president trump has the backing of roughly 33% of americans, but suggests he's got 100% support from the republican party. point democrats likely will be repeating in the lead-up to the mid terms. a classified politicized memo will likely go public over the objections of the fbi. >> with us, veteran msnbc contributor mike barnicle, and catty kay, donnie deutsche is here with us, former fbi special agent msnbc contributor clint watts is here and former assistant director of counterintelligence at the fbi, frank fegluzzi. mika will be back with us on monday. joe, this could be the day the momento is released and the day the public sees the memo. we're not sure if that's the case yet. we know that the justice department has called it

extraordinarily reckless to release the memo we know that the fbi says it has grave concerns about the content of that memo being made public. what do you think? what's going to happen today? >> well i'm sure the president is going to re lease the memo. he said, he said he would. and he was saying he was going to do it even before he read the memo. acting like the republicans on the committee who said we must release this memo. they hadn't even read the memo. they haven't read what's underlying the memo. so willie, you're talking about how right now the president only has about a third of the country behind him. the republicans are having one chairman after another, one member in a swing district after another, decide to drop out of congress. i'm curious, are these guys even thinking about what the american people are going to think? about -- there are a lot of things that divide us, but when

you have the fbi and donald trump's own justice department saying it's extraordinarily reckless to release this memo, well that's just a political killer right there. i don't care how conservative your district is. you're going to get hammered in the final 30 days of your campaign and it's going to make you bleed politically. you add on top of that, willie, that this is obviously a half-baked false, misleading memo. according to donald trump's own justice department. it's packed with innuendo, it's packed with half-truths and it turns out to be a full lie so there's going to be a rebuttal. this is what we accused newt gingrich of, always have an opening volley and never expect the other side to hit back. this will prove to be a misleading pack of lies. they'll get a big headline and then deal with the clean-up between now and election day. i must say, i just don't get it

politically it seems like one of the stupidest things, willie, they could do. >> i think in the case of president trump he's not thinking about politics or even the american people. he's thinking about his own hide. he thinks if this can somehow suggest that the investigation into potential ties with the russian government during the campaign is flawed, that it's corrupt, that it's biased, he'll take it at the end of the state of the union, 100%, i'm going to release the memo, he said. a senior white house official told nbc news quote i doubt there will be any redactions of the memo. republicans say the memo show the fbi relied on an opposition research dossier funded by the democrats to get fisa surveillance of former trump adviser carter page, who the campaign alternately embraced and distanced itself from. democrats say it distorts classified material to undermine robert mueller's probe into the 2016 russian interference in the election.

the second to declassify it and send it to the house for release and the third, the third option is to not declassify, but to tell the house he won't op if they do. while the security review of the memo is only a few days old, new reporting says president trump has been fighting to make it public for at least two weeks. house freedom caucus chairman mark meadows tells the "washington post" that he and congressman jim jordan brought it to trump's attention on january 18th. a presidential adviser tells the "post" there was never any hesitation. the president was resolved on this. he was not going to be persuaded, he wanted it out. in the report citing people familiar with his discussions, president trump told aides and confidantes he believes the memo would indicate his claim early last year that the russia investigation overseen by robert mueller is a witch hunt. the president said he thought the release of the memo would help build a public argument against deputy attorney general rod rosenstein's handling of the case and suggested the memo might give him the justification

to fire rosenstein or to make other changes at the justice department, which he had complained was not sufficiently loyal to him. so clint, take all that, that president trump had sort of made up his mind the moment he heard about the memo. which scenario do you think is most likely? will it be declassified, pushed to the house for decision? will it be released with redactions? what do you think will happen? >> knowing trump and his actions over the last year, i would say he'll push it to the house, he's always trying to be in control and also distance himself from things. he's a good player in that sense. but also when it goes to the house then it also gets shared blame across all these congressmen. saying it was the republicans that did this, it was nunes. but what ultimately will happen is it's this hashtag hysteria we see on the republican side there will be no transparency because

it's cherry-picked information. there ultimately has to be more sources or reasons for going up on the fisa collection than that single source. it's trying to discredit the entire investigation through the dossier. which he when we've gone through the dossier seems to play out, from a credible source, steele, who contributed to the fifa investigation. so ultimately the outcome won't be transparency it will be some hysteria, but ultimately for americans, it's apathy, they start tuning this out. you don't know what's true. you can't make sense of it. it doesn't speak to the damage it's done to our investigation. >> not specific, but still accomplishes its goal of muddying the waters of this investigation. >> there's reporting from the "washington post" within the troirm, the memo may not be as compelling as some congressional republicans have made it out to be. congressmen like new york's lee zeldon. >> going to be showing misconduct on the part of top people at the doj and the fbi,

you're going to see a need for a change to certain practices, there's going to be a need for a change of certain personnel towards the top. >> i'm sure, i wonder if he's even read it before. but donnie deutsche, this may muddy the water a little bit. but again, if you're running a campaign and you're running against somebody that's claimed they've been a law-and-order person, what i would do, i'm curious what you would do as an advertising guy, you would say here's somebody that was told that a doctored memo released was extraordinarily reckless by the fbi and by donald trump own justice department. but they did it politically. because they care more about being subservient to donald trump than they care about the national security of the united states. don't believe me, believe the federal bureau of investigation's director that donald trump picked and congress approved. don't believe me, believe donald

trump's justice department. i'm sorry, if i've got a guy on a debate that's approved that, i'm going to chase him around and bloody him with those facts for two hours. on a debate stage. >> here's the ad and you laid it out. i would tomorrow find guys as credible as clint, guys who are not in the fbi any more or the doj, guys who devoted their life to this country and i have about ten guys, in an ad who come forward and go look, we've given our lives to protect this country this president does nothing to make this country safe. are you going to believe the men and women who dedicated their lives to keeping this country safe or a reality tv personality. carter page, this is about let's whack rod rosenstein, donald

trump knows the noose is tightening and he knows he cannot directly go after mueller and the only person between him and mule certificate rosenstein. this is what this is about. i think donald trump lives in his own universe and does not understand that the american people are not stupid and they can see through this. and i do think this is one more instance also where if i am a president, the last people i want to set up a war, a literal war with, is the department of justice and the intelligence community. and this is a declaration of war. >> mike, this also is a moment in time where i think most people have stopped fearing donald trump. they understand what donald trump is. stop being shocked by donald trump i guess i should say. instead, fear that the republican congress is so compliant, that they will allow misleading information out in a

recklessly dangerous document. according to trump's fbi and trump's department of justice. and put all of this actually on carder page. like that somehow americans are going to be shocked, that that there's an extension of an investigation into carter page, when even the russians had some choice words to say about page. this is, i again, mike, i'm just flabbergasted that the republicans would be as clueless as they are, in their mad pursuit to enable donald trump to do the stupidest, most self-destructive things. >> well joe, i mean it's part of a pattern, they've held to, clung to for many months. this idea that they're more loyal to their own political party, than to the constitution of the united states, to the nation's security interests. is astounding. and it is well past the time

that we speak fact about paul ryan, the speaker of the house. his legacy, his career, his reputation, that it was once was a year, year and a half ago, two years ago, that is over, that is over. he is married the nonfacts of this story. and frank berluzzi, one of the things that stands out to a lot of people is the rhetoric surrounding the release of this memo from the chairman of the committee, define nunes. if you track the rhetoric and match it to the definition of obstruction of justice, which includes the word "intent" wouldn't you be sort of on the right track to get to devin nunes, wondering about if is he now obstructing justice? >> i'm particularly zeroed in on the transcript of the testimony that was released by congressman schiff where they asked congressman nunes, did anyone

talk to the white house about crafting this memo? any conspiracy there, any give and take with the white house on the release of the memo? >> there was essentially a nonresponse. he wouldn't take questions on this. if you look at the possibility that they're in conspiracy with the white house on crafting the content or the timing of the release or nature of the release, then indeed you are meeting the intent element of the statute for obstruction of justice. i also think we should be really tuned in on what happens today, if it's released with regard to the director of the fbi. is chris wray, who is now being put between a rock and a hard place, right, it's kind of like, dishonestly asking somebody when did you stop beating your wife. the mere fact that you have to rebut that, the mere fact that you have to come out and repeat the allegation, is damaging, and you're repeating things that you don't want out in public. will chris wray come out today if it's released and line by line start rebutting. in which case we have an all-out face-off between the white house

and the fbi. or will he quietly accept what it is and behind the scenes start working to poke holes in it? thirdly are we going to see the democrats release their version that they've not been allowed to release? that interprets the memo quite differently. things to watch today. >> well and of course, frank, i want to go back to the conspiracy of justice. you look at what has happened with devin nunes. and you look not only what's happened here. where obstructing, obstructing justice. you look not only what's happened with this memo, the fact that it is clear that he and his staff members have been conspiring with donald trump for the purposes of as donald trump has admitted, for the purposes of undermining the credibility of the fbi, and undermining the credibility of the investigation against the president and the white house. you can take that.

you can also, look at what nunes did after donald trump lied about barack obama tapping trump towers. and the fact that devin nunes there held his press conference, claimed he had information, but he didn't have information. he rushed over to the white house. he got information from the white house and then he held a press conference at the white house and said aha, here it is. when he had claimed that he was going over to the white house to share some important information that he had uncovered. on unmasking. it ended up being a lie. it ended up that he was nothing more than a courier for the white house. if he is a courier for the white house here, to help donald trump who has admitted the past couple of days he's doing this to undermine the investigation is to undermine the credibility of the investigators against him. doesn't that line devin nunes up as somebody who should be looked at for obstructing this investigation? >> i'm in agreement, if you want further evidence of his actual

intention which is so critical to the obstruction statute, just look at, look at normal oversight versus what he's doing. this is an oversight. i spent 25 years in the fbi. i served as assistant director. during my time as assistant director i lost count of the number of times i went to the hill, i briefed house and senate intelligence committees, judiciary, homeland security committees, everybody in the hoover building on pennsylvania avenue understands that congress represents the people and they oversee the fbi. but this isn't oversight. just as paul ryan is claiming it's oversight. this is friendly fire aimed directly at the fbi. why do i say that? if congressman nunes had the intention of helping out the fbi, getting their act together, correcting the record for a bad fisa affidavit, he could go to the fisa judge, the chief judge of the fisa court, the department of justice inspector general or hand his allegation directly to christopher wray who has been appointed by trump. instead he's waving around a very dramatic memo that he's

going to release, essentially in the form of a press release it clearly goes toward his intent and his intent appears to be obstruction. >> most importantly, willie, he is coordinating with the white house. he coordinated with the white house on the unmasking information and he's clearly coordinating with the white house here. that's not oversight. that's actually being in a conspiracy to obstruct an investigation against a president of the united states. pretty cut and dry. >> won't show it even to republicans in the senate. on the intel committee. a member of the senate's republican leadership, john thune of south dakota told reporters that the memo should be shared with the senate intelligence committee chairman, richard bur, before its public release, bur has been blocked from reading it. in a joint letter with democrat chris coons, republican jeff flake wrote that the memo risks undermining intelligence-gathering. it's not good for a partisan

