that's a wrap of this hour. i'm alex witt. now it's time for "am joy" with my dear friend, joy reed. >> she says russia, russia, russia, but it could be china, could be somebody else, could be somebody sitting on their bed who weighs 400 pounds. >> welcome to "am joy." that was one of donald trump's more colorful flai claims about russia's role in our election, as the issue overshadowed both his campaign and the first year of our presidency. that came crashing to a halt when special counsel robert mueller indicted 13 russian nationals and three russian entities on charges to conspiracy to defraud the united states. sploi

explosive charges are laid out in a 37-page indictment that shows how the covert operation used social media, ads to de denegrate ted cruz, marco rubio. we have dates and details offering real clear-cut proof that it's not a hoax, not fake news, despite trump's repeated claims that the story was, quote, cooked up by the dishonest media. both the white house and trump's communication departme department @realdonald trump on twitter chose not to address the massive conspiracy to defraud the american electoral system instead to say that he and the

trump campaign was cleared of all wrongdoing. the fact remains that mueller's investigation is steadily closing in on his inner circle. according to cnn, rick gates, a top trump campaign adviser is set to finalize a plea deal with mueller which would make him the fourth member of trump's team to either plead guilty or be indicted in mueller's russia probe. house intelligence committee congressman eric swalwell joins me now n light of these indictments, what do you make of the president of the united states making no mention of russian interference in his response? >> good morning, joy. do you believe it now? that's what i ask and most americans ask of the president. and if he doesn't, is he siding with russia? because that -- we saw in that indictment that we have the clearest evidence that russia meddled and the evidence is so strong that prosecutors believed they could prove it beyond a

reasonable doubt, highest standard in the law. if the president is not to act, not to enforce sanctions, if he's not to put in place a whole of government approach to prevent them from doing it again we have to ask what do they have on him that would prevent him from acting in america's best interest? >> to that question of the sanctions, because it is a pretty glaring fact that donald trump has refused to implimt the sanctions passed overwhelmingly by congress, what will congress do about that? >> it's a great question, joy. it's not one that ever really happened where congress passed sanctions the president signed into law the sanctions and the executive didn't enforce them. we really have the power of the purse. most legal experts believe that the supreme court, if it ever made it up there, if you could establish standing, could kick it back and say it's a political question or use your appropriations process. i think it's really on the leaders in congress,

particularly the republican majority, to say we're not going to fund programs important to you unless you do all it's going to take to address this russia meddling threat. >> what are the chances of paul ryan doing that? >> zero. i mean, it passes -- the past shows us what the future will look like, paul ryan has done zero. in fact, he has refused to put in place the bipartisan legislation i've written with elijah cummings to have an independent commission. a number of other pieces of legislation that would protect bob mueller. we don't expect him to do much. hold on tight. hopefully there's a democratic majority come november. >> let's bring in our panel. stay with us, congressman. former assistant watergate special prosecutor, malcolm nantz. and msnbc intel analyst and former fbi double agent. i'm going to start with you on this, jill. four trump aides that have already become indicted or

pleaded out in the mueller probe. former national security adviser michael flynn obviously pled guilty, george papadopoulos also pled guilty and paul manafort indicted and rick gates indicted. this indictment of 13 russians, donald trump claims, exonerates him. what's your response to that? >> let's look at what this indictment does not do and also point out that there was one american also indicted. it's the 13 russians but there was the one american who pled guilty and is cooperating with them. and i would also say there is someone else cooperating because the detail of the new indictment shows that. >> and you're talking about a plea deal that was reached with a california man who has agreed to cooperate with mueller. he commit ted identity fraud as the ongoing russian probe, he sold bank account numbers using the stolen identities of u.s.

citizens to people or enemies outside the united states. meaning he was selling bank accounts so that these russian operatives could obtain paypal accounts, et cetera, in order to fund their operation? >> he is cooperating. i'm also suggesting the underlying indictment also shows that there is someone else. because the kind of details that are set forth in the story that this indictment tells even donald trump had to admit sort of subtly, but he did say yesterday that the russians did this. so that's number one. but in terms of your original question, this indictment does not show anything about no collusion. that could come in the next indictment. >> and that's a very good point, actually. let's go to one, the sound bite of rod rosenstein, deputy attorney general, who actually took the step of -- considered maybe in jeopardy of his job. he actually came out and put this on his indictment by himself announcing it and speaking about it. here is the part he talks about,

the knowing participation of americans. let's listen to that. >> there is no allegation in this indictment that any american was a knowing participant in this illegal activity. there is no allegation in the indictment that the charge conduct altered the outcome of the 2016 election. >> so, jill, you're saying that that does not mean that there is no collusion? >> it doesn't. he said in this indictment, in the indictment. let's stress those two words. this indictment is the first one. >> right. >> we don't know what's coming next. this indictment is limited only to the social media problem. it doesn't even deal with the hacking of the dnc or podesta. it is only the social media and how they set out to create derogatory information about hillary and praise donald trump. they created rallies, they hired people who were not knowingly participating. they thought they were dealing with americans. they didn't know they were russians.

they had someone posing in a jail outfit who was supposed to look like hillary. they built a cage for hillary. they did a lot of things to use americans. and they didn't know they were participating. that doesn't mean there aren't others. ari melber used a great analogy. it doesn't mean when paul manafort gets indicted that michael flynn isn't going to be indicted. it's just this deals with man manafort. >> texas based grassroots organizations that suggests to these russians who, again, maybe they thought they were americans, you should be targeting these purple states and start using that kind of rhetoric. three rugs involved, the internet research agency, something called concord management and consulting and catering, which was used to launder the money and yevgeniy

prigozhin, putin's chef. how do you tie this together? is it plausible to you that these three campaign officials, one, two and three, had no idea they were dealing with a foreign intelligence service? >> it's possible. the question is whether it's plausible. yeah, it's possible, presenting on how they presented themselves, whether they presented themselves as foreigners, americans who are whether they were saying, hey, we're doing internet stuff, we're doing research. can you give us advice on that? the whole purpose of a covert operation -- these are intelligence subcontractors to the russian ssv. they were set up with this specific purpose for the management mission against the entirety of the united states. matter of fact, two people at this table, who are african-american, were victims of this internet research agency. we had mimes and tweets sent out about us. that being said, it would be

