i'm responding. i then respond maybe times ten. i respond pretty strongly. >> were you physically attracted to him. ? >> no. >> not at all? >> no. >> well, for somebody who can hardly wait to punch back, president trump has been uncharacteriu uncharacterist cli quiet about stormy daniels. the president dismisses others over poor chemistry and their appearance. it all comes as much of the world including the united states finally -- finally takes a hard stance against russian aggression. good morning and welcome to morning joe. it's tuesday, march 27th. we have mike barnacle. the chair of the african american studies at princeton

university. republican strategist and political commentator, and historian john meacham. mika will be back with us tomorrow. before we start this, mike, it has been remarkable, has it not, that there has been complete silence from donald trump when it's come to stormy daniels from the beginning. i mean, you could go through all the people that have crossed donald trump's path over the last two and a half turbulent years in politics and there have only been two that he has not struck back on. v vladimir putin and stormy daniels. >> he's afraid of both. you know, it's odd, joe, when you mention the president's reluctance or his hesitancy to acquire new legal teams because

of his own personal flaws, i guess. there was laughter around the table here when you indicated their appearance would preclude them from being hired but it's not funny anymore when it's considered what's going on with his failure to obviously as you indicated tweet about anybody he fears and he really fears what's happening. >> yeah, he really does. and you know, his struggle to stack his legal team continues. as a prominent chicago definance attorney and his colleague declined an invitation to represent the united states. this is the dream of a lifetime for any attorney to be able to represent the president of the united states. think about it. your billing hours while sitting in the oval office talking to the most powerful person in the free world and yet every lawyer keeps coming back telling donald trump the same thing, no, sir,

no, thank you, we don't want to have anything to do with you and the latest is dan webb, a former u.s. attorney in the reagan administration and a special prosecutor. he said he couldn't join the team. since webb represents billionaires with ties to paul manafort. he also said president trump reached out to dan webb and tom buchanan to provide representation. they consider the opportunity to represent the president to be the highest ton nhonor and they regret that they cannot do so. it's like when you're in high school and every girl you ask out says you are the sweetest guy in the world but no i'm not going to the dance with you. that's what keeps happening to this president. this as another republican lawyer turned donald trump down. ted olson said no one is asking

to be on that team. nobody wants to be on that team and david is reporting that he asked olson about being recruited for trump's side and he rolled his eyes and said he was never going to be his lawyer. that wasn't going to happen and it's not just a matter of conflicts. in the last few days, has any lawyer come up to you and said i'm willing to work for trump? he writes olson said no. andrea mitchell was taken that he's taken aback about the chaos and turnover within the trump administrati administration. >> i think everybody would agree it's turmoil, it's chaos, it's not good for anything. we always believe there should be an orderly process. and government is not clean or orderly ever, but this seems to be beyond normal. >> and meanwhile we've heard multiple explanations for why donald trump turned around

quickly on two legal team members that he had added early in the weekend and official statements said that joseph digenova and conflicts from joining the team. but unnamed administration sources claimed it was more personal. according to the new york times trump met with a pair of lawyers but did not believe he had personal chemistry with them and donald trump believed the couple looked dishevelled. not really where to go with that. but richard, you've been around washington a very long time. lawyers figure out a way around not representing clients who have conflicts with the president of the united states. they figure out a way to get there. but it is very clear and we've heard it around washington, you heard ted olson talk about it. nobody wants to be this guy's

lawyers. as we said yesterday, don't want to be his lawyer because first of all he doesn't pay his bills and secondly he lies to lawyers all the time. they can't trust him going into court and talk about how significant this is now as we have robert mueller lining up all of his evidence, lining up his witnesses, getting all the cooperating witnesses with him. i mean, this is a president that is going into the legal battle of his life and it's -- he's basically unilaterally disarmed himself. >> exactly. and there aren't too many people that have come out of this administration with the reputation enhanced. let me put it generously this morning. indeed a lot of them face open ended legal challenges because of what they did in this administration. again, you're a lawyer, i'm not, but i would think this is one of the most difficult if not the most difficult imaginable clients. whether it's the tweets and he