memo to come out when no one in the senate has seen it. it's a sincere question, why won't they show it to the head, the republican head by the way, the chairman of the senate intel committee? >> you have to fear that they would also have backlash from the senate intel committee. which could turn round and say okay, we agree with the fbi. that this could undermine intelligence gathering efforts. and it's not fully accurate and we don't want it out, either. we still have an element of bipartisanship in the senate. i think you could as you see from that letter from chris coons and jeff flake working together, it's possible they don't want to risk the backlash from their own senior members of the party out of the senate. for the vast majority of americans, the story is far too complicated. i think the reaction you're right will be apathy. if you're opposed to the president, you will carry on being opposed to the president, if you support the president, you will carry on supporting him. the down side is there's a chance it chips away broader

trust in the fbi agents working around the country if there is any minimal chance of that, then there should be serious questions about releasing something that may not be accurate and that undermines intelligence gathering. >> to that point, clint, the idea that we will read it is one thing. the idea that people in the intel-gathering business in russia, syria, or iran or israel read it, they know what they're doing. they look at it and that gets to the danger of sources and methods. >> you're revealing sources and methods and techniques on how you do your foreign counterintelligence investigations and counterterrorism investigations. if you're an fbi agent or any special agent investigating anything across the government and are going for a title iii application to do a wiretap on a criminal case or going for a fisa application for a national security case, you're going to say how in four years might some congressman go pick out what i just put in this application, spin it against me and do a personal attack against me and

my agency? and you know, essentially erode my ability to go out to the public to build informants, to build out an investigative case, it's extremely corrosive. to put this out there like that is really, it's hampering investigations. imagine doing a public corruption case now in the fbi? on a political figure? or a foreign counterintelligence case where you have any nation trying to influence a politician in d.c. this is extremely damaging. >> it is extremely damaging. willie, you also, just to put this in context, you have all of these republicans now, who are ignoring warnings from the fbi and ignoring warnings from donald trump's own justice department. the people that he appointed from all republicans are, warning him don't do this, this is extraordinarily reckless, and as clint and you all have been talking about, may reveal

methods, may do things that hurt us. it's a reckless use of classified information. the irony that these same republicans for two years crowed about hillary clinton's home server and that she mishandled classified information or even mishandled the flow of information, and the fact that they would hide behind a guy, devin nunes, that richard bur, the chairman of the senate intel committee said of the unmasking quote scandal, we were told that was a scandal, too. he said, devin nunes, he made the whole thing up, he created it. and it's just, it's just like they're harry potter secret society. the whole thing was made up. the question is, how stupid will these republicans be? how low will they go? who will they drag down with them? right now they're dragging down

the fbi and the justice department with them. it's boy, nobody is worth this. but some reason for some reason they are absolutely shattering all constitutional norms in washington, d.c. in service of donald trump and they'll pay for it. >> we know why donald trump is ignoring the norms and pushing to one side the intel community and the fbi and everybody else, he thinks he's saving himself. the bigger question is why are republicans doing it? why are they protecting donald trump at the expense of our institutions in this country? this conversation will continue. frank faguzzi, thank you very much for being with us. coming up on "morning joe," a lot more from president trump's freewheeling speech to republicans yesterday. why he thanked senator john cornyn twice, but first bill karins has a look at the forecast. >> we have a storm in the east coast on sunday and a storm exiting right now.

it rained, got colder, a little snow reported, one to two inches through much of connecticut, upstate portions of new york and the hudson valley. not many issues from new york city to washington, d.c. and philadelphia. the roads are coated there and now the temperatures are dropping. we've hit our highs for the day. it will get colder, so there will be black ice on the roads. very frigid in ohio valley, and cold in pennsylvania, that's where we're waiting for punxsutawney phil to pop out, it's groundhog day and the festivities are well under way. wind chill is 1 right now. as far as phil goes, right now it's cloudy. we're going to have to wait and see what happens with this. if it stays cloudy, he doesn't see his shadow. that could give us an early spring. so we'll wait and see how it all plays out. again 80% of the time he sees his shadow. it doesn't actually always matter what exactly the weather forecast is. so who knows, we like an earlier spring, most of us would. in the weekend forecast as i mentioned for the east coast, just watch out on sunday, some

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senate majority whip john cornyn, john, thank you. great job. house majority whip steve scali scalise. >> house majority leader kevin mccarthy. chair john thune and house conference chair kathy mcmorris rodgers. did they forget your name, john? i don't know, what's going on here? john cornyn, everybody knows, they didn't put his name up, but

that's okay. senate majority whip john cornyn. john, thank you. great job. >> willie, is the white house doctor would say, the mind of a 14-year-old. at the peak of life. >> i love -- he throws a speechwriter under the bus. they didn't put your name in there, for god's sakes. he talks a lot, there are a lot of words, it's hard to remember them all. >> a lot of big words, some of the best words. >> president trump thanking members of the republican leadership in some cases twice, at the republican retreat in white sulfur springs, west virginia, touting his view of republicans and their view of him. >> a very spectacular man, orrin hatch. where's orrin? orrin? orrin is -- i love listening to him speak. he said once i'm the single greatest president in his

lifetime. and he actually once said i'm the greatest president in the history of our country. i said does that include lincoln and washington. i said yes, i said i love this guy. >> senator hatch's office later clarified that the senator never said trump was the greatest president. but that he could be some day. >> wow. >> good man, by the way, orrin hatch, he's in the olympics, isn't he? >> relative to the long scope of american history. he doesn't go back to washington. >> you've got to love the transparency, right? the sort of ease with which he can just put out there that he is the greatest president even including lincoln and washington, and just sort of love it. >> it does come back to a fundamental truth about donald trump -- he likes you as much as you like him. >> the world axis revolves around that. to kenny's point, we sit here and we giggle when this comes on and there's a, our commander-in-chief stands up and says yeah, that guy said i'm the

best president even -- just insane. >> and he believes it. >> if you said that months your friends, they would punch you. if you were that conceited, they would put a check on you. >> on any given day, the things that trump says, if you try to put them in the mouth of george w. bush or barack obama or any other president picture them saying that, the wheels would come off. and we're just numb at this point. democrats are slamming the controversial nunes memo. senator richard blumenthal is calling it a desperate bid by president trump and republicans to smear the special counsel and the senator joins us at our table, next. and joe, want to mention you'll be heading to boston this weekend, taking part in an event to raise money for education and opportunities for underserved families. joe's band will be performing there for a good cause at the paradise rock club for the hot stove cool music festival. the band hits the stage around 9:00, you can stream it live at

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so mike, peter gammons has been asking me to bring my

guitar up to this hot stove cool music festival. i was looking at the list and got a bit of a shock. you've got peter gammons going to be playing there. theo epstein going to be playing there. and again this is all to help disadvantaged people throughout the boston area. but then i, i was shocked -- you guys are allowing him into this red sox, this charity of sorts. bernie williams? i didn't know, i didn't know bernie -- played music. but bernie williams is going to be there, too. >> he's good. >> bernie williams is an excellent guitarist. he's a legitimate musician. but the event itself has been going on for several years, peter gammons, hall of fame sports writer. theo epstein, general manager of the cubs, soon to be a hall of fame executive given what he's done with the red sox and the cubs. a terrific event started years ago by peter and theo to raise

money for exactly what you just indicated, a great cause, you're going to be looking forward to hearing bernie williams play. >> the kids on the upper west side, i do a lot of man on the street interviews for local news 12. a lot of kids on that side are upset because you haven't been on prohibition for a while. they want to know when you're going to come back. you put the art out there for people to take in and you've taken it away from them. >> could you tell them i'm not as young as i was when i first started playing there. i was 53 when i first started playing there. i'm almost 55. and it takes an awful lot of metamucil and ben-gay, a lot of different stuff to be able to move the joints. i'm an old, old man. besides i got -- truthfully, i got four kids, they keep me busy. but we are excited to go up there and, and did you know, i had no idea, willie, that bernie

williams was a great guitarist -- but he's kicking it off at 6:30, so i can't wait to see it. >> he's played carnegie hall, he's legit. plays jazz guitar. he's very talentedth and really one of the great center fielders, mike barnicle in baseball history. >> what a wonderful -- >> he's not a hall of famer let's not get carried away here. >> joining us now, member of the armed services and judiciary committees, richard blumenthal who has been sitting patiently as we talk about bernie waumgs and jazz giuitar. >> should we ask him if he's a red sox or a yankees fan, seeing as connecticut is plsplit down e middle. >> i have to confess i'm a yankees fan. and a patriots fan. >> oh, man. i might as well leave right now. >> having it both ways, senator.

>> i'm also a bernie williams fan, you're right, he's an excellent guitarist, i've heard him play. >> senator let's talk about the business at hand. president trump and the white house have cleared the way for the release of devin nunes memo. their version of what's coming out of the house intel committee. what do you think are the implications of that? what happens if that memo is made public? >> let's recognize what's happening in the special counsel's investigation. the investigative vice is tightening around donald trump. mark corallo, who was on air force one and helped donald trump write an exceedingly deceptive memo about the trump tower he meeting is going to be interviewed. people who were convicted, close associates of donald trump and two other associates are going to be tried sometime this year. so the reaction of the white house is one of desperation. and they're trying to use this

memo, it's been very explicit against both mueller and rod rosenstein. i think that there's a backlash building in the united states senate. we've seen it in a number of my colleagues who have been explicit on this topic. john thune, who has urged caution. others who have talked privately about it. and it's such a violation of the norms of the intelligence community and the intelligence committees for this kind of gutter partisan politics, to drag down the fbi and the c.i.a. methods and sources. the political weaponization of intelligence is contrary to the basic concepts of how the senate deals with this topic. >> do you think, senator, democrats, although they may not think it's the right thing to do, but to counter what the nunes memo says, should put out

their own version of the intelligence memo. >> there has to be a democratic summary of the intelligence and i think there also at some point will be consideration of putting out the warrant application. remember, this summary that nunes is putting out is a mischaracterization, it's a very selective cherry-picked summary of a warrant application, which probably runs 50-60 pages. contains a number of the reasons that the warrant was granted by the foreign intelligence surveillance court judge. and some of that may come out as well. simply to provide real transparency rather than this distortion. >> so president trump has just tweeted. i confess i haven't seen it yet. he says the top leadership and investigators of the fib and the justice department have politicized the sacred investigative process in favor of democrats and against republicans. something which would have been unthinkable just a short time ago. rank and file are great people. joe, a distinction the white

house has tried to make from the outset every time donald trump says something outrageous, they said we're not talking about the rank and file guys, they're great, they're doing the hard work, stopping terrorist attacks. it's the leadership of the fbi that's corrupt, the argument goes. >> and all you have to do is go back and see what donald trump said about james comey. after james comey basically handed him the presidency. it is so important for everybody to remember. donald trump is attacking the leadership of the fbi. this is the fbi that investigated against hillary clinton for a year and a half. this is the fbi that at times leaked and the clinton people would tell you leaked all the time throughout the campaign. so there were constantly stories on the front pages of the newspaper about the state of the investigation. this is the fbi that released a letter, ten days beforehand at the urging of peter strzok, who helped draft the memo. that was released ten days