easy for them to come to the united states and to go and meet american citizens and tell them, hey, we're going to do certain things and those americans to be unwitting. if i could make one quick point about this indictment on a broad scale, this is a hard concrete wall that he has set up to say this entire operation is a foreign covet intelligence operation, which is now a criminal enterprise. anyone from this point onward who is connected in any way, shape or form to this, whether they know it or not, is now connected to a criminal enterprise. >> talk a little bit about how this works. you having dealt with the russians in this way, how do they make the approach? this appears that they just pretended to be americans. is that typical? >> yeah, i think that is typical. that's a thing -- that's a great question. the thing to go on this is the

innocuous things that come out of this indictment are important. russians traveled to the united states to, quote, collect intelligence. i want to make that very clear, joy. woo ertalking about spying. to gk b to go back to what malcolm was saying, they were collecting intelligence. i helped the russians for three years collect intelligence. i was spying for them. the other thing that jumped out here was texas. you know, i dealt with the russians. the russians rin credibly good at interrogation, manipulating and managing people, targeting people, having those conversations, figuring out a way to say clandestine and covert. they don't know how our democratic process, our election works. it leads me to believe that there's no way that the russians understood concepts without help from americans. that brings me back to texas. texas, we know there's a russian consulate there. russian consulates shall

undoubtedly have russian operatives. if you're going to look for targeting data that's going to support trump that's going to help you push these memes out, push out this social media campaign, what better place to do that? we know that mueller went there in december -- the congressman is here. if i was working for him and an analyst on his team i would say that is the place to start, the fact that there's a consulate there, the fact that they went to texas gives you great pause as perhaps that is a clear nexus to something much deeper than just 13 russians in russia. >> congressman swalwell, what are the chances that the chairman of your committee, devin nunes, will do that? two of the people targeted for disinformation were senators from texas and florida. marco rubio and ted cruz. to denigrate them and make them

unviable. any chance that nunes will investigate that? >> same chances as paul ryan doing something. it's the pun sentiment that's kept our investigation going as well as the hard work of our members and staff. to naveed's point, cambridge actually did reach out to julian assange to try to get hillary clinton's deleted e-mails. it put the timeline into much better focus. we know in april 2016 george papadopoulos goes to london and receives information from the professor and also an outreach from foreign nationals saying that the russians had dirt on hillary clinton. then the candidate in the summer of 2016 invites the russians to hack hillary clinton's e-mails. and then his family shows a willingness and eagerness to take meetings with the russians to receive the e-mails. don junior communicates with wikileaks to have information on hillary clinton.

they gave the greenest of lights for the russians to do this, showed no objection to it. i think that's what bob mueller and his team are looking at now, did this ever amount to a working relationship. >> people looking for higher-level connections to the trump campaign, let's keep in mind, rick gates, a campaign adviser, is close to a plea deal. he will be talking. mark carallo met for more than two hours with special counsel mueller's team. a lot more people are going to be talking. it's going to get interesting. thank you very much. keep us updated on whether the democratic memo will come out any time soon. >> up next, no security clearance? no problem. stay with us.

thank you all very much, appreciate it. >> mr. president, sensitive information -- mr. president do you have a vetting problem? >> just one more question trump won't answer. nbc news reported this week more than 130 -- 130 political appointees in the trump white house lacked permanent security clearances as of november. including dozens of high-level officials who report directly to the president. now chief of staff john kelly is overhauling the white house security clearance policy. if anklecy true to his word at least 50 senior staffers could soon lose access to classified

info. jill winebanks, naveed jabali how on earth could john kelly still have a job if 130 white house staffers -- he is the chief of staff. he must know they do not have security clearances and yet there is a strong possibility that some of them are handle in classified information, including the staff secretary who was to hand the daily briefing to the president. >> it's like a bad snl skit. it really is. what's happening here you get an interim clearance while your clearance is being what's known as adjudicated. your background form where you fill out all your contacts. you turn that in. it's reviewed. the adjudication wases based on the review of that form, you being interviewed, your family being interviewed.

what this means is that people are being fwiven interim clearances simply because they aren't able to pass that background check or the background check hasn't been completed. if it's the former, that is to say, they can't pass it, that's hugely disturbing. that's basically saying that someone doesn't qualify for a security clearance but we'll keep giving them an interim. that's gaming the system. that's exactly how it's not supposed to work. >> naveed, have you been through this process? >> i have been. >> if you hadn't have gotten it, could you have done your job? >> absolutely not. i'll be perfectly candid about this. when i joined the u.s. navy one of the things i had to do was come to jesus moment and decide if i was going to say on my sf 86 if i had foreign contact, which included the russians, under federal law business. that caused two years of questions because i was involved in a classified operation that couldn't be revealed. but i did the right thing. it was a huge weight on myself, on my family that had to go through this. in the end, i was honest.

>> right. >> what bothers me here is that there are people -- jared kushner has amended his form. i've lost count of how many times he has done that. that to me, and a security officer, is probably someone who shouldn't be eligible for a clearance. the fact that they're given interim clearance is gaming the system. >> look at the list of people who don't have a permanent security clearance. ivanka trump, the daughter, jared kushner, her husband. sarah huckabee sanders, white house press secretary, don mcgahn, white house counsel, and the man who sometimes tweets as trump dan scavino. >> 130? >> 130. >> that tells me they didn't go and hire anyone from the bush administration who had already been cleared. the interim security cloerns process is supposed to be interim. it's supposed to be there for 90 to 180 days at a maximum. then you get your permanent

clearan clearance. these aren't regular clearances. this is top secret, special compartmented information, plus special access program. >> right. >> two to three levels above top secret. once they got -- i understand there's like 15 to 20 people who were in a category of unclearable. i had never heard the term unclearable because those people would have been terminated or disappeared long before their clearance would have been adjudicated. there are people there who have felony convictions, as i understand it. the rest of the staff, there's something wrong. they're choosing them for loyalty. >> you mean like they beat their ex-wives? >> or something like that. even that, you get -- there's a process for that. it's when you lie about it and don't tell anybody and your ex-wife comes out. boom! every person in the government in armed forces who has that done loses their clearance that day. they get hauled into a room.