decides he wants to represent himself, the unpredictability, i would think it would be near impossible to mount an effective defense in addition to all the stuff you were saying given the reputation, the history and so forth, so i'm not surprised and i think the real question is not whether it affects lawyers but more broadly, how are you going to recruit the best and brightest coming into this administration given in overhang and so many people have left washington diminished. >> the one thing john meacham a lawyer can't put up with is being lied to when it's you and your client in the board room and you're talking and going through the facts, you have to -- you just sit down with your client and you say you've got to tell me everything and whatever you tell me doesn't leave this room but i can't prepare for your case unless you tell me the truth about everything. so surprise me now.

do not surprise me in the courtroom and yet here's donald trump knowing that any lawyer he gets, he believes he's smarter than that lawyer. he's going to lie to him and there's no way he can mount any defense for donald trump. >> yeah, and interestingly we're all kind of in that position, aren't we? i mean, we're all kind of asking him, please don't surprise us anymore and yet it happens. i totally agree with richard. i think the broader point is really riveting. he can't find someone to defend him and even more important in many ways, the people he finds to serve him and therefore us are people like the new national security advisor and people who are not -- how do we put it, on the -- on the a-team of the sane. and so i think that we're in this odd position where his --

we sometimes think of the presidency and rightly as the loneliest job and the buck stops there. but it's a big operation and you have to have people who you can trust and people that we can trust to actually execute the public business and right now, from everything i know you're hearing and that i'm hearing, people just don't want to go in. >> well, we wondered this morning where murdock's wall street journal is going to have anything. quote, every voter in 2016 understood that donald trump had a bad history with women. but mistakes of character tend to catch up with everyone and that's what is now happening with president trump and his many women. mr. trump can't retain the best legal counsel because no one wants a client who ignores all advice. he wants to answer questions from mr. mueller but probably won't prepare enough to avoid

even accidental self-incrimination. the stormy daniels case is typical of mr. president trump's prepresidential behavior and thinks he can get away with anything. he's never understood that a president can't behave that way and this may be the cause of his downfall. susan, this is just among the first cracks in the terms of support editorial support from the president for the journal. >> the journal is exactly right. when you talk about the fault of his character coming back to haunt him, that not only plays to the president but also plays to a lot of republicans in the house and the senate right now who should be saying i will stand up for what's right, i will speak against the president and what he's doing, whether it's his policies or even the attacks he makes on women and other people. but the stormy daniels thing is just something that hits so -- hits him so differently, and i'm

not -- we know he hasn't tweeted about it. he hasn't gone anywhere, but i think it's just a matter of time and that's what i think a lot of people are waiting for. >> there's a piece in the new york times today about various republicans running around the country. and they cannot -- they can't stand up and talk about real issues that affect people because the first question out of the box is the president's behavior. >> right. it seems to me that this teflon don is no longer teflon don when it comes to the stormy daniels question. there's the case, there's the clients a client and the climate. i don't think any lawyer want to talk -- take on the case. and then there's the climate. the climate is not only the me too movement. the me too movement has changed the way in which people understand and accept certain kinds of behavior. there's the climate in terms of

the serious i think response to russian interference in our elections, there's the kind of economic uncertain isty. there's the chaos that's coming out of the white house, so all of this that i think informs how people are judging and assessing what's going on is also shaping and informing how lawyers will take on this case. >> and speaking of the republicans and that jonathan martin article and stormy daniels, let's go to the latest in the stormy daniels story. the porn star is now suing donald trump's personal lawyer michael cohen for defamation claiming that he portrayed her as a liar. the new filing also argues that the $130,000 hush money agreement signed just 11 days before the election should be nullified because it violated campaign finance law. meanwhile, the white house is trying to explain why the president has not responded to