before and there's not an historian that writes a book on the 2016 election, willie, that won't say a that that put wind back in donald trump's sails, his campaign was down around 10, 12 points at that time. he came back and he won and that was the fbi and he praised the fbi when things went his way. contempted them when they didn't. all of these people, republicans. rod rosenstein, republican. bob mueller, republican. james comey, was a lifetime republican. and andrew mccabe, you don't have to register republican or democrat in virginia. but he voted in the republican primary. they are all republicans. the supreme court, controlled by republicans. chris wray, the fbi director, a republican. it is republican who is are saying that this memo is reckless. >> it's also the fbi that never disclosed that donald trump and his campaign was under

investigation during the campaign. they were all of his disclosures as joe has rightly said about the clinton campaign, which probably very seriously damaged her chances of winning. but the fact that collusion between the trump campaign and the russians in their meddling was under investigation, never was disclosed. i think a lot of the statements that donald trump has made in connection with the release of the nunes memo may well come back to haunt him. as evidence of obstruction. because what we're seeing is, obstruction of justice unfolding in real-time right before us. >> senator given that landscape and given you know your comments just now about obstruction, could you legitimatemy include a former prosecutor, from the state of connecticut. if you take devin nunes' statements about the memo and the ongoing investigation and you look at the weirdly constructed statement that is about to be released apparently, what about devin nunes

obstructing justice? >> i think there is probably a credible case involving nunes as well. not just in what we know publicly. but in conversations that no doubt took place between him and the white house, which evidently was involved in drafting that three and a half-page memo what we don't know is all of those private communications and as you well know, nunes himself was under investigation by the house ethics committee for the unprecedented and hugely embarrassing visits he had with the white house just a year or so ago. so there is a lot there that i think could come back to haunt him, too. >> senator, we were wondering earlier why it was that devin nunes has not yet sewn the memo that he has crafted to your colleagues, your republican colleagues in the senate. and whether the more deliberative body still might

find the republicans in that deliberative body might find this not acceptable for release? are you hearing anything from your republican colleagues about their reaction to the memo, would they have been shown it? >> i'm hearing from a number of my republican colleague who is are deeply troubled. they are hugely concerned about this breach in protocol and norms. you know, when we hear intelligence, we go into a room, that is proofed and debugged and we leave our electronic devices at the door and we also leave our politics at the door. because it involves national security. premature or unauthorized disclosure literally can kill people. informants or agents operating undercover. we take this task very seriously. i am not on the intelligence committee and my colleagues on the intelligence committee will not talk to me about some of what they hear in the senate

intelligence committee. so a number of my colleagues are very troubled. i think there will be a backlash against this breach of protocol and norms that are so vital to the country and by the way, transparency has a role. and there should be transparency. >> might those senate republicans speak up if this memo is released? >> i think they should. i've been disappointed that we've seen less outspoken republican qualms about this memo. we've seen very few republicans break their silence on it. and we've seen a lot less support than i would like for the special counsel legislation that i've introduced. a number of my colleagues are considering it. but ultimately at the end of the day, what's really important here is to protect the special counsel in that investigation. because all of this distraction, all of this effort to discredit

rod rosenstein and robert mueller and the fbi, which is an extraordinary institution, is aimed at the investigation to stop it, to stymie it and the lackeys like nunes, who are doing trump's work ultimately have that goal as well. >> senator richard blumenthal, good luck with your patriots this weekend. new england patriots, new york yankees, well done, sir. >> i have no comment. still ahead on "morning joe," investigators, they're investigating the investigators, senator ron johnson who last week pushed a theory about a secret society within the fbi has fired a new shot at top agency officials. "morning joe" is coming right back.

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republican senator ron johnson of wisconsin told the justice department he has a list of employees' names and is demanding to see the entirety of

their communications. in a letter to the deputy attorney general, senator johnson, who chairs the senate homeland security committee, says he is investigating 16 officials who investigated hillary clinton, many of whom overlapped with the trump/russia probe. senator johnson is asking "all documents and communications including but not limited to e-mails, memoranda, notes, text messages, iphone instant messages and voice mails." among the 16 on the list are fbi director james comey and one of the five people he told about his interactions with president trump which are under investigation by the special counsel. joe, this is senator ron johnson, to remind people who raised the prospect of "secret societies" that were in text messages between peter strzok, the former fbi agent, and lee is page, who also worked at the fbi. that turned out to be a joke but he tpushed that on tv.

>> and of course "i'm still conduct mig investigation. i'll get back to you." it must be about these senators with wisconsin, he with his lists. clint, now it's quite clear that you have partisans on capitol hill that are going to dig in and do anything they can to embarrass and humiliate any member of the fbi who investigates anybody who is their political patron. how does the fbi respond to this? >> it will actually harm things. imagine -- i wouldn't want to send a text message today to one of my colleagues because i don't know if five years from now some senator will pull all my text records and pull out two words and use it as part of a conspiracy. let's say 16 officials over a couple-year period sending text messages back and forth. i can make any conspiracy or any theory true just based on people's text messages, we're not many steps away from saying hey, we want every fbi agent to

have a full time body recorder on so we can rewind the tape and interpret what they're doing and use it for partisan games. it's quite crazy. i don't understand how pulling in this data will clear anything. it will make it more muddy and it will put a damper on what agents do. you don't know that your communications with someone else, that they are interpreted right by somebody else who's not even there. it will be a dangerous phenomenon that plays out. >> and the biggest problem, willie, in this republican-run washington, there is nobody on capitol hill to defend the interests of the intelligence communities. there's nobody on capitol hill to say this will chill fbi agents in the future from communicating back and forth. this will get in the way of getting the best and the brightest in these agencies if they believe that -- if they dare to investigate a politician that other politicians are

subservient to? they will be abused and that's exactly what's happening right now. ron johnson, again, the guy who lied about a secret society, the guy who wouldn't apologize about it, the guy who sounded like joseph mccarthy with his lists, now he's continuing his assault on the fbi. >> and that's why the argument from the white house echoed again by the president that this is not about the rank and file, just a few people at the top of the organization doesn't hold water because as clint points out, it affects the entire intelligence community. still ahead, we're hearing that president trump was ready for the nunes memo to come out two weeks ago. one presidential adviser said there was never any hesitation. moij "morning joe" is coming back with that and more in just a minute. and meet dave. hey. why is dark magic so spell-bindingly good, he asks? let me show you. let's go. so we climb. hike. see a bear. woah. reach the top.

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( ♪ ) the one and only cadillac escalade. come in now for this exceptional offer on the cadillac escalade. get this low-mileage lease on this 2018 cadillac escalade from around $879 per month. visit your local cadillac dealer. >> let me tell you what this memo is and is not. the memo is congress doing its job in conducting legitimate oversight over a very unique law, fisa. fisa is a unique situation which involves americans' civil liberties and if americans' civil liberties were abused then that needs to come to light so that doesn't happen again. what this is not is an indictment on our institutions of our justice system. this memo is not an indictment of the fbi, of the department of justice, it does not impugn the mueller investigation or the deputy attorney general. people should not be drawing

lines. people should not be implicated independent issues. this does not implicate the mueller investigation. this does not implicate the dag, this is about us holding the system accountable. >> the president is looking for a reason to fire robert mueller. the president is looking for a reason to fire rod rosenstein. the bigger concern i have right now is for rod rosenstein. this has been true for me for some time. and why rod rosenstein and not bob mueller? the white house knows it would face a firestorm if it fired bob mueller. what's more effective is to fire bob mueller's boss. why is that more effective? rod rosenstein decides the scope of bob mueller's investigation. >> you know, willie, i've said before, i've known paul ryan since he was 22. i like him very much.

i've always liked paul. i've always had great respect for paul but at the same time, i always said when we ran newt gingrich out of town and people said how could you do that? i said i'd do it to my mother if i thought she was getting in the way of making this country a better place to live so what i'm about to say about paul ryan is not personal. i like paul ryan, i'm sure he does not like me because of the facts that unfortunately we've had to present on this show everyday but just about everything paul ryan said in that press conference was a lie. he said this isn't about bob mueller. it is about bob mueller. the president of the united states has told his friends and told people in the white house he was doing this to getting this doctored memo, this incomplete memo to undercut bob mueller and hurt the investigation against him. pawn said this wasn't about the

deputy attorney general. that's a law. donald trump himself has told people closest to him this is about undercutting the deputy attorney general, harming his reputation. paul ryan said this is just about legitimate oversight. that, too, is a lie, if it were about legitimate oversight they would have gone to the fisa judges, they would have done this quietly. this wouldn't have been run by devin nunes, this wouldn't have been done in coordination with the white house and they would haven't shut out richard burr, they would haven't shut out senate republicans, they wouldn't have shut out the intel community, they wouldn't have shut out everybody they shut out. he also said that well -- there's so many things to say about that press dharchs are just false. i'm not surprised by a lot that

goes on in washington, d.c. but i've been shocked by how paul ryan has acted this past week and how he's now walking in lockstep with donald trump and he's doing it in a way that undermines constitutional norms. that undermines the rule of law. that undermines the fbi's efforts to run around america and save us all from the next terrorist attack against american civilians, that undermines the justice department's ability to work effectively day in and day out and i'll just start this hour with the "washington post's" editorial that said mr. ryan bears full responsibility for the deterioration of congressional oversight of intelligence operations. it is sad to see mr. ryan allow the reputation of the house to be tarnished in this way. it certainly, willie, is not what people like myself or

nicolle wallace or steve schmidt or other lifetime republicans thought we would see when paul ryan became speaker of the house. i know that all of us were actually thrilled when he was selected and were very excited to see him picked as mitt romney's running mate. it was about as exciting -- as excited as i've been since i've been involved in politics, either in it or on the periphery to see paul ryan on a -- i said, wow, okay, we finally made it. we finally have our type of conservative on the ticket. and now, willie, we get to this and it's disheartening to most true believers, to most rank-and-file conservatives who followed this guy since he was 22 would be an understatement. >> and for him to argue this is about transparency is incredibly

disingenuous when the transparency you're offering is a three and a half page summary of what you believe as a republican member of the intel committee are the important bits of the investigation of a package of intelligence you haven't reviewed yourself. >> and willie, by the way, you know they won't -- of course if it were about transparency they would let the democrats' response go out there so americans could judge both sides. this suspect about transparency. this is as donald trump said a political hit job against robert mueller and rod rosenstein. he wants to kill the investigation. he is obstructing justice again. it goes to the intent, this man has been about nothing but obstructing justice since he asked james comey to kill an investigation against his national security adviser despite the fact he admitted that he knew he had committed a crime. >> we have the aforementioned steve schmidt, lucky us, sitting right next to me on the set. we should point out, steve, that paul ryan is not an innocent

bystander in this, he's the speaker of the house of representatives. if he wanted to rein in devin nunes, he could. i guess the question we've had for more than a year, why are people like paul ryan sticking their necks out and jumping in front of moving vehicles for president trump. does it mean they get tax reform? does it mean they get their agenda? they believe he'll go along with whatever their agenda item is? >> well, whatever the situation is, this is a republican comple with donald trump. you saw the on sapplause on his statements.

