if that keeps happening, if we have a third election where the president of the united states is the person who gets less votes that is the point. it starts becoming the rule and not the exception. it delegitimizes the idea of one person one vote. aren't we really going to have to typically get rid of the electoral system? we can't keep having presidents. >> no. >> if this happens once a century, okay. you know what it happened.

>> it could help next time out. >> it's happened twice with the last three presidents. >> you go ahead a third party candidate in 2020. it could well happen again. >> coming up. >> are you against the electoral system? >> i'm certainly moving that way him. >> yes. i have always been for it. it is a hard thing to explain. i'm grant you to an 8 or a 10-year-old. wait this person got more votes, you have to dig in and explain it to them. >> if it happens again, it's just. >> did her letter convince you? >> of course, it did. she's very persuasive. >> yes. >> katherine. but, nick, it is at some point americans will say, wait a second. why does the person? this isn't about hillary clinton, this is about donald trump winning and if it happens again a third time in let's say

a quarter century, we have to get rid of the elect tractor-trailer college. >> it's a consequence of what's happening in our plex, polarization, a consequence of the partisan divide being layered over the divide between cities and rural areas and the more that being a democrat moons being in a city and vice-versa, the more we will see this junkture between the popular vote and the electoral college. >> coming up, the president wants to make it easier to sue people, who writes things that he doesn't like. >> no, he doesn't. >> this guy is unbelievable. >> this guy would be sued by so many people. if there were a lower standard or deaf messages. >> we'll talk to legal scholar jonathan turly who says there is little trump can do toaler our libel laws. that itself a good thing. "morning joe" is coming right back.

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president trump has said that the investigation into russian collusion makes our country quote look very bad and he said this moving that quote the world is laughing at our stupidity. so my question to you is, are you laughing at the russian

investigation? >> i think, i think that it's up to every political system and country to scrutinize and discuss their own political agenda in their countries. and i respect that very much. and that this is an issue for american politics. i'd just like to say it has impacted also in europe, all european countries who have had elections this year has been looking into will there be any type of tamper something. >> let's say this, there is collusion, but it's really with the democrats and the russians, far more than it is with the republicans and the russians. so the witch hunt continues. >> now he described that. >> good. >> that's incredible. grabbed a that out of thin air. by the way, i owe the president an apology, he didn't lose by 3 million votes. >> okay. >> it appears he lost by 2864,000 votes, let me say it again, he lost by, hillary got

more votes this many more votes than donald trump, 2 million 864,974 votes. so it's about 3 million. >> it's a lot of people. whew. >> that's a big number. >> it's 2 million 864,974 more people voted for hillary clinton than donald trump. that's like. >> that's the number he lost by. popular vote. >> that's bigger than 90% of american cities. he lost entire, like seattle, more people in seattle voted for. >> okay. >> i am data driven. i'm sort of a night cohn or the guy that used to workt the "time's"? . >> nate silver. >> nate silver. nate for the first name. i'm ed scarborough. so i get 2 million 864,974 votes. >> i think the numbers hurt his

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we'll do anything, seriously anything to help you save. ally. do it right. talking 4th quarter? yes. bob, we've been talking act the republicans, worried about their base. what does it do for democrats and democratic leaders if they come up a daca deal or eve an comprehensive immigration deal that may achieve some of their goals but also will as a byproduct help donald trump? >> it's an interesting point. with all the drama generated by the trump white house, it sometimes leaves aside the fact that the democrats face a difficult decision. i really look at it as a reporter as the 2018 democrat versus those with 2020 hopes. people are saying no wall as part of a daca deal.

others saying they would like boarder security. where does the democratic party tilt? will they make a stand off over no wall included as any agreement or will they make concessions with the republicans and try to move forward? >> willie? >> so bob, what's the likelihood of a deal. you had senators and congressmen in the meeting two days ago who came out of it sort of bewildered by the president's position. kevin mccarthy corrected the president within the meeting. is there going to be a deal and what's it going to look like? >> both parties are really enthralled to their own respective bases. look at senator feinstein facing a primary challenge. they don't want a wall included. in president trump's sapace, thy say they want a massive wall. the government funding bill deadline is coming up soon. legislation isn't in the works at the home. it's hard to say how they come up with a deal in the coming days. >> you know, it was interesting,

kellyanne conway last night in the interview we played a piece of later was talking about the wall and said the president has now discovered that it doesn't necessarily have to be a physical wall. that there are places along the border where you couldn't put up a wall because of mountains and rivers. a little bit of a hedge like maybe it doesn't have to be that big beautiful wall he talked about. >> it's invisible. >> he's even admitted that it didn't mean anything to him. it was just political in his conversations with -- >> bob costa, thank you. yes. he doesn't mean anything. we got all that. >> along those lines president trump just tweeted about the poll we showed on our show that shows 66% of the people show the economy is excellent or good, but what he failed to mention is that they give credit to somebody else. we're going to give all the numbers. plus time magazine first had their cover, donald trump melting down.

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you can't say things that are knowingly false, and be able to smile as money pours into your bank account. >> isis is honoring president obama. he is the founder of isis. he's the founder of isis.

he's the founder. he founded isis. and i would say the co-founder would be crooked hillary clinton. co-founder. crooked hillary clinton. >> wonder what he thinks about slander. we'll talk to a top legal analyst about that. plus the president calls on republicans to, quote, finally take control of the russia investigation. but the top republican on the judiciary committee doesn't want to hear it, literally. we'll explain when "morning joe" comes right back. to make decisions when you know what comes next. if you move your old 401(k) to a fidelity ira, we make sure you're in the loop at every step from the moment you decide to move your money to the instant your new retirement account is funded. ♪ oh and at fidelity, you'll see how all your investments are working together. because when you know where you stand, things are just clearer.

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my name's dustin. hey, dustin. grab a seat. woman: okay. moderator: nice to meet you. have you ever had car trouble in a place like this? (roaring of truck) yes and it was like the worst experience of my life. seven lanes of traffic and i was in the second lane. when i get into my car, i want to know that it's going to get me from point a to point b. well, then i have some good news. chevy is the only brand to receive j.d. power dependability awards for cars, trucks and suvs two years in a row. woman: wait! (laughing) i definitely feel like

i'm in a dependable vehicle right now. woman 2: i want a chevy now. woman 3: i know! would you be willing to speak under oath to give your version of this? >> 100%. >> so if robert mueller wanted to speak to you about that. >> i'd be glad to tell you him exactly what i told you. >> robert mueller will ask for an interview with you. your legal team believes it's part of wrapping up his investigation. are you open to meeting with him? would you be willing to meet with him without condition or would you demand that a strict set of parameters are placed around any encounter between you. >> again, john, there has been no collusion between the trump campaign and russians or trump and russians. no collusion. we'll see what happens. >> reporter: would you be open? >> we'll see what happens. i'll see what happens. when they have no collusion and

nobody has found any collusion at any level, it seems unlikely you'd even have an interview. >> actually, many people believe there is collusion. hold on. there is collusion. there is clinton foundation. many people believe there is collusion. there is -- how many time will he say no collusion? he just keeps saying it. let's just say many people believe there is collusion. there is collusion. many people believe that. and we don't really know the answer to that, though, do we? bob mueller's investigating. this is from yesterday. bob muler is still investigating. the president doesn't know that any more than barack obama knew in the fall of 2015 whether hillary clinton had compromised america's national security. >> or, i'm sorry, but this is safe to say given what we've seen over the past year. he could be lying. he's lied about many things.

we showed him slandering in the last break. it could be he's lying. welcome back to "morning joe." we have mike barnicle, nick confessore, heidi przybyla, and joining the conversation new york time reporter michael schmidt and fellow in global and comparative politics at the london school of economics and author of the death spots acome politician, brian clausen. it's a sad time in history that we honestly can say it's extremely possible that the president of the united states could be lying. on a daily basis. >> well, i think -- >> he does. >> i think on average five times a day. brian, let me ask you this. have to read a tweet from yesterday that you commented on. the single greatest witch hunt continues. there's no collusion. everybody knows. there's no collusion. he says that a lot.

