and clearly about this matter, we were weakened as a nation and a tyrant was strerngngthened. >> he's among the republican voices sounding off on president trump's call with vladimir putin. this while president trump tweets his defense all day yesterday attacking the media while lashing out at his white house predecessors. meanwhile, the russia probe breaks new ground with reports that robert mueller is now offering immunity to at least one witness. all of that as stormy daniels sits down with 60 minutes with her claims of an affair with donald trump and being threatened to stay silent. what a week it's been. it's only thursday, everybody. good morning. it's march 22nd. welcome to morning joe. we're here in washington. with us we have politics senator and host of the pod cast candidate confessional. i love that. sam stein is with us. former chief of staff, are you

surprised we're complimenting you? >> i don't know what to do with myself. >> we'll get there, don't worry. former chief of staff of the cia and department of defense. jeremy bash. nbc news capitol hill correspondent and host, yeah, of kcdc. it's so good. and of course we begin this morning with our willie geist in new york who has the top story. >> good morning. i like that kasie is giving us the laugh every time we do it. >> so adorable. >> let's start with the latest on relations with russia. president trump spent the snow day tweeting his defense of his call to russian president vladimir putin. the president writing. i called him to congratulate him on the election victory. the fake news media is crazed because they want me to excoriate him. getting along with russia and

others is a good thing, not a bad thing. he went on, they can help solve problems with north korea, syria, ukraine, iran and even the coming arms race. bush tried to get along but didn't have the smarts. obama and clinton tried but didn't have the emergency or chemistry. remember, we said peace through strength. that all comes amid multiple reports that president trump's top team included in his briefing materials 'em blazened with the words do not congratulate written in all caps which is president ignored. if this story is accurate, that means someone leaked the president's briefing papers. leaking such information is a fireable offense and likely illegal. a source familiar with the matter tells nbc news john kelly is frustrated and deeply disappointing. so it seems to me that the white house, john kelly and others are

more concerned about the fact that the information was leaked than the fact that the president congratulated vladimir putin and went on yesterday to defend that congratulations while bashing three previous presidents. >> and you know who was not concerned about the leak was the president. he didn't even seem to care about it. in fact, he embraced basically his own actions in that set of twitter tweets yesterday. he said look, i did congratulate him and he's very open and overt about his pro-russian foreign policy and i think the president was fine with the fact that this got out. he may have even been behind it. i think he wants to show everybody that he is very pro russian. >> what about the point that the president makes and a lot of people -- i said it on the show yesterday, that president obama also called and congratulated president putin in march of 2012. we didn't have the backdrop obviously of russia interfering with the presidential election,

but if you have the president being diplomatic and the state department putting on the pressure which is what happened in this case, is that not enough? >> no, so much has changed. what's gone in syria, what's gone on with threats to the baltic countries, our nato allies and obviously this nerve agent attack on british soil, i think the game has changed a lot and it's time for americans to step up and be a lot tougher with vladimir putin. >> we've all been talking about the issue of the deep state and the president referred to that and i find that to be chilling. i'm not sure exactly what his concerns were, whether he liked the leaks and then was tweeting and trying to create a deflection or if the leeks were because members of his national security team were so horrified at his inability to handle this level of conversation on the world stage that they at this point, it's every man and woman for him or herself. but here we have the tweet.

according to the associated press, president trump has told confidants that he believes the leak was meant to embarrass and undermine him. that's according to white house officials and outside advisors familiar with the president's thinking and though it is a small circle with knowledge of the president's briefing notes the president has suggested it was done by quote, the deep state according to the ap sources. jeremy and sam, what are -- are you as chilled as i am by that that the president's invoking this? >> yeah, i am. these are professionals, national security officials who devote their lives their careers to defending our country and should be listened to, not excoriated by the president. >> well, let me take a different tact here. i do think if it wasn't the president himself who leaked this which i don't think is aly nonplausible thing here, that it would be troubling to have the matter leaked. you need to be confident that the information you're getting is not going to make its way

into the press. but that being said, i'm not entirely surprised -- i'm a little surprised i should say that this is a surprise to a lot of people. he spent the last year and a half basically trying to be friends with putin, trying to put up a friendly front with russia. nothing that he did in congratulating putin was a total surprise to me. i assumed he was going to do it. this is the way he has approached the geo political relationship with russia. >> it's also his personality. if you interact with president trump, the first thing he'll say when you walk into a room if you haven't seen him for a while, congratulations for this, great job. and i knew his aides knew that which is why they warned him. >> the fact that he took ownership was almost a reflection of what he said for the past year which is, don't

you want me to be friends with this guy? >> i'm not going to listen to my team because i know better or i didn't read the notes from a national team with people with far more experience and i'm an idiot because i don't read. >> these are difficult questions. >> it's a real question. >> a phone call to a foreign leader isn't just something that happens haphazardly from the residence. there is a briefing packet. there is consideration, this is highly orchestrated. the president totally blew it off. >> we have republicans responding and there was difference on capitol hill. >> ukraine, what he's done in the baltics, what he's done in london, poisoning people with nerve gas, that's a criminal activity. i wouldn't have a conversation with a criminal.

>> i'm not sure why the president felt like he needed to kale and congratulate vladimir putin on what was a fake election. i think most of us don't see that as necessary. >> i wouldn't have done it. it's -- it would be like me calling fidel castro saying good job, you really took 99%. i mean, those elections don't mean very much and i think we shouldn't lend any more credence to them. >> i don't agree with congratulating putin. i don't think you congratulate someone for a fake election. >> so as you walked the halls of the capitol did you sense something different among the women and men of congress? we've talked about how reluck cant republicans have been to cross president trump. it's been frustrating we saw it almost across the board yesterday. >> in this case they were sort of stuck between praising or

criticizing the president or praising or criticizing vladimir putin and we saw where the chips fell in that regard. these republican members of congress think that vladimir putin and the way he approaches the world is un-american and you know, there are people who are more harsh on russia than others. the republican party has been on the more hawkish side so i think this is an area where it put them in a tough position. you combine that with what's going on with robert mueller and again, i don't think this turns in a fundamental way until november of 2018 and that's the next point when we might see one, but this is definitely an instant where i would definitely mark it down on the history of the republican party's relationship with trump. >> this is still a bit of the usual suspects here. and i mean that in a good way.

but where are the republicans across the board? this is pretty black and white isn't it? >> i think across the board they are where -- you heard them be pretty black and white. i think it's clear how they feel about vladimir putin, about this president's phone call. whether that means they'll disown donald trump across the board, most of them need him. i think the situation is going to end up playing out that they can't win with him but they can't win without him. >> senators were also among several lawmakers who were highly critical of whomever was behind the leak, the briefing notes for the president's call with putin. >> the president's call was terribly ill advised but that doesn't change the fact that the leaking of the confidential briefing materials for his call were also wrong. it shouldn't be difficult to say both of these things. they're both true, so we should be able to say both of them at

once. a president's staff shouldn't leak. in cases of principle, you may need to resign, so resign. >> i'm not sure his notes are classified. i just don't understand them, you know, if you work for the guy and you're trying to undermine him in the public, why are you working there? only a handful of people in the white house could have possibly known both about the call and what was said and the notes that were prepared for him and my view of it is, if you're leaking stuff it's to hurt him and if you're trying to hurt him it's because you don't like him or agree with him, why are you still there? >> i think whoever did that ought to be fired immediately. and i think they ought to be prosecuted. i just think that is absolutely unconscionable. it's disgraceful. >> unconscionable and disgraceful and maybe a sign that the white house is at a

tipping point in some way and people inside the white house have no other way to go. i'm serious about this. we could go to snarky jokes. >> you looked at me when you said that. >> i did. but we're at a point now where, you know t president is pushing back against the special counsel, there are those in the administration, there are experts in the intelligence community who have worked for presidents on both sides of the aisle who are worried this president will fire mueller and republicans have yet to do anything that will prevent that. they just say it's wrong and you have people incredibly close to the president releasing information about a call and about the way the president messed it up or supposedly didn't follow the advice of his national security team within hours of the call. have you ever seen anything like this? is there any parallel? >> no, i haven't. and i agree, leaking classified

information is wrong and -- >> how about an hour before the happening? >> there wasn't a single leak out of those daily staff meetings and the reason was because the leadership had loyalty among the team. and theanty do antidote to leak loyalty and what is lacking here is a sense that the president is carrying out the right policies and frankly his team isn't loyal. the only alternative theories is that the president wanted this out there and if it was authorized then it was not inappropriate and i think there's a fair chance that the president wants it known that he has embraced putin. it's part of his overt -- >> part of just ignoring the advice of his advisors and doing what he wants to do. he is running the show. >> i don't think you can separate the news leak and what

happened. thursday night, friday morning, basically waiting for three, four, top trump administrators to be fired. it creates back stabbing and a lot of those people were in the national security apparatus. so you don't -- you probably end up getting rid of leaks when you foster a community that trusts one another. >> or you're trying to deflect. >> i want to ask you about ben sass and that speech he made yesterday. he's a fascinating test case for people who have been frustrated that congressional republicans haven't spoken up more about president trump when they think it's appropriate. we heard him yesterday, he talked about the problems with tariffs and why trade wars are bad and not good as president trump said. he talked about we're not getting rid of due process just because you think we should take guns first and defend the

process later. ben sass is a republican in a state nebraska that president won by 25 points in 2016 and yelt he doesn't seem to have any trouble stepping to a microphone when he feels like something has to be said. why aren't more republicans following his lead? is there a cost to ben sass doing this and speaking from his conscience? >> i think that the cost of it is still a little bit unknown, to be honest, but this -- what you're seeing from ben sass has been a fundamental part of his political identity since he first ran for office. and you heard him speak up during the presidential campaign as well, and he is somebody who is, you know, jeff flake just went to new hampshire. there was some chatter about him doing a 2020. i think ben sass is probably the person that people are looking to as well to potentially challenge president trump from an intellectual conservative perspective.

whether or not there's a constituency for that is the question. the tariff's issue was something that is specifically related to agriculture in his state. but at the same time, you only see him and jeff flake out on this ledge and jeff flake has gone farther and gottern more isolated. >> while most republicans are playing politics and not sure they can succeed with or without trump, but let me lay out for you the questions that we've gotten. this week they're coming to ha head. the question as to whether or not the president will fire bob mueller. that is front and center right now and people high up in the administration and people high up in the intelligence community are deeply concerned will happen. we've been watching over time this president's confused relationship with his attorney general. his deep misunderstanding that

the attorney general does not work for him, that he kworworks the country. the president has shown that he does not understand this concept. he can't get his head around it and he's abused that relationship. the question definitely is coming toe a head as to whether or not this president can be blackmailed. it is clear to so many people that he has some problem with russia, that vladimir putin has something on him, that he and his press secretary or his stooges can not say anything disparaging about russia in any way for fear that something might come out. a lot of people feel that is a reality at this point and then it's's his relationship with women and several women coming forward and saying they had affairs with the president, but they say they were threatened, abused by the president, did it happen during his campaign? these stories are coming to a head and one play come out on 60

minutes this sunday. this is all on the president's plate right now. what you see in tweets that come out with misspellings, with urgency, with a sense of unhinged impulsiveness and you have to be wondering especially in you're in the intelligence community if this president is so impaired and so subject to blackmail that he's unfit to lead. >> and that he would ignore the advice of all his senior advisors and the move against bob mueller was foreshadowed, basically saying the special council should have never been appointed. if the president really subscribes to that theory, bob mueller is the president. >> watch tv and watch his tweets. it's unbelievable, frightening and terribly childish. i would watch cable news, watch our show, watch his tweets.