this is not ronald reagan's republican party, not even george herbert walker bush's. >> but why? >> there's a lot of incentives that drive the crazy in american politics, redistricting. we have a system where the politicians pick their voters. this republican congress has looked at the state of the republican party, has looked at donald trump and said, hey, we're all in with this guy. now the problem for that is you look ahead to 2018. there's only been three elections in the last 116 years coming into this election where the incumbent president's party has picked up seats in that first mid-term election. this certainly won't be one of those. but how big will that tsunami be coming in? and the rushes suggest when you

look at 2017, look at the special elections, look at this election we just had in wisconsin it will be a very sizable tsunami and the american people will set the correction here so that there be some oversight over this administration. >> jonathan lemire joins us, he covers the white house for the associated press. there's reporting this morning that the president made up his mind from the moment he heard about this memo that it would be made public during the shut down a couple weeks ago. they've sort of had this public argument that there's been deliberation whether or not he'd do it. he made it clear as he walked off the stage and out of the chamber after the state of the union where he said yes, 100%, to a republican congressman who leaned in and suggested he release the memo. what happens from here? does the white house release it itself? >> you're right. this is something the president has wanted for days if not weeks, well before he read the memo. our reporting with the a.p. suggests he got wind of it from

seeing some stuff on the conservative media, hearing from various republican congress folks and suggesting this is something he believed would help undermine what he thought was the fbi and justice department's case against him. that he thought this would damage their credibility. he tells everyone around him, you know, he didn't do these things and that the deep state isn't working against him. this is further evidence of that in his estimation so the white house has had this for the entire week, the special counsel's office hasn't been in possession of it since monday, i believe. the president has now been read in, he's read the summary, he's been briefed on it in the last couple days. the mechanics are, according to senior white house officials, likely a final decision will be reached some point today. they here in the process of deciding what, if anything, will be redacted. there certainly -- they certainly are aware of the fbi's displeasure of w this. white house officials are nervous about fbi director wray and how he will react to the release of the memo.

we saw the rather unprecedented statement they put out a few days ago sort of bashing the decision preemptively to release it, now they wonder what will happen when the memo itself does come out. the sense is they will send it back to the house and let them be the ones who facilitate the relea release. >> this morning president trump tweeted this "the top leadership and investigators of the fbi and the justice department have politicized the sacred investigative process in favor of democrats and against republicans, something which would have been unthinkable just a short time ago. rank and file are great people." the president is quoting a theory of the group judicial watch that alleges hillary clinton and the democratic party created a dossier of allegations about donald trump's presidential campaign and russia to "spy on the trump team." and as jonathan just mentioned, the memo's release is coming despite objections from the fbi and law enforce. request to hold it for redactions. a senior white house official told nbc news yesterday "i doubt there will be any redactions."

joyce vance, former u.s. attorney joins us from birmingham. joyce, always good to see you. at the core of this from where you watch this, this is about a fisa application that the fbi does not grant. it's important to point out. those come from on high and not the fbi. >> so there seems to be some almost deliberate ignorance coming from the white house and maybe from the hill about what the fisa process really looks like because you're right. decisions to grant fisa warrants are made by judges on a special foreign intelligence court. these are judges who are appointed by chief justice roberts and the process because it's deliberative but involves national security information is very carefully conducted. one of the things that detractors from the fisa court like to point out is that the court grants a very high percentage of the warrants that

the justice department brings to the court and that's actually not a negative. what that high percentage of grants reflects is how carefully these processes are vetted inside of the justice department. they're vetted on the fbi side of the house. they're vetted inside of the national security division by doj lawyers. there is an ethos of keeping the credibility so high on these requests that the court will understand that the justice only comes and asks for them when we are confident -- or i should say when doj is confident -- that the requests involve someone who is acting as an agent of a foreign government and is actively engaged in some sort of surreptitious activity. >> clint, you're the only person around this table who's actually filed for a fisa warrant. who's gone through the process. you told me it takes basically a month of your life that do it. >> yeah. >> how many conspiracy theories would you have to buy into to be

able to believe that the process was somehow corrupt in this particular instance? >> it seems there are no end to the conspiracy theories. >> because at every step along the way there's a check. >> yeah. for fbi agents or any investigator -- anybody can do this if you're looking at a foreign power, you have to put this application together and have many sources, many justifications for it. it goes for review at the fbi and that review is time consuming. it is deliberate, it's exhausting. before it ever goes to the court. so just like joyce said, this is an exhaustive process and not one that fbi agents leap to do. this is painful. this is your last and most intrusive investigative step. you try to push it to the end and you only do it when you have grave concerns. >> joe, you know, we can sit here and be genuinely stunned and shocked and upset about what's being done by institutions of government that the nation relies on for security for generations and yet the reality is that when you

look at what's happening, it was just a sea of distractions. distractions thrown off by numbers of people from devin nunes to ron johnson to the president of the united states himself with his tweets. you sort involve to admit politically it's working for hill right now. >> i don't know that it is. again, steve schmidt, i guess i need to go to you on this. when all of these things happen in realtime, let's say ron johnson goes on a new show and he lies about a secret society. all right, mark it down. we forget it the next day but mark it down. let's say a house member does. then let's say a house member lies about this memo and it turns out that it ends up bag lie. all right, we'll forget about it next week but mark it down. you get four or five of these things, when that republican is running in the fall, i'm running against him and i have one after

another after another after another after another lie all intended to get in the way of an investigation? all intended to sweep aside the belief in america that no man is above the law. all to obstruct justice with this republican party that the democrats are too stupid to figure it out. let me give it to you. this republican party is obstructing justice. they have just this past week gotten into the business of obstructing justice and steve schmidt, one republican in a competitive seat should not have that 30-second commercial run at them non-stop for the last month of the campaign because that's exactly what they're doing. paul ryan and house republicans are obstructing justice and the truth will be known and that will be plainly evident by this fall. >> i come down right in the middle between where you and mike are on this first.

it's not working politically in the sense that the president's approval numbers are in the low 30s to mid-30s on a good day. lowest approval levels for any president this early in his term in the history of polling in the united states. so it's not working in terms of sustaining his popularity and it's not working in terms of conditioning the environment to be successful in 2018. it is working to confuse the issue, to muddy the issue, to confuse the american people. there's a deliberate misinformation campaign coming out of the white house supported by the republican majority abetted by a television network in this country alleging all manner of conspiracy infecting the intelligence services, law

enforcement, the american justice system that's doing great harm, i think in our country, to the american people's trust and institutions and to see on a 12-month basis the republican party flip 180 degrees with regard to its fidelity to law enforcement to the rule of law, to these important institutions is a remarkable thing to watch the corruption of politics, of transactional politics. the things that the perception of this is what you have to do to be loyal to donald trump, the corrupting influence of that on politics, on the republican party, on these individual members is just extraordinary to see. >> and joyce vance, the argument they're claiming in this memo is that the judge relied on the

dossier information and that's how the judge came to the conclusion. well, that's the information that the republicans want out there. what democrats and what the justice department and what the fbi can't tell americans are all the underlying things that that judge looked at before extending surveillance on carter page. and let my say again, extending surveillance on carter page. a judge, there's no way. by the way, we don't even know whose these fisa judges are. these republicans cynically know we can't get all the information that led to the judge extending this fisa warrant because it obviously is classified and it's sensitive and so it's just as cynical play. i can't believe voters would be so stupid as to not understand this, though. >> these decisions are made by

judges based on a totality of circumstances so while allegations from the steele memo may have formed a portion of it, they certainly weren't the totality. and we know just from what we've seen on the surface of this investigation that there was a lot of reason to have concern about carter page. he'd been on the radar screen for a long time before he began to advise the trump campaign. it seems very unlikely that the fisa court would have granted this warrant and permitted this surveillance in the absence of very convincing information and the unfortunate situation we're in is exactly the one that you point out that because this information is classified and that because divulging it poses a real threat both to human sources and to impairing the methods that we use to collect intelligence that we don't want revealed to foreign enemies and other groups, because the response that we'd need to be give on the justify the fisa

memo is itself inherently classified, we're not going to see a public layout of the justification. i think you're right, though. at the end of the day, american voters are not stupid and they will figure out what's going on here. >> as far as the memo, two other things to keep in mind. there's some white house officials -- a pretty limited pool of people who are in on this -- who are concerned this won't have the effect they hoped. this won't have the political impact that the president wants it to have. and on the idea of their justifying its release on transparency, it must be pointed out this is one of the least transparent white houses this country has ever seen. this president has still not released his tax returns, we don't have access to white house visitor logs. >> why would the president allow the release of a memo if it wasn't helpful for him? if it wasn't in the service of getting him out of trouble. >> i think this president has a knack of seizing upon something, a small thing to make a larger point and i think there's a belief that if he's -- it just adds to what we have seen as a rather lengthy attempt to muddy

the waters. that this is just the latest example to undermine the credibility of whether it was those text messages from the fbi agents to this memo, just one after another try to undermine the credibility of mueller's probe and to therefore even if the verdict at the end of the day comes down against him, he can go to the court of public opinion and say "look, this was all biased against me, this was tainted from the beginning." speaking of the mueller probe, as for the former trump advisers who have been indicted there, two developments in the past two days raise more questions than answers about what's ahead. the attorneys representing former campaign aide rick gates withdrew as counsel in documents filed under seal in federal court yesterday. there has been speculation gates might be seeking to cooperate with mueller. both the special counsel and gates' attorneys declined comment. and in a federal court filing wednesday, the special counsel and attorneys for michael flynn say they are not ready for the former national security adviser to be sentenced because of the current status of the investigation. sentencing hearings are commonly delayed until the government

believes a person has fully cooperated. joyce, you hear those two bits of information and you think what about the mueller investigation? >> it looks like the investigation is moving ahead on target and on pace. the news about gates does point the direction of leading us to believe at least very serious negotiations about his cooperation and this makes a lot of sense. this is largely a paper case against him. doesn't look like the government will have a lot of trouble obtaining conviction on some if not all counts and so for gates to cooperate, he has a lot of potential benefit in terms of the type of sentence he'll receive and cutting down his team at the point where he approaches cooperation would make sense for him, let's him save some money and be paying fewer lawyers in the mix. the news about general flynn is also very interesting. it indicates that his cooperation with the government is not yet complete.