no collusion, because he knows there's a possibility because he lied about why don junior met with the russians who were trying to collude that he's vulnerable. and yet, on it goes. russian the world is laughing at stupid stupidity. this ignores that people have already pled or have been arrested, or are out on $10 million bail or cooperating. he ignores all of that. this is mueller's actually been more effective, more quickly than most investigations. talk about the final line. you talked about you said it was straight out of the play book. republicans should finally take control. what's the president of the united states saying there? >> i don't think there's any way to read that that doesn't involve him saying a political party should field him from an independent investigation. he's saying the republicans should take control of the investigation. the only other interpretation is

republicans should take control of politics but they control all aspects of politics. the only interpretation in light of the tweet is he's saying we should make sure the investigation protects me. right and republicans have a duty to do that. >> it sounds like he's saying to the republican party, please do for me what i ask the fbi director to do for a man who has already pled quality to a crime. and then fired him because he would not actually obstruct the investigation of michael flynn. >> there's a lot of parallels with what erdogan does in turkey. he fired people investigating him and attacked him and ended up trying to politicize rule of law by making sure the investigation wouldn't touch him. the investigation went away and had no consequences for erdogan. i think trump is trying to do that. the question is how much do republicans let him get away with that.

it's continually obvious that he's trying to obstruct justice. we always discount the fact that he said on national television, i fired james comey because of the russia investigation. >> he told the russian foreign minister and ambassador of the united states the same thing. and mika, what donald trump may or may not understand is this is crossing the line. chuck grassley who has, i think embarrassed himself over the past week or so by carrying donald trump's water on the judiciary committee, even he was offended. >> well, the or concerned by what donald trump said yesterday. >> here's the response when asked about the president saying republicans should finally take control. >> i don't know what the president has in mind, and i don't think a better comment until i have a discussion with the president on this point, and i don't intend to have a discussion with the president on that point, and i hope he doesn't call me and tell me the same thing that you said he

said. >> okay. so republicans have always basically said that's crossing the line. that was part one. the play book part two from yesterday. donald trump, it just shows everyone how broken and unfair our court system is when the opposing side in a case such as daca always runs to the 9th circuit and almost always wins before being reversed by higher courts. that's actually not a broken judicial system. that's the way the system works. you go to circuits, and eventually the supreme court determines it. barack obama had the same thing happen to him when conservatives would go to district courts in texas or georgia or mississippi or in other conservative areas. >> that's why rule of law separates democracies from authoritarian governments. you have a situation unfolding where it's obvious that trump attacks anything that is a check on his power.

the different between democracy and authoritarian government is in authoritarian government there are no checks on someone's power. what's obvious is the system may have checks and balances that function. republicans are being reasonably complicit with trump's authoritarian abuses. at the same time can we ignore -- how long can we ignore the fact that it's clear the person himself would gladly destroy the system if it meant saving his own skin. we can say yes, the system is in place. we have stronger checks and balances than turkey and other places in the world. that doesn't mean we shouldn't take seriously the threat from someone who has the same impulses as the leaders who chipped away at the systems and lost their democratic systems. >> it does appear that there is a line that republicans at least for now will not allow the president to cross. we saw it yesterday with chuck grassley, and that -- >> it wasn't that strong. >> it wasn't that strong.

no, it wasn't that strong. he just said i hope he doesn't call me up and tell me the same thing, basically sending a message, but paul ryan has even said, even though paul ryan has let donald trump get away with just about everything, he said the mueller investigation must be allowed to go forward and several other republican leaders have said the same thing. >> what happens if mueller really makes a move? what happens if mueller really wants to push harder on the president than he has? and it's not just talk about whether he's interviewing him. it's about stuff that's sent up to the hill, and what will they do if the president really wants to get rid of muler? what will the reaction be? time and time -- if you had said if he fired the fbi director you would think they would have reacted differently to the way they have, but they haven't. the thing that puzzles some folks at the fbi is that guys

like grassley or cornyn who know that the fbi is not an entirely corrupt organization haven't spoke out more as it's come under criticism from republicans, from the house republicans. they're surprised by that, that they haven't come to their aid. >> they should be surprised by that. >> president trump tweeted this morning, quote, disproven and paid for by democrats, dossier used to spy on trump campaign. did fbi use intel tool to influence the election. he then mentioned "fox and friends" before continuing zplcht zplcht. >> he has to prove he doesn't watch our show. >> great. we think that's better for america for you to just watch "fox and friends." >> where are hidden smashed dnc servers? where the crooked hillary e-mails? >> nobody talks about hillary. you said that last night.

>> what a big mess. >> a complete obsession. he somehow thinks that he's going to distract people by talking about hillary clinton. >> well, distraction is a perfect word to frame up what he does quite often. >> you know mueller. is mueller distracted? >> bob mueller is not distracted, and if erdogan was confronted with bob mueller, he might not be there in istanbul today. to michael schmidt's point, this continues disparagement of the fbi and thus the justice system in this country is truly, truly damaging. it's incendiary. and my question to you, michael, given your knowledge and your reporting on this, do you have any sense of what donald trump's relationship is today with his legal team with ty cob and john doud? >> when i had the chance to talk to him last month, i asked him. i said the legal team said this

was going to be wrapped up by now. if i recall, he went on and on about how there wasn't collusion. what i think had happen second down the legal team has had to manage him. they've said okay, it will be done by thanksgiving. one more chexit and we'll get there. to calm down down like a kid in the car. while the white house is putting out signals that they think mueller is done, we don't really see that. i mean, mueller could surprise us in a few weeks and entrier trump and be done. we don't see it in the cards. the legal team has tried to manage the president to try and stop him from firing mueller and saying we're almost there to just try and get through. >> because a member of his legal team told me recently quite recently, that the stress factor is coming into play here more and more with the president of the united states. that everybody reacts differently when they sense the

knock on the door is going to be the police. >> the team has had to try -- i mean, i think their biggest fear is another implosion. it's another comey firing like moment. and how can you stop that? the idea was we're going to cooperate as much as we can. we're going to give them all the documents that we have, and in the hopes that we have nothing to hide and we'll get cleared. we're just not there yet, and they've put out these signals that we were going to be there already and we're still not done. >> the president's favorite phrase today we saw is no collusion. reporters at the journal and elsewhere have cataloged an extensive set of meetings between people with russian connections with the government, russian interests and they clearly entertain a variety of offers of help from russian interests. how is there no russian collusion?

>> well, there was collusion curious, at least. someone was asking the other day, it's like how has this story evolved? the story that the trump folks told a year ago is a different story than what we know today. and i think that's something that keeps us as journalists on this story. the fact that they so adamantly said there was no connections to r russians and nothing there. that's changed. we've learned a lot of different things. why is it -- are these folks that don't tell the truth pause that's sort of their natural inclination or are they not telling the truth because there's something to hide? >> go back to what the president said in february, not even a year ago. he was saying nobody on my campaign team talked to russians, had any contact with russians. no business with the russians. no business deals are russians. he keeps talking about how it's a witch hunt. i have to say writing this down, a witch hunt is where you're running around and trying to

charge people, and no evidence. you have -- national security adviser and most trusted travel partner during the campaign has been charged, pled guilty, and is now cooperating with the investigation. his campaign manager that he said he brought in to get him over the top and win the republican national convention was arrested, charged, and is only out because he put down $10 million in bail. his top foreign policy adviser, one of his two top foreign policy advisers, according to donald trump when speaking to the washington post heired, charged, and cooperating with this investigation. people closest to him cooperating with this investigation. and another trump campaign aide arrested and charged on a dozen counts and news reports suggest could be charged with even more counts. far from being a witch hunt. this is one of the most effective independent counsels

ever if you look at the speed where he's getting indictments, charges and cooperation from witnesses that were closest to donald trump. >> well, look, i -- i think it's very possible that the president is lying. the president took time out of his cabinet meeting yesterday to attack the nation's libel laws. >> we're going to take a strong look at our country's libel laws so when somebody says something that is false and defamatory about someone, that person will have meaningful recourse in our courts. our current libel laws are a sham, and a disgrace, and do not represent american values or american fairness. you can't say things that are knowingly false and be able to smile as money pours into your bank account.