the porn star directly. yesterday in the morning after her interview aired, the president tweeted quote, so much fake news, never before minute voluminous or inaccurate but through it all our country is doing great. the president has discussed his response with several aides and has been told that the stormy daniels issue doesn't rise to the level of a presidential response. they also told him it doesn't endanger his presidency or the agenda. here's the white house yesterday. >> can you state that the president is campaign and the trump organization did not violate election law regarding that payment? >> well, i can speak for only the white house. and i can say categorically obviously the white house didn't engage in any wrong doing. the campaign or mr. cohen, yeah, the campaign or mr. cohen can aggress anything with respect to their actions. with respect to that interview i

will say the president strongly, clearly and has consistently denied these underlying claims and the only person that's been inconsistent is the one making the claims. >> was the president aware of a physical threat made against ms. daniels when she was with her daughter back in 2011? >> well, the president doesn't believe that any of the claims that ms. daniels made last night in the interview are accurate. >> he doesn't believe she was threatened. >> no, he does not. >> what's his basis for that. >> he just doesn't believe that -- there's nothing to corroborate her claim. >> we've also learned that 22 million people watched 60 minutes sunday. the porn star interview was actually the news magazine's highest rated episode in a decade. beating donald trump's 2016 interview and any interview donald trump has ever had on 60

minutes. stormy daniels' lawyer did some trolling tweeting quote, since this is really what matters lol, the interview crushed by millions, any apprentice show in the last ten years as well as mr. trump's november 2016 appearance #priorities. we will leave that there. meanwhile, republican lawmakers are finding it increasingly tough to escape donald trump's shadow. quote, i don't see headlines with porn star nancy pelosi said democratic congressman cedric richman. and ryan costello discussing his decision not to seek re-election said the president was getting in the way of the gop's message.

>> we're talking about porn stars and the president rather than about tax policy or what we need to get done by the end of the year. it's very difficult for me to get that message out because we're talking about stormy daniels or it was mccabe. before that it was rex tillerson and where he heard the news that he was fired and one thing after another. it is -- it is deeply prus freig -- frustrating. >> that's ryan costello, he was expected to go places in the house. now he's going home. and we find the article -- this new york times article talks about the catch 22 that we've been discussing for the past year and that is republicans have to act a certain way to get past the primary process. or they believe they do. i believe they're badly mistaken but they believe they have to bow and scrape to donald trump and apologize to donald trump to get through that primary process, but if you do that in a

nevada senatorial primary or a arizona senatorial primary, as the article explains you make yourself radio active in the general election and you lose. >> has congressman costello said who he voted for for president in 2016? is he surprised by this? it's a claude reigns, it makes him look like a documentary. of course, this candidate is getting in the way of an agenda. i mean, what planet are they on? the world weave a the world we've all been living in since the escalator is the same one and so to suddenly discover like miranda and the tempest that a brave new world, president trump is a distraction from the issues facing america, good god. sorry, i'm just flabbergasted

that suddenly a republican would discover that maybe this unconventional president isn't really great for an underlying movement concern of agenda. huh. >> well, and john, and maybe if they've been speaking out against the worst -- his worst instincts, his worst character traits from the very beginning as i've been saying, maybe he would have checked those at the gate when he went into the white house. if he thought he ever was going to have to pay any consequences from the republican party, but they have bowed and they have scraped and they have been scared to death and let's just start at the very top with paul ryan who said yes, he's a rac t racist, yes, what he said was the epit my of a racest statement and i'm going to endorse him. when that is where the party

starts, it's obvious this is where we're going to end up. >> where you want to be in this, just to be a total self-parody here. tis w historically you want to be the senate forfrom maine who in 1950 said that joe mccarthy was violating fundamental american principles. you don't want to be the guys in '54 who just caught up with the idea that maybe things weren't so great with red baiting and so one of the tragedies of the last era and i've used this line before but this is one of the few cases of when trump won the nomination of a hijacker boarding a plan and the passenger sided with the hijacker x but the fun is over. we're now sort of commending him in this bizarre moment for not tweeting about -- about a porn star. so i just think the profiles