it's literally a, b, and c. >> we were joking in the news room that the chi ron operator probably has more power -- >> he comes here for what's really going on. he really wants everybody to like him. they don't. and it -- it actually gets to his head. meanwhile we have our entire country's place in the world at stake. still ahead on "morning joe," three women have legal actions against president trump. so who poses the greatest danger to the white house and why do these women matter? they do. also, mark zuckerberg speaks out after a scandal engulfed facebook. what he's now saying about the data firm that harvested users' information. >> and we'll call on senators on the issue of gun legislation

ahead of saturday's big rallies, but first let's get a check on the noreaster. >> well, there were some surprises with our noreaster and this was kind of the runt. the less impactful. we didn't have a lot of high winds. but some areas did get a ton of snow. out on long island, bay shore had 19. numerous spots over a foot. philly 7, d.c. was around 4. it's still snowing out there, but here's the key. the temperatures are stayed above freezing so we haven't had a lot of accumulations from boston, to hartford, to providence. just be careful secondary roads and bridges. a lot is not sticking. it's still above freezing in boston and that is that you lucked out here. this heavy rain in california, this is going to be a huge story today. this is a huge plume of rain. this is santa barbara, this is

where those horrible fires were. this one is expecting 3 inches of rain today during the morning hours. we'll find out how bad the mud and debris flows are there if they're going to come close to what we saw two months ago. we'll keep an eye on that. we're just about done with this one and hopefully, till next winter. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. ♪ we the people... are defined by the things we share. 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. brushing only reaches 25% of your mouth.

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you know what's not awesome? gig-speed internet. when only certain people can get it. let's fix that. let's give this guy gig- really? and these kids, and these guys, him, ah. oh hello. that lady, these houses! yes, yes and yes. and don't forget about them. uh huh, sure. still yes! xfinity delivers gig speed to more homes than anyone. now you can get it, too. welcome to the party. >> they asked me if i would like to debate this gentleman. and i told him no, if we were in high school i'd take him out back and beat the hell out of him. >> i would not advise that you say on stage. that was the former vice president joe biden and at 6:20

in the morning the president has tweeted about joe biden. what did he say? >> well, my thanks to willie geist for allowing me to take over the trump tweet reading. he writes crazy joe biden is trying to act like a tough guy. he's weak both mentally and physically and yet he threatens me for the second time with physical assault. he doesn't know me but he would go down fast and hard crying all the way. don't threaten people, joe. >> that's so interesting because i know another person who would say don't threaten me president trump and i think that's stormy daniels. so let's go to willie geist on that. >> yeah, that was pathetic. i agree with you. i wish joe biden hadn't said what he said either. the president's legal battle with stormy daniels is escalating, continue to spill out into public. the 60 minutes interview will air this sunday rolling out this 10-second teaser video.

it's just one of the sex scandals intensifying the legal pressure on this president and joining us now, legal analyst for nbc news, danny is out with a new piece on nbc news.com titled three women with legal actions against trump. who poses the greatest danger? so we have stormy daniels, we have karen mcdougal and the former apprentice star who hasn't got as much attention but who might be the most important of the three. >> it revisits an issue that we haven't talked about in 20 years since clinton v jones which is presidential immunity from lawsuits. this judge here in new york state supreme court has resolved that the president can be sued for nonofficial action in state court. but here's why this is so significant. summer is different from the other women in this case because

she is not bound by any arbitration agreement. and the key to victory for the trump team with stormy daniels and karen mcdougal is forcing those cases into arbitration which is essentially forcing them into oblivion. they'll be decided in a conference room, no discovery, no depositions, no nothing. >> but the case is already in court which means there could be discovery here which would be what for the president? >> it's already in court because there was never a contract. this is not a contract case. this is what we call a tort case. she's suing for defamation and now that the case has been allowed to go forward, there will be a pc conference, now they're going to schedule depositions, discovery and a deposition is basically an interview under oath. every answer to every question is an opportunity for perjury if you are not forthcoming. and there's more. the rules of discovery allow you to ask virtually any question in

deposition. the rules in new york specifically say you cannot refuse to answer just because you think it's not relevant. that's not a valid ground to answer a question. so hypothetically, a deposing attorney could ask about the russia investigation. they could ask about collusion and the liberal rules of discovery lean towards allowing that question. >> all right. so danny, i want to get some sharp answers here, because i want to understand why these specific women matter. aside from the fact that, you know, the covorting with a porn star and a playboy model and the hue mill nation that would bestow on himself and his wife. what are the legal concerns? is it the possible threats and do they need to be credibly proven in any way? is it the fact that there were contracts that might have been put this place that involved threats or lawyers misleading these women? what are you looking for in the

stormy daniels interview and what are you looking to these cases that actually damage the president. >> there's so many answers to that question. the potential liabilities are inpneumoable at least as to -- the only case with physical threats so far alleged is stormy daniels, but the entire pattern or practice of contract dealing between mcdougal, between daniels and the way -- if there is an established pattern of practice or practice of how the trump team would contract out the silence from anybody that he had intimate relationships with, that will definitely be a problem, but bigger and more serious is the potential campaign finance implications. as to each of these potential contracts, if they constituted an unlawful corporate contribution in any way and if there are more lurking that we don't yet know about, then those

could be additional crimes, campaign finance crimes and the reality is if we get into discovery, if any of these cases get in the discovery process, i promise you, mika, we will find out. >> if stormy daniels has proof of a threat and i'm -- i'm drawing on some stories that i'm still working on the reporting on, but if she has proof of a threat that was level to her by one of trump's people, but not trump himself, but someone close to trump, can that be something ultimately that could be damaging to the president or can the president just say, i didn't know about it? i do think it's something that trump voters will not accept if the there's proof of this, but if we have credible threats proven in some way, whether it be via e-mail or somehow credibly proven, how damaging will that be if it wasn't trump himself? >> you're right in that his base may not be ofepded at what we

hear about, but the implications of a threat for example also create a whole jubilee of problems. first, any threat could invalidate the underlying contract, but beyond that a threat to enter a contract becomes extortion. but beyond that even if you subtract the contract, any physical threat itself is a crime and once we start talking about crimes, then we look between the connection between a trump agent and the president himself. what did he know, when did he know it, when the agent acted on his behalf. and remember, crimes like this are not only crimes, they're potential impeachable offenses. >> just quickly, the connection here is when the president tweets about joe biden or aleck baldwin he has no time to sit for an interview. >> he's not going to get out of a deposition because the new york judge correctly concluded

that in these cases, a president can sit for a deposition if some matter of national importance comes up they can adjourn, they can come back and do it later, but any -- any official conduct takes precedence, but you mr. president, will sit for your nonofficial conduct. and still ahead, some striking new numbers on the issue of gun violence in american schools. usa today polled a thousand students on that. "morning joe is coming right back.

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i'm thinking anybody with the initials potus would want to switch to fox right now. it's best. the new york times is reporting this morning that special counsel robert mueller has zbrants granted the first reported case of immunity. the times reports that cooperating witness worked for more than a year to cultivate trump fundraiser, the deputy finance chairman of the unc to influence the white house. both u.s. allies.

high on the agenda was pushing the white house to remove secretary of state rex tillerson. backing confrontational approaches to iran and repeatedly pressing for the president to meet privately outside the white house with the leader of the uae. the story notes that tillerson was fired last week and the president has developed tough approaches toward both iran and cutter. according to the times and he helped deliver deals wort more than $200 million with the uae. in a statement, he told the times that his efforts aimed to strengthen the national security of the united states in full coordination with the u.s. government, adding his positions reflect long held believes. two people close told the times he has not been contacted by the special counsel's investigators. his lawyer declined to comment. what does this tell you overall?

especially in terms of how the president views this. >> well, the nader aspect is very interesting because he of course is potentially a witness to a meeting that happened with eric prince who was very close to the trump administration, the brother of a cabinet secretary, brother of betsy devos and a russian very close to vladimir putin. i think bob mueller wants to understand exactly where all the different back channels between the trump white house, the incoming administration. >> some might look at this and ask, well, what does this have to do with russia? this is the uae, nothing to do with russia. the special counsel's office has a wide latitude what they can investigate. the requequestion is can they

prosecute it, can they push it to courts? that's a broader question, but people shouldn't be surprised they're going in these directions because there's a very intent situation outward. >> and it is always about money in some way, shape or form? >> you were talking about what russia has over donald trump and it's money. they might be the chief investors in the primary elements of his business enterprise. >> i've always thought that. it's not that they have something, you know, to blackmail with him per se, but they could wipe him out financially if they call those loans. that's the definition of leverage. >> it is the question of leverage and whether or not there are people who are closing in on the president and whether or not there is leverage that can be held over this president on the world stage or on a personal level. and we -- i'm trying to think if there is ever been one challenging thing this president

has said about russia. >> and dwret he says terrible thing ps about joe biden or about me or -- so it's not like he's incapable of being impolite. >> i just want to know, these things do have real world consequences, not just not admonishing putin in a phone call for instance. the pressure that nader and the saudis have put on this administration could very well result in us axing the iran nuclear deal when it comes up in early may. so there are real world geo political implications. that's a huge mull di billion dollar investment that we might be making so yeah, these are not something that you should take -- you shouldn't take this lightly. >> and nobody was emboldened iran more than the russian

confederation. they've allowed them to build a land bridge all the way from teheran and it's emboldened people. >> to the point that russian mercenaryryes have boots on the ground in syria and they're clashing with american troops. >> on february 7th, but for the skill and professionalism of our service members president will be standing on the tar mac welcoming the flag dressed cases of americans killed by russians. >> as to what happened during the call, the lack of strategic thinking, the immature, almost childish review, with everything building up this week and getting closer to where the white house -- it appears that he's incapable of having

relationships on the world stage that are on the level of what we need to continue to lead around the world. he's bringing us down. there are people who are truly concerned about the future of our place in the world and that is impaired right now by president. we'll talk more about that coming up. still ahead, nbc's exclusive sit-down with fbi director christopher wray. he reacts to claims that the bureau favored hillary clinton. and pete williams joins us for that. "morning joe" is coming right back.