prosecutors don't like to let a defendant who's working with them be sentenced until he's fully carried out his end of the bargain. once he's sentenced they don't have additional power over him. i wouldn't look for this sentencing to take place until general flynn has testified at absolutely every trial where bob mueller needs him to testify. >> all this underlines that despite the noise and distractions you've been talking about this morning, bob mueller is marching forward with blinders on. >> 100%. and we don't know what he knows. we know for sure that he knows a lot more than all of us know and what's been reported to the american people and we should never lose sight in this investigation that we have multiple people under indictment in extremely close proximity to both the republican nominee and to the president of the united states, including a national security adviser who 11 minutes into this term is sitting there

on his iphone from the podium of the inauguration talking about how to get deals done in the middle east with russian nuclear reactors. so we have contact after contact between top officials on the campaign, with officials of the russian government with ties to the intelligence agencies and one thing we know for sure, there is a global information war under they is being conducted by the russian federation against the entirety of the western democracies, to undermine faith in our institutions and our systems. this campaign and the activity was part of that girl and finding out what went on, what happened to protect us from it happening again, the republican majority is obstructing that. the security of our election

process, abetting a hostile foreign power for the purposes of putting a prophylactic around the administration of this president. >> you know, one thing we do know and americans need to keep in mind, we need to keep this in proper context. it's not as if robert mueller iii didn't know months ago that as he moved in on donald trump and don jr. and everybody around donald trump that as the indictment started to fall against his national security adviser and his campaign manager and his top campaign associate and a top foreign policy associate, it's not like robert mueller and his team didn't anticipate this. we heard reports several months back that they're coordinating with new york state and other states so if robert mueller is fired, this just moves over to new york state and the only

difference between robert mueller bringing a charge and the attorney general of new york state bringing a charge is donald trump can't pardon crimes in new york state or any of the other 49 states. so as we sit back and look at the frantic and furious moves by this president because he's really -- he understands that he's not smart enough. he understands that he's not smooth enough, he understands that he's just too slow to keep up with robert mueller. he doesn't have the nerve. i mean, he's scared to death right now that he's going to have to actually testify in front of robert mueller because he knows that mueller will outwit him at every turn. he knows that mueller will outthink him at every turn. he'll know that when he's sitting in that interview across from robert mueller, that robert mueller will be three, four, five steps ahead of him and donald trump just doesn't want

to be humiliated that badly so he's frantically doing everything he can to avoid testifying, despite the fact that that the overwhelming majority of americans believe that donald trump should agree to an interview with robert mueller. but, again, donald trump knows that robert mueller is just a lot smarter than him, a lot shrewder than him, and so he's doing all of these things, americans just need to keep in context, our viewers need to keep in context, if it's not robert mueller getting all these people for committing crimes it will be somebody else. >> if the president wasn't worried about what robert mueller had on him, he wouldn't be pushing out this memo that he believes implicates bob mueller and corrupts the investigation. steve schmidt, thank you as always. always good to see you, my friend. joyce vance, you as well, thank you. still ahead on "morning joe," president trump has picked a fight with the fbi and eugene robinson says the president will be sorry. gene joins us next.

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then we got hit with these corporations giving tremendous bonuses to everybody that nancy pelosi called crumbs. that was a bad -- that could be, like, deplorable. does that make sense? deplorable and crumbs? those two words, they seem to have a resemblance. i hope it has the same meaning. >> president trump looking to fire up the crowd by hitting henri cent comments by nancy pelosi where she talked about the bonuses companies are giving out as "crumbs." that's the same way he slammed hillary clinton for what many saw as a big gaffe she made in 2016 where her "deplorables" comment. joining us now, editor at large of the weekly standard bill kristol and msnbc political analyst and editor at the "washington post," eugene robinson. you wanted to pick up on

something we were talking about in the last segment, bill, and what you believe president trump is laying the ground work for here. >> he may be laying the ground work to fire rod rosenstein but the mueller request for an in r interview with trump is pending. i'm of the belief trump will not agree to interview with mueller. mueller will say no, at the end of the day trump will take the fifth amendment if he has to and six months ago we would have said, gee, a president taking the fifth amendment, that would be disastrous, people won't support that. at this point i think republicans in the house will say it's a witch-hunt. >> oh, yeah. >> the fifth amendment has an h honored tradition in america. people took the fifth under joe mccarthy. so he's fighting and delaying the mueller investigation at every stage and we can say he's panicked or somewhat impulsive

but he's been pretty systemic. in trying to they, thwart and discredit the mueller investigation as much as possible. rick gates, who may have flipped, he's very, very close to manafort and i think the importance of his flipping isn't about manafort and his money with ukraine, they were close you have no that if manafort was meeting with the president and they discussed russia or manafort reported, he would have said to gates ten minutes later "so i told the president about this and here's what the president said." in flipping gates you're getting someone who can testify as to what the president and manafort did cussed or did. not just the things manafort did on his own. >> and in an interview with burrell, president trump will likely say i won't participate.

>> he'll get on with a smug look and say "i'm not dignifying this, it's already been proven this is biased. just the same way it's been proven there's no collusion." so he's going to get on and with a stare at that camera will say "i will take the fifth, i won't dignify this american." that's what the american people want. donny, isn't it funny? you and i have known donald trump for ten years or, so you've known him longer. this is a guy who is -- he tries to boast, he talks about how smart he is all the time which means he's extraordinarily insecure about how smart he is. do you really think he's going to cower in the corner? he knows bob mueller is smarter than he is. he knows bob mueller is slyer than he is. he knows that bob mueller would run circles around him. do you think donald trump will

allow his ego -- will he finally listen to his lawyers and put his ego in the backseat and basically just admit to america that he's not smart enough to go toe to toe with bob mueller? >> in his own delusional world, he won't create that scenario. he's going to create, as he said, i'm fighting back. he won't see in the his own mind as a cowardice move, he'll see it as no, this is so beneath me and the american people and i don't want to waste any more of their time, i have to build infrastructure. so in his own delusional passion play in his mind, he won't say i'm a coward and i'm going toe to toe and this is the world of donald trump, we know that. >> so gene donald trump might not want to go toe to toe with robert mueller in the form of any kind of formal investigation but he does seem prepared to take on the fbi, the rank-and-file and leadership of the fbi. how much damage could they do to his administration? >> well, look, it's the fbi and

we all know the history of the fbi, j. edgar hoover ran it for almost 50 years, it was its own little -- his own little stasi. the president has co-existed for the fbi warily. ha harry s. truman was really critical of hoover and the fbi, called it a little gestapo but in the end he was afraid to fire hoover because he knew the secrets and he would spill the beans potentially. now we're way past those days however the fbi -- it's like a huge police agency with the cohesion that that implies in the sense of us versus them that police departments develop and inculcate and it's being attacked and when the fbi is under attack, it's not going to be happy about that and it has

lots of ways to fight back because they know a whole lot more than the people who are up against them know. so if you're going to get into a battle of leaks with the fbi, you are crazy. they've got a whole lot more to leak than you have and information will find its way out somehow. as it did during watergate when the assistant director of the fbi, mark felt, became bob woodwa woodward's deep throat and in the end helped guide the illumination of richard nixon's crimes. >> so this is not just a dangerous thing for an administration to do, i think it's a stupid thing in the medium term and long-term for an administration to do. >> jonathan, to gene's point, i've spoken to a couple of people who have been interviewed by the mueller team and i don't

know whether you have or not but they are amazed at the amount of information and material the mueller team has in the course of their interrogatory. >> there's no question. the people who have given accounts of -- that mueller has had these incredible details on incidents from months ago during the transition, early months of the white house and there's a sense that he is, indeed, like one two steps ahead of where they are and that there's no question that he is sort of checking to make sure they are giving an honest accounting. i want to follow up on the rick gates point. you're right, he's manafort's right hand man and he had deep ties to the presidency. even after manafort was deposed gates hung around and ran a political action group that was supporting trump. he's someone who in the early months of the administration would be seen in the white house and who in washington was temporarily living at the trump hotel. so this is someone who absolutely is a valuable resource of information and in

terms of the president someday sitting there with robert mueller, there are a lot of people sitting around him, his informal kitchen cabinet, when he retreats to the white house and calls around, almost to a person no one thinks that's a good idea. >> i have one more word. gene says you shouldn't fight the fbi and that's probably true. look, he fired comey, what, seven months ago? it didn't work out great for him. it got mueller appointed but in terms of public support, trump's about where he was seven months ago. support among house republicans probably stronger. so we keep saying he'll pay a price, he can't do this, he can't do that. he's done pretty well so far with a very weak hand. the weak hand being the facts, not that he's not the smartest, but with a very weak hand he's fighting back and i worry he can keep on doing it for quite a while. >> let me ask you a question about paul ryan. obviously a guy we've known for a very long time, guy we've both

respected for a long time. i want to read what the "washington post" said, mr. ryan bears full responsibility for the deterioration of congressional oversight and intelligence operations, it's sad to see mr. ryan allow the reputation of the house to be tarnished this way. give me your thoughts on paul ryan this week basically allowing devin nunes and donald trump to conspire to send out misleading information that would damage the fbi and bob mueller's investigation. >> i'm very depressed about paul ryan's behavior. i think in the collapse of the republican party under the administration of donald trump, the accommodation of trump, the rationalization of trump, the defense of indefensible things. i was talking to senator blumenthal, i guess it was off the record but i think he made a point that senate republicans are -- if you think about it,

the democrats are here, they don't like trump and they -- well, not just don't like, they want the investigation to go forward and to protect it, house republicans are here, they're defending trump, where's senate republicans? they've been quieter. a couple have indicated reserve. there are people in the senate republican caucus who are former judges, former a.g.s, they could end up being the key swing constituency among the people in congress, some of the leaders of the senate republicans or respected, people like lamar alexander or john cornyn, former judge and a.g. who's been strong, he's from texas, pretty strong defender of trump so i've given up on the house republicans. i would say a year and a half a ago, a couple years ago i felt this is great, generational turnover, one of the most impressive younger republicans, speaker of the house, it hasn't worked out the way i hoped. >> it's shocking. just shocking. >> he was making the case yesterday for the release of the

home mo memo. bill kristol, thank you very much. you have thoughts about the future of the republican party under president trump on nbcnews.com's think page. gene robinson, stay with us if you can. president trump has had plenty to say about the nfl, but does his real issue from the league stem from a decades-old personal grudge? we'll explain that story next. when this bell rings... ...it starts a chain reaction... ...that's heard throughout the connected business world. at&t network security helps protect business, from the largest financial markets to the smallest transactions, by sensing cyber-attacks in near real time and automatically deploying countermeasures. keeping the world of business connected and protected.