they get a full lunch-style polygraph to determine if they're a spy for another nation. why this hasn't happened -- especially jared kushner, a man who asked the russian to use their systems in their embassy in order to keep secrets away. >> is the risk blackmail? is that the risk? >> phenomenal levels of blackmail right now. right now every one of those people can be termed because they have something to hide. >> right. and jill winebanks i want you to listen to sarah huckabee sanders, who herself does not have a permanent clearance trying to excuse all of this. >> can you guarantee you are protecting classified information given that you have someone like rob porter who didn't have a security clearance -- >> we're doing every step we can to protect classified information. if you have concern with classified information plenty of it is leaked out well above the

white house walls. look around this room. you guys are the ones that publish classified information and put national security at risk. >> i'm speechless. are you? >> yes, i am. it's always diversion and blame someone else. and they are doing nothing. malcolm really set it out. this is an abysmal situation. i was general counsel of the army, i went through the process. one of the things you have to answer is, is there anything that will embarrass the administration? they're basically asking a general question. even if there isn't a specific, all of these bad things should have been revealed. he's right about the lying. kelly comes out with a memo that is saying we need to change the process. they don't need to change the process. they need to act on the information they already have. they have the facts. they just refuse to act on it. they let people keep these documents and these people can be blackmailed because they lied about things because there are things in their past that make

them subject to blackmail. that's putting at risk that someone will come to them and say give me this information and -- otherwise i will tell on you. i feel like i'm watching an episode of "the americans." >> yeah. >> where they are integrated into society and these could be all russian spies for all we know. >> this is insane. >> let me make a quick comment right here. right now there are about 1,000 intelligence watch officers watching this program. if any one of these individuals were to walk into their spaces, they would immediately turn on a red strobe light, they would cover up everything that's classified and they would start shouting "uncleared in the room." that is exactly what's going on. these people are designated by the president to be cleared and i think the chief of staff should at least be honest with everybody and say these 130 people who have not been cleared by the fbi are cleared by the president and he's going to take responsibility. >> and he should take responsibility.

donald trump isn't known for doing that. we won't hold our breath on that. jill winebanks, naveed jamali, thank you. oscar mayer deli fresh ham has no added nitrates, nitrites or artificial preservatives. now deli fresh flavor is for everyone. like those who like... sweet. those who prefer heat. and those who just love meat. oscar mayer deli fresh. a fresh way to deli.

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> mr. president, did you meet with any victims? >> they've done an incredible job. the doctor was amazing. incredible recovery. incredible. and first responders, everybody. the job they've done is incredible and i want to congratulate them. incredible job. >> this week, after 17 children and teachers were shot dead in their florida high school by 19-year-old gunman armed with an ar-15, donald trump offered his prayers and condolences, and his congratulations to first responders while survivors and parents of the victims offered this. >> here we are, and we're like the latest statistic on, you know -- on school violence. as a society, you know, as americans, we're failing our children.

we're not keeping them safe. >> i don't want something like this ever to happen again. i want to take action. i don't want this to be another mass shooting. i want this to be the last mass shooting. >> it starts with the politicians, the nra. >> we don't need ideas. we need action. >> president trump, you say what can you do? you can stop the guns from getting into these children's hands. put metal detectors at every entrance to the schools. what can you do? you can do a lot! this is not fair to our families, that our children go to school and have to get killed!

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i got a phone call, informing me that there had been a shooting in the ft. lauderdale airport and my friend suggested that that could cause the legislation that's up this year not to pass and, of course, my comment is to the contrary. that shooting makes the point it's yet another gun-free zone where honest, innocent people died because they had no way to protect themselves from a deranged shooter. >> meet marian hammer, former president of the nra from 1995

to 1998, the first woman ever to assume the role. she's credited with creating the any eagle gun safe program for kids in 1988. as the nra's uber lobbyist in florida, she is so powerful some call her the real governor of the state. indeed her efforts have helped turn my former home, the sunshine state, in the gunshine state. she is architect of stand your ground, which has spread to many states and got national attention after the murder of trayvon martin. advocating for guns to be carried on college campuses and in airports and in churches. joining me now is lucy mcbath, every town for gun safety and the mother of jordan davis, shot and killed in florida in 2012. he would have turned 23 yesterday. host of the podcast "strange days," mayor of tallahassee, andrew gillam, running for governor in florida, and adine

smith. thank you all for coming here. lucy, i first want to offer, once again, the condolences on the loss of your son. >> thank you. >> you've had to live this debate on gun violence personally. >> yes. >> this ideas from people like marian hammer that the idea is more guns, how do you answer her? >> i refute that with every fiber of my being, joy. in light of everything that has happened with parkland, florida, and in light of everything, these horrific incidents. tragedy once again, i want you to know, i want the national public to know that the florida legislators, they brought before committee yesterday guns on campus as if we've not had enough bloodshed, as if we've not had enough children that have died because of these heinous laws that they're putting in place and thank god that there was a public outcry

by moms demand action, who delivered 2500 calls to the florida legislators at that state capital to stamp out them even having this on their committee agenda. and if they intend on doing this very thing again, there will be even more public outcry. how dare they. enough is enough. there are enough statistics out there to refute their claims that more guns in more places, guns on campus makes us safer. that's absolutely not the truth. >> you know, mayor gillam, marian hammer, a lot of people don't know her nationally. she started out as this person who creates eddie eagle, saying don't touch a gun if you see it. she has morphed into the ultimate extremist on the issue of guns. she wants them everywhere. an interview she did with npr in 2012 and she was -- the setup was last year hammer did battle with the american academy of

pediatrics, successfully lobbied the florida legislature to stop pediatricians from asking young patients about guns in the home. it's a civil right and we should not be discriminated against with because we choose to exercise that right any more than you should be discriminated against because of your sex, your race or political orientation. stricter gun laws like banning cop killer bullets to pay their own way to tallahassee, to come on their day off and to wear street clothes. how can florida legislators stand up to somebody that powerful and that extreme? and why haven't more? >> well, i'll tell you, i am well aware and familiar with the bullying tact iks of marian hammer. she tried to take me to task. thanks to her, they preempt

governments on creating common sense gun laws. we had an ordinance that simply said you can't shoot guns in city parks, in parks where our kids play and our families picnic and similar kind of penalties she advocated on other issues applied to us. i had to be personally represented by a personal lawyer. i had to be responsible for reimbursing the attorney fees of the opposing party up to $100,000 and i was subject to removal from office at the discretion of the governor of the state of florida. these are the kinds of extreme kinds of policies that she and the nra and others have been able to push through the florida legislature. i have to say this, joy i thought sandy hook would be the moment where we would whack up, where we saw those little baby bodies being carried out of that school campus, that our conscience would be pricked, our hearts would be pricked to take action. it didn't happen. stoneman douglas school, the most salient voices have been

the students themselves who simply said keep us safe. do the one thing we expect our leaders to do, keep us safe when we're on our campuses on high school and moving throughout our communities and we have failed to do that. as a dad to three kids -- whether you're on the left or right side, any parent wants to do everything they can to keep their kid safe. let's not let this moment pass us by. let's tend to the obligations we have as public servants and elected officials to help create policy that keeps our communities, our students, our babies, our kids safe. >> you and i both lived in south florida. you still live there. i lived there four years. we live parkland well and marian hammer very well, what she does in that state and what she pushes. let's look at the money that the nra showers particularly on republican candidates. there's a map of which states had candidates that received large money from nra pacs. the bigger the circle, the more