encourage after -- after the fire has come down i think is a bit much. >> and joe, just to go to your point about speaker ryan, it's the last week in march and he has not announced that he's seeking re-election yet. as a matter of fact there's some rumors going around that he may step down, but when it comes to people that he's trying to get to run for office how can he possibly influence them when he's not willing to say he himself is willing to run for re-election and that's starting to filter all the way down into the local races. >> and you know, richard, you either -- we're talking about john meacham and i were talking about how we've said that fit's the first time that a hijacker took over a plane talking about trump taking over the republican party and everybody on the plane cheered on the hijackers, well, guess what? we're now getting to a point where that plane is either going to crash or republicans are going to figure out a way to

land the plane and continuing to let the hijacker take control of the cockpit, i mean, i understand people are going to say we have to do it. no, you don't. you really don't. we ran newt gingrich out of town when he stopped representing conservative principles. i'm not saying they have to run donald trump out of town but they can tell him no. i mean, the thing that bothers me, richard, is we're on sesame street. today's number is 2. if only 2 republican senators stood up -- >> there you go. >> and two republican senators went to donald trump and said i understand you don't have any i palestinian, i understand that nobody ease ever held you to account. that's fine. you do what you want to do but we're here to tell you like barry gold water told richard nixon in 1974, it's over. you either begin behaving in a respectable responsible way or

you lose our two votes and you no longer have a majority of the united states senate. now, i can think of two senators that are retiring and i really wonder what bob corker and jeff flake want their legacy to be, but we really don't need their floor speeches. we really don't need their tweets. we need them to step up and protect the republic. but there seems to be absolute think no courage among republicans here. >> no, you're right and i was going to mention the same two senators. i don't see there's a lot to lose so it would be an easy profiling courage for them to stand up. my hunch is people are going to have go through november and only after november and assuming these trends hold that the -- it's a debacle for republicans and a lot of it is attributed to the president that then some people in the republican party may say hey, if this party has any future we've got to wrestle it back and we've got to find

out what it is we stand for and have some return to our roots, but i would be really surprised if that were to happen after what the last 14, 15 months ahead of that kind of a political awakening or whatever you want to call it, a debacle, so my guess is other than the odd statement rg, i kind of thi what we're seeing is what we're going to get as depressing as it's going to be. it's not as though the world is going on pause while we're doing this. you've got all these things coming at the united states from iran to north korea to trade. you name it. and where's the senate? where's the house? where are the hearings? where is congress standing up? not just about the president's personal behavior. how about his policy? where are people holding up a mirror and saying, are we comfortable with where this president and this administration are steering the ship of state? do we agree with these things? this is consequential. so i want them not just to

basically question his character as important as that is, i want somebody to start questioning his policies. >> and there is no consistency, there is no courage. one day they stand up and the next they go golfing and the next they're best friends. there seems to be no consistency. eddie, really quickly before we go to break, the woman who inspired or actually at the time the young girl who inspired action which actually led eventually to the end of segregation in the united states passed away yesterday. talk about the young girl who -- who looked up at those steps in little rock, arkansas, so many years ago and said they were big steps and my feet were so small, my legs were so small, but she walked up those stairs anyway and changed history. >> yeah, linda brown is one of those ordinary heroes that

fundamentally transformed the country. here we have a family in topeka who simply did not want their child to walk so far away in order to go to school, the white school right down the street. she december pratdly wanted to attend and she would not be admitted because she was african american and they joined the case and they fundamentally transformed the country and we need to talk about these young children, these young people. little rock 9, you think about the student sit-ins. these are young folk who put their lives on the line and challenged hatred front on. and as a result the nation is different. but we have to then as we celebrate her life acknowledge the fact that the country's schools remain as segregated today as they were in the 1960s. we still have a lot of fight to do. >> it gets to one small step.

a young girl exhibits courage and we are now part of an age where united states senators don't have the courage to stand up to the president of the united states. >> and that's one of the reasons why i talked about that quote, think about the courage in kansas, think about the courage in little rock, the courage at old miss and in alabama, so many students being courageous so long ago and actually changing the world that we lived in. now it's hard to even find a couple of senators who will stand up to the constitutional right that is -- that is occurring in washington, d.c. we just -- we just need some profiles and courage like that. still ahead on "morning joe," the united states joins its allies in sending a clear message to moscow, but will the removal of diplomats be enough to curb the kremlin.