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welcome back to "morning joe." joining us now, former new york city police commissioner bill bratton, he is nbc news senior law enforcement analyst and he's just back from the site of the super bowl in minneapolis where he's consulting with the city on security ahead of the game. commissioner, good to see you, sir. >> good to be here. >> you have your patriots hat with you. you've already taken sides in this. >> mike and i are a little biased. we're inoculated at birth for boston teams. >> jonathan, too. >> we have three pats fans. >> who would have thought a boston guy would be such an amazing police commissioner this city. new york loves bill bratton. >> absolutely. >> can you talk about the unique challenges presented by a super bowl, a massive event, the stadium is full, the world is watching, that i say about a million people are in the city just to experience it, eagles fan, vikings fans are hanging

around. >> a few vikings fans, a lot more pats fans. >> how do you secure an event like that? >> several years ago, actually. two years ago they started planning for this and there's three major elements to it, there's communications, the ability for all of them to communicate. a million people will be operating their cell phone. there's the need for crowd management, crowd control and then thirdly there is the transportation issue, moving people around and there's a fourth which is keeping people safe, whether it's concerns for terrorism which fortunately that has not been a major issue. on the communications side, verizon, which is the principal provider out there, has ensured that a million people will be able to snap their photos and do their twitter and that all the communications that are so essential. the minneapolis police department will work with police agencies. national guard are everywhere out there for crowd management flow.

the transportation system -- and that's something i talk to them specifically about -- you remember at the super bowl in '14 that i was in charge of in new york, at the stadium in new jersey at the end of the game everybody rushed to get on those trains, they had three and four-hour delays so we talked about that issue at minneapolis, the surge at the end of the game for everybody trying to get out of there. lastly, terrorism, no specific threats identified at this time and that's good news going into the game. they'll have a great time. it will be cold. 20 degree below zero windchill factor so they're setting up warming stations and buses to get people very quickly if they get too cold in those lines. >> so 60 different agencies involved in this, federal, state, local, intelligence gathering, intelligence operatives. is there a central chain of command? how does that work? >> it's very interesting. on game day the former chief from washington, kathy len yeins

running the security show. nbc is running a large continge people. effectively for broadcasting of the game, and, again, on the communications side, the fact that everybody can talk with everybody and the communications component, one of these since i was out there to provide and ensure that all the extra resources had been put in there that all those cell phones don't crash in the middle of the game. the coordination between 60 police agencies. in new york i could do it all with nypd, new jersey state police. out there they're bringing them in from all over the state. great chief of police out there. very impressed with him. he's got his act together. it's going be a great day. >>. >> president trump has been a consistent critic of the nfl. everything from protest to ratings. >> used to see these tackles and

it was incredible to watch. now that tackle, head on head collision. the whole game is all screwed up. you say wow, what a tackle. bing. flag. football has become soft. football has become soft like our country has become soft. it's true. although i love tom brady, i got to tell you, i do love tom. he's a great guy. i don't know if you know the nfl is way down in their ratings. number one is this politics finding a much rougher game than football. the other reason is kaepernick. kaepernick. >> joins u s us now from minneapolis, sweeping new piece he's been working on for months on the future of the league after tumultuous season. mark, good morning, always good to see you. talk a little bit about president trump's history with the nfl going way back to the

early 80s when he so badly wanted to be an owner. joined the usfl. splinter league around for a while. what's the history of donald trump in the nfl. >> it is long and fraught and like much with donald trump's history, it's filled with donald trump's feeling slighted and feeling like his nose is pressed against the glass. of course the white house is the ultimate prize. most recently tried to buy the bills in 2014 and was thwarted there. he's on a long list of personal grievances with him. politics of nfl have conformed perfectly to what trump has trie tried to do in political career, collision of reality tv. nfl was the best reality tv show

going until donald trump came around and then donald trump has sort of wanted in and sort of turned the critique he was running for president on against the nfl and created great sort of fallout for the league and created and really contributed to certainly to what we've seen this season. >> first of all, a lot of people don't remember trump single handedly destroyed the usfl. another one of the things he touches that turns to dirt. the nfl does have problems outside of donald trump. a lot of the players day after day there's another war. there is the concussion issue where a lot of young kids are no longer playing. spectator notion of it. if you get hired as a consultant, what would you say? the sport is in trouble. >> i would say how much are you going to pay me? first question. was there something else. no i i mean look. the first thing is youth participation. there's a new nbc poll i just

saw as i woke up today. almost half of all parents wouldn't want their kids to play football. what's interesting is the culture war critique against the nfl has always come from the left. traditionally come from the left. liberals, a lot of liberals have distrusted the league as overly militaristic. over the top patriotism. top down and highly republican in the ownership largely. and recently trump as you saw in his comments sort of turned it into a proxy for political correctness. for a country gone soft. in a way, that's very much ant thet c ant to the trends in the league. you have all player talking about how tired their health is. post death diagnosis of a player. players quitting the league. parents saying they're not going to let their kids play. and that's just contributed to

the that is correct that over the last couple of years, ratings juggernaut that the nfl has been, has diminished pretty significantly. it certainly doesn't help when you have the president of the united states continuing to use your leave as a whipping way. it's just very unusual for a president to go after a u.s. business like this, but even if you skim off a few percentage points, it's going to cut into the bottom line. that's what we're seeing here. mark at the super bowl. mark, good to talk to you. >> commissioner, before we let you go, ask you what's happening in new york city right now. last year murder rates not seen since the 1950s. rates of violent crime at historic lows. what has happened here in new york city other cities can learn from. >> it's the continuation of the evolution in policing. smart policing. precision policing. the ability to really focus on

who is committing the serious crime. crime continued to go down. policing has gotten smarter. hasn't gotten softer. much more effective. you're not going to see crime go up in new york city dramatically. might spike here or there. new york now knows how to do it. good news. national come on in. talk to the chief in minneapolis. he's going to bring his staff into new york. he's been having crime issues out there. good news if you can make it in new york, you can make it anywhere. we're certainly making it with crime reduction. >> what you've done in new york city and commissioner o'neill. >> 35,000 cops. my predecessor kelly. this has gone on for 27 straight years. >> former new york city police

commissioner bill bratten, always good to see you. thank you so much. >> philadelphia eagles and the new england patriots kicks off at 6:30 p.m. eastern time. watch it here on nbc. i'm sure the pregame show starts at like 4:00 a.m. coming up next, number of republicans clambering to release the classified nunes memo. not everyone is on board. some worried the memo may not be the slam dunk it's been hyped to be. watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

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ever seen republican party so united, so much in light with each other. literally the word united was the word he has used. most united he has ever seen the party and i see it too.

>> president trump has the backing of roughly 33% of americans, but suggests he's got 100 percent support in the republican party. democrats likely will be repeating in the lineup leadup to the midterms today. set to go public with a classified memo over the objections of the fbi. welcome to "morning joe." tuesday february 2. with us this morning. veteran columnist. and former assistant director of counter intelligence at the fbi, and nbc news national security contributor, frank. mika will be back with us on monday. joe, good morning. today could be the day that the memo is released. today could be the day the public sees the memo. not sure if that's the case yet. what we do know is the justice department has called it extraordinarily reckless to

release the memo. we know the fbi said it has grave concerns about the content of that memo being made public from the context. what you do think? what is going to happen today. >> i'm sure the president is going to release a memo. he said he would. and he was saying he was going to do it before he read the memo. acting just like the republicans on the committee. we must release this memo. must release. they hadn't read the memo. it's pretty staggering. so willie. you're talking about how right now the president only has a about a third of the country behind him. the republicans are having one chairman after another. one member in a swing district after another. deciding to drop out of congress. i'm curious. are these guys thinking about what the american people are going to think. there's a lot of things to guide us. when you have the fbi and donald

trump's own justice department saying it's extraordinarily reckless to release this memo, well, that's just a political killer right there. i don't care how conservative your district is, you're going get hammered in the final 30 days of your campaign and it's going to make your bleed politically. you add on top of that, willie, that this is obviously a half baked falls misleading memo according to donald trump's own justice department. it's packed with innuendos. it's packed with half truths and it turns out to be a full lie. there's going be a rebuttal to this. this is what we accused of newt gingrich doing. always having opening volley never expecting the other side to hit back. when they do you sit there staring. that's going to happen here too. proven to be a misleading pack of lies. get a big headline and then they're going to deal with the cleanup between now and election day. i must say i just don't get it.

politically it seems like one of the stupidest things willie they could do. >> i think in the case of president trump he's not thinking about politics or even the american people. he's thinking about his own hyde and he thinking if this could suggest the investigation into potential ties with the russian government during the campaign is flawed or corrupted or biassed, he'll take it as he said at the end of the state of the union, 100% i'm going to release the memo. senior white house official told nbc news yesterday i doubt there will be any redactions of the memo. republicans say the memo showed fbi relied on opposition research dossier funded by the democrats to get fisa surveillance of former trump adviser carter page who the campaign ultimately embraced then distanced ivana tru ed its distorted classified materials to undermine the probe into the 2016 election. three options to getting the memo out. declassify and release it. second to declassify and send to

house for release and third is to not declassify, but to tell the house he won't object if they do. while the security review of the memo is only a few days old, new reporting s insays president tr been fighting to make it public for three weeks. he and congressman jim jordan brought it to trump's attention on january 18 during a call about the government shutdown. presidential adviser tells the post, quote, there was never any hesitation. the president was resolved on this. he was not going to be persuaded. he wanted it out. in the report siting people familiar with the discussion told aides and confidants he believes the claim would indicate the claim last year the investigation overseen by mueller was a witch hunt. thought it would help build a public argument against the handling of the case and suggested the memo might give him the justification to fire rosenstein or to make other

changes at the justice department, which he had complained was not sufficiently loyal to him. so take all that. he sort of made up his mind. which of those scenarios do you see most likely. declassified immediately. pushed to the house for a decision on it? released with redactions? what do you think is going to happen here. >> just knowing trump and actions over the last year, i'll say he'll push it to the house. always trying to be in control and distance himself from things. he's a good player nor that sense, but also when it goes to the house, also gets shared blame across all the congressman. they can all say it was the republicans that did this. it was nunes that had to come out. what ultimately will happen is it's this hashtag hysteria that we see on the republican side. it's classic through information

enighlation. there has to be more sources of reasons for going up on the fisa collection than that single source. trying to discredit the entire investigation through the dossier which oh by the way when we've gone through the dossier seems to really play out and from a credible source steel who contributed to the fifa investigation. so ultimately the outcome won't be transparency. it will be some his terkysteria you don't know what's true. can't make sense of it. this doesn't even speak to the damages done to our investigation. >> not specific, but still accomplishes goal of muddying the water. of this investigation. joe, also reporting from axios in the "washington post" of concern within the trump administration. the memo may not be as compelling as some people made it out to be. congressman like lee zeldin. >> it's going to be showing misconduct on the part of top people at the doj and fbi. you're going to see a need for change to certain practices up

there. there's going be a need for change of certain personnel towards the top. i'm sure. >> i wonder if he's even red it before. this may muddy the waerter a little bit. if you're running a campaign and running against someone who has been a law and order person. what i would do, as an advertising, i would say here is somebody that was told a doctored memo released was extraordinarily reckless by the fbi and by donald trump's own justice department, but they did it politically. they care more about being subservient to donald trump than they care about the national security of the united states of america. they don't believe me. believe the federal bureau of investigations director that donald trump picked and congress

approv approved. you kind of laid it out. i would tomorrow find guys as credible as clint. guys not in the fbi anymore or the doj. guys who devoted their life to this country. ten men and women standing forward and go look, we have given our lives for this country. our president does anything to make us less safe. going forward are you going back on the people who make us safe. the men and women who have lost their lives and dedicated their lives or a reality tv guy. that's the choice you put in front of the people. he's been in since 2013. this is all about let's whack rod rosenstein. donald trump knows the noose is

tightening. can't directly go after mueller. only one between him and mueller is rosenstein. this is what this is about. donald trump lives in his own universe and does not understand to your earlier point that the american people are not stupid and can see through this. i do think this is one more instance also where if i'm a president, the last people the last people i want to set up a literal war with is the justice and intelligence community. this is declaration of war. >> mike, this also is a moment in time where i think most people have stopped faring donald trump. they understand what donald trump is. stop being shocked by donald trump, i guess i should say. and instead fear that the republican congress is so compliant that they will allow misleading information out in a recklessly dangerous document according to trump's fbi and

trump's department of justice and pin all of this on carter page. like that somehow americans are going to be shocked that there was an extension of investigation into carter page when even the russians had some choice words to say about page. this is again mike, i'm just flabbergasted that the republicans would be as clueless as they are in their mad pure suit to enable donald trump to do the stupidest most destructive things. >> joe, it's part of a pattern. held to and clung to for many months. the idea they're more lisle to political party than to the constitution of the united states and the nation's security interest is astounding. it is well past the time that we speak fact about paul ryan speaker of the house.