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want us to do about what woulthis president?fathers i'm tom steyer, and when those patriots wrote the constitution here in philadelphia, they had just repelled an invading foreign power. so they created the commander in chief to protect us from enemy attack. the justice department just indicted 13 russians for sabotaging our elections.

an electronic attack on america that the chief investigator called "warfare". so what did this president do? nothing. and is he doing anything to prevent a future attack? the head of the fbi says no. this president has failed his most important responsibility- protecting our country. the first question is: why? what is in his and his family's business dealings with russia that he is so determined to hide, that he'd betray our country? and the second question is: why is he still president? join us today. we have to do something.

congressional leaders finally have reached agreement on a $1.3 trillion spending deal that would fund the government through september. the new york times reports president trump waffled on the final package because it did not

include sufficient funding for his border wall. house speaker paul ryan went to the white house yesterday to meet with the president. vice president pence, legislative director mark short and chief of staff john kelly as senior white house officials told nbc news a spokesman for ryan said that trump was supportive of the bill. the legislation includes a number of wins for republicans and democrats including $1.6 billion in funding for physical barriers and technology for the wall, increasing funding to the military, it fixes the national instant criminal background check system. it puts $10 billion more toward infrastructure projects. it allocates $2 billion for school safety, provides an additional 3 billion to fight the opioid epidemic and 541 million to construct a rail

tunnel. so let's talk about the president and immigration here. he tweeted that he got a big win out of this. he got $1.6 billion for the wall. >> huge. >> far short of the $25 billion that he was seeking. also didn't get funding for things like extra beds in illegal detention facilities and other elements of what he believes would be strong border policy. is this a victory for him or did the republican party stand up to him on immigration? >> i don't think i would go to far as to say that the republican party stood up to him on immigration. i would argue that essentially, they decided to punt on the big complicated issues of immigration so they could get the rest of this done. i think the rosy spin on this for republican leaders is this is how they spend their leadership with the president. he still can get on the phone and convince the president that

hey x you did win with this. you can go out and sell it and the upshot is the government actually functions in way that it's supposed to. you'll notice that the president did not tweet about this beforehand. he did not say as negotiators were behind those closed doors "this is a huge mess, i don't want any part of this." this back-and-forth was in phone calls behind the scenes the way it's normally supposed to happen so we'll see if there's a hidden something that perhaps with the name of rand paul in the senate. he did this last time and single-handedly shut down the government but what has happened is there's a bipartisan deal on track to pass the congress in time to avoid a shutdown. >> can i make one point? sorry. >> go ahead, sam. >> if you look at this in the totality of it, $1.3 trillion, a huge number of domestic parties are funded well beyond where they were. $3 billion to the nih, changes to gun laws where the cdc can research the cause of gun violence. these are largely democratic wins but what struck me most is that if this bill came up during

the obama era, virtually every single republican in congress would be against this. >> completely screaming. >> completely against the bill saying it was an abdication of our fiscal responsibility. it blew up the deficit and a bad thing for the debt. >> how can you explain this. >> because governing is harding than opposing. >> right. pretty much. >> so the president is excited because he got his wall funded, right? the whole wall, right? >> no. >> oh. >> he did got get his whole wall funded. they wanted $25 billion for the wall, they got $1.6 billion in border security which his aides said if we get this we'll be fine with the rest of it. but there's no daca provisions. they said we're going to wash our hands of this because we don't have the time or the will, quite frankly, to fight over these two things. >> the president says "i got $1.6 billion to start wall on southern border. rest will be forthcoming." >> remember, mexico is supposed to pay for it. >> he did get $1.6 billion to pay for the wall. >> i thought we weren't supposed

to pay for this, kasie, i'm so confused. >> i heard that somewhere. >> there are strings attached to that $1.6 billion. if you read through the bill it's not for new barriers, it's for the repair of existing barriers. i think they have 33 miles of new barriers but not resembling anything like the ones he trotted out when he went to the border last week. there are levies and different kinds of barriers so in no way does this fund the wall he promised during the campaign and the one he's been imagining since he was president. >> that's because no national security professional, not even john kelly, not even kirstjen nielsen, secretary of homeland security, believes a physical barrier is the solution to the southern border issue. >> so the president is getting a little of what he wants and paul ryan knows he's stupid enough to think i can sell this, i can market it, i can brand it to my base so i will be happy with that even though it's not what he wanted and we are paying for it, not mexico. >> well, how else do you convince president trump to do

something besides convince him it's good for him and he can sell it. that's the lesson republicans have learned and that's how you have to get this president on board with what you want to do. i this i think that think it's more important to get it done than it is to fight over this. >> i think there are important victories in here, just not the ones trump wants, the investment in nih funding is massive, $3 billion is a lot. >> and that was a concern. >> the $3 billion for opioids falls well short. the $10 billion for infrastructure falls well short. >> and there's election security money in there as well. >> i think in the end, though, if you were to tell me this is not the bill that trump or anyone in the house gop would craft and the people who were the fiscal hawks for eight years of the obama administration have now give an huge tax cut largely to the wealthy and they spent more than obama did. >> there you go. he is once again a democrat. >> yes. coming up, which member of trump's national security team leaked the briefing materials on

his call with vladimir putin? donald trump reportedly thinks it was the deep state. and it's not even 7:00 a.m. and trump is already tweeting about crazy joe biden and telling joe biden not to threaten people which is, of course, front and center on trump's legal problems with the former porn star and whether or not she was physically threatened. interesting word to use and unfortunate words from the former vice president. plus, thening joe" is coming ri back. how do you chase what you love with moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis? do what i did. ask your doctor about humira. it's proven to help relieve pain and protect joints from further irreversible damage in many adults. humira works by targeting and helping to block

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we the people who are better together than we are alone... are unstoppable. welcome to the entirely new expedition. first it was "the apprentice" contestant, then the adult film actress, now the former "playboy" playmate filing a lawsuit linked to president trump. >> a porn star, playmate and reality show contestant. you realize right now, collusion with russia is the most dignified charge against trump. president trump is awake and on twitter this morning and he's not focusing on any of the latest scandals encompassing the white house but rather on former vice president joe biden. then we have another one. but let's keep in mind. we have a couple big questions closing in on this president.

whether or not he will fire bob mueller, republicans stepping up and saying he better not and they're even using the word "impeachment" when it comes to that. and still those in the intelligence community and those high up in the administration are concerned that he may do this and there are many democrats who are very concerned he will do this and, of course, there are the questions about his relationship with the attorney general, whether he understands that the attorney general does not work for him as his lawyer and that the attorney general works for the united states of america and then there are the legal questions mounting from women against this president. women who claim they had consensual affairs with the president but then were silenced by contracts that lawyers may have threatened them into or that lawyers may have threatened their silence or stooges for the president or the president himself may or may not have threatened these women in some way. these are the big questions hanging over this president getting ready this sunday for

the big interview with former porn star stormy daniels on "60 minutes." the president's team doesn't want that interview to air and the attorney for stormy daniels says there is credible evidence of threats and the relationship. so we'll look forward to that. and you know the president is. as he's dealing with these questions, he's tweeting this now. just moments ago the president tweeted "remember when they were saying during the campaign that donald trump is giving great speeches and drawing big crowds but he's spending much less money and not using social media as well as crooked hillary's large and highly sophisticated sta staff? well, not saying that anymore." hold on a second. i'm just curious. does anyone know what that means exactly and why would he be thinking about this? i haven't introduced our guests but bob costa is raising his hand. what does that mean somewhat's he thinking about at 7:00 or 6:55 tweeting that. >> asking white house officials

about this. they say as these things you listed continue to mount, the challenges, the problems, legal, political, he is going to continue to turn to campaign mode, have rallies, fight vice president biden, fight senateor warren. he wants to be throughout in this populist raging way fighting for his own future. >> that's a great point given the fact that joe biden had strong words about beating up the president when he was in high school. i would urge all democrats to sit back and let the story play out. don't say things like that. it's not going to help you at this point. at this point the story speaks for itself. look at this, the tweet earlier this morning about 6:20, the president wakes up, he's in the private residence in the white house you would think, he's on his phone, he's watching fox news, maybe some "morning joe" and he tweets this. "crazy joe biden is trying to act like a tough guy. actually, he's weak both mentally and physically and yet he threatens me with physical

assault. he doesn't know me but he would go down fast and hard, crying all the way. don't threaten people, joe." and that's what a lot of people would say, including stormy daniels who says she was physically threatened by somebody close to the president or maybe the president himself. we'll find out. so don't play into the president's game here. let's just watch this story play out. it's thursday, march 22. with us we have politics editor for the daily beast and host of the podcast "candidate confessional" sam and seen tste. host of "kasie d.c." let's do it the, on msnbc, kasie hunt. and willie geist in new york. joining the conversation, as we saw, political reporter for the "washington post" and msnbc political analyst robert costa, he's the moderator of "washington week" on pbs. and staff writer for the "atlantic," natasha bertrand. she's an nbc news and msnbc

contributor. welcome aboard. >> thank you. >> willie has the top story. take it. as the president is tweeting about hillary clinton and joe biden, he may be trying to throw up a smokescreen about this story. president trump met the snow day yesterday tweeting his defense of his congratulatory call to russian leader vladimir putin. he wrote this "i called president putin of russia to congratulate him on his election victory. in past obama called him also. the fake news media is crazed because they want me to excoriate him. they are wrong. getting along with russia and others is a good thing not a bad thing." he continued "they can help solve problems with north korea, syria, ukraine, isis, iran and even the coming arms race. bush tried to get along but didn't have the smarts. obama and clinton tried but didn't have the energy or chemistry. remember reset? peace through strength." that's the end of that tweet. this comes amid multiple reports that trump's top team included in his briefing materials a section for his call with putin emblazoned with the words "do not congratulate" written in all

caps which the president ignored. a white house official tells nbc news if this story is accurate, that means someone leaked the president's briefing papers. leaking such information is a fireable offense and likely illegal. a source familiar with the matter tells nbc news chief of staff john kelly is "frustrated and deeply disappointed" that the president's briefing notes for his call with putin were, in fact, leaked. bob costa, based on your reporting, people you talked to inside the white house, is there more concern about the fact that there was leak -- which would be concern enough -- or that the president ignored the notes given by his national security team. >> depends on who you ask. if you ask sources close to the president inside of the west wing, they're concerned about the leaking. but the you ask administration sources, people in the intelligence community they're saying they're highly concerned about how the president is departing from that.

>> isn't it amazing how he would call you at the "washington post"? >> the "washington post" has not revealed anything and will not about its sourcing so let's not speculate. >> well the "washington post" reported that. someone called the "washington post" and told them. >> true, someone did call the "washington post." >> does it strike you as different and unique and extraordinary that the inner circle would be that willing to reveal particular notes from a briefing from the leader of the free world and the leader of russia? >> as a reporter, you find information where you can. >> i'm not even asking from your side. let's say journalism entity x. >> more people inside are talking to reporters and colleagues and saying this president when it comes to foreign policy and in particular with russia is out of control with how he's communicating u.s.

policy. >> he's out of his league on many levels. willie, i'm going to jump in and say this reporting shows a lack of focus, an inability to advise this president on any level and an immaturity -- and that's putting it lightly -- to handle relationships on the world stage. and that's if everything is on the up and up. the bigger questions, natasha, is does russia have something on president trump? and does this call reveal that he cannot even follow directions that say in caps "do not congratulate on the election" and he goes ahead and does it? he's either incapable of reading notes in front of him -- which is a big possibility, i do know this about trump. he's not a reader. so it is a possibility that he could be stumbling his way into stupidity with world affairs. but the other possibility is he decided not to follow the direction, the advice of his national security team of many i

know happen to be extremely frustrated with this president as they are trying to carry out foreign policy, keep strategic alliances in check, at least try and hold on to whatever strategic alliances we have and relationships we have with our allies. this president seems to be fumbling at every turn. >> and if you ask the form rer s cia director john brennan, he would say russia does have something on trump. it's interesting. he's either not reading his briefing notes or not listening to his national security team and either one of those is problematic but the fact that he not only congratulated putin for an election victory that was by all accounts a complete sham. he did not condemn putin for the poisoning of a russian national on british soil. it was a chemical wear fare attack and he was advised to confront putin about that. he decided not to.