>> knowingly false. >> knowingly false. let's bring in a law professor at george washington university. he has a forthcoming piece in usa today this morning. it breaks down the challenge for defamation laws. i'd like to present examples that might help. for example, if somebody says that former president obama wiretapped trump tower and it wasn't true, would that be a good example of something that could be brought to court given what president trump is proposing? or i don't know, maybe saying a news host is a murder? would those be good examples of what the president -- >> because you don't like what he's saying politically. or here, i have one. or lies about a news host getting a facelift and bleeding all over the place during a meeting with an incoming president when it's a lie and it's defamatory. >> or calling her a psycho and

neurotic. >> we'd never make this about us, but would the lowering of the defamations -- >> or what about a senator giving sexual favors for political donations? >> there's a host of those examples including the statements made about ted cruz's father which would constitute per se defamation. >> gosh, i hope he gets it. >> these are all examples of how defamation laws protect the president just as they do his critics. but the thing that's troubling about the president's comments is not that they've been going on for over a year calling for changing of libel laws. but the defamation standard which was ar tickulated in -- it allows average citizens to be able to criticize public figures. what the president is talking

about when people say something that's knowingly false, that's not barred by new york times versus sullivan. if you say something knowingly false, there's a defamation cay. that's what his lawyers doing. he's sued people saying they've said knowingly false things about him in the famous dossier. >> so can we do this? >> no. what i find troubling is not that he will succeed but that he is still suggesting that we should lower that standard. it is such a fundamental part of our constitutional system, but in order to change the standard, you have to do one of two things. you have to amend the first amendment or change the makeup of the supreme court and really fill it with people with the most extreme views of the first amendment. basically to eradicate the protections for free speech and the free media. that's what's troubling about this. it's not the threat that it will succeed, but it's the desire,

and i'm really sort of astonished that the president is still flogging this horse. >> what does it tell you about him? what do you think when you hear him still trying to push this? >> well, the president has always viewed litigation as an extension of business and now as an extension of politics. he views lawyers as vehicles to get to his ends. he's often said fairly antagonistic things toward fundamental principles, whether it's judicial review or things like the defamation laws. i don't know what is in his mind or his heart, but when he starts to talk about lowering the standard for defamation, people need to understand that this is not just some issue of civil litigation. this is the ar titiculation of what's essential about free speech in the country. our country would change

dramatically if that standard would change. it's not an issue of lawyers fighting in court. what's ironic is new york times versus sullivan was not only written during times like ours, divisive political times, but it was written for politicians like president trump who wanted to turn to the courts to go after critics. and the court said no. they understood this was an attack on the free media. so i think that history, unfortunately, is repeating itself. >> so brian, isn't this part of a pattern of authoritarian figure looking for ways to take down the different ball works against the expression of power? >> it's completely parallel. you have going after intimidating critical media. that's what authoritarian regimes do. he's talked about revoking media licenses for critical reporting and called the press a stain on

america a america. any time someone criticizes the president, he wants to litigate. there's no parallel in modern american history of somebody who has tried to do this in a system attic way. >> it's incredible. jonathan turly, thank you. michael schmidt, brian clakloss well. >> i want to say this is why i want to circle back to what we were saying before when you had david brooks, a guy i respect, writing an op ed saying you guys, we're being too extreme in our attacks against donald trump. look at all the legislation. look at all the things that have passed. maybe we shouldn't be so silly and so instinctively anti-trump, but you just take what brian said. this is a guy that's trying to undermine one of the most basic

protections undergirding the first amendment. a guy that's trying to take away tv licenses for networks that oppose him. oh guy who is calling the press enemy of the people. a guy we report this morning who yesterday was attacking the independent judiciary. a guy who was saying our judicial system, which actually is brian and anybody else that studied this will know, it's our judicial system that separates us from just about every other country on the planet. the fierce independence of our judiciary system. but donald trump attacks all of these democratic institutions every day. so i ask again today like i asked two or three days ago, how do you split that baby? >> you can't. >> how do you say, well, we shouldn't be so hostile toward donald trump because we got

pretty gooding are tory reform. >> he's a threat to our democracy. brett stevens is ahead on "morning joe" in the next block. tax cuts, isis crushed, and gorsuch on the high court. brett stevens says he agrees with every one of those policy decisions yet still wishes hillary clinton were president. >> that will get him invited to the reagan/lincoln dinner next month. >> he joins us next to explain. ( ♪ ) with 33 individual vertebrae and 640 muscles in the human body, no two of us are alike. life made more effortless through adaptability. the perfect position seat in the lincoln continental. ( ♪ )

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joining us you, bret stephens. bret, you had a column last week a lot of people were talking about entitled while i'm still a never trumper. explain what you argued especially as it pertains to the news in the past week. >> if you look at what the trump administration has done across a number of policies, i actually

agree with many of them. i think corporate tax cuts are a good idea. i think we should be spending more on the military. i favored decertification of iran or moving the embassy to jerusalem. those are policy questions. but the essence of my never trumpism comes down to what the president is doing to our political culture. conservatives used to care about the culture. 20 years ago bill bennett came out with a book called "the b h death of outrage". it was directed at bill clinton. right now a president is corroding and corrupting and in some respects destroying our culture of governance. basic things, respecting the officers and the agent is who serve them in our intelligence community in the fbi. earlier in the program you were talking about libel laws, basic fundamental responsibility to preserve and protect the

constitution. the fact that as you were mentioning, this is a president who lies five times a day. he lies voluntarily, involuntarily. >> this is not normal and not good for our country. >> what worries me is that trump isn't -- conservatives think they're going to pocket policy victories and trump is going to go away. trump is going to create a culture of governance that's going to stay with us for generations. >> all you need is one member of the judicial system or the intel community to feel like he or she needs to protect himself and to do something just as bad back, and the system starts to crumble. >> and bret, and i don't disagree with your belief, you've got to worry about two things, don't we? you've got to worry about how long will it take if it can be done to repair the damage that is being done to our culture right now, and two, how

dangerous is it when you have someone like the president doing what the president is doing on a daily basis multiple time when there are so many accessories before and after the fact and i'm talking about the republicans in congress. >> it's a great point. i think the damage is actually almost going to be generational. a century ago argentina was one of the wealthiest and most modern countries in the world. how did they go from that to economic decline? it attached a famous cult which left to right wing, left wing, military governments. and a slow decline. it's ironic a president who wants to build a wall has a style of politics that's indicative of hugo chavez. >> when you look at the polling

that shows one year in his level of support has not changed a bit, 36% in the one poll. his disapproval numbers have gone up. are there never trumpers, as you call yourself, that you know who have watch third down fired thi and said maybe i don't like the guy, but based on the policy things you laid out, i'm in now. he has a supreme court justice. >> that's one of my fears that a lot of people who were with me through the election and even in the early months of the presidency are saying it's actually not so bad. i'm happy with the result. one of the things is that trump has sort of increased our tolerance for what is abnormal. >> right. >> he's -- they used to talk about defining deviancy down. >> let's stop for a second. if barack obama had said in 2009 i think we need to pull the fcc