and we already knew jared kushner was being investigated. we didn't know the white house it was investigating him. and speaking of donald trump's inner circle, the president is reportedly hoping to bring back rob porter. yes, the same rob porter fired last month amid allegations of abusing two of his wives. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. ♪ directv now gives you more for your thing. your letting go thing. your sorry not sorry thing. your out with the old in with the new, onto bigger and better thing. get the live tv you love. no bulky hardware. no satellite. no annual contract. try directv now for $10/mo for 3 months. more for your thing. that's our thing. visit directvnow dot com

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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. today's actions make the united states safer by reducing russia's ability to spy on americans and to conduct covert operations and threaten america's national security. with these steps, the u.s. and our allies and partners around the world make clear to russia that actions have consequences. >> the united states and at

least 22 other nations have expelled more than 100 russian diplomats from their respective countries. this comes in response to russia's recent poisoning of an ex- spy in the united kingdom using an extremely to beic ne e nerve -- toxic nerve agent. it is the largest expulsion of russian personnel ever by the united states. in addition, the trump administration ordered the closure of the russian consulate in seattle which senior administration official says is near a base that houses u.s. nuclear submarines. moscow will respond by expelling quote, no less than 60 american diplomats. russia's u.s. embassy even tweeted a poll asking which u.s. consulate the public would like the kremlin to close.

so richard, this seems to be the sor sort of step that a lot of policy thinkers have wanted to take for a long time. are you satisfied with it? is it enough? >> the good news here is that the united states and others one reacted to what russia did and it was concerted. it was almost like the old days with the united states and its allies forged something of a common position. this is foreign policy on auto pilot. if you expel russian diplomats, shockingly enough they're going to expel american and european diplomats. we didn't do anything to provoke this. they did it all. so i would have much preferred a different response. let's really go after people in putin's inner circle and that would have been something that the russians could not have retail yr retaliated in response.

>> well, mike, you actually had the united states deciding and this president in particular deciding that he was going to stand next to our ally and a special relationship. you've got to say for a woman who has been pushed around and criticized as much as theresa may has domestically in great britain, she really has come through and really has brought together a pretty strong coalition and gave donald trump and the government in the united states few choices but to stand by great britain. >> you're right. we really had no choice once theresa may pulled together a coalition and it was theresa may who pulled together that coalition. but to richard's point we could have done a lot more. if we really want to hurt the russians and putin specifically, you go after the banks here where there's still a lot of russian money being housed and john meacham, this is now and

has been for quite some time no longer a novel about russian spies. this is -- they're here. they're in our electoral systems. they are all over us. nearly every single day. >> yeah. >> and i always think of you and james bond in the same kind of frame. >> i know that. >> so it resonates with me. >> let's not give the whole thing up though. i'm still sort of undercover. >> you're more roger moore than connery, but we can work on that. the great question, this is the great unanswered question, some people think the answer is obvious of the current era which is -- and richard forgot more about this than i know, but this is a oddly -- an odd return of great game seeking of advantage

in a context in which there are nuclear weapons and that's still not an unthinkable threat and so the fact that -- as dick cheney said, this was an act of war, the russian attack on our -- on the democratic institutions of the united states, and the fact that the president has so reluctantly defended our national interest once he became president, he's going to be a defining story of this era and vladimir putin represents an ancient russian and indeed human characteristic which is a thirst for power that i think we have -- as george w. bush might say, have misunderestimated for too long and i think this is going to be a hugely important question. >> again, it's good that we push back and it's good that we concert it with our allies. that's all uncharacteristic with

this administration. but this is exactly the sort of thing, so not only can putin retaliate in kind. he can play the west and the united states in particular are against us. this is the latest affront to russian dignity and standing. they singled us out. i would have come up with a response that would have made him much harder to do that. go to his inner circle financially. putin's achilles heel is the fact there's no economic policy. his economic policy the essentially the price of oil and gags that afternoon. that's where we need to go after him. that would hurt him. this is cold war symbolism. this plays into his hands in another way. this reminds people of the good old days when we had a bipolar world. they had the kinds of tit for tat. i would do something much more subtle that would actually hurt him more. >> and while we have you here,