>> according to the associated press -- and this is incredibly chilling -- president trump told kr confidantes that he believes the leak was meant to embarrass and undermine him and though it is a small circle with knowledge of the president's briefing notes, the president has suggested that it was done by the deep state and according to a.p. sources we're hearing this, you saw monmouth poll that we reported earlier this week about growing numbers of people who may not really understand what the words "deep state" mean but when you define it to them, they believe there is something actually there. >> conspiratorial term. the favorite term of steve bannon. it means there's a conspiracy inside of the federal government. when you say the term "deep state" you're saying there are people inside of the government who are aligned against the president of the united states. >> and there we go. on capitol hill, kasie, you're

seeing a difference behind the scenes with republicans? >> i think there is a growing concern and sense of alarm on capitol hill, i think you saw that yesterday in how they talked about putin's congratulatory call. bob costa, i know you did reporting on the meeting the policy lunches had on tuesday where they talked about bob mueller and the president's threats to fire bob mueller or apparent threats to fire bob mueller that generated remarkable concern. mitch mcconnell was stronger than i expected him to be to the point where chuck schumer said that was an act of statementsmanship when mcdonnell said mueller needs to do his job. that points to an increasing sense of alarm. the challenge now, nobody knows what to do about it. >> they have this bill that the democrats would like more than the republicans. willie? >> well, the president has the one issue that doesn't get into one issue, president trump's tweeted defense of his call with putin comes as more top

republicans on capitol hill are speaking out about that call. >> what he did in ukraine, what he's done in the baltics, what he's done in london poisoning people with nerve gas, that's a criminal activity. i would haven't a conversation with a criminal. >> i'm not sure why the president felt like he needed to call and congratulate vladimir putin on what was a fake election. i think most of us don't see that as necessary. >> i wouldn't have done it. it's a -- it would be like me calling fidel castro and saying "good job, you really took 99%." i mean, that's -- those elections don't mean very much and i think we shouldn't lend more credence to them. >> i don't agree with congratulating putin. i don't think you congratulate someone for a fake election. >> vladimir putin is not a friend. vladimir putin is a despot. the president of the united

states was wrong to congratulate him and the white house press secretary was wrong to duck a simple question about whether or not putin's reelection was free and fair and yesterday when the white house refused to speak directly and clearly about this matter, we were weakened as a nation and a tyrant was strengthened. >> that was part of a long speech from senator sasse yesterday in the senate and all those bites came a day after you had leader mcconnell and speaker ryan also criticizing the call to vladimir putin. >> and we had a cup of experts on the show talking about his ability to handle his relationships, he's incapable of handling relationships on this level. we may be finding out he's incapable of handling relationships with women that he's had so-called affairs with or whatever you want to call it. some sort of sexual interaction with them and that may be coming out on a real level on "60

minutes" this sunday. but let me read from the "new york times." we had john brennan, former cia director, on the show yesterday. he's worked for five presidents. he worked for presidents on both sides of the aisle. this is a man -- >> a patriot. >> who's a patriot, who's aware of secrets and of strategies against this country and the threats we face on a more real and base level than anybody at this table could understand or most people in the country. the "new york times" writes this -- the possibility that mr. putin could have hold on the american president has lurked in the background over the past year. while mr. trump panders to mr. putin, his criticism of mr. mueller is becoming harsher as the investigation raises increasing concerns about the web of ties connecting mr. trump's associates to russia. and the "new york times" really puts it together well here. listen to this. mr. trump's former national

security adviser michael flynn has pleaded guilty to lying about his involvement with russia. a former foreign policy adviser george papadopoulos has pleaded guilty to lying about his involvement with russians. a former deputy campaign chairman rick gates, who has his own russian connections along with a now indicted former campaign chairman paul manafort has pleaded guilty to lying about russian-related matters. mr. brennan knows more about possible threats to america. if mr. trump isn't mr. putin's lackey it's past time for him to prove it and those leaked notes, bob costa, show he can't even read on a piece of paper, do not congratulate. he won't do it. he won't do it. that's got to lead you to a conclusion that's concerning. >> inside of the white house there's concern the president is departing from the usual position republicans take with regard to russia in part because he's so obsessed they tell mes

about any acknowledgment of russia as a foe or collusion or any kind of interference in the 2016 election will somehow affect how people perceive his 2016 presidential victory and because of that, he is extremely reluctant to ever take a different position than saying this is nonsense. >> so what is its that at this point when you look at -- obviously bob mueller isn't tweeting and having people -- he's extremely close to the vest but we are looking at the possibility that they are following the money with the russia connection, natasha. >> what is it is the big question everyone wants to have answered. when it comes to trump making these phone calls to putin, he's

making it so much worse for himself. this is -- well, the fact that this came out the really a sign that people within his circle are extremely worried. >> then when you look at the different challenges to this president, and i mention his relationship with the attorney general and his inability to understand that's not his lawyer and then the newest lawyer he put on his team and the things joe digenova said on his team. and people have concerns about the way this man has treated women. multiple contracts to keep them silent. showing a pattern of improper relationships or relationships that he can't handle so he has to have his people handle. and john brennan summed up a

concern. he doesn't have the moral base, the moral purpose that he's a mean person, that he doesn't have the character to lead this nation. it could lead us into a dangerous place. that he's ultimately what he was describing is a very small man with paranoia issues. >> and this is someone who served five presidents. this is not somebody who doesn't have one thing to say it. he's obviously concerned about the relationship he's seeing with trump and putin. and michael cohen's role is the only -- not the only one that's important. who covered up and perhaps paid off the -- >> do these women matter if there are contracts and threats and other people handling him? you have a president who mistreats women and humiliates

his family but aside from that, like that doesn't matter, uses other people to handle them because he can't handle the relationship. this all leads to the concern that this president could be blackmailed on many levels. willie? >> mika, if you go back and watch our interview with john brennan, when i asked him if he believes russia or president putin has something on donald trump, if you could have seen his face in the instant -- this is my reading of it, not anything he's said -- if you could have seen his face, it was as though he wanted to say something and stopped himself and then said well, one might surmise that there is something out here. this is a man who knows a lot but some of his critics have said he was the cia director under president obama, he doesn't like donald trump. i don't think that's his concern, a political one. but if you don't believe that, how about cia director michael hayden who served under george w. bush who's now expressed his concerns about president trump very publicly. there's a long list in a growing one of people who have decided

to not come out and speak publicly about what they believe is happening to the presidency and the country. >> yup. before we go to break, republican senator ben sasse is weighing in on the latest chapter of the trump/biden feud tweeting this morning "total dysfunction. d.c. is about to add $1.3 trillion to your debt like it's no big deal and meanwhile both of our crazy uncles are fistfighting in the back yard. happy thanksgiving, america. thank you, ben sasse. there is a level of decency that needs to be maintained and it's really sad but mostly disturbing that our president is tweeting about these things so early in the morning and i think people can make their own conclusions about that. still ahead on "morning joe," republicans are rallying around bob mueller but not legislation intended to protect him. we'll talk to senator richard blumenthal who wants a bipartisan bill to shield the

special counsel against political interference. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. >> do you believe russia has something on him? >> i -- i believe that the russians would -- would not -- um -- um -- they would opt for things to do if they believe it was in their interest and the russians have had long experience with mr. trump and may have things that they could expose. >> something personal, perhaps? >> perhaps. perhaps. >> you just said you thought it was possible that the russians had something on donald trump. you were director of the cia until 2017. is that speculation or are you talking with information? >> i'm saying that perhaps the russians have something and that's why mr. trump is concerned. mr. trump knows better than any one of us whether or not the russians may have something on him so i think it's very difficult to try to explain his behavior and why he has taken this position vis-a-vis vladimir putin personally.

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this is going to be an intensive process but this is important. this is something that in retrospect we should have done up front with cambridge analytica, we should not have trusted the certification they gave us and we won't make that mistake again. >> will you testify before congress? >> so the short answer is i'm happy to if it's the right thing to do. so what we try to do is send the person at facebook who will have are the most knowledge about what congress is trying to learn. so if that's me, i'm happy to go. >> that is, of course, facebook ceo mark zuckerberg breaking his silence six days since the controversy over cambridge analytica scandal broke. in a series of interviews yesterday, zuckerberg elaborated on why his company plans to address the collection of the personal information of 50 million facebook users by cambridge, including the

potential of his testifying before congress. joining us now, member of the judiciary and arms services committees, democratic senator richard blumenthal of connecticut. good to see you. i take it you'd like to see mark zuckerberg sitting before your panel. what do you want to know from him? >> i want to know what they are going to do to make sure consumers know what information is shared with third parties and that they be given the right to consent to it, not just opt out but opt in with full knowledge and i think mark zuckerberg had to come before the commerce committee and the judiciary committee and explain how cambridge analytica was permitted to retain this information. facebook did nothing to verify that it had athleted this information and still incredibly facebook has failed to notify all of the users and consumers about what private personal information has been shared and is out there right now.