licenses of all of these places and talk about a conservative federal judge in texas and -- because the judge ruled against let's say a segment of obama care, if barack obama said in 2009 our court system doesn't work anymore, it's a run away court system. we've got to fix it, republican would be freaking out. >> by the way, it's the same thing with bob mueller's investigation. imagine all the facts were the same but instead of jared being involved, it was chelsea. imagine hillary clinton was being investigated for russian ties. do you have a moment's doubt that republicans would be skreming and supporting a special investigation in the same they way supported ken star's investigation 20 years. with ken star, how clinton got impeached, the monica lewinsky

saga had little to do with the initial investigation. it had to do with land deals in arkansas. >> bret, i guess the optimist's case would be our system of governance is strong enough to w withstand an aberrational presidency. what specifically do you think at this point is irreversible? >> well, look, i hope that the founders are right. i hope that checks and balances ultimately work. but one of the things that you're seeing just talking about the subject of checks and balances is the congress is not providing that. the congress and also officers in government instead of behaving like checks are behaving like toadies. that's been i think a serious ka roeszive quality of what trump has done. this is not a congress that is

willing to push back against the president. think of basic things. republicans used to support free trade. now we're talking about the possibility of walking away from nafta. >> by the way, after already forfeiting asia to china. >> that's right. >> by getting china one advantage after another by walking away from the trade deal with all the other asian partners. >> look, the real question is -- the answer to that question is we're going to find out in 20 years. but something just to give you an example, why is it that now all of a sudden we want tv personalities to become presidents? i think i happen to think oprah s is an amazing woman thc. not sure she's qualified to be the president on the first go. now personalities instead of experience or policy jobs or a long life in politics seem to be what potentially qualifies you

for a run for the presidency. and that may be a fundamental change in the system. >> ploliticians have really let people down and abused their roles and ended up being hypocritical on both sides. we're here for a long. they just want to believe somebody. >> think of everyone from john mccain to joe biden to -- >> i understand. >> there's a great tradition of american states women and men in senate and congress. they develop expertise over time. what we're discovering is how disastrous it is when you -- >> here's a radical idea. why doesn't oprah run for senate in illinois and serve for six years and figure out how washington works? >> that would be great. >> she's a wonderful woman. >> that's what i said about rubio. he wasn't ready to be president

of the united states in 2016. i thought it was a joke. guess what. in 2020, after he's been seasoned by how many years would that be? >> 10. >> ten years, he knows about the frustrations of washington. he's ready. if oprah wants to be president, why doesn't she run for senate first? >> the way the system works should be part of the equation. coming up, in the way the president is right when he says there was no collusion. when you do a search on the white house website for mentions of the word wealthiest, you get multiple results. when you search for the word collusion, you get zero results. we'll explain that further ahead on "morning joe." 7 days ago, karen wasn't thinking about joining her daughter's yoga class. she was thinking about her joints. but now that she's taking osteo bi-flex, she's noticing a real difference in her joint comfort. with continued use, it supports increased flexibility over time.

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we told you yesterday about an instance where the official white house transcript left out part of the president's conversation with a bipartisan group of lawmakers. although the president said, quote, yeah, i'd like to do that, when asked by a democrat if he'd be agreeable to doing daca first, that specific part was not included in the original transcript.

shortly after we reported it, the white house released a statement reading, quote, the president's comments were on camera before numerous print and tv cameras. any omission was will be corrected. >> arden fahe tweeted a search of the white house website for collusion yields no results. even though the word has appeared in transcripts for months. so in at least one sense there is no collusion. we tested it ourselves. and while the word can be found by going into the transcripts, it does not come up with their search function. other word like wealthiest return multiple results in white house briefings. while a search for hillary clinton returns 6 pages of results. but no collusion. >> well, there's no collusion at least in one place, on his

website. >> it's their world. zblchl up next, time magazine's take on donald trump's first year in office. >> there he is. >> my goodness.

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joining us now, michael duffy. he co-writes the cover story, and t the third in their series of trump meltdown covers. yeah. the unpresident is the title of your piece, and you and nancy gibbs write about the revelations in "fire and fury "and how they may hurt trump's ability to govern. >> i think there's three things. obviously it validates what all of us have been seeing and reading for a year. the white house keeps denying with their ability to alter

reality to their own liking. it really has, as you know, clarified and validated all the things we've been imagining and reporting all in one place. it tees up fitness. and that is going to go a lot of different ways. it's not just fitness mentally or physically. it's about wanting to do the job. wanting to rise to the challenge that history hands you. as so many other presidents have done in more difficult times than these. and finally it lays bare all of the factions in the white house that were at least at the time of the writing at war with each other. it's the first section of this all in one place, and while the problems with it, this resets his presidency. you can see in the last 48 hours, he's trying to cope. >> michael you and nancy have studied a lot of presidents and

post presidencies. with your sense of history of the white house and the presidency and post presidents, and the fact that you've spent so much of your time focussed in this area, after the first year, put it in perspective for us as much as you can. how much of a radical shift, how much of a breach from the past has this white house been? >> they all have challenges and difficult first years. it's a tricky job to get used to even when you've been preparing for it all your leadershife, or been in leadership positions. it's always a hard transition. usually after nine or ten months whether it's bush one or two or clinton or even obama, they all adjust, and they reset themselves and look at their skill sets and say okay, what is it going to take for me and what team of folks to get this done, and how can i rise to it? it's bigger than any of them.

>> when you look at that first year, you can continue your point here of the presidency, as you think where you sat a year ago, what you might have expected a trump presidency to look and think about what what you thought a trump presidency might look like, how is it different? >> i think a lot of people thought they were going to have to surround him like flying buttre buttresses. what's so revealing about "fire and fury," it reveals him to be incurious, not interested in information, hostile to briefings and hostile to people trying to tell him things. his own staff says he's difficult and not that smart and not that interested in being smarter. those are kinds of challenges that most presidents i've covered, and it's been about five or six closely and a bunch not so closely, get -- find a work-around. they fix themselves and get people who can help them with

their problems. he shows no sign of it. that's why i think this reality shifting thing is so concerning. >> that's one of the problems, mike, is that he's overmatched by the office, overmatched by history. that doesn't put him in a unique position. there have been other presidents that have been overmatched, but they've surrounded themselves by able people that could help them move forward. bill clinton was overmatched terribly the first six to nine months of the presidency, but gergen, pennetta, others came in and said this is how it's done. >> perhaps this president doesn't think of being overmatched, he doesn't concentrate on the challenges. michael, it seems -- we were talking about this earlier -- we have a president -- it's a cult of personality more than it is a presidency. it's rooted around celebrity rather than competence. we were talking earlier about how long will it take, if it

does take, to repair the damage that's being done by this sort of cult of personality presidency? >> i don't know the answer. when you asked that before, i thought it was impossible to know the answer. all of us as americans have a stake in this office. all of us do. what's tough is that the president seems to think only he has a stake. it's just a complete misreading of what the office is about and what it's to do and what it's for and how he, or whoever is in that job, is supposed to think. he really needs to in some ways get some help, take the help which is even harder than getting it, and then try, if he hopes to be a success, to change. it's hard to imagine. >> he's got some strong personalities in there in kelly, mattis. do you think -- i mean we're a year in. if he could be helped, wouldn't

we know by now? wouldn't he not be tweeting? >> his basic problem is he's overmatched by the office, he's overmatched by himself. all of trump's core problems, political problems came from -- sprang from defects in his personality. if he hadn't insulted john mccain as he did in 2015, mccain may not have been the deciding vote to save obamacare. if he wasn't so irascible and impulsive and paranoid, he wouldn't have fired jim comey or would have fired him his first day of office and this russia investigation wouldn't probably be defining his presidency. this is a point, again, conservatives used to say, character is destiny. character is the core consideration when it comes to the presidency. every problem that trump has had springs directly from who he is, which means that you can get mattis, you can get mcmaster, you can get serious people in there, but ultimately it's this man who will define his office. >> including the thing that