money went there. florida, big old red dot at number three. is it the money that is keeping florida essentially hostage to the nra? >> absolutely, joy. the nra feels like they can run roughshod here in florida. they have a playbook. they use it every single time one of these mass shootings happen in florida, pulse nightclub shooting in 2016 or this week the parkland shooting. their playbook is to smile, walk down into their basement and pull out their gimps. florida governor rick scott and u.s. senator marco rubio, and then they do their song and dance about thoughts and prayers and it's too soon. right now fundamentally this is ultimately a political issue. the only way in measurinamerica florida we are going to end these mass shootings and stop these bullets from flying is to use our ballots and vote out every single one of these nra bought and paid for republican cowards whose answer to dead

american children every single time is thoughts and prayers instead of the legislative action that is needed, joy, to stop and remedy this issue. until we, the people, take responsibility for this, this will not change. the nra is going to do it over and over and over again. >> to that very point, nadine, second amendment voters are single-issue voters and they know they can mobilizef them if there's any hint of a gun reform. you were part of an effort to organize single-issue voters in the other direction, nonramoney.org. what is that pac about? what is that group aiming to do? >> very simply we are aiming to break the stranglehold that the nra has on blocking rational gun policy. we know what to do to stop these mass shootings. we know what to do because we've done it before in this country. we banned assault weapons.

the things that marian hammer said lead us inevitably to a road where kids go to school in armored trucks with rifle towers at every school. that is not the path that americans want and the students, survivors of the parkland shooting are saying it in the most compelling way. politicians have abandoned us and we demand better. and we have failed young people by letting the nra dictate policy all across this country and block the things that we know work to save lives. so, no nra money is two things. it is a pledge by candidates that they will not accept nra money or support and it is a pledge by voters that we will vote against any candidate who takes even a penny from the nra. we believe that -- we've got to draw that line very, very clearly. >> and i think that is the point. the nra has not been made toxic. i seem to remember republicans driving acorn, a largely florida

based organization, out of existence for registering people of color to vote. the nra freely is buying and owning politicians and, lucy, just -- i want to a map of where you look at gun-owning households. this is the gun-owning households map. we'll put it up to show you how many states voted in 2016, if you look at the voters. those are the gun-owning households. now if you look at the states, nongun-owning households. the reality is it is a political issue, lucy. gun owners are single-issue voters. are there enough people like you who say we need reform who are willing to vote that way? >> absolutely, joy. there are candidates that i'm meeting all over the country that people commendate citizens that say enough is enough. they're not concerned about our public safety.

i meet people like this every single day across the country. moms demand action, we've created an entire campaign that helps support and begin to train these people that want to stand up and do more about their public safety. it's imperative that we do so. it's imperative that everyone understand that you can do something. you can be involved in the process. we have to act. prayers and thoughts are not enough. >> and, andrew gillum, rick scott, the current governor of the state, is saying he has decided the enemy is the fbi. he wants to see the director of the fbi, mr. wray, step down. what is your answer to that? >> first of all if there were mishandlings of the fbi we ought to investigate it and those folks should be held accountable. let's be very clear. in spite of them looking into this particular individual and the state of florida, he still would have been able to acquire the weapon he acquired. he still would have been, at the age of 17, as a teenager, been

able to get access at an ar-15, shooting off 35 rounds in 60 seconds. his mental health capacity still would not have prevented him from being able to do what he has to do. the fbi has to be held accountable. we have to not move the buck, make sure that the republican governor and legislature are held fully accountable for the changes they have the power to implement. don't kick the can down the road or divert the attention away from the fbi. they will be dealt with. i want to hear from the governor and the legislature what they will do to keep our kids safe. that's their job. >> donald trump rescinded the directive order that made it harder for people with mental illness to buy guns. ferdinand, people stopping these mass murders to throw some of these republicans out of office who are in hock to the nra?

>> over 90% of floridians are in favor of the common sense background checks they're asking for in gun reform. the answer is yes. >> and nadine, is your campaign florida base or are you trying to take this national? >> this is national. it's a grassroots effort that came together online from parents, in particular, who said we've got to draw this line in the sand. so far, we're hearing from candidates all across the country. not just in progressive areas, but in deep red pennsylvania, a retired police sergeant, army vet who is running for the assembly was the first to sign on. we think this is the moment the tide changes. >> absolutely. no nra money.org. feel free to check that out. lucy mcbath, fernand armani, mayor gillum, nadine, thank you

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. . . about 12 years ago as a young receptionist in trump tower i-was forcibly kissed by mr. trump during our first introduction. i want to believe as americans,

we can put aside our political inclinations and admit that some things do transcend politics. we will hold mr. trump to the same standard at harvey weinstein and the other women that were held accountable for their reprehensible behavior. rachel cooks is one of more than a dozen women that have accused donald trump of sexual misconduct and one of a number that are turning into political action. she announced she is running for a democrat for a seat in the ohio state house. thank you so much for being here. >> did you have an interest in participating in politics before the whole me too movement happened? >> hi, joy. thank you for having me. to answer your question, yes and no. i have always been interested in politics. i can remember my first poly sci class in college. i was interested in government

work but sort of saw myself in maybe more diplomacy or educational affairs. over the past year and a half, i have been in the national spotlight a little more than i was used to. i think people saw me as a voice of squun womeone who is standin for what is right and not backing down to powerful men. they sort of encouraged me to consider this. i think a lot of women have also felt encouraged by the movement, the me too movement. i wanted to take part as well. >> i'm going to come to the specifics of the district you are running in in a minute. i would be remiss if i didn't ask you. you have donald trump, who has been accused by at least 18 women of unwanted sexual advances or sexual misconduct. he is still there. he hasn't faced any consequences. women like you have not gotten any adjudication or justice for your claims. this is what donald trump had to say about another issue. this was not sexual assault but, rather, domestic abuse, by one

of the members of his staff, rob porter. he tweeted people's lives are being shattered and destroyed by mere allegations. some are true and some are false. some are old and some are new. there is no recovery for someone falsely accused. is there no such thing as due process. >> what does it mean for women in america to have such a president? >> i think we see women recoiling against him. it is clear he has no respect for women. i can attest to that personally. his defense of roy moore, his defense of rob porter, it is disgusting. i would love due process. that's what i called for in december. we are still waiting for that. let's get due process. >> you are running for the house district 88, won by barack obama

in 2008 and 2012, barack obama and donald trump 2016. >> i am a product of the district. i grew up in an average middle class family. i feel really strongly about my roots and the people in this district. i think people gravitated toward donald trump because he was this anti-establishment character and made a lot of promises he hasn't kept. i think people are starting to realize that and they want someone who is going to stand up to politicians and work on behalf of the people, not their donors. >> we wish you great luck, rachel crooks. thank you so much for giving us some of your time. really appreciate it. best of luck to you. >> thank you so much. >> up next, the latest story the white house wants you to ignore. stay with us.