>> so senator, you have subpoena power. it strikes me it's not up to mark zuckerberg whether or not he testifies before you. >> and in answer to mr. zuckerberg, you are the right person, you should come before the committee, there's no question about it, we hope you do it voluntarily but i think there has to be a subpoena for all of the documents that are relevant because there's no assurance that all of those documents will be provided unless there is compulsory process. it's standed operating procedure, he's not above the law. >> so you will subpoena if he doesn't show up voluntarily? >> if it was my decision i would subpoena him today. >> kasie? >> senator, are you at the point where you think facebook needs to face regulations? what should congress mandate? >> facebook needs to face regulation. they have failed to uphold their trust, they have become enormously powerful in their

knowledge about consumers, their business mod dill is to sell personal information. they need to be accountable so i think -- >> what are specific steps you would support. >> if you take the model that we have just applied literally yesterday we passed a measure called the -- >> the sex trafficking bill. >> yes, stop enabling sex trafficking. >> which facebook opposed. >> facebook initially opposed and then came around to support. we worked very closely with them, rob portman and i who led the bill worked on the specific language so that they have to have knowledge and knowingly facilitate sex trafficking if they're to be held accountable. >> you're treating them as a publisher not a platform. >> as more than just a neutral platform. they have to be treated as a publisher with responsibility. that's the model that i would apply so i would do with them what we do with other print or

media and require full disclosure, make sure consumers know when apps have ingaccess t their information, what the apps are doing and make sure there's consent on the part of consumers. if your information is being shared, you should have a right to know and consent. >> do you think mark zuckerberg is to arrogant to understand the significance of this? >> i think mark zuckerberg is enormously intelligent. i think he understands and i think he should appear before one or both of us. >> that's very polite of you. he should definitely appear. >> he should be subpoenaed if he failed to do so. >> put zuckerberg on a shelf. what about cambridge analytica and the trump campaign. what concerns do you have? >> i have very strong concerns about cambridge analytica's relationship to the trump campaign but also to the russians and the potential links there both in terms of money and information. that is really the keys to the

kingdom and i think cambridge analytica also should be brought for our committee, they should be subpoenaed. they are certainly knowledgeable and culpable for this massive breach and i can't emphasize enough how important it is for facebook to come clean and notify those consumers, still hasn't done so although mark zuckerberg has committed he will much as he did at my insistence about the fake adds and posts, all the users have been notified. >> you served as attorney general to the state of connecticut and i covered you for i think it was decades and i had great respect for your legal expertise so i want to broaden out the questions pertaining to this president right now. we're looking at so many different ones, relationships the president has that seem to be questionable. his relationship with bob mueller, his tweets seem to

indicate they might fire mueller. there are people who know more than me in the intelligence community who are deeply concerned that he will fire the special counsel. there's his relationship with russia and whether or not this president is impaired to have relationships on the world stage since he refused to follow the advice of his national security team and went to congratulate vladimir putin at this very tenuous time in terms of our relationship with russia on his free and fair election, i'll put that the in quotes, because even the president's press secretary could not say that the election in russia was not completely free and fair. there's this relationship with women and whether or not he can handle women in any way in a polite and moral way. in a fair way equal to men. he seems to have concerns about affairs with women that have been handled possibly with threats and with lawyers and with non-disclosure agreement s that those came about in ways

that were not necessarily above board. there's his relationship with the attorney general where he doesn't understand his attorney general is not his lawyer and his new lawyer is very interested in the deep state and one would be very concerned his new lawyer joe digenova would urge the president to fire bob mueller. and there's his relationship with republicans which appears to be so tenuous and so dishonest because they're not getting what they want out of him but most republicans are too afraid to stand up to him. we're watching this unfold. which of all of these relationships do you think could be the most concerning to the president? he might need education on this because his tweets show he's concerned about a fistfight with joe biden and some convoluted tweet about campaigning. he's not focused on these things. which should he be focused on as deeply concerning? >> first, let me be less polite.

the common theme that runs through all these relationships and their failures is that the president is a bully. he uses power to intimidate and threaten, whether it's women or the special counsel or joe biden or the others whose tweets -- >> members of the senate? >> and members of the senate. there is a misuse of power. what most concerns me on this day is that congress will be going into recess for two weeks. and all of my republican colleagues who assured me, oh, the president will never fire bob mueller, are going to be scattered around the country and around the world. we need them to stand up now because a bully will -- >> and protect the special counsel. >> protect the special counsel.

i've urged legislation. i have legislation, it's bipartisan and republicans have said we don't need it because he won't take this step. >> he does -- if he does, wouldn't this be on the republicans who refuse to stand up to the president and pass it now? >> it will be on all of us. but it will be particularly on republicans who provide assurances that this cataclysmic confrontation can never occur. >> bob? >> real quick, senator flake says if he fires mueller republicans should move to impeach the president. the democrats take over the house they could move on impeachment in the house next year. are senate democrats -- i assume you would be one of them -- actively talking right now about what a trial would look like if president trump was ever to be impeached? >> there's no discussion about trial what there is intense discussion concerning is the

special counsel being permitted to proceed with his investigation. we're talking about the rule of law here. we're talking about a process for investigation that is established by law that robert mueller is pursuing very methodically and responsibly without any leaks, without any extravagant claims or boasts, many indictment, a record of accomplishment so far over a short period of time and i think we have to take action to make sure he's protected. >> sam stein has a question. pam? >> bob costa took mine but i have to nail down on the republicans and if they are -- had they abdicated the responsibility to protect the special counsel. you say that -- we can see that their response to not signing this legislation is their estimation that it will never happen, that donald trump won't take this step. i'm wondering if without naming names you can pull back the

curtain. what are the conversations like with your fellow senators, republican senators in private when you talk about this and your encouragement to get on to your bill. what do they tell you? >> maybe we need to do that, just not right now. he won't do it but we should be thinking about. >> it so are they more open to the possibility more in private than that he will fire mueller than they are in public? >> i think there is is a growing sense that the threat is increasing. anybody in their right minds watching this obstruction of justice case unfold, and it's unfolding in realtime, the president of the united states is intimidating, threatening, firing people and that has to cause increasing concern. >> senator richard blumenthal, thank you so much for coming in, always good to see you. coming up, a rare look inside the leadership at the fbi. the bureau's director christopher wray sat down with nbc's pete williams for an exclusive interview. what he said about the russia probe. it's next on "morning joe." (vo) lately, i've been selective

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joining us now, nbc news justice correspondent pete williams. pete, you sat down with an exclusive wide-ranging interview with fbi director christopher wray. what does he have to say? >> it's his first interview after he became the fbi director eight months ago and he insists, contrary to what you may have heard, that the fbi is not mired in the russia investigation. >> fbi, don't move. >> reporter: at the fbi training academy in virginia where prospective agents are put through the paces, fbi director christopher wray says there's been no drop in the number of applicants despite accusations that the fbi favored hillary clinton at the expense of donald trump. >> i have not seen a politicized organization. what i have seen is people fiercely focused on trying to do the right ng the right way. >> reporter: but what does it do to morale when some of the toughest criticism comes from

the president himself? >> would we prefer not to get criticized? of course. but we're our own toughest critics. >> reporter: he says the fbi can be highly selective with new agent admissions, accepting only about 5%. >> the last time i checked, 5% is better or about comparable to the admission rate at harvard, yale, princeton and you can go down the list. >> reporter: wray disclosed the fbi is tracking more than 3,000 terrorism cases nationwide with some in every state. 2,000 connected to isis or other foreign terror organizations, some of them homegrown. >> we have about another thousand of domestic terrorism investigations which cover the waterfront from everything from white supremacists all the way to anarchists and everything in between. >> reporter: 3,000 cases. how can you possibly keep up with them? ? we have a lot of people working on this. we have -- i think the best contribution we have towards our joint terrorism task forces which are all over the country. >> reporter: as wray talks about fighting that threat with agent

trainees, he dismisses criticism that fbi undercover agents sometimes push potential terror suspects to commit crimes. >> we have too many threats to deal with without running around putting ideas in people's heads. >> another growth area for the fbi is tracking foreign spies, especially from china which wray says commits more economic espionage than any other country by far. >> ultimately it's going to have an impact on american jobs, american businesses and american consumers. >> reporter: wray also calls the recent rise in violent crime very significant andsaid it's taking an unusually heavy toll on law enforcement. >> since the beginning of 2018, there have been 17 officers, state and local officers, shot and killed in the line of duty. >> reporter: as for the fbi's reputation in some of the criticism which wray calls the fbi's brand, he says it hasn't suffered with judges, juries, or other law enforcement people the

fbi works with. he says he intends to fill out the full term of the fbi director and is determined to leave in the better shape than when he got there. >> pete williams, fascinating. what a time for these heroes. up next, what congress is stuffing into its $1.3 trillion spending bill just hours before a government shutdown the. tammy baldwin joins the conversation on that and her own reelection race in wisconsin. that's next on "morning joe."

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. this saturday, students will lead the country in taking to the streets to protest gun violence. it comes in the wake and in response to the parkland tragedy last month. by one count in axios, at least 819 march for our lives

demonstrations are planned for saturday. 94 of which are abroad and 725 are here in the united states covering all 50 states and 387 congressional districts. that's pretty amazing. joining us now, a member of the senate appropriations committee, democrat tammy baldwin of wisconsin and you're going to be speaking at the wisconsin march. >> yes, in madison, i think there's more than one march happening in wisconsin. if i make it home after we wrap up the omnibus and that sort of thing i plan on doing that. >> let's talk about that. there's a $1.3 trillion bill that's -- covers a teensy bit of president trump's wall so he's selling that he's got the wall covered in a teen sy bit of a wy and we're paying for it, that's not mexico. >> that's right. >> but what about the rest of the bill. does it -- is it something you can live with?

>> i presume so. it just got filed. it's long. >> what's missing? >> a lot of things are missing but let's talk about the segue between the gun issue and this omnibus. it didn't take bold new steps like including comprehensive background checks like we would like to see 90% of americans agree with. it does include the fix nics which is a small measure. and relief of the prohibition of government funded research into gun violence. which will be so important to informing this debate. but what i really wanted to highlight is something that i've been fighting for for a long time is upping our response to the opioid epidemic which has been a scourge on this nation

but has certainly impacted our state. >> the president was in new hampshire this week talking about it and he's got certain ideas as to how to deal with it. >> yeah, the thing that got the most attention, of course, was his call for the death penalty for certain drug dealers. but i think accountability goes much further. if you think about how many became addicted because of a prescription. let's look at the drug corporations. let's look at the insurance companies that are saying yes to reimbursing drug treatment for pain, but saying no when somebody's seeking a drug-free alternative to heal and treat their pain. there's an extra $3 billion of funding for opioids, which will really help in my state in areas of the state where treatment and recovery assistance are not available in proximate location to the people who need it. >> senator, i want to ask about your own re-election this year

and kind of the landscape as kro the country. your approval rating is one of the lowest where trump won. 37%. why is that? >> we're a terribly polarizing state, which i hate. when i started in political life running for office, people were ticket splitters. there wasn't the partisan polarization we see. it's unfortunate. there's a lot of causes for it, i think, but what i would say also is that wisconsin has seen more outside spending, more super pac spending, particularly from the coke brothers. these out of state special interests think they own wisconsin, and they've been attacking me, and that certainly contributes to how people feel about politics. >> wow. >> how do you handle the trade issue in wisconsin? especially when some of your vote, tremendous agree with

president trump's position on trade, as a democrat, because president trump won that state. >> first of all, i welcome the renegotiation of nafta. if you look at the economy of my state, we have a robust agriculture economy, and we have a very robust manufacturing economy. one of the strongest of any state in the union in terms of the percentage of our workforce. almost 20% engaged in making things. that's what we're known for in wisconsin. i've always believed that nafta had provisions that really harm manufacturing jobs and workers, yet most of the provisions are embraced by our ag community, allowing us to get in there and fix what's wrong and hopefully strengthen what works. >> sam stein has a question. sam? >> yeah. i was wondering from a purely political perspective, if you look back at the tax cuts that were passed end of the year. at the time every democrat was against it. argued it was a give away.