haunts him every second of every day, and that is, of course, mueller. he has mueller because he fired comey. heidi, final question for michael duffy? >> michael, we've talked about 2017 themes being autocracy, author tear anymore. how much do you think the word clepting the fi should be part of the discussion? >> we found that the president had 35 million in real estate sales in 2017 with a 70% increase and a number of those sales going to essentially unidentifiable shell companies. there could be explanations for this, like people just don't want their names identified with trump properties. according to our reporters, there's a lot of people who say these could be used for influence, buying influence seeking groups including foreign people who have purchased these

properties we're able to identify. how much do we really have a sense of whether this is going on behind the scenes because of the complex nature of the financial transactions? >> i think we have queues, heidi. one of the most interesting queued of the last couple weeks -- i think it was actually in july or august, an interview with with "the new york times," president trump told -- warned special counsel mueller not to look at his family finances which, of course, was a great big red flag to go ahead and look at his family finances. i think that's another theme here. the extent to which outside of government that trump and kushner family finances are in this target set of rob mueller at the moment has a kind of existential mind concentrating piece for this white house now. those are things that have probably never been looked at, and if you put them in the context of foreign policy, that

could get really ugly. cleptocacy is a little different. i think the family's finances will move front and center this year. >> the new issue of "time" is on year one of the trump presidency. michael duffy, thank you very much. bret stevens, thank you as well. still ahead, all the world is a stage. from calling the cabinet room a studio, to talking about the reviews of his performance during tuesday's daca meeting. we'll have more on the trump show. california congressman darrell issa is the latest republican from a district that hillary clinton won to run for the hills. he'll discuss what the mass exodus means for the gop's chances of keeping the house. "morning joe" is coming right back. before the tech blogs make wild speculations, there's something else:

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hesumatra reserve told in the time it takes to brew your cup. let's go to sumatra. where's sumatra? good question. this is win. and that's win's goat, adi. the coffee here is amazing.

because the volcanic soil is amazing. making the coffee erupt with flavor. so we give farmers like win more plants. to grow more delicious coffee. that erupts with even more flavor. which helps provide for win's family. and adi the goat's family too. because his kids eat a lot. all, for a smoother tasting cup of coffee. green mountain coffee roasters. packed with goodness. welcome back to the studio. nice to have you here. yesterday we had a bipartisan meeting. actually it was reported as incredibly good. my performance, some of them called it a performance. i consider it work, but got great reviews by everybody over than two networks who were phenomenal for about two hours. then after that they were called by their bosses and said, whoa, wait a minute. unfortunately a lot of our

anchors sent us letters saying that is one of the greatest meetings they've ever witnessed. they probably wish they hadn't september us letters of congratulations. welcome back to "morning joe." it is thursday, january 11. with us veteran columnist and msnbc contributor mike barnicle. political writer for "the new york times," nick confessore, white house reporter for "usa today" heidi przybilla and political reporter for "the washington post" and moderator of "washington week" on pbs, robert costa. >> bob, it's fascinating. you said before when you started talking to donald trump, he would talk to you about his great ratings. look at my great ratings. you said, you mean poll numbers? here we have yesterday donald trump looking at the presidency, no surprise, and that cabinet room as a sound stage. >> it was a surreal scene in

american politics. talking to aides, both democrats and republicans, the lawmakers who were in that room, they said maybe these discussions are so intricate, and tense to have it play out on television, it boosted the president, white house aides say, in the sense he tried to combat this narrative that's been building in the media conversation about his fitness for office in the national political circle. but whether this actually leads to a deal on d.r.e.a.m.ers, very much remains to be scene. they haven't made too much progress and the president continues to insist on having a border wall for a dreamer deal. that's what compromise is about. maybe the democrats help young people that have come here to pursue the american dream and have done everything right and played by the rules, and maybe republicans in exchange for that demand a wall that nobody wants, nobody needs and is not going to have any impact, if that's what the republican party wants,

maybe that's the compromise. what i don't understand, bob, and i want to go to heidi on this one, too, he sits there, he has this great meeting, he has this back and forth with dianne feinstein, and then later in the day he tweets a nasty tweet at dianne feinstein. explain the mindset there. >> bob or heidi? >> bob, then heidi. bob, why can't the guy actually take momentum and go with it? >> moderate republicans at the capitol tell me they think the president is trying to play to his base. they think a daca deal could be on the table. amid all this, the president will keep taking shots add democrats and keep insisting he's getting the wall. that doesn't mean there's not nuance here or a possible nuance in the sense that the president could agree to some kind of

border security package that isn't really a physical wall across the whole u.s.-mexico border, but it's enough to get both sides to the table. this is all on thin ice. the president has to really try to bring this ship into port in a way he hasn't done in the past, bringing both parties together. >> nothing could help dianne feinstein than donald trump attacking her. she's been seen as not sufficiently anti trump. >> the circle of life. >> it is. heidi, what's the state of the deal on daca? house republicans came out yesterday with a harder line on immigration saying we're not in line with president trump, not in line with this outreach, not in line with a path to citizenship. our hard line remains despite what the president said in that room two days ago. where do they lie between the president and the house? >> there's been a deal to be had all along which is some combination of increased border security along with some of the things that the president wants, like ending the visa lottery,

addressing the chain migration issue. this all comes down to, i believe, what the president is willing to core a, quote, unquote, wall. everyone, many people in his own party and jeff flake himself said the other day, thank got we finally got the president to acknowledge we don't need a solid concrete structure along all of the 2,000-mile border of the u.s.-mexico border. and yet he continues to say the wall. they thought, republicans and democrats, they made a breakthrough on that in terms of getting the president to acknowledge it didn't have to be a contiguous wall. you see this tug from the right, and you see the freedom caucus and others saying no, you said $18 billion price tag on this big, beautiful wall. we want increased border security. and then you have emboldened democrats on the left who are getting pressure from their base who feel that they should have had a deal by the end of the year, and that they want some of these things subtracted. they want what's called a clean

daca deal. that's kind of where we're left. i believe if government functions as it's supposed to, which is that we come together in the middle, moderates in both the republican and democratic party, there's been a deal to be had all along. but right now, i don't know, i guess i foresee some kind of a temporary spending bill and this potentially getting punted, especially with this court ruling coming down now, it may take some of the pressure off for an immediate deal. >> i saw stories yesterday that this deal wasn't going to happen because stephen miller doesn't want it to happen which reminds me of president bannon stopping things in the white house. i was just a little congressman, but if anybody on my staff ever said -- told somebody this isn't going to happen because i'm not going to let it happen, i would go up to them and i would say, are you blanking blanking me? if you ever do that again, i'm

going to fire you so fast. shut up and get out of the way. let's work together. you're a staff member. don't get in the way of the professional staff people and all the other people. it's stunning that donald trump would allow stephen miller to get in the way of comprehensive immigration -- is there always one person in this white house that thinks they're smarter than donald trump? stephen miller will not allow comprehensive immigration -- how stupid is that? >> i think the president has tremendous respect for his vast experience. >> i'm just saying i don't care who it is. you've got one president. >> i'm become sarcastic. he's like 2. >> i know. you've got one president. and yet you have steve bannon and now stephen miller blocking a comprehensive immigration reform that would actually help donald trump politically.

>> remember the advise you gave yesterday about what should happen after the meeting, that went down the toilet. >> it only took an hour and a half for him to actually flush it. >> that's true. 90 whole minutes. that's amazing. >> he's growing. >> in his discipline. the president was talking about feedback. he loves feedback. so we've got some quinnipiac polls, new numbers out. they show president trump's approval rating now sits at 36%. >> that's sounds about right. >> down one point from almost three weeks ago. but contrast that number where where trump stood a year ago during his first week in office, just like today, 36% approved of the president then, but only 44% disapproved, compared to 59% who disapprove today. when voters were asked to grade trump's first year in office, 60% gave trump a passing grade.