let's talk about john bolton. jimmy carter blasted president trump's decision to hire bolton and jimmy carter at times had been telling everybody to give donald trump a chance. this though he believes may be his worst mistake as president. take a listen. >> i think john bolton is a disaster for our country. maybe one of the worst mistakes that president has made since he's been in office is the appointment of john bolton who has been advocating a war with north korea for a long time and even promoting an attack on iran and who was one of the leading figures in orchestrating the decision to invade i iraq. >> and richard, jimmy carter sounds like a lot of republicans and democrats there. very concerned and certainly a lot of people in the foreign policy community very concerned that john bolton has as jimmy

carter said called for unilateral bombing of north korea, and continues to justify everything that happened from 2003 forward on i raran. how does this man take the reigns of the national foreign policy team and how does he take on this position when -- as you know better than anybody, if you're sitting in that position, you actually have to be somebody that can synthesize the idea of the foreign policy team and put them together and be a fair and honest broker for the president of the united states. >> look, joe, i worked with john bolton. there's little shall we say in john's record that suggests he has the judgment or the temperament to be right for this job. the temperament part is key because you really have to put due process, you have to put the synthesizing role before your own personal advocacy role and

that's difficult for any human being to do. there's nothing about john's past that he's willing and able to do that. the judgment issue is big, whether it's iraq war, his views about iran and i'd say for donald trump i almost wonder whether he's read what john bolton has reason and said. yes it's consistent with america first. he hasn't met an international agreement he likes but it's wildly inconsistent with make america great again. if john bolton's advocacy ever becoming policy, the united states would be embroiled in conflicts around the world and an expensive confrontations around the world that would detract domestically. >> and it goes against everything donald trump once again promised. working class voters, i'm not going to fight wars over there. i'm going to get people that will help us make america great again here and donald trump had an ongoing battle the entire

campaign on whether he's supported the iraq war or not and he called getting into iraq the stupidest thing the united states had done and he hires a guy who may be the last japanese soldier on a pacific island in 1957 fighting world wor ii. he still -- he is that -- he is that -- that japanese soldier that still thinks world war ii is going on. he still believes that the united states did the right thing in invading iraq when everybody else will now say including myself who supported the war at the beginning and 70% of americans who supported the war at the beginning, it was an unmitigated disaster. >> it was an unmitigated disaster. but also in turning americans against what i would call

considered and responsible international leadership. as is always the case, there's an over reaction to it which is why i wonder whether donald trump is actually familiar with the many positions of john bolton. i just don't see a consistency between what bolton is arguing and trump's primacy of things here at home. >> but is bolton's appointment the latest instance of the civil war within the republican party? i mean, he is a republican after all, so what does -- i mean, is this simply the latest expression of an implosion, a conflict? what does it represent for the party as such? >> i don't know what it means to be a republican anymore. when you talk about bolton being a republican, you tend to think of the republican party predonald trump and in a post donald trump world we don't know what that party is. but what i'm also thinking about when you talk about john bolton being head of the national security team, does he even know

what it means to be on a team instead of just focusing in on himself? and when you're a team leader you have to build a team. is he going to simply knock out everyone that was there? is he only going to look for people sycophants who are into what he's saying? how do you think he's going to manage that position? >> he has people who served with him in the past. a lot of people on the national security council are detailed from other agencies. so there's always professionals who would work there. so my hunch is he'll cobble together a team but you asked the right question. can he manage a process which means again, puttering your own preferences on the back burner while you make the president is exposed fairly with intellectual honesty to the full range of choices. i haven't seen a lot in john's past that would suggest he's the right person to do that.