famous quote from nancy pelosi it was crumbing for the middle class. a bit of time passed since then. i wonder if you've thought differently about the package? if there are parts you like and would keep and if you think politically it's advantageous for you guys or less advantageous for you guys now that we're a couple months removed? >> my tax plan, alternative, would have focused much more on working people. rewarded work more than the package rewards wealth. in wisconsin we're seeing examples how this hasn't worked. how trickle down has failed. take the example of kimberly-clark organization a company founded in wisconsin in 1872. last year they made $3.3 billion in profits. now sthey have a big tax break. they have stock buy backs and

given pink slips at one of their most profitable plants. that is not trickle down. i can tell you while wisconsinites who are getting a tax break are appreciating that and their view of the tax bill is improving somewhat, when you hear about 600 pink slips on one of our oldest companies, because they're instead going for stock buybacks and dividend payouts, people see how skewed this is and who's being enriched and hard workers punished. >> would you vote to repeal the tax cuts entirely or want to keep a portion of them in place? >> i'd certainly want to put a portion of them in place and what we'll see right now. every embraces the opportunity to do infrastructure. there's a $1.5 trillion package that's only funded with $200 billion of federal funds. where's the other $1.3 billion? deficit because of the tax bill. i would apply some to our

infrastructure needs. >> senator tammy baldwin of wisconsin, we'll watch you at the rally as well as the marches across the country. thank you so much for being on this morning. >> thank you. still ahead, president trump defends his call to vladimir putin, and reportedly fumes over leaks he was told not to congratulate him. he was told in caps, but maybe he just saw the word congratulate and thought, i'll congratulate him, or maybe there was something worse at play. who knows. plus, mark zuckerberg says he doesn't see a "meaningful number of people deleting their fatebook accounts in the wake of the cambridge analytica scandal." what about the loss in market value? is that meaning. it? "morning joe" is coming right back. i'm here to fix the elevator. nothing's wrong with the elevator. right. but you want to fix it. right. so who sent you? new guy. what new guy? watson. ♪ ♪ my analysis of sensor and maintenance data

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all across new york state, we're building the new new york. to grow your business with us in new york state, visit esd.ny.gov. they asked me would i like to debate this gentleman, i said, no, if i were in high school i would take you outside the back and beat the heck out of him. >> i just wouldn't do that. it's the top of the hour and that was unfortunate or the part of the vice president, former vice president, but it has certainly fired up the president this morning on twitter. the president has a couple of things to worry about. perhaps bob mueller. perhaps stormy daniels. perhaps his ability to interact with others on the world stage at a level of any type of confidence that we could have in him at this point, but he's

taking aim at the former vice president in those comments writing "crazy joe biden is trying to act like a tough guy. actually he is weak both mentally and physically and yet he threatens me for the second time with physical assault. he doesn't know me but he could go down fast and hard. crying all the way. don't threaten people, joe." just let that breathe a little bit. because he also tweeted at 6:20 in the morning. he woke up and i think he was switching around with the channels, and tweeted. we'll have that for you. a lot of his tweets are nonsensical and shows he has a lot of misspellings which means he's tweeting very quickly which means he's eager to have this say about the news, i guess. and total dysfunction.

d.c. is about to add $1.3 trillion to your debt like it's no deal. happy thanksgiving, america." it's true and i wouldn't be distracted by the president's tweets or anything else at this point. welcome back to "morning joe." it's thursday, march 22nd. with us, we have politics editor for the "daily beast" candidate confessional sam stein and willie geist in new york. and national political correspondent for the "washington post" karen timbalty and george will and former assistant u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york, jennifer rogers joins us this morning. she is executive director and lecturer in law at columbia law school. very good to have you onboard this morning. willie? >> mika, we live in a world where it's about firing up your base. look online, joe biden getting applause with the threat of beating the president up in high school. president trump getting applause

for punching back in his world. not a pretty world we're in. president trump spent the snow day tweeting defense of his congratulatory call to russian leader vladimir putin. i called president putin to congratulate him. in past, obama called him also. the fake news want meese to excoriate them. they are wrong. he went on, they can help resolve problems with north korea, syria, ukraine, isis and even the coming arms race. bush tried to get along but didn't have the smarts. obama and clinton tried didn't have the chemistry. this amid reports a section for his call with president putin emblazoned with the words, do not congratulate written in all caps. the president ignored that. a white house official tells nbc news, "if this story is accurate that means someone leaked the president's briefing papers.

leaking such information is a fireable offense and likely illegal." a source familiar with this says chief of staff kelly is frustrated and briefly disappointed the president's briefing notes were in fact leaked. mika, send it back to you guys in washington. what we've talked about all morning is the outrage inside the white house about the leaks and not the outrage about the fact that the president of the united states ignored those carefully considered notes during his call to president putin. >> the whole thing is incredible, and concerning. george will, the leaks show that the national security team may have lost complete confidence in his president, and at this point it might be, just might be, every man for himself or they feel the need to share this. yet you have the president at this point pushing back and even blaming these leaks on the deep state. what is most concerning to you? >> the sense i think that in the white house that no one can trust anyone.

you can't trust the person sitting next to you. you can't trust the person down the hall. >> you can't trusted president as to what he might say. >> exactly. interestingly, of course, the national security adviser general mcmaster wrote a book about the failure of the uniformed military to stand up to what they took to be the mendacity surrounding vietnam. we have a man who's writing a book on principled insubordination. >> karen, you'll talk later why we should thank facebook and i can't wait to hear. talk about this relationship with russia. and the president's inability to say anything even remotely negative about a regime that all indications are have had some sort of participation in our election process, that they shouldn't have had. where do we go from here? >> well, it's i think the leak of these instructions speaks to

the fact that congratulating vladimir putin is exactly the opposite of what administration policy has been trying to move towards. >> what you do at this time. we know that obama at one point did. a different time and you had at the same time the state department saying things that were challenging towards russia. so you had a dual messaging going on, a coordination, it appears, in retrospect. here you have a president going rogue on his national security team. >> it speaks to a deep frustration. i think also a real possibility there is a concern here. this is a president about to ge in go into talks with kim jong-un. there's a concern you need to coordinate closely this meeting. if the president walks into that room, more concerned about his personal chemistry with the north korean dictator than with u.s. policy goals. that's a real concern. >> personal chemistry. you bring up a question that i think is among the minds of

many. especially in the intelligence community, who are concerned about this president. jennifer rogers, the legal angle here. i think we're looking at three different possibilities of problems. the president's relationship with russia. and his inability to say anything negative about vladimir putin or russia, and his apparent weakness on the world stage as it pertains to russia leaving some deeply concerned that russia may have something on donald trump. his relationship with the special counsel and his tweets indicating that he's looking carefully at the special counsel. he's starting to bully him on twitter. he's starting to talk about the fact that he doesn't think the special counsel should have ever been hired leading many to be concerned that he might fire the special counsel and put this country in the midst of a constitutional crisis. then he's got his relationship with women. and the growing legal concerns

pertaining to how he has treated certain women. whether or not he threatened them. whether or not he used legal means that were above board to silence them and whether or not the contracts he had with these women are null and void for veezveez reasons yet to be revealed. two out of three of these relationships raises the question whether or not the president can be blackmailed. my question, are we concerned he's impaired to the point we had not lead and which of these relationships are you most concerned about from a legal perspective? >> essential the relationships around russia and, of course, corollary to that the obstruction investigation are the most worrisome for the president. the civil matters with respect to the women, really the criminal issues there come in if he ends up testifying in a deposition anden committing perjury. but on the russia side, to me, that's where you have a situation where you talk about that he may be compromised, but

he may be legally liable in theory if his campaign did coordinate with the russian interference in the election and, of course, we already have quite strong evidence of obstruction of justice for firing jim comey and attempting to fire bob mueller. he has a lot of legal land mines here. nothing's across the line yet, but, of course, we don't know what the special counsel knows. so we'll have to wait and see what he does with all of the information he's been gathering. >> another angle for you, jennifer. attorney general jeff sessions fired former acting fbi director andrew mccabe for lacking candor. last week. we're learning now mccabe earlier looked into sessions' own testimony. three, sows tell nbc news as the fbi's deputy director mccabe authorized an investigation whether sessions lied to congress when sessions testified to the senate judiciary committee about the trump campaign's contacts with russia. that was in this exchange then senator al franken.

>> if there is any evidence that anyone affiliated with the trump campaign communicated with the russian government in the course of this campaign, what will you do? >> senator franken, i'm not aware of any of those activities. i have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and i not have communications with the russians. >> that's in january. early january, 2017. just before the inauguration, but news reports later revealed sessions had multiple contacts with then russian ambassador. the investigation was not known to sessions when he made the decision to fire mccabe according to a justice department official. mccabe and deputy attorney general rod rosenstein privately informed lawmakers about the matter last year. the inquiry eventually went to special counsel robert mueller. in his investigation of possible collusion between the trump campaign and russia. in a statement sessions lawyer says the special counsel's office informed me after

interviewing the attorney general and conducting additional investigation the attorney general is not under investigation for false statements or perjury in his confirmation hearing testimony and related written submissions to congress. so jennifer, take all that together. what do you read into the fact the special counsel's office did look into jeff sessions and perhaps not telling the truth in that confirmation hearing about meeting with the russian ambassador but letting it go. what does that tell you? >> it's interesting they did look into it, it should give people comfort doj was operating with some independence there going ahead and listening to congress and doing that investigation. perjury is very, very hard to prove. at the time a lot of legal commentators were saying it sounds his answer was misleading it's very hard to bring a perjury charge. a clean answer and question to demonstrably show it was the false answer. it's a good thing. shows they did take a look at it. we should all be comforted by

that given the lack of independence the president is trying to cause here, and at the end they didn't have enough. that's not surprising. >> sam? >> i'm struck that the chief law enforcement officer of the nation has his own lawyer at this point. i guess everyone needs to lawyer up, but also the timing. mccabe is let go and a few days later it's revealed he had an investigation into sessions. let's remember that deep throw mark felt was the deputy director of the fbi. mccabe knows a lot and the possibility exists we'll have more leaks going forward because he's no longer in a position to feel emboldened to keep quiet. >> what are you hearing, karen, in terms of instability inside the administration and more people to go? >> well, there's obviously, if this goes back to the sort of tortured relationship. >> very. >> that the president and the attorney general have had all along, going back to what donald trump considers the original sin which is jeff sessions recusal of himself in this

investigation. >> right. >> this -- this new revelation suggests this recusal had to happen on a lot of levels. >> this is to george's point, too. donald trump has no strong relationships with anyone in his cabinet or high-level administration officials it appears, which could well explain why we have leaks of him ignoring the all caps lettering on the top of his briefing saying, don't congratulate putin. people think they're constantly getting fired aren't going to be beholden to president trump as a boss. >> and looking forward to sort of almost redeeming their reputation when they get out. >> correct. >> what's the politics of this, george? you actually have a column about democrats dreaming of turning california blue. thanks to trump. >> indigo already. >> indigo! >> exactly. >> but we've got a bill that some might argue republicans wouldn't like as much as democrats on the table, as we look towards a government shutdown. we have a president who was a democrat before he was a

republican, may still be a democrat. anden the republican party. where are they in all of this with all of these questions that really -- are focused on the pi pillars of our democracy being undermined by the president? >> conservatism is not supposed to be warm, fuzzy and cuddly. it's supposed to be realistic. you're supposed to tell the truth about certain hard things. entitlement reform. gone. no one talks about it, because the head of the republican party promised not to touch the two drivers of our deficit, social security and medicare. they're now a protectionist party meaning a party of officially crony capitalism. that's what protectionism is. it's to get the government to help certain industries that aren't making enough money, they think, to take it from consumers. they're now -- they have $1 trillion at a minimum, $1

trillion deficit during rapid economic growth at full employment. where that's going to go when we have a recession, assuming we have another one in the business cycle will be very interesting. >> what's the politics of the wall? a teensy bit paid for, by america? >> well -- the wall -- karen talked about the -- the wall is not going to happen. the meeting with the north koreans, not going to happen. >> i feel the wall is a symbol. like a flashy policy priority for the president no expert thinks would be useful and very well would be wasteful. it's a problem he made and feels he has to keep and it will never come to fruition. in some ways the wall is actually a poignant symbolism of this presidency. >> exactly. >> it's at a -- thank you. >> thank you. >> we are at a point republicans are trying to give him something to feed the beast, and it's something that you say will never happen. and yet we have major issues.