39% gave him an f. trump's grade increased among republicans with 96%, giving him a passing grade, compared to 65% of independents and 30% of democrats who gave trump a d or above. among younger voters -- do you want me to stop? >> no. i was getting nervous. that reminded me of all my report cards. >> among younger voters, ages 18 to 34 -- this is important. the president would know that's the demo. out want those numbers to be high in the television world because that apparently amounts to money in advertising, 67% disapprove of the president. 75% say he does not share their values. 81% feel he's not level headed. 72% believe he is not honest. 69% say he doesn't care about average americans.

his ratings are very bad. >> let's keep it right there. put those numbers back up again. mike barnicle, this is turning into a nightmare for the house republicans. in large part, republicans appear to be headed towards a historic loss in the midterms because the suburbs, that even trump won by a couple of points last year, have completely changed. obviously there's more intensity among democratic voters, more intensity among non-white voters. more intensity, also, so importantly, among millennials. it used to be people would say, well, young people don't vote. it's changing. and millennials will soon be a larger demographic group than baby boomers, which will mean this is soon going to be, republicans who are marching off

a cliff for a life-long democrat who still thinks he's on a reality show -- this, mike barnicle, this group of people are going to be the largest demographic group of voters in american history, and they are flying away from donald trump and the republican party as fast as they can. >> a couple of things. you get the sense, or at least i get the sense from talking to people that they have overestimated the size and the strength of their base, of donald trump's base. he's got a considerable base. i don't think it's 32 or 35%. the other aspect of the numbers that we show there and the presidency as it's been played out, is they are out of tune, out of sync in a large way with much of the rest of the country. this is evidenced i think from anecdotal evidence talking to people, again, the other day, yesterday or the day before,

they had a raid on a number of 7-elevens around the country. last year in this country there were 64,000 deaths from opioid abuse. that's what people are concerned about more than they are a wall or is there an illegal, someone from el salvador working behind the counter at 7 eleven. yet, there's very little done about opioid abuse in this administration. >> nick, if you go back and look at numbers. disapproval at 67% among voters 18 to 34. if you are a republican who cares about his or her party, who cares about the future of the party, who cares about the future of winning elections, to have her world view be the dominant one in this country, what are you thinking as you look at that number right there? >> i'm thinking president trump is branding my party for a generation. look, the president will be gone in three years or seven years.

when he is gone, though, the legacy of what he did and the image he created for his party among young voters is going to continue in the same way it's worked in the opposite for a president like reagan, who created a positive image among these same voters in the '80s. he is creating a disaster for his party. it's amazing to think in this midterm the economy is growing pretty fast and jobs are growing pretty fast, and there's no intern scandal in the house or kind of any of these other things we normally associate with building into a wave. it is all trump. >> it is all trump. >> just like 1994, the economy was strong but you had bill clinton who seemed disconnected. it want to go back to what you said about ronald reagan. i was 18 the first time reagan was elected. everybody in my class, a lot of them from democratic families, a

lot of lifelong democratic people, everybody supported reagan. you know what? democrats are weak. this guy is strong. this guy is going to take care of the hostages in iran, and he's going to take care of this and take care of that. i read 20, 30 years later that your political -- what you are politically at 18 is what you are politically, for most people, the rest of your life. and that's why your point is so important. republicans think right now that they can just skate, and donald trump can tweet miss soj nous things about democratic senators and he can tweet racist things, he can go to charlottesville and find something nice to say about neo-nazis. republicans think, he'll be gone in a couple years. no, he is destroying the republican party for years to come.

stim ahead on "morning joe," it's been well over a year since the election, but the president is still referring to hillary clinton as his, quote, opponent. >> you know she beat him by 3 million votes. >> i think he's filibustering because he has nothing else he knows how to talk about. it could just be me being mean. unfortunately it's the sad reality. we'll show you his repeated unprompted mentions of his rival to kill time on the same day his senior adviser insisted no one at the white house talks about her while he's talking about her on a mike. >> do you spell pot in this studio? >> no. maybe there's some in the west wing. we'll be right back. ♪ (woman) one year ago today mom started searching for her words.

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. when you talk about interview, hillary clinton had an interview where she wasn't sworn in, wasn't given the oath, they didn't take notes, they didn't record, and it was done on the fourth of july weekend.

that's perhaps ridiculous. a lot of people looked upon that as being a very serious breach, and it really was. >> i am for the strongest military that the united states ever had. putin can't love that. but hillary was not for a strong military, hillary, my opponent, was for windmills and she was for other types of energy that don't have the same capacities at this moment certainly. >> that is so pathetic and sad, that he keeps going back to campaign, talking about hillary clinton and windmills. talking about swinging at windmills. does anybody here think nick saban is going to be obsessing over the georgia bulldog a year from now, six months from now. >> i don't think he's thinking about them right now. >> do you think a ceo that takes over another company and successfully takes over another

company six months after he's thinking about how to move his or her company forward, or are they obsessing how they got the better of the company they took over. this is a real problem and a sickness with this guy. >> it is. there's two options -- >> i'm not saying mental sickness with this guy. it's just a real problem. >> there's two options. one is that he is obsessed with her. >> why is he so obsessed with her? >> hold on. that would be something strange. >> is it maybe because she got more votes than him? >> i think it also may be -- this we've seen with people who feel they don't have the capacity or command of the issues, they go to things that they can handle. he can handle bullying hillary clinton, someone he beat because that will fill time, instead of actually having to talk about the content -- >> i remember "the washington post" op ed -- when donald trump back in -- i think it was may of

2016 -- went before "the washington post" editorial board, when he named papadopoulos one of his two top foreign policy people. you read the transcript of it. he talked about his hands. i have the most beautiful hands. people come up to me all the time and say you have strong, big beautiful hands. i said to mika, i said, oh, my god, he has completely lost his mind. she said no, he hasn't. >> he just doesn't have one. >> he's running out the clock because he doesn't want them to ask him questions about policy because he knows nothing about policy. >> yesterday he was not asked about hillary clinton. he had to twist himself in knots to get to hillary clinton. he went to military, then got to hillary's wind and energy policy. he goes there on his own volition, not because he's asked to go there. >> it's not really an obsession with her. he needs to talk about something he feels comfortable talking about. that would not be policy.

>> mike, he talks about hillary clinton all the time. >> well, his inability to, in a phrase, let it go is both troubling, mystifying and sort of understandable at another level. he clearly can't get over the fact that she got a lot more votes than he did. >> that's what i'm sensing. she crushed him, over 3 million votes. he lost by 3 million votes, and every day it's in his head -- when he goes to bed at night, he feels inadequate because hillary clinton, the worst presidential major candidate of our lifetime crushed donald trump, just crushed him. i think that's hard for him to deal with the fact that he was crushed by somebody that he, himself, was the worst candidate of all time, just crushed him. >> he apparently has no one around him with the strength of character to put hand on his

shoulder and say, you're president of the united states. look in the mirror. you are the president. not her, you. >> i think they've tried. i think he's hopeless. there are some issues here that we've addressed before. >> the main issue is -- i don't think i've said it before, she crushed him by 3 million votes. it's hard for him to cope with that. when he goes to bed at night, god, i lost by 3 million -- >> these mornings hostion every day reminding him how badly he lost. it's got to be let go. >> nobody ever talks about it. only he talks about it. i guess because he was crushed by her by 3 million votes. >> he would hear us speaking clearly in language we might understand. >> can you running against somebody who you consider to be the worst candidate of all time and losing by 3 million votes? >> that's terrible. >> that has to stink. >> that's like being a loser. stop talking to him. >> 3 million votes. i'd bury my head.