>> more lawmakers and tech company executives calling for greater regulation on facebook including apple's ceo tim cook. the latest on the cambridge analytica scandal. that straight ahead along with facebook and gop problems in congress straight ahead on "morning joe."

the new york times is tweeting that the legal team is one-man. he knows no one wants to represent him, but he's saying everybody does. that's when i said i wasn't going to prom because too many pretty girls asked me and i didn't want to see them cry. >> look at that. he's picking up our prom joke from yesterday. hey, mike, you just told us that you met sister jean, the nun who in very trumpian fashion when asked what she was giving up for lent was losing. the patron saint, ncaa coming up this weekend. she's a great story. she's well up into her 80s i

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you know, jon, if i had to pick out one state that really explained the chaos of 2016 it would be pennsylvania where i heard one person after another say they went home to family reunions in pennsylvania, they came back, there were 1920, people around the dinner table and all 20 of those people in the family reunions were voting for donald trump. you fast forward two years, if you want a state that explains

what's probably come the gop's way this november, once again it's pennsylvania. you've had redistricting there where the lines are not as gerrymandered anymore then you have ryan costello, a rising star in the republican party deciding he just can't get around donald trump, that the kiss of donald trump is political death. what do we make of all of it. >> i think it's a fairly discernible fact for a long time and pennsylvania is where our republic began and where its future may be decided. as you say, this november -- i think republicans who are only now saying out loud what they had to know in their hearts which was that ultimately this unconventional nominee, they

sold their soul for power and the check bounced. they haven't gotten what they wanted. they have a supreme court justice, they have a tax bill but you know what? one of those other republican presidents who would be a more conventional and dignified figure would have given them that and they wouldn't have to be pulling out of races saying that this president is untenable so i think this late discovery of what should have been discernible is fascinating. >> there's some things you compromise on. i'm a big believer in having the courage to compromise, having the courage to be pragmatic and meet people halfway but this republican party basically did a deal with a man who as paul ryan said the day or two before he endorsed him was racist and made

one of the most racist comments you could make and then he went ahead and endorsed him. we've seen that time and time and time again. there's some things that you don't compromise on and if somebody gets your endorsement, it has to come at a price and that price has never been paid by donald trump and now the price is going to be passed on to the republican party this fall. jon meacham, thank you so much as always. we appreciate you being here. up next, every president tries to remake the courts in their image. but is that a good thing in the era of donald trump? the "new york times" jeremy peter joins us with new reporting on that. plus, the white house is trying to explain why the president has been so quiet on stormy daniels. i wonder why. we'll get into it when "morning joe" returns. ♪ ♪

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...straight years, and it's still recommended today. use as directed. welcome back to "morning joe," it's tuesday, march 27. with us around the table we have msnbc contributor mike barnicle, we have chair of the department of african-american studies at princeton university eddie glaude, jr. and joining the conversation, nbc news chief foreign affairs correspondent and host of "andrea mitchell reports," andrea mitchell. staff writer for the "atlantic" and nbc contributor natasha bertrand. reporter for the "new york times" jeremy peters and chief national correspondent for the

"new york times" magazine mark leibovich. you know, mike barnicle, while we have richard haass off the set we can talk baseball since he's not going to talk about the yankees. red sox looking good this year. >> red sox are a very good team. they can use maybe one more pitcher but they'll come out of the starting blocks on thursday in tampa looking good. but it's only april. >> we're looking forward to that. eddie, on to serious news that happened yesterday, our children live in a culture where the reality tv stars are relegated to hero status, but a real hero passed away yesterday. linda brown from topeka, kansas, had a father who said, wait a second. you mean my daughter can't go to school with white kids? i don't think so. and he and his daughter together changed the arc of history and i loved her quote talking about

lynn draw bro linda brown said "i looked at those steps and they were such big steps and i had such little legs but i walked up them anyway." her doing that made all the difference. talk about it. >> when we think about this young woman, this young girl, she gives us a sense of how ordinary heroes emerge in ordinary time. that her and her family and, of course, others who were part of the "brown v. board" decision decided to challenge hate, decided to challenge the law of the land and fundamentally transform the country and the world and we need to understand that what linda brown did and what the little rock nine did and what the folks who -- james meredith and the students who sat in in north carolina and fiske and around the country, these young people looked hate in the face and fought it and fundamentally transformed the countryment. what's interesting, joe, is that