we have dreamers waiting for fate on their future. where is that now? why will there not be a meeting with north korea? >> on the dreamers, the supreme court took a lot of pressure off by refusing to deal with the program and sending it back into the courts. unfortunately, i think that means in congress there is -- these guys don't work without the deadline. the president wants his wall, and he is so fixated on the wall, he's -- that is the bargain he ultimately sees. >> i think all of these issues point to what we saw exemplified in the leaked documents, kasie hunt, where the president didn't take advice of the national security team when on a call with vladimir putin. that is you don't know what this president is going to do and chances are, and i don't know a polite way to say it, that he is going to -- he's not going to follow through

on any deal that has been made. whether you're a republican or a democrat, you can't believe a word he says. >> i think members in both parties at different times throughout the last year have experienced the phenomenon that you outlined where they go into a meeting. the president said, yeah, i'm onboard and it all falls apart. this is a little different because it's actually written down, pages and pages of legislative texts and sit there with the president, you say you're going to veto this, we have no idea where we're going from there. yesterday was defined by exactly what you're talking about. a last-minute scramble. aides on the hill that the white house was at the last minute raising questions about a deal -- these staffers have been up overnight for days trying to write the final, put finishing touches on this bill. to have the president throw a wrench do into it at the last second, there was a feeling that would be close to catastrophic. there's a sense of relief we seem to be moving forward. see how it goes on the house

floor today. we'll see what rand paul does, because that's another potential wrench and i guess we'll see if the president tweets again. >> right. about joe biden. crazy joe. all right. george will, jennifer rogers, thank you both for joining us this morning. karen timmelty stay with us. i want to know why we should be thanking facebook. a good one. still ahead on "morning joe," nearly a week after a scandal, mark zuckerberg finally weighs in. but is it too little too late? our next guest says the damage to facebook may be irreversible. that straight ahead on "morning joe." first to bill karins with a check or the nor'easter. >> the storm won't end. some areas crushed last night. one spot in long island picked up a foot of snow in nearly two hours and ended up in bay shore around 19.3 inches. highest total i've seen. new york city, 8 inches. the blue shows where the snow is.

lingering here in new england. temperatures around freezing. roads be okay but annoying to see it still snowing a day later. heavy rain in southern california. remember you a the deaths from the mud flows back in january. the most significant rainfall event since then and think it could be worse than that night. here's santa barbara. there are thunderstorms over that area and this is what we were fearing. this could end up with one to three inches of rain, mud and debris flows likely through this morning into the afternoon. hopefully in rural areas and not through homes and communities. they've already evacuated 30,000 people just in case. those people will be very nervous waiting to see what their property looks like when it's all said and done. the timing on the mess. cold front goes through. eventually clears out the rain. not until friday, then the rain shifts further north up the coastline in california. today's forecast, there's the rain from san francisco to l.a., everywhere in between. exiting the snow.

if you want great weather hang out in the middle of the country. dallas today, 80 degrees and sunny. sounds just about perfect. new york city, 8 inch ares of snow. manhattan, warm pavement doing its thing melting it all away. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

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zuckerberg now lost $9 billion in wealth in just the past two days. >> oh, no! mark zuckerberg has lost $9 billion? now he only has $70 billion? you realize that's barely enough to furnish ben carson's office. right? you mean, my wife's office. seriously. mark zuckerberg is not having a good day. things are so bad, facebook is showing him ads for xanax. click here. >> and "wired" magazine jesse

hempel, "irreversible damage of mark zuckerberg's silence." criticizing facebook's response to revelations of the social media company's misuse of data and writes, what happened in the last five days has been the biggest crisis of facebook's existence, but zuckerberg's five-day silent treatment may move pror damning for facebook than any of the news that precipitated it. finally he's weighed in with, of course, a facebook post and promise of a television interview. it will take more than charming posts showing zuckerberg baking in his kitchen to appease regulators stepping up and countless displays of intimacy to win back the trust of his users. good to see you. >> thank you for having me. >> played some of the television interview early on. senator richard blumenthal was on a few minutes ago. i asked would you use subpoena power to bring mark zuckerberg there? he said if he doesn't voluntarily show up we will subpoena mark zuckerberg. how dig is this not just for

mark zuckerberg but for the company? >> existential crisis for the company. it's the idea of what facebook stands for. advertising is the company's business model and it turns out that when you give facebook your data as a consumer, now maybe you can't trust facebook to take care of it. what that means is that consumers, users, you and me, we may give facebook less of our data making the business suffer. >> can you explain that business model? it is what they promise advertisers. look at this. access to all of this personal data. target your ads and get a bigger return on them. >> that is what they promise advertisers, but in the process they promise users something else. if you read that, like, extremely long body of rules that you sign before you sign up for the site and i don't know about you. i actually haven't made it through. i don't think ever. but if you do, you come away with the idea that facebook is at least going to keep people, keep third parties from manipulating you. i think the fear here originally

was that people realized, oh. i may have been manipulated all along by the data i gave facebook. i trusted facebook for safe keeping. the secondary challenge, willie it's that facebook didn't realize the degree to which it was a problem. right? we just didn't hear from them for five days. >> mika? >> so, karen timmelty, you write in the latest point in the "washington post" this entitled "maybe we should be thanking facebook." facebook and cambridge analytica are getting richly deserved condemnation but perhaps we should also thank them for shining a spotlight on something that is eating at our political system. yes, we are all products of our demographics, to some degree, but to assume that is all anyone needs to know or ask, short changes voters and diminishes candidates. what's lost when data starts driving politics is not only privacy including that of 50 million facebook users but also

an opportunity to make our politics more than the sum of its factions. it's a great point. in case you've been looking at this, it is shining a light on the problem. having said that, facebook needs to face the facts that it is or is not a publisher. right? >> they do. what i cannot understand and i'm very interested to hear what jesse has to say on this as well is, how this -- if you walk through how facebook responded to this crisis, they learned about this story more than two weeks ago. >> right. >> they knew behind the scenes. they announced, got ahead of the story on march 16th announcing they were suspending cambridge analytica but they kwquibbled whether to use the word "breach." "wire" reported, sheryl and mark zuckerberg spent the week arguing about what to do about this. they didn't talk to their own employees until tuesday. they only sent the legal counsel and now you send mark zuckerberg out finally and all he says is,

maybe i'll testify before congress. this is a company that required all of the rest of us to completely rewire how we communicate and they're acting like ma bell. jesse, i wonder, why is it? what is it about mark zuckerberg's psychology that has them responding this way? >> funny you point that out. if it were another company we wouldn't be so hard on the ceo for not showing up. ste speaks to the kind of company ma facebook is. we trust facebook because in the beginning we trusted mark. that makes the silence even more questionable. the fact that he didn't show up suggests to me the company's leadership is in a type of chaos we haven't seen before. >> well, and then, karen, to your point. maybe we should thank them for shirning a light on this and shining a light on the fact facebook is indeed a publisher. that might be there problem. how do you put the toothpaste

back in the tube? >> the very first thing you do is you let every single one of those 50 million people know what you did with their data. i think that that is the most obvious first step to proving that they are serious about dealing with this problem, and about restoring the good faith of their customers. by the way, their customers who they have been treating like their products. >> right. >> i would like to know if my data was compromised. >> willie, when we look at all of these different tech firms, there are ways they can tell you in that area where you scroll down and just agree before you log in. it's going to have to be more than that, i think. >> yeah. no. i think so. in a lot of ways there's an element of aarrogance. the new masters of the universe. right? dictate how we communicate, who gets our information, and do you think they get this is a big deal? mark zuckerberg and facebook,

not just his company, twitter and others, ridden the wave and come out the other side of it. do they think this time is different or it will go away like the others? >> i think they get this is a big deal. look at the stock price. they can see it. what you say and what you call arrogance is the thing that will hinder them. i think they still believe they are powerful enough that they can get through this. on the other side of this, we are going to need facebook. i mean, facebook isn't just a service. right? it is a utilitiy. it is our phone book. that opens the door for regulation. >> sam? >> i should first disclose my wife works for facebook. >> oh, here we go. >> and isn't twitter the real problem? >> did you know it was a publisher. >> we have this talk. first of all, i actually don't think it's arrogance. i think it's a little more scary than arrogance. it's a -- i don't think they actually fully know the extent of the problem. what was most striking to me during mark zuckerberg's cnn interview was that he didn't

have concrete answers. they were going to do a full audit. the very real possibility exists cambridge analytica was not the only one to use a third-party venue to access this data meaning the university of data is being used is probably much larger than the 50 million. why it took so long to say something because he wants to get his hands around the problem before he actually addresses it. is that zuck? >> yeah. >> the bigger problem, not arrogance, grappling with the problem. >> how about naivete? >> that's the problem. and the interview towards the end, they asked does facebook need to be regulated? he basically invited congress to do the regulation. you know what? maybe we should be regulated. what essentially that said to me was, he realizes that he's built a company, a platform, whatever you want to call it, that is a little hard to control and he could use help putting in guardrails and barriers. it also signals to me he wants to be able to pass the

buckalities bit. to say to regulators, next time this happens it's not just on us to self-regulate. >> buying time as well. >> done that on russia, too. they said the reason partly we couldn't figure this out because the intelligence community didn't give us the information we need. that may be a valid criticism. once they actually started looking for it they found a lot. >> i want to point out one thing. this is not -- numerous other companies give out our data without were us really knowing. >> we know. >> credit card companies. >> your grocery store cards. >> the problem with facebook, they have more of our data. >> and it's a whole new world and russia is now using that data making it a tad different. jesse and karen, thank you both very much. fascinating story. still ahead, we'll dig dealdea deeper into the market crisis and the federal reserve just hiked interest rates to the highest level in a decade. there are strong numbers all around, but is the economy at risk of overheating? we're going to check in with

cnbc on that next on "morning joe." >> given the stakes here why shouldn't facebook be regulated? >> i actually am not sure we shouldn't be regulated. look how much regulation is around on advertising, on tv and print. it's not clear why there should be less on the internet. right? you should have the same level of transparency required. with tough food, your dentures may slip and fall. new fixodent ultra-max hold gives you the strongest hold ever to lock your dentures. so now you can eat tough food without worry.