his legacy, his career. his reputation. it was once a year, year and a half ago. two years ago. that is over. that is over. he is married. >> one of the things about this story that stands out to a lot of people is the rhetoric surrounding the release of this memo. from the chairman of the committee, devin nunes. if you track the record, match it to the definition of obstruction of justice, which includes intent, wouldn't you be sort of on the right track to get to devin nunes wondering about is he now obstructing justice. >> the transcript of the testimony that was released by congressman shift. did anyone talk to the white house about crafting this memo. any conspiracy there.

any give and take on the release of the memo and there was essentially a nonresponse. he wouldn't take fut questiorth questions on this. if you look at the possibility in conspiracy with the white house on crafting the content or the timing of the release or nature of the release, indeed you are meeting the intent element of the statute for obstruction of justice. i also think we should be really tuned in on what happens today if it's released with regard to the director of the fbi. is chris ray, now being put between a rock and hard place, it's kind of like dishonestly asking somebody when did you stop beating your wife. the mere fact you have to rebut that and come out and repeat the allegation is damaging and you're repeating things you don't want out in public. will chris ray come out today if it's released and line by line start rebutting in which case we have an allout face off between the white house and fbi or will he quietly accept what it is and behind the scenes start working

to poke holes in it. thirdly, are we going to see the democrats release their version that they've not be allowed to release that interprets the memo quite differently. things to watch today. still ahead, president trump was reportedly ready to release the classified memo before he had read it. several senate republicans not quite as eager. what they're saying about it next on morning joe. ♪ one is the only number ♪ that you'll ever need ♪ staying ahead isn't about waiting for a chance. it's about the one bold choice you make, that moves you forward. ( ♪ ) the one and only cadillac escalade. come in now for this exceptional offer on the cadillac escalade. get this low-mileage lease on this 2018 cadillac escalade from around $879 per month. visit your local cadillac dealer. from around $879 per month. at bp, everyone on an offshore rig depends on one another. that's why entire teams train together in simulators, to know exactly what to do before they have to do it.

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really? and these kids, and these guys, him, ah. oh hello. that lady, these houses! yes, yes and yes. and don't forget about them. uh huh, sure. still yes! xfinity delivers gig speed to more homes than anyone. now you can get it, too. welcome to the party. welcome back to morning joe. president trump says the gop has never been more united. several expressing caution over the planned release of a memo. senator john thune of south dakota said the memo should be shared with richard burr before it's released. burr has been blocked from reading it. joint letter from chris coons, jeff flake risked gathering efforts. last night senator lindsey

graham said it's not goose for partisan. it's a sincere question. why won't they show it to the republican head, the chairman of the senate intel committee. >> because you have to fear they would also have backlash from the senate intel committee which could turn around and say we agree with the fbi. that this could undermine intelligence gathering efforts and it's not fully accurate. we don't want it out either. i mean, we still have an element of bipartisanship in the senate. as you see from chris coons and flake working on that. possible they don't want to risk that. i was going pick up on something clint was saying. for the vast majority of americans this is far too complicated. if you're opposed to the president. you'll carry on being opposed to the president. if you support the president, you'll carry on supporting the president. the downside of releasing the memo is there is a chance it chips away at broader trust in

fbi agents working around the country. if there is any minimal chance of that. >> to that point, the idea that we will read it is one thing. the idea that people in the intel gathering business in russia or syria or israel read it. they know what they're doing. they look at it and sources. >> you're revealing sources. your counterterrorism operations. even worse to that, if you're an fbi agent or any special agent investigating anything across the government and you're going for a title three application to do a wiretap in a criminal case or going for a fisa application for a national security case, you're going to say how in four years might some congressman go pick out what i just put in this application, spin it against me,

and do a personal attack against me and my agency. to put this out there like that is hampering investigations. >> to put this in context, you have all these republicans now ignoring warnings from the fbi and ignoring warnings from donald trump's own justice department. may reveal methods and may do things that hurt us.

it's a reckless use of classified information. the irony that these same republicans crowed about hillary clinton's home server and she mishandled classified information or even mishandled the flow of information, and the fact that they would hide behind a guy. devin nunes said of the unmasking, quote, scandal. we were told that was a scandal too. oh, devin nunes, he just made the whole thing up. it's just like they're harry potter secret society. the whole thing was made up. the question is, how stupid will these republicans be? how low will they go? and who will they drag down with them. right now, they're dragging down the fbi and the justice department with them. coming up on morning joe.

>> can you say again the president did not play a role in mccabe stepping down. >> i didn't say the president wasn't part of this decision-making process and we would refer you to the fbi, where christopher ray serves as the director. >> the white house says the president did not play a role in pushing out andrew mccabe. the president's son, however, credits his father for firing him. joining us next on morning joe. ♪ ♪ ♪

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so you don't hit them when you dig. call 811 before you dig, and make sure that you and your neighbors are safe. coming up on morning joe. pearce morgan sat down with the president for wide ranging interview. size up the president's first year in office straight ahead. first, bill karins has a look at the weekend forecast. let's just go to the groundhog and see what's left of winter. will he see his shadow or not? if he sees his shadow, that means six more weeks of winter. when he came out, despite cloudy skies and snow flurries. he says he saw his shadow. phil says six more weeks of winter. not the only guy out there. leigh in the south said it's also going be six more weeks of winter. the only one disagreeing with these two rodents, staten island

chuck, came out and said four more weeks of winter. farmers almanac says long winter also. let's go back to science. storm exits the east coast. little bit of snow last night. new england is slick. frigid from minneapolis all the way to the south. so far today pretty quiet. very cold in areas of the great lakes all it will way through the northeast. as we go into saturday and actually kind of warm it up a little bit. super bowl festivities add one to two inches of snow? minneapol minneapolis. very warm in areas of the west 6789 not bad in texas at all. sunday storm coming up the east coast. mostly rain in all the big city. interior sections of elevation of the appalachians, all the way through the mountains of northern new england. get snow out of this. especially sunday night. keep in mind for any super bowl travel plans. overall looks like a decedent weekend for most people. football game is indoors. no problems with that. it will be frigid in the

northern plains. washington, d.c. cold weekend for you. turning into a decedent saturday. so a few years ago, me and my wife were actually saving for a house. but one day we were sitting there and we decided that, you know what? something needed to be done about what was going on in our inner-city. instead of buying a house, we decided to form this youth league. what is he doing wrong? he should shed the block. exactly. it's volunteer, we don't get a paycheck. it's one hundred percent from the heart. football shaped my life and i'm praying that it will shape these kids' lives as well.

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and 26 essential vitamins and minerals, including calcium and vitamin d. boost high protein be up for it democracy. the threat from russia to our democracy is now far less than the threat from within. and tragically that is i think so plainly the case. there is nothing russia can do to us that rivals what we are doing to ourselves. mike barnicle. bbc. and ap jonathan la mere joining us as well attorney general distinguished scholar in residence at nyu law school and staff writer for the atlantic covering national security and intelligence committee.

latest piece is on the man behind the nunes memo. sheds light on the staffers who helped the congressman write the memo. good morning to you both. good to have you here. let's start with your report. who put this together, the memo. they traveled abroad, i believe, to initiate the memo. who are they. >> essentially, the one that did all of the heavy lifting was a staffer named patel. he is a nunes loyalist. he's worked with the dodj for a while. came back and started working with nunes on the intel committee. travelled to london last year without the knowledge of the british government or the u.s. embassy. on behalf of the intel committee and kind of knocked on christopher steel's lawyer's door and said we really want to talk to you. kind of came as a surprise to the lawyer who denied them access to steel because there was no kind of previous acknowledgment or decision that was going to happen.

so from the beginning there was this kind of sense that steel was the target of all of this. and, of course, steel wrote the dossier which is now at the center of this memo that nunes is pedaling. so i would say that he is definitely the one that's been doing a lot of the heavy lifting. there areso other staffers who have been helping and doj did acknowledge in a statement the staffering were the ones coordinating all of this. nunes is the one we should be focusing on because he is of course the one who is kind of the gatekeeper of all of this. >> adam ship said again, and, again, this collection of data is not based on having read the underlying intelligence. is that true? is devin nunes characterizing something he hasn't fully studied. >> i think it like releasing a book report based on a book you haven't read. only two people on the intel

committee who have read the underlying intelligence. i think it's only adam schiff who has read it. nunes himself has not read the fisa warrant itself. they don't actually know what the underlying material is, and so to release this now to the public without, you know, having -- it's essentially cherry picking the intelligence that they received most likely from the white house back in march on that excursion that nunes took there and presenting it as something that's just disingenuous. >> that's what i wanted to follow up up on the coordination of the white house. do you have any sense as to what sort of input white house staffers may have had with this particular memo. >> we don't know for sure. it's become clear the white house had some say or there was coordination between nunes the staffers and the white house. sometimes between when the memo was given to the white house and the time they voted on it because there was -- which were changes made to the memo.

so last night saying it was clear because of that there was some kind of coordination. whether or not there was coordination during the drafting of the memo itself initially before it was given to the white house, we don't know. sit important to remember this whole thing started with the white house. this whole thing started when nunes went there back in march 2017 and actually given documents. intelligence documents. you know, it all pretty much has spiralled since then. >> can we go back to the underlying fisa warrant. the conversation we're really focused on is part of tv steel dossier. this fisa application, this warrant -- and the memo may make it seem like it's all about the steel dossier. it will not have been that. when you do a fisa warrant there will have been an incredible amount of intelligence and information gathered. in a case like this, even what with we know publically reportered, tried to flip from a spy to be a russian government.

the fact he continued to do business in russia. he was there for a meeting in july of 2016. then other pieces of evidence that come from other sources, all of which every single fact will have been independently corroborated which means there's other evidence of it. the whole conversation we're having about the nunes memo is based on the steel dossier, they may be his summary of it, which interpretation of it, which is not the facts. it's one person's version of what will be a 100 page document that went through probably a dozen fbi agents, probably a dozen attorneys at the department of justice and in my view, it should have a mass character of justice they didn't ask to get a wiretap on carter page. >> that's why the fbi released the statement saying the underlying facts of this memo are just false. it's cherry picked and have grave concerns about it. the word grave is not the word the fbi uses lightly. it signifies they have serious problems with it.

>> taof course it's one threat also. that's the thing we were talking about last hour. one thread of thousands and thousands of threads. and leads that the fbi followed. as ann said so much we know about carter page. this is a guy that russians tried to recruit. he continued doing business with the russians after they tried to recruit them. the testified they have on carter page. i'm sure is such a nature that many people would have been questioning why the fbi wouldn't have continued surveillance with him with all they knew. that at the end of the day would have been the real scandal. ask you a question we were talking about last hour. what happens if donald trump fires bob mueller? what happens if he does what bob mueller probably is already prepared for? can the state of new jersey, can the state of new york, can these other states go after all of the

pins approximate principles here, especially new york state where the don junior takes place. and isn't that worst-case scenario for all the defendants because suddenly you have all the defendants going to jail for life on some of these charges possibly and the president can't pardon them. >> there are a few points. great question. first is that the president cannot fire mueller. the department of justice cannot fire mueller without good cause. i believe ultimately would be made public. they would have to have a sufficient basis that is defensible and i don't believe we've seen anything like that. as to states, former attorney general, attorneys general we believe we can do anything, but there are limits to the attorney general power. in a case like this, what you could see are independent investigations into for example financial transactions or other potential crimes that were committed, but as to this question of did the trump

campaign actively engage with russia metaling in our election, that question would really not be a state ag question. there could be other potential criminal questions that would be valid and viable for state ags to bring on. >> all right. >> coming up next, pearce morgan is one of a few. joins us next on interview. look at the january jobs report. just crossing the wires. 200,000 jobs were added. more than expected. and the unemployment rate holding at 4.1%. keep it right here on "morning joe." [ click, keyboard clacking ] [ keyboard clacking ] [ click, keyboard clacking ] ♪ good questions lead to good answers.