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this is the other systemic thing revealed. she felt she was trapped into a contract that bound her to silence. >> you make it sound like the president is vulnerable to blackmail to the "national enquirer." >> we don't use the word blackmail. multiple employees use words like leverage and influence. in a new story, ronan

farrell reports on an extramarital affair against donald trump and a playboy model whose story was purchased and buried. the model spoke with farrell about the claims she had previously made in an eight-page, hand written document obtained by "the new yorker" which details her 2006 relationship with trump while he was married to current wife, melania. it provides a detailed look at about how trump and his allies used complex legal agreements and payoffs to keep multiple affairs out of the press. farrell reports that mcgoogle signed over the rights of her affair with trump to ami, the trump friendly parent company in exchange of a piayment of $150,000. story was never published. the latest ghost from trump's past returned to haunt us all

this week following on the film of the adult film actress, who goes by the name, stormy daniels, she is ready to reveal so much more than any of us wanted to know about her own alleged affair with trump. joining us now. danny savos and forbes contributing writer, anusha hussein and i am going to start with you, danny, on the leadle sort of issues here at issue. you have this woman, miss mcdougall, who says she signed away her story to the "national enquirer." they paid her to bury it. they were never going to publish it. she is paid money. you have stormy daniels, allegedly paid money to not talk about her affair with donald trump. according to the letter of the law, would these be considered bribes? >> bribes, maybe. i have defended bribery cases.

one of the key elements in any bribery case is government involvement. citizens, regular private folks, can generally bribe each other. it's a different issue if they are extorting but it is anything of value for some official conduct in return. that's the critical analysis in any bribery case. additionally interesting, we discussed whether or not it is taxable income. that's a whole other can of worms. the baseline rule in the tax code is that all income from whatever source derived is taxable, unless some other provision exempts it. you start with that presumption. the bribery case is a little more difficult to make. if there was a demand for money in exchange for not telling a story, we get into the world of blackmail, extortion and that constitutes illegal conduct. >> these women might have to pay

taxes on it. >> very quickly to go through the other issues. micha michael cohen says he paid her out of his own pocket. does that mean she can't talk about donald trump if the payment came from his lawyer. >> there are two aspects of this. if it was part of a nondisclosure agreement, it could be a binding nondisclosure agreement. tactically speaking, and i would never advocate violating contract provisions. what happens if she breaches it. you are sort of daring them to come after her and file a lawsuit. it is a gambit that might work in her favor. i wouldn't recommend break contracts as a general rule. >> what happens if he breaches it. "the daily beast" reports that michael cohen has a book about the first family, according to her lawyers he discussed her and putting her in the book means he broke the nda.

if he is talking, why can't she? >> whoever is first in time to breach is the breacher and th e thereafter, the bad guy, in terms of any contract litigation. if she is right and contract law and litigation is a very hazy thing. each side may take the position that they did not breach. if a court determines that she was right ultimately, that may be the case. the nondisclosure agreement is very clear there is no disbarragement or discussion or anything. if they are claiming they breached first, then they could potentially win if it made it to court. that's another big "if." this becomes a very big dare game. a dangerous game of legal chicken. >> why would the white house want donald trump to go to court. >> and expose themselves to civil discovery. that would be so broad you can conceal almost nothing even if it isn't directly relevant to the case at issue.

>> anusha, let me come to you on this. ronan farrell's story in "the new yorker" talked about leverage. this suggested that maxine page, who worked at a.m.i. on and off including as an executive editor said that mr. pecker, who runs a.m.i., also used the unpublished stories he paid for as leverage over some celebrities to pressure them to pose for his magazine or feed him stories, tiger woods and arnold squachwarzenegger, as potential celebrities. you would think trump has all the power in that relationship. but, in fact, pecker has the power. he has the power to run the stories and knows where the bodies are buried. have we not paid enough attention to the fact that more than one entity has the potential to blackmail this president. >> exactly. you just hit the nail on the head, joy. i think a lot of people are

getting distracted by the stormy daniels story, the porn star, the glam. the core of this story shows us that donald trump is blackmailable. if he is willing to pay $130,000 to make something go away, as the president, what else is he susceptible to? you are able to blackmail the american president. this is also just another example of how trump disrespects women. the porn star whose silence he is trying to buy and his wife. >> not to mention that. richard painter, as a former white house ethics lawyer, "usa today" and stephen spaulding and paul s. ryan of common cause on why the payment to stormy daniels matters. it is reasonable to question whether the money was tended to squash a pivotal story in a tight election. once the payment was made for

the purpose of influencing the outcome of the presidential race. there is plenty of smoke to the stormy daniels fee as iasco. explain to us why that is important for the american public to understand. >> john edwards, a senator from north carolina, was indicted and put through a felony trial because a supporter of his had paid off a mistress to keep secret the affair while he was a candidate for president of the united states. the jury ultimately was not willing to convict john edward based on those facts. the same justice department that criminally charged john edwards should be investigating what happened here. this looks like a campaign contribution. if so, if it were to be held by a court to be a campaign

contribution, there would be a felony, because it was not reported as a campaign contribution and well exceeds the amount which the lawyer could contribute to the campaign. so the justice department, unless they only prosecute democrats for this -- or i don't know what their rule is, but they need to investigate this and decide whether it should be prosecutioned as a campaign contribution or not consistent with the president they established in prosecutioning j edwards. >> he was allegedly paying money to conceal an affair with someone he had a child. the jury could construe the payments were trying to take care of her or the child. he was prosecuted and it was viewed at the time trying to bribe her for her silence. magically, it was the same publication, the "national enquirer" that published the affair. are we looking at the

politicization of this. >> that's what happens to be happening to richard painter's point. it seems to be the case. if the d.o.j. was able to move forward on the john edwards case and actually indict him. it shouldn't be about being a democrat or a republican. they should be doing the same thing with president donald trump. it seems like, as we've seen over this past year, that the d.o.j., the f.b.i., with donald trump and republicans has incredibly been politicized on every level in every issue that we have been talking about, whether it is russia or a porn star in this money that we are talking about on every level. we are seeing clearly a partisan type of play here. >> well, carin, you are an

expert on the politics. is there because there is so much information and it is so much that it has not gotten the tracks like it did with edward? >> here we are talking about a porn star that was paid $130,000 a month before the elections. after we saw the "access hollywood" tape, you would think, hey, we could put one plus one equals two. we know what's going on here. because of everything that's going on with donald trump, and how morally bankrupt he is on every issue, it is hard to focus on this but we should. there is not just this. this is a consensual affair, extramarital affair, awful. there is clearly some financial kind of issues here with how the money was given to a campaign and all that stuff. there is also the issue of the nonconsensual sex stuff, the numerous amount of women who have said that donald trump sexually assaulted them.