i'd go and bury my head somewhere in the back yard, even i guess if i were president. he should be ashamed losing to hillary clinton. >> those are the times the president obsessed about hillary clinton on mike. you don't know if it happens on mike two times during the course of the day, it must be happening a lot off mike because the president is focusing on this. >> in an interview last night, the president's senior adviser, the one who i say is not credible enough to be on the show because nothing she says is true, she said, quote, so many people simply can't get over the 2016 presidential election adding, quote -- thanks kelly ann for more truths, we don't care about her. sno nobody here talks about her, nobody here talks about hillary clinton, i promise you. coming up on "morning joe," an update on the devastating mudslides in california. plus senator rand paul on the on going debate over immigration reform. he says we don't need to spend

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coming up on "morning joe," senator rand paul is standing by. he's no fan of big government spending. so where does he stand on a proposed border wall? that's straight ahead. first, bill karins with a check on the aftermath of the california mudslides. >> incredible video. this was shot by a local firefighter in the burbank area. look at that prius trying to race the wall of mud down that road. it looks like right there they kind of start to get ahead of it. how scared were they? something you see like with the roads in europe with a flood. in all, 17 fatalities and still people missing in one of the worst mudslides in california history. again, that was 48 hours ago that that all happened. now that storm is moving through the middle of the country. we have a winter mess. 73 million people under warnings or advisories for snow and ice and even winter storm watches

that will be turned into ice storm warnings. here is your snowfall forecast. this is to today, a little stripe of moderate snowplowable. this snow is going to break out on friday afternoon, friday evening here. ohio shoveling out two to four inches of snow, western new york and northern new england could get more of that. ice storms possible in western tennessee, kentucky. watch out in indiana. ice from binghamton through northern portions of new england. you'll either get the snow, the ice or the heavy rain. 20 million people under flood watches because of the melting snow and one to three inches of rain expected in southern new england. difficult traveling weather in the norl haern half of the country. i love talking about the january thaw and new york city is the fir50 degrees for the first time in months. but unfortunately other concerns. "morning joe" back in three minutes. this is something that i'm

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oh, my goodness. much happens in the break here. this morning president trump issued a tweet criticizing his own white house. just last night, urged the house to preserve. he tweeted, house votes on controversial fisa act today. this is the act that might have been used with the help of discredited and phony dossier to so badly surveil and abuse the trump campaign by the previous administration and others. just hours earlier his administration urged the house to reject an amendment to change the law and preserve the, quote, useful role fisa section 702 authority plays in protecting american lives. we have senator rand paul standing by. we have pulitzer prize winning columnist and msnbc political analyst eugene robinson. ready for another head-spinning

morning? >> i guess so. >> kellyanne conway saying nobody in the white house is talking about donald trump -- >> hillary clinton. >> -- hillary clinton, same donald trump is obsessing over hillary clinton. now you have the white house wisely sending out a statement last night saying, hey, let's keep the fisa courts in place and donald trump today saying let's get rid of the fisa courts. >> that's called another day in the united states of america these days. this is extraordinary. i'm sure that people's heads are exploding in washington right now because the intelligence community thinks the fisa act is essential and this and that. a lot of civil libertarians who question whether a nation founded on the rule of law should have secret courts and secret judges and the whole rigmarole that's attached there. president trump seems to take it

personally, as he takes everything personally. >> it's certainly been a debate, an ongoing debate since september 11th. let's bring in member of the foreign relations committee, republican senator rand paul of kentucky. senator, of course, is on the act of the civil libertarians that gene was just talking about. senator, did you speak with the president? were you able to influence him to switch his position from last night? >> i have spoken with the president, but i don't think it's necessary that you understand this as switching his position. he still advocates or the administration says they advocate for reauthorization. so do i actually. i want reauthorization with reform. i don't think they're mutually exclusive. this program allows us to spy on foreigners in foreign lands with a less-than-constitutional standard or really with no constitutional standard. i'm okay with that. what i'm not okay with is that millions of americans are

collected into this data system and that maybe rogue people at the fbi or justice department could look at this database without a judge's warrant. we want a judge's warrant. i don't think they're mutually exclusive. you can be for the program and for the program with reforms. the way i understand the president's position, he wants some of the reforms rjs he thinks we waut to have a warrant to look at this and there's a possibility that people would bye yas in the intelligence community could use the bias to abuse the system. you have to realize we have the ability to soak up every phone call in italy in one month and apparently we did. we have the ability to soak up most of the phone calls and conversations in the whole world. that power is so enormous that it needs to be limited and watched carefully. i think a judge should be looking at this before you try to look at an america's information. >> so follow up on my last question, you spoke with the president. did you speak to the president about this? did you encourage him to change

his position, or if not change his position, at least take a position inconsistent with what the white house officially released last night? >> actually, sort of the opposite. in our discussion he was encouraging me that this is his position, that he agrees with me on the position. but i think we're getting it wrong if you think they're mutually exclusive. you can be for reauthorization with reform. my bill and the amendment they'll vote on today reauthorizes the program but says you have to get a warrant, and it also says you cannot use that -- the information from this huge database that's been collected without constitutional protection, you can't use it for domestic crime. you can only use it for terrorism, national security. >> rand, drill down for those of us, people watching that obviously haven't studied this as closely as you. you want to keep the fisa system

in place, keep the fisa courts in place. you have no problem with us doing this abroad. i guess you would also have no problem with this happening at home domestically whether our intelligence agencies have to look for terrorists or home grown terrorists, you are just saying -- >> no -- >> -- let me finish. i think you may agree with me. you're fine with that, you just want an extra layer of protection before that power is granted. is that correct? >> at home there has to be the constitutional, abroad there doesn't. that's the simple way to put it. if you have somebody, even a person who mows down pedestrians in new york, we use the constitution. we get a jury, they get a lawyer. i'm for having the constitution work in our country. all the information we gather through fisa, it captures

americ american's data, many accidentally who are completely innocent. if i have made a phone call, any of you made a phone call, it could have been caught up. think of this. if a journalist sends an e-mail and puts in the words baghdadi, the leader of isis, that may be captured. now he's a target and you sent an e-mail to one of your report rs overseas. >> let's strip it down. let's say this happens incidentally. i don't know if this is what actually happened with the general, general flynn. but let's say they pick it up incidentally. so my question is when is it possible -- this is the best way to ask it, i guess, when is it possible for law enforcement to use incidentally picked up information which proves a crime or terror attack is going to be committed by an american? >> there are currently only internal controls on who can search the database. they say they're not doing it very often. here is the point, you should

ask a judge. the same way we say, well, police brutality can occur. one way to check it even though we think most police are good, they have to call a judge. >> would it be a fisa judge. >> you would have to have a judicial warrant. in this case, yes, it probably would still be a fisa judge. >> so it would still be secret. you're not saying let's go to the local federal judge. >> right. there would still be a judge overseeing it. it would be a fisa judgment he.e we found out recently there were people in the fbi plotting to bring the president down. >> who was plotting in the fbi to bring the president down? >> strzok, his girlfriend, perhaps someone named andy, talking about we need an insurance policy to bring the president down to prevent his election. >> that was a couple people talking. are you suggesting there's an

fbi conspiracy? would you like all of your texts when you're blowing off steam about politics, would you like them produced? i know i certainly wouldn't. >> when you're talking on an fbi phone and you're at work conspiring with other workers to bring the president down, that's a real problem. it's evidence there's bias. it can occur on other side. we have two, at least three high ranking fbi agents had enormous bias against the president. each one of them could potentially have been searching the database looking for stuff. >> i understand that. you would admit there were a lot of fbi agents that had tremendous bias against barack obama. when people like me and i guess you were angry that barack obama was saying that hillary clinton didn't violate any national security standards, the fbi -- he had agents really angry and leaking things against him. >> bias can occur on other side. men are not angels, as madison said, that's why we need