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time now to go to business before the bell with cnbc's dominic chu. the fed raised short-term interest rates to its highest levels in a decade. investors applauding, but what does it mean for the average person across the country. >> you make a good point. the sixth time they've raised interest rates since december 2015. when the fed made the decision to get out of that whole financial crisis driven emergency policy. many consumer driven borrowing rates and level of interest rates overall for savers. how much they earn on savings accounts, certificates of deposit, tide to auto loans, credit card rates, what happens on your home mortgage and that's

w why you care. i also point out the fed did boost their forecast for u.s. economic growth over the next couple years. a bit of a positive there. another thing we're watching is newly minted jerome powell, made remarks an trade tariff effects on the economy. people voiced concerns 0en that front. it's going to be a big focus today. it's widely expected president trump will announce a package of tariffs targeted at china that's meant to punish it for intellectual property theft. according to sources familiar, those policies will not include restrictions on chinese injem t investments in the u.s. on student visas, a fear among heavy machinery, farmers, china will retaliate leveling its own tariffs on u.s. goods. you've talked extensively about the big facebook data scandal. an update on a newer development on that front from internet software and web browser

mozilla. it said in a corporate blog posting it's suspending its advertising program on facebook adding that facebook knows a great deal of intimate info about its 2 billion users, encouraged by mark zuckerberg's comment to improve privacy but wants stronger action on that front before returning as an advertiser in the future. mika, guys, it's all about whether or not other companies follow suit on that front and pull their advertising. back to you. >> all right. cnbc's dominic chu, thank you very much. up next, it's being called the defining fear for a generation. there is new polls on how students view gun violence and the threat of mass shootings inside their classrooms. keep it right here on "morning joe."

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most people think that the school shooting can never happen here, but the same people are the ones who saw all the signs and never said anything. being bullied, the obsession

with guns. even posting on instagram about shooting up the school. no one said anything. i'm sure tomorrow somebody will wish they had said something. >> well, that was a powerful new psa from sandy hook promise. promoting its anonymous reporting system, say something. it's a platform to help identify at risk individuals before they hurt themselves or others. this weekend kids in all 50 states are planning to march for gun restrictions to stop school shootings. joining us ahead of saturday's marches, washington bureau chief for "usa today" susan page and here to reveal "times'" latest cover "enough" profiling the students behind the #neveragain movement, the magazine's correspondent who wrote the week's cover story. it is entitled "the young and the relentless."

i love that title. "the young & the restless" did you watch that, susan? >> absolutely. >> i only ask susan and we know why. great story. these kids are relentless and they are making headlines. the question is, will they make waves nationally in terms of legislation? >> absolutely. you know, i think that's the question everybody has right now. and the truth is, we can't possibly know. all we know is that these kids are not going anywhere and we're seeing an unprecedented wave of youth momentum around this issue and one of the things that i noticed in my reporting is that these kids know that marching is not enough. they need to register young voters in order to actually get this agenda through and so that's what they're planning on. they say over and over again they want four out of five young people voting in the midterms. they're planning on registering voters at all the marches this

weekend. they're not naive about this. they know they can't get this done with just tweeting and marching and viral videos. they know they actually have to show up in november. >> all right. and you spent a week with these kids. they have recommendations. they want to make owning a gun like driving a car. they want to involve doctors. invest in technology. fund research. end immunity. susan page, you are looking at polling that gives us a sense where people are on the gun debate. >> you know, here's what -- we did a poll with ipsos of 13 to 24-year-olds. the generation from the time they entered elementary school it was after the columbine shootings. in ways it's defined their lives in education. we asked what are your biggest worries? for both groups, 13 to 17-year-olds and 18 to 24-year-olds, the top concern in their lives is gun violence and

crime, because it is a reality that they have lived with. >> every kid across america, most parents know, they go to school. and they are looking in each classroom as to where they would run if a shooter came into their school. it's right on the mind. >> here's something amazing. kids who are 13 to 17 years old, 80% have had their parents sit them down and have a serious conversation about what to do if there was a shooting at their school. 80%. >> and the number of school shootings, willie geist, shows this is a real issue. they're happening every day. >> it's built into their school experience now. talking about this, charlotte and i. the way we used to do fire drills growing up, our kids, my kids do active shooter drills and almost not alarmed. yeah. lock the door, close the blinds. get in the corner, turn off the lights. they know what to do if this happens. there's been over the years i think, a defeatism about getting something done on the issue of guns because the two sides are so ripped apart.

what's been the approach, not just of the parkland kids but of this new generation of people trying to look at the problem so it's not, perhaps, as divisive as it's always been? >> absolutely. they're trying to move past the left-right debate on this issue and framing it as a generational showdown. saying, look, adults have tried and failed for years to solve this problem. it's our turn now. we're going to try, and they have a lot of strategies that are frankly more effective than many of the adults trying to handle this for years. they're funny. they're entertaining. they call out, you know, amy gonzalez in our viral speech she called b.s. on what the nra and some conservative politicians have said on this issue and not just accepting thoughts and prayers anymore and there's a veracity to them. they're the ones that have been trained to handle a school shooter. they're the ones that had classmates who died. they're not going anywhere.

one of the other things i think is really smart about their strategy, they're also kind of untouchable. it's hard for the nra or gop to fight back against teenage survivors of a school shooting. in some ways they are, it's like a david and goliath situation. >> all right. charlotte, thank you very much. i want to broaden out to politics here in washington as we're looking ahead to republicans and democrats trying to stave off a government shutdown. there are -- really is a drum beat of questions building up this week surrounding the white house, and susan i want to turn to you on this. the questions pertain to several things we've talked about all morning. his relationship with bob mueller. the concern he will fire him and the signs in his tweets that he's thinking about that, and his new lawyer on his legal team who would definitely given everything he has said in the past possiblyurge this president to fire mueller. his relationship with russia. his call with vladimir putin. his inability to read his notes

that were put in front of him from his national security team, in all caps, "do not congratulate." what does the president do? congratulates vladimir putin on his "free and fair" bogus and f bogus election. his relationship with the attorney general. does he understand sessions doesn't work for him? that jeff sessionings s is not lawyer? a lingering question. his relationship with women. we've had more women stepping forward. former playboy mode whole might have had some sort of nda with him which was perhaps presented to her by lawyers in an untoward way. there may have been threats. we have a former star of theate prentiss whose case had been allowed to move forward. we have the 60 minutes interview with stormy daniels that is going to be airing this sunday that may show credible proof that she was threatened either by trump or one of his stooges. which shows he has an issue with his relationships with women that he can't handle and he has to have others handle for him.

or something like that. so a number of these relationships i just listed point to the fact this president might be vulnerable to blackmail or vulnerable to being coerced in some way. i see him tweeting this morning. he's tweeting about joe biden. he's tweeting nonsensical things about campaigning and crooked hillary and whatever else. at 6:20 in the morning he started tweeting. what do you think about these relationships? which one of them should he be most worried about this morning? >> it's important we don't lose sight of the number and velocity of controversies and scandals that are swirling around this administration is unprecedented. presidents have faced crises before of all sorts. personal scandals. national security crises, all kinds of things. certainly not in modern times have we had a situation like this one. i think it's fed a growing sense

of peril in this country. and in this capital in particular about what's ahead and how will the institutions we have built up in this country over two centuries deal with this storm that we see on everything from personal scandal -- >> the thing that's often discussed in private is the fact that absent may be puerto rico, this administration hasn't faced a real world crisis not of his own making. eventually that will change. eventually we'll have what is an aversion of the oebola crisis that obama faced. to read his briefing, to trust his advisers, to not get consumed by the surrounding scandals, that's when the rubber will hit the road. we haven't had it, he's been very fortunate, but that's going to be a critical juncture.

>> one person cannot run this country alone. that's another defining presence from past administrationings. there's no one around him that he seems to trust. >> as the former cia director john brennan said on our show yesterday, this is a man who has served five presidents on both sides of the aisle and has access to some of the nation's darkest secrets and classified information, had access definitely, and seems to really be worried about the future of this country. one person can't lead this country and definitely not an impaired person whose personality and character is deeply flawed and he pointed to that using his words not mine, that he's morally imbalanced, that he doesn't have the intellectually ability to handle relationships, let alone on the world stage. let alone with someone like vladimir putin or north korea or iran. so we are potentially at a tipping point as we watch these

legal cases build up and the mueller investigation close in and there are many who feel the republicans should pass legislation to protect the special counsel. we'll see if that happens any time soon. susan page, thank you very much. we're back in three minutes. liberty mutual stood with me when i was too busy with the kids to get a repair estimate. i just snapped a photo and got an estimate in 24 hours. my insurance company definitely doesn't have that... you can leave worry behind when liberty stands with you™ liberty mutual insurance.

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like to punch him in the face, i tell you. i don't know if i would have done well, but i would have --

beat that -- >> the press always ask me, don't i wish i were debating him? no, i wish we were in high school, could i take him behind the gym, that's what i wish. >> did you see where biden wants to take me to the back of the barn. me. he wants to. i'd love that. i'd love that. mr. tough guy. >> ah! >> oh. >> ahh! >> all right. we're going to go to final thoughts this morning. i'm going to start off with democrats don't do what biden did. let the story speak for itself. willie. >> my final thought is this is a terrible fake tough guy fight. one of those bar fights where

the two guys are going like this backing away from each other. we don't want to see this fight. >> no, we really don't. kacie hunt. >> i have to say, while i appreciate the sentiment of joe biden defending women, i think the me too movement and everything about the last year has been about women being able to stand up for themselves. so i don't know about boys fighting to defend honor behind the barn. that's very last century. >> i'm not seeing it. sam stein, your wife works for facebook, go. >> i think -- i was going to say sometimes you have to pinch yourself and realize on sunday night the nation is going to tune in to watch a porn star detail a consensual relationship she had with the future president of the united states. we live in very odd times. >> i'm interested in see wag comes out of that. i want to read joe's tweet about facebook. joe is supposed to not be working. not supposed to be working. >> twitter's not working. >> here is what he says. facebook shoots false news and

russian propaganda into the bloodstream of americans, politics. abuses consumers by misusing their personal information and is the news source of over 50% of americans. checks must be put in place to control this dangerous behemoth. i am glad mark zuckerberg at least appears to be open to regulation or something. because i know your wife works for facebook, but they need to fix this problem. that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage. >> thanks so much, mika. appears to be open to regulation. it's not up to you, mark. good morning, i'm stephanie ruhle with a lot to cover. starting with facing the fallout. nearly one week after news of a massive data breach rocks the social networking giant, embattled co-founder and ceo mark zuckerberg goes on a media blitz, promising a full review and responding to the demands that he testified before congress. >> what we try to do is send the person at facebook who will