why is there no accountability for that? why is there know outcry on that? >> what would be then congress' role here? is this something that should be the subject of hearings or is there so much already on the plate of congress to investigate with trump that this would be one more thing that wouldn't make sense to go down? >> i think the sex stuff, that's not for congress. congress has a lot to investigate. we have the russians influence to our election. our president may be beholden to the russians. we have a lot of things to worry about in this government. with respect to this, we need to focus on the specific issues where the law may have been violated and statutes of limitations have not passed. the election and contribution of the $130,000 by trump's lawyer, not by trump but his lawyer, that fits squarely within the john edwards case. john edwards was not convicted

based on those facts. the justice department needs to pursue this. >> would this be actionable in your view, the actual payments? >> it is really interesting. we talk about the john edwards case as precedent. it is precedent for an unsuccessful prosecution. the critical difference in the john edwards case was that the mistress involved was not threatening, showed no signs of going to the media. the critical difference here is that you have people like stormy daniels who appeared to be in talks to talk to the media. that is an additional fact suggesting that the payments were a quid pro quo. this is not a bribery case. all it takes is a u.s. attorney to look at the history and think this is a more prosecutable case that could be won where the edwards case could not. >> it is fascinating.

thank you all very much. richard painter is sticking around. coming up, more on an enemy's effort to destroy our democracy. that's next.

will you once and for all say russia interfered with the

2016 election? >> it could have been a lot of people. >> donald trump's denial took yet another blow on friday when special counsel, robert mueller, charged 13 russians and three russian operated organizations with eight counts, including conspiracy to defraud the united states by engaging in a long-running around well-funded intelligence operation aimed at sowing discord on the left and ride. they are still trying to sow chaos with the express purpose of supporting donald trump. >> all these efforts are about sowing confusion and undermining the next president, not about supporting one candidate over the other. when you see these efforts by democrats that pushing this collusion conspiracy, what they are really doing is doing the dirty work for the russians for them. >> joining me now jill winebanks

and malcolm nance and richard painter is back with us. malcolm, let's talk about what the russians actually did. let's repack it. you had refre you had russians who were told during the exchange target purple states like colorado, virginia, and florida. why? >> because what they were trying to do is determine whether they can influence those states enough in order to flip votes, not by going into the machines, of course. they are hacking the mind-set of the voters there. i just want to point out this entire document spells out an old kgb methodology brought into the russian military staff and general staff known as hybrid w warfare, which has a very specific component. they used to call it reflexive control. when you take the environment your opponent is and you create the metanarrative around it, so when they enter that environment, they think all of

it is their idea. they have changed the name to perception management. if is a very old school propaganda methodology. this entire mission was a perception management th methodology. >> they were trying to get americans to be unwitting agents to change their belief system about hillary clinton in favor of bernie sanders or jill stein. >> first off, the person they want to influence the most is whoever their preferred candidate is. he is going to come into an environment in which all of these people are criticizing hillary clinton. that's your candidate. >> then, the fluid that they use to stimulate this amoeba, if we want to call it that, is the information warfare domain, which is the internet, twitter, facebook, all these false propaganda activities that they were doing. that would give them the impression that there was a ground swell of activity.

using these bots, you multiply that by an order of magnitude and all you see is their information. >> when you google hillary clinton, you get fake news sites. they were buying a lot of ads and a sample believe, april 6th, 2016. you know a great number of black people support us saying that hillary clinton is not my press. >> hillary clinton doesn't deserve the black vote. july 20, ohio wants hillary for prison. october 19, 2016, hillary is a satan and her crimes and lie vs. prov have proved how evil she is. it is interesting what they chose. they were choosing group names like secured borders. they were very much by immigration. they were choosing black lives

matter targeting black folks with names like blacktivists and mu muslim people and army of jesus included south united, the pro confederates and heart of texas. can that be done without american help to tell you this is who you should target? >> you need an incredible amount of education by living here and understanding american politics or you need american help. the thing i want to point out more about this particular indictment is the level of defail. it uses specific dates and names and it gives, as you said, the ads they took out. that raises a very high level of need to prove all of those things. it makes it really hard to prove. it means that they have proof beyond a reasonable doubt plus in order to get that. >> absolutely. richard painter, from the indictment, you have information

here that the operation did come in contact with the trump campaign. some defendants posing as u.s. persons without revealing enter russian association communicated with unwits individuals associated with the trump campaign to seek and coordinate political activities. they are interpreting that because they were saying they were unwitting. do you share that view? >> no. there is an entirely different part of the mulleller investigation, which concerns computer hacking and we already know there was collaboration. this indictment covers the social media side of what the russians were doing and here the russians were taking advantage of the obsession of both the left and the right and the united states with group identity politics, particularly on the right. you have got the gun people who are obsessed with their identity to be wrapped up in their guns, the anti-abortion people and the

people, whites, who feel threatened somehow by having minorities and immigrants in our country. so the russians were taking advantage of this group identity politics left and right with this propaganda war and apparently the trump campaign people, they contacted the 13 people indicted here, were unwitting. i think that's probably true. they were mid or low-level people who didn't know they were dealing with russians. there were others in the trump tower in 2016 who were knowingly meeting with russian agents who had the dirt on hillary. that whole part of the russian operation has nothing to do with this indictment. that has yet to come. bob mueller has yet to address that activity and finding out who broke the law and indicting the people who broke the law. >> what is fascinating here, it is not news to people who watch the show. it is interesting they had two targets, pro trump targets,

people who cared about nra, who dislike immigrants, et cetera, and people who might normally be democratic or liberal voters. >> today marks the day that the democrats russian collusion conspiracy theory unraveled. we learned that the russians were also organizing for bernie sanders. >> is that fact, which is in the document, they were also saying, no. we like bernie sanders. is that exonerating of donald trump? >> no, not at all. there are three categories of people they target when they do these information warfare operations. they target unwitting assets, people who don't know that they are being played, witting assets, people either in there pay or understand where the