oversight. all the arguments we're making, republican, democratic, liberal, conservative, this is why it's a bipartisan coalition. when you look in the house, half republicans, half democrats will be for this. we're saying men and women are human, could be biased. this enormous power to soak up all our phone calls needs to be overseen a judge. you shouldn't have people searching the database. >> we've got a few people here that want to jump in. mike. >> senator, you indicated you have an apprehension about, in your words, rogue fbi agents in the department of justice. you just said the two fbi agents were conspireing to bring down a presidency. can you back that up? how are they conspiring? >> in their conversations that we've seen. >> you've seen text messages, correct? >> let me finish. they talk about a discussion in andy's office where they're assured by that discussion that the president won't win. they're saying, but we need an

insurance policy. yeah, that sort of gives an indication to a lot of us that three people, high-ranking people were talking how to prevent trump from becoming president. they're talking about it at work. it sounds to me at least to be inappropriate, but i think you can also use the word conspiring. >> i don't think inappropriate is a synonym for conspiring, but apparently you do. >> senator, it's nick confessore. you said in private conversations with the president, he's with your position on modifying the fisa bill. >> i think fisa needs to be reformed. like i said, i don't think they're mutually exclusive. >> the president has said he's with you. my question is how come his staff is out there pushing for a straight repeal if the president wants some changes? >> i think what you're seeing is that people want reauthorization. they're worried about the potential good of this program spying on foreigners in foreign lands, but i think they're not

mutually exclusive. i think you can be for reauthorization and for reform. i think the president's tweet speaks for itself. he is concerned the intelligence community does not have enough oversight. i think we need more oversight and not less. i think those positions are pretty clear. you can have both of those positions. senator, this is gene robinson. i would agree with you on the need for reform. i think i'd probably vote for your amendment if i could. i want to take you back to what mike barnicle said, this question of the fbi conspiring to bring down president trump. conspiracy requires an overt act, i think. do you have any evidence that these fbi agents did anything to adversely affect president trump's chances of winning the election? >> i think all we have is a snippet of their conversations. if they want to release their transcript of what they were discussing with andy in the office, andy mccabe, the second in charge of the fbi.

it's very worrisome they said they were talking about trying to revent trump from being president, but maybe it's going to be okay, but we need to have an insurance policy. that sounds very worrisome to the american people that high-ranking fbi agents were conspiring to try to prevent donald trump from becoming president. >> we don't know if they were doing that. >> well, we don't know. one final question, senator. generally on the question of bob mueller, obviously the president yesterday said he wanted republicans to step up and take control of the investigation. paul ryan and others have said that they believe that robert mueller should be allowed to continue his investigation through the end. do you agree with those republicans, or do you think the investigation should be stopped? >> here's the question. i think his instructions are to look for russian influence in the campaign. we now have evidence that russian agents were paid for by a campaign. we have evidence that

christophchri christopher steel paid russian efforts, the hillary clinton campaign, paying for this dossier. i don't know if you want mueller to look down both avenues equally into both campaigns for collusion. if we want to do that, maybe we could. i think so far there's no evidence of any collusion with the president. >> well, we don't know. obviously his national security adviser and closest confidant traveling on the campaign is cooperating with the investigation after pleading guilty to federal charges, same with other officials. so i'm fine with everybody being investigated. are you fine with everybody being investigated? are you fine with the investigation continuing? >> i think the problem we have sometimes with special prosecutors is we go down avenues that can lead down rabbit holes 20 years old. i think really what happens with the special prosecutor is you end up convicting people of tax

evasion. now we have michael flynn caught up in sting that may have been an illegally recorded phone call, where people listen to the phone call, release it to the media which is a felony and we that's the only evidence you know. we do know some people have been thrown in jail. so i'll ask again, should bob mueller be able to finish that conclusion so we know whether that investigation, so we know whether there's collusion or not? >> yes, but how long, a decade? we need to get it done -- >> i agree with you. i still am a little -- a little chapped at lawrence walsh's investigation dropping charges

against cap weinberger two or three days before the election. democrats would agree the investigation that started on a land deal shouldn't have ended up impeaching the president because of personal relations with somebody else. so we probably all agree on that. all right, senator, thank you so much. it was very informative and really timely. we'll see what happened. by the way, really quickly, i'm just curious, is there a chance for this amendment to pass? how many people do you have lined up on it? >> it's very, very close in the house. right now, we think we have a chance of winning. what we've heard all night long is that leadership on the republican side and unfortunately on the democrat side is calling, twisting arms. because i think we have the votes to win for reform. it would be a great victory for the american people to say you know what, beiyou have to have warrant, which should be a basic thing we all agree on. >> thank you. appreciate your time. of course this is -- this

actually is relevant because i think the authorities were listening in on kislyak's phone and that's where they had incidental contact with general flynn. >> yes, the russian ambassador. up next, we'll talk to a democrat who hopes the blue wave crashes over texas as he tries to unseat ted cruz. congressman betteo o'rourke is next.

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joining us now from washington is democratic congressman beto o'rourke of texas. very good to have you on the show this morning. my first question would be about the meeting with the president. are you hopeful a daca deal could happen and what would you want in it? >> i want to make sure those 800,000 dreamers who are in any way that's meaningful just as american as you or i or our kids, are able to stay and contribute to the success of this country. i'm open to any reasonable proposals. one i worked on with john cornyn, our senior republican u.s. senator from texas, to increase staffing at our ports of entry. those places where we connect with mexico. where the vast majority of goods and people cross through. where we are severe their understaffed. that improves security.

also connected to job growth and economic growth in our state and in our country. listen, i'm going to work with anyone any time to do the right thing for our country. i think it's a good sign that at least people are listening to each other right now. >> a border is a big issue in texas. i'm curious if you think it's important as a policy priority to keep people from coming into the country who do not have permission to be in the country? >> i think it's important to ensure we have immigration laws that reflect our interest, our values and the reality on the ground. there are more going south than north here. we have the lowest levels of northbound in our lifetime. routinely ranked the third safest city in the united states. using fbi crime data.

we've had zero terrorists or terrorist plots who have used our border with mexico to attack the united states. so it's hard to see how we're not passed the point on the diminishing returns on the border. on things that we need to do, the most obvious one before us, these 800,000 dreamers here in the united states who are making this country so successful. by the cato institute's estimate, if we lose the dreamers, we'll lose about $280 billion to the positive to the u.s. economy over the next ten years. >> mike. >> congressman, el salvador has one of the highest homicide rates in the world as a country. i'm going to assume there are many people from el salvador living in texas. we have a proposal to shift hundreds of thousands back to

their country after they've been here 15, 16, 17 years. despite the lethal threat to many of them. >> yes, absolutely unconscionable. 200,000 salvadorans in this country. in some cases, they've been here for sa years. lived most of their lives here in the united states. are ensuring we have secure, safe, successful communities. about a quarter of those i represent in congress were born in another country. they are the reason in large part for our security. the fact that el paso's routinely one of the safest cities in america. second of all, there's every reason in the world to make sure we can capitalize on their contributions to our country and enforcing el salvador at its most vulnerable moment to absorb 200,000 people from this country is going to produce more pressures and more problems. that will come back right on our front doorstep on the texas/mexico border. >> quickly before we go, dean

robinson, tell us about amielo gutierrez. >> this is a reporter from juarez who has been lived in this country peacefully with our recognition and understanding for the last eight years is now, under the trump administration, in a detention cell in el paso awaiting deportation. in addition, he's there with his son oscar who has done nothing wrong, nor has emiliemilio. just doing what we want the press to do. reporting the facts. showing truth to power. and is hunted by those who worry about what he's uncovered. we have a responsibility to do that. it's not unconnected to the fact that this president in this country has called the press the enemy of the people. not the best defense against tu tyranny. that country, mexico, is the most dangerous place to be a journalist. we have to do the right thing by amelia and make sure he can stay