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given the amount of knowledge you didn't know who these people were, and they've had their account suspended by twitter, do you regret those retweets and wish with hind site you hadn't done it. >> look, it was done because i am a big believer in fighting radical islamic terror. this was a depiction of radical islamic terror. >> they were unverified videos. >> they are. i didn't do it. i didn't go out and i did a retweet. it was a big story where you are, but it was not a big story where i am. >> i get it. >> if you're telling me -- >> here's what's fair. if you're telling me horrible

racist people, i would certainly apologize if you would like me to do that. i know nothing about them. >> i don't want to have to be involved with people. i know nothing about these people. >> thank you, mr. president. >> thank you. >> that's the president of tv united states who obviously has long had an issue with apologizing. lets bring in now pearce morgan. pearce was the one who interviewed the president there. also allowed me to interview him for this is football talking about the north london darby getting to in a little bit. thank you for being here. the president has a hard time apologizing. i called him several times early in the campaign and said he should apologize about mexicans, about the campaign. finally after the third call he said joe, i just don't apologize. he didn't quite apologize with

you, but he went up to the line. what did you take of his reaction to your interview, to your pushing him? >> well, you're certainly right. he doesn't like to apologize. he doesn't like to admit mistakes or personal frailties. i felt it was a big deal over here in the country he did these retweets of a very far right fascist organization called britain first and left them up there several weeks. i can't believe in that period of time nobody told him who these people were. i wrote a column about it. telling him outrageous this was. he follows me on twitter. he must have seen tweets about that. a bit disingenuous to say i didn't know who these people were. to his credit, he did accept that he okay, if you want an apology, i'll make an apology. which i think is near as we're going to get. >> and you're right. he -- but the fact he said it wasn't a big deal over here is absolutely wrong. we were all talking about it.

when the president of the united states retweets fascist videos from an organization responsible for the assassination of the member of parliament, that is a big deal. talk about how the british are dealing with, coping with donald trump? and looking at america. >> look, he's half british. his mother was born and raised in scotland. you can see in my interview he does feel half british. i've got say at least half of britain does not like donald trump. i put that to him. he said no i've got a lot of fans in britain. i'm largely popular there. i told him not to be too hasty. very particularizing reputation here as he does in america. he wants to koom here acome hera state visit. the prime minster theresa may offered him a state visit. there's a lot of resistance. a lot of opposition here. feel very strongly he should not get there. now i've pointed out there is a

bit of sank mowny and hypocrisy here. we've given state visits in the last 15 years, to vladimir putin, bashar assad. to president xi. are we going to be sitting here as number of one ally of united states and leader of the united states. i would say not. i'm hoping common sense will come through. i all for democratic protest. i'm sure many will protest when he comes. at the same time i think we should let donald trump in the country. he's been saying in the last ten days warm and fuzzy things about the british. saying he wants a trade deal. wants to defend us. all the right things. has gone a little bit of a way to slightly calming things done. >> well, speaking of calming things down. also feature instead new episode of this is football hosted by very own joe scarborough. takes view inside the history, tradition and rivalries between the english premier league and

tomorrow's episode explores the rivalry between arsenal and tutnam football clubs. take a look. >> this is a big one. >> this is a big one. >> you get the feel between your stomach, this little sickness. >> our flight is 6:00 p.m. ten years quietly thinking to myself, i can't wait for tomorrow. >> to an outsider, passion can resemble madness. the bars of north london, the fans have reached a fever pitch. tonight, in the minds of everyone here, they have already won, but tomorrow will bear an entirely different reality.

in 12 hours, arsenal and titam will meet and feet for a rivalry that has spanned decades. >> you cannot overcome feeling of north london darby. >> it was 6:00 p.m. friday night. day after ten years ever seeing a daily paper in this country. one of the biggest selling papers. professionally it wasn't a great moment. not the worst i've had as a journalist. quietly thinking i can't wait for tomorrow. this is going be the greatest day ever. got in my seat and the party started. i still have a picture of me 15 hours after i'm scandalously fired and thrown in the street and washed and you happen ruined and here i am looking like the happiest human being you've ever seen. >> because you were. >> because we were invincible.

>> we talk to so many fans, but i loved your story about how you were in the middle of this national scandal. you were at the highest perch of british journalism. you got fired on a friday. and you just couldn't care less because arsenal was about to do the unthinkable on a sunday. talk about what football means to you and what this rivalry means to everybody. >> well, i mean, that perfectly encapsulated what i think it really means, which is it's so visceral, it's so emotional, it's so passionate. there's a particular thing about the north london derby and about the premier league here, which i think brings out real raw emotion. on that day, i had the worst professional day of my life. i'd been fired. it was the lead item in all the main news broadcasts. i knew within 12 hours, we would be going into battle in a game where, if we could avoid losing,

arsenal would become the only team in premier league history to do a whole season unbeaten. we remain the only team to have done that. so historic. i was genuinely so happy about that, i didn't even give a fig about the fact i'd just given my life to for ten years really a moment's thought. i was just deliriously happy. and that said to me actually if in the end arsenal are winning and are the premier league champions, i don't really mind what life throws at me. >> last question. >> i come from a household of arsenal fans, piers, so i feel some of what you're saying. one more question on that interview. it was the question about climate change, the one that got quite a lot of attention, where the president said it's warming, we're reaching records with the ice cap. did you come out of that with any clearer understanding of what the president believes on climate change? >> not particularly. i think it was one of the first people on television to have

asked him since he got the presidency. to hear him articulate or not articulate his view on it was interesting. i think what was probably the bigger picture here is whether donald trump understands all the complexities or not, he did leave the door very firmly open to america potentially staying in the paris accords. which if that was to happen would be far more important in the bigger scheme of things i think than whether he fully grasps all the nuances. what he really said was, as with all things that donald trump -- probably not ideologically but as a businessman. he thinks it's too punitive for america to be in the paris accords. if there's a better deal on the table, he's basically saying he might be persuaded to say in the paris accords. if america does that, most people, me included, would think that would be a hugely significant moment in the battle against climate change. >> all right. piers morgan, thanks very much. we're going to be watching

tomorrow. the new episode of "this is football" hosted by joe airs tomorrow at 2:30 p.m. eastern on nbc. "morning joe" will be back in a couple of minutes. this is the story of green mountain coffee roasters dark magic told in the time it takes to brew your cup. first, we head to vermont. and go to our coffee shop. and meet dave. hey. why is dark magic so spell-bindingly good, he asks? let me show you. let's go. so we climb. hike. see a bear. woah. reach the top. dave says dark magic is a bold blend of coffee with rich flavors of uganda, sumatra, colombia and other parts of south america. like these mountains, each amazing on their own. but together? magical. all, for a smoother tasting cup of coffee. green mountain coffee roasters packed with goodness. on the only bed that adjusts on both sides to your ideal comfort, your sleep number setting. does your bed do that? right now, save 50% on the ultimate limited edition bed. ends soon. visit sleepnumber.com fora store near you.

what can a president [ do in thirty seconds? he can fire an fbi director who won't pledge his loyalty. he can order the deportation of a million immigrant children. he can threaten an unstable dictator armed with nuclear weapons. he can go into a rage and enter the nuclear launch codes. how bad does it have to get before congress does something?

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it's simple. you can build a car, or you can build a cadillac. come in now for this exceptional offer on the cadillac ct6. get this low-mileage lease on this 2018 cadillac ct6 from around $549 per month. visit your local cadillac dealer. senate majority whip john cornyn. john, thank you, great job. house majority whip steve scalice, steve, thank you. house majority leader kevin mccarthy. kevin. chair john thune and house conference chair cathy mcmars rogers. did they forget your name, john, i don't know, what's going on here. john cornyn everybody knows. they didn't put his name up but that's okay.

senate majority whip john cornyn. john, thank you. great job. >> huh. okay, blame the speechwriters for actually not putting in something they put in, that's great. time now for final thoughts. >> i'm interested in what senator blumenthal was saying about republican colleagues. does seem in the house you're not going to get any checks and balances, but it was interesting to hear senator blumenthal say, listen, amongst his republican colleagues, there are people who have concerns about what this could do to the trust and intelligence agencies if this memo is released. the question of course is how much they're going to speak up about those concerns and whether they're actually going to do anything about them because so far we've had the odd word but not much action from senate republicans. let's see on this one whether there is any pushback and if that is why congressman nunes has not shown this memo to the

republican colleagues in the senate. >> jonathan, final thoughts. >> i mean, today is the -- the hash tag has been released, the memo. that's finally going to be coming to fruition today most likely. what happens with director wray? do we have another sternly worded statement? are there people in the white house who fear he might consider walking away from his post? although others have pushed back against that idea. it's going to be the fallout from the release that's going to be so fascinating to watch. my final, final thought is go pats. >> all right, mike barnacle, wrap it up for us. >> on behalf of my family, i hope these are not my final thoughts, i hope they're my thoughts for today, friday. >> whoa. >> what i'm hoping is this is football will be watched by me tomorrow afternoon. i will it be at the paradise saturday evening watching you play with theo epstein. i will be watching the super

bowl game on sunday hoping the patriots win. i'll be waiting for the red sox truck to leave for florida monday morning. and i can't wait for baseball to begin. in other words, anything other than donald trump. >> i was going to -- i think it's very nice for you, mike, to pretend like you care whether the patriots win or lose. if the red sox pick up somebody on a "aa" squad, you will be paying far more attention to that than another patriots victory, and who can blame you. all right, thank you all so much for watching us this week. we want to thank alex, also thank everybody that's helped put this show together for the past week. they work around the clock, through the night. and yes, we only have four of them. well, actually maybe a few more. but you guys have a great weekend. i hope everybody at home has a great weekend as well. and i hope a few of my friends

in the republican caucus find a conscience sometimes this weekend. and pushback on the president's worst excesses. let's go now to stephanie ruhle. she keeps the news going. stephanie. >> thanks so much, joe. joe scarborough, ending the show with a message of hope. good morning. i'm stephanie ruhle. with a lot to cover. starting with watching, watching and waiting. despite strong fbi objections, the president expected to approve the release of that controversial nunes memo as early as this morning. some republicans voice concerns. speaker ryan puts up a united front. >> this is about us holding the system accountable. >> is it really? and here we go again. less than a week before another possible government shutdown, the president saying democrats need to get with him on daca or get out. >> we have to get help from the other side. or we have to elect many