pick puppet strings. there are many out there which are useful idiots, jill stein's campaign. they received warning that these people are playing you. hillary clinton could have won if jill stein was not being pushed by russia. >> we did hear she was on the list that the congress was interested in talking to. is it suspicious she was at the same meeting, the dinner, where michael flynn was paid to be at that dinner with vladmir putin at the table? >> almost everything has raised my suspicions here. yes, this certainly is a suspicious act. the fact they were helping her and sanders is because they were trying to hurt hillary. anything that would take vote as way from hillary would help donald trump. their main goal changed when he

became the candidate. originally, it was just to disrupt democracy in our election. then, it changed to helping donald trump. >> one of the things that was done was to specifically target minority voters, who are overwhelmingly democratic, not so say vote for trump but don't vote third party for people like jill stein. in and around the latter half of 2016, they began to encourage u.s. minority groups not to vote or to vote for a third-party u.s. presidential candidate, ms. stein. from the indictment, defendants and coconspirators used the instagram account to post the following message, woke blacks. it is misleading the people and forcing blacks to vote killary with a "k." we would surely be better off without voting at all. then, malcolm, you have the fact that hillary clinton did,

indeed, get a smaller share of african-american votes and of hispanic votes than president obama did. that could be failures of her campaign or that she didn't do enough outreach. she did get fewer votes. you did have more third-party voting. in a sense, would russia perceive that that part of their operation was a success? >> of course. they would consider that a success. i saw numerous activities like this. not just saying hillary clinton is bad. we saw numerous other activities where they were creating false mimes. they were recreating these to agitate whites against blacks with completely made-up organizations. the russians understand. you have to play both sides of the coin. if you own both sides of the

coin, you can do anything. >> the united states, we are the last place they did this too. >> and succeeded, which is incredible. >> jill winebanks and malcolm nance, thank you very much. up next, the republicans latest dance with charles dickens. that's next. in the modern world, it pays to switch things up. and when you switch to esurance, you can save time, worry, hassle, and yup, money. in fact, drivers who switched from geico to esurance saved hundreds. that's auto and home insurance for the modern world. esurance. an allstate company. click or call.

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now, for an update on a recent guest. remember pastor mark burns, a quick reminder of the last time he was on the show. >> i am going to give you one more chance to answer my questions. you are wasting my time. >> joy, you are wasting my time. >> then, good-bye. thank you very much. pastor mark burns. >> pastor burns later took to social media with a few choice word that i then had to respond to. >> obviously, in the interview you just saw, if you watch joy reid, she should just move to haiti. she is more concerned about

haitian immigrants than black americans here in poverty. >> sir, you are in the pastor and you love to quote the bible. let me quote you i john 3:17. whoever sees his brother with need and closes his door, how does the love abide in him? let us abide in word and in truth. that's what i'm doing when i am concerned about the people of the world. well, folks. he is back. burns announced his bid to replace trey gowdy. can't wait to see how that tunss out. ♪ ♪ ♪

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the things we do rising before dawn. sweating it out. tough to do it all. but we can always find time to listen to great thinkers and explorers whose stories take us places our hamstrings can't. all we have to do is listen. download audible to start listening.

part of the benefits for folks in food stamps, and i don't want to steal somebody's copy right but a blue apron food where you receive the food versus the cash. we can buy at wholesale. where they have to buy it at retail. we make sure they are getting nutritious food. that's a tremendous cost savings. donald trump's latest jean just idea, cutting out half of the cash benefit that most recipients of snap benefits

receive, commonly known as food stamps and replacing it with a can of vegetables and canned cereal called america's harvest box, despite that it would have zero freshly harvested food. it will improve nutrition sand slash costs to the tune of $12 billion a year. joining me now is tom colicio and on the phone bishop william barber. their idea is to essentially slash the benefits to snap in half. it would be a $17.2 billion program. in 2019, $213.5 billion. they would add work requirements and limit eligibility and limit the education program. they would add costs by having to deliver this box of unperishable food. in your view, is this a good

idea? >> this is just an assault on the poor. this trump administration, they have this obsession with all things russia. this is like 1960 soviet era policy. the idea that these small government republicans are going to actually replace a private partner, a public/private partnership, free market enterprise with a bureaucracy that is somehow going to package 16 million meals or 16 million boxes per month and save money just doesn't make sense at all. >> the idea that poor people will lose the right to choose what they eat. that's really big government. they will choose the food you eat. you don't have a choice. you get this box. >> look what they did with michelle obama when she suggested we should eat more nutritious food for lunch. this smacks of hypocrisy. part of this seems to be rooted in the perception that people who are struggling are mostly nonwhite and that they are leaching off the system, sitting around driving a cadillac and

eating lobster and steak, which is what fills up my mention when we talk about the poor. they just put out statistics in "the washington post," that 17% are rural americans and only 13% are urban. >> the majority are white and women. the majority of these people live in the states where many of these politicians get elected by voter suppression and other racial ways. the southern strategy, i mentioned a lot, part of the southern strategy began in the 1960s in order to control the congress and try to control the presidency, was to teach that entitlements and programs were black and brown people getting things that was hurting white people. so programs were racialized.

i was thinking, joy, this is a trip. it is like a 19th century ghost of days past. this man he had a cross on his forehead during lint for ash wednesday. none of these policies line up with christ. they are talking about health care, cutting millions of people, food to millions of people and even heat to 7 million people. they are talking about taking that. it is a triple threat and a direct attack on the poor and the working poor. >> tom, you are not talking about a lot of money per person. they are only about $125 per person a month. $254 a household. 94% of the funding for this program goes right to benefits. they get spent at your local grocery store and walmart. people spend 100% of their benefits. you can't keep any of it. you are buying food from food manufacturing. how can republicans interpret that as a bad idea? doesn't it help the economy. >> of course it helps the

economy. there are great programs where if you are a snap recipient and you are shopping athe a farmer' market, you are getting double the amount of your benefit and it goes directly to farmers. there us a multiplier effect. it creates $1.75 of economic activity for every $1 spent through the snap program. we need nutrition. that's really the crux of this here. children, when they go to school, if they have proper breakfast, they actually can learn. we are talking about seniors and people with disabilities. this is the way they actually feed themselves. we are talking about 1.5 million veterans who protected this country and come home with ptsd and are struggling to find work. we are talking about active military that this will hurt as well, because they are on snap as well. we are talking about the working poor, not people looking for a handout, children, seniors and

people with disabilities and people that are working. >> or for minimum wage or walmart. >> this is a terrible idea. we need to increase the benefits of snap so people can afford healthy food. right now, we have about $200 billion of health care costs that are associated with diet. >> you work a lot in the rural communities in north carolina. what happens if they are cutting the post office and if someone's box doesn't get delivered. what happens if it is out in the rain and gets wet. what happens if the children are allergic to what's in the box. where is the church and eat vth white evangelical church? this is cruelty to black and brown and the white rural moore. >> all over the south and other places, whether they are homeless in alabama or north carolina. i think the so-called

evangelicals are where they normally are. they are not with the jesus who talked about good news to the poor. they are not with the scriptures that talked about how we should not be attacking the poor. this is not just about the work but the poor. you have to say the poor, because people suggest the people are not working poor. somehow they are just lazy. no. people are trapped in systemic poverty. what we have is 14 million poor children in this country. we are talking about trillions of tax welfare to the greedy and give banks billions and put billions on a wall but then they want to give boxes to the poor and to the working poor. it is a contradiction to scriptures and the constitution and the promotion of the general welfare. there is another thing, lastly. i want to say this deeply.

that is the question before america. how much have you had to dehumanize yourself in order to use power in such ways to dehumanize others. americans have to stand up and say, we north going are not goi this to happen. >> we are reminded when jesus fed the multitudes, he gave them fresh fish and not a box. amen. >> tom collicio and bishop barber, thank you very much. coming up next, more "a.m. joy." traffic on the ponte vecchio on a monday. always late. oh! my wallet! un momento. card lock from capital one. instantly lock your card. in case your card goes... arrivederci. mona! that smile.

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and all from a gentle mist you can barely feel. flonase sensimist. the conservative media has fallen into the same trap that i talked about for a year with the mainstream media. reporting more than they know. validating trump's fake news criticisms. we need to step out of the twilight zone here and back into reality where facts matter. close doesn't count. >> my next guest, jerry bader, is a conservative radio host who recently found himself fired

because, he says, of one too many criticisms of donald trump and the conservative media agenda. joining me is jerry bader, former host of "the jerry bader show" and charlie sykes, an msnbc contributor. jerry, let me let our audience listen to one more clip from your show, and this is you describing donald trump. >> if the dems and never trumpers would treat trump with respect and dignity, he would act with respect and dignity. that's just patently not true. he is a narcissist, he does like to attack people. >> how long ago were you fired from your show? >> thanks for having me, joy. i was called in, and right after my show a week ago thursday, they said we're going in a different direction. i said, what does that mean?

they said, trump. they've since issued a release saying it's about many other things. i will say my ratings were down in this last period, and that's something we can discuss later. but it was a week ago thursday that i got the word. >> to read that statement, talking about, midwest communications sent the following statement on your termination and said there were many reasons that had nothing to do with president trump, but bottom line, the ratings have dropped to half of what they had been. the audience was declining. it was time for to us make a change. in all fairness we stuck with jerry and #nevertrump through the election and through the first year of trump's presidency. we let it play out. we offered to keep him on the air. we stuck with jerry until the ratings showed we had to do something different. that's jason hilary of midwest communications. what is your response to those claims? >> well, let me just touch -- because i could spend the rest of our segment addressing it. i don't want to get in a feud

with midwest communications. jason self-contradicts there by saying my position on donald trump led to my ratings decline. they are absolutely related. the other thing i would say is the notion that there was a steep, steady decline, i had a very good book in the first half of 2017. not so in the last book. so it's been up and down. you can read ratings any way you want. i'm not going to challenge them. they believe this last book, and it was more than just one market, wasn't good, and they're attributing that to my trump position. so they themselves are admitting that. >> charlie, you were one of the people who tweeted in support of jerry bader, a principled voice who refused to get on the trump train despite threats, congress m congressman reid ribble, other people. how much pressure is there to become trump fans, and is that

pressure coming from audit yeen or management? >> primarily from audiences. jerry bader is an endangered species, as i was, because there was so much pressure among conservatives, particularly the listeners of conservative talk radio to turn it into an alternative reality pro-trump safe space. and any of the hosts who have the integrity to push back against that are going to be, you know, facing headwinds from the audience. and the fact is, jerry has been a gutsy guy, a courageous, principled voice on radio here in wisconsin throughout the campaign. i'm actually surprised, jerry, you lasted as long as you did, given what's been happening told conservative movement, as you've seen this rolling wave of it, like the invasion of the body snatchers, where one republican after another decides that they need to bow the need to the orange god-king. it becomes increasingly difficult to do that.

i think a year from now, it will probably be worse than it was a year ago. >> jerry, i assume you still consider yourself a conservative on issue, and donald trump is enacting conservative policies. so what is it about him that you object to? >> well, okay. and this is what i hear over and over again. but you're getting what you want except of course for the latest -- the budget, but you have all these conservative accomplishments. i refer to that as the inexplicable sweet fruit of the pungent smelling rotten tree. i'm supposed to pick the fruit, i don't know how it's producing sweet fruit, i really don't, but it's a pungent smelling rotten tree and i should just hold my nose and pretend i don't smell it. >> charlie, last word to you on this. if the conservative marketplace, the audience, wants total trump obedience, how does the republican party right itself if anybody who won't obey is out of a job? >> that's what makes it so difficult. people have asked for the last year, when will republicans show

some resistance to donald trump. the answer is they won't until the base moves. and the base is listening to a conservative media that has increasingly become pro-trump. it's not just the breitbarts and the laura ingrahams of the world, you have the editorial page of "the wall street journal." "national review" magazine, other outlets who are defending the orange god-king. >> i appreciate you guys both. more "a.m. joy" after the break. and the ones we love. who never stop wondering what we'll do or where we'll go next. we the people who are better together than we are alone... are unstoppable. welcome to the entirely new expedition.

that is our show for today. "a.m. joy" will be back tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. eastern. alex witt has the latest. >> we can just go 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., how is that? >> you have some upcoming breaking news on the russia ongoing investigation. >> i mean, it's a huge, huge topic, of course we're all over that. thank you, joy, for that, and a good day to all of you. i'm alex witt at msnbc headquarters in new york. here's what's happening right now. election meddling. new fallout over reaction this morning about russians charged with interfering in a profound way with the 2016 presidential race. >> the evidence is now really n incontrovertible and available in the public domain. >> president trump's national security adviser there with an unequivocal statement on proof of russia's tampering. legal and political reaction,