we often forget, as james baldwin described -- that they were children, that they were spiritual aristocrats, in some ways, that they risk themselves no matter what. and yet here we are in 2018 trying to find, as mike said last hour, trying to find adults who might in some significant way exemplify that kind of courage in this moment of crisis, in this moment of storm and stress so we want to celebrate linda brown's life, we want to celebrate her example of courage and we hope she's an example for some of these politicians just like the young folk who march for our lives should be examples for them as well. >> i was just going to say, you have so many people mocking the young students that went marching -- and i want to say to my conservative friends that are mocking these young students, if you really think this is george soros or some left wing billionaire organizing all of

this, i can tell you from my personal experience in my family, i know what happened at all of my kids' schools and it happened automatically and this is a bottom-up movement. it's pretty darn inspiring. andrea mitchell, let' begin by talking about your conversation with ted olsen yesterday. the president obviously having a lot of trouble finding attorneys. i've never seen anything like this before in washington, i'm sure you haven't, either. he said he can get any lawyer he wants to to work for him. actually, just the opposite is true. you interviewed ted olson, let's get you to give us a background behind it. play the tape. >> i think everybody would agree it's turmoil, chaos, confusion, not good for anything. we always believe that there should be an orderly process and, of course, government is not clean or orderly ever but this seems to be beyond normal

bounds. >> and ted olson, i think he told david corn, this has nothing to do with conflicts. these lawyers can get around conflicts to represent the president of the united states. this is just -- it's just the fact that nobody wants to represent this president. so what was behind ted olson's decision. >> ted olson isn't going to talk about his individual decision and he's very careful, even careful with david corn who is in the green room right there outside our show when they chatted because that's what lawyers do, they don't talk about their individual decisions. but it's very clear he is concerned as are many conservative republicans as well as democrats about the chaos in this administration. it's not good for the country. and that's the issue. i mean, ted olson is -- he's got impeccable credentials not only as the person who won the bush v. gore case in the supreme court but as the former solicitor general in the bush

white house. and he understands what it means to be a lawyer in the white house as well as a lawyer for the president. he's an experienced litigator and very well known on the appellate circuit. argued before the supreme court. was initially coming on to talk about the case he's briefing before the supreme court on behalf of terror victims against the plo. they won a case and it was overturned on appeal and he's briefing it at the supreme court and he'll know later this week whether or not they take this case and rehear it and now the solicitor general is arguing on behalf of terror victims against the plo. you know why. he lost his first wife in a plane that went into the pentagon so there's so many complex issues. but here you've got one of the best republican lawyers, also the one who teamed up with david

boies on the case that legalized gay marriage, challenging california prop 8 and he could not join this legal team, whether or not there were real conflicts in his law firm, he at least said he could not join this team. >> well, jeremy peters, you have a piece talking about the trump judiciary. one interesting thing that's happened is -- we warned the president around the table. don't pick a fight with the intel community. don't pick a fight with the press. we should have had v aadded a t don't pick a fight with the judiciary. he questioned the legitimacy of a republican judge out of washington state regarding his muslim ban and i predicted at the time and it has happened, courts have not been helpful to donald trump. any chance they've got to push

back on presidential power they've they've done it. i wonder if this is going to be harmful to the russia probe? >> this is going to be one of the most enduring stamps on history, the conservative judges that seek to roll back what they call the administrative state. this would dismantle a lot of the regulations that have been existing for generations, really a goal of conservatives since the new deal, and that's to shrink the size of the government they believe has grown too unwieldy and intrusive. it's something that gets overlooked with this daily news of the staff chaos and the payouts to a porn star paramour but when all is said and done

with these lifetime appointments on judges who can change workplace protections, civil rights, this is going to be felt for generations to come and it's interesting if you look back at judges that other republican presidents appointed, their litmus test was usually something along the lines of a social issue, generally abortion. this administration through don mcgahn, the white house counsel, has made clear they're not so much interested in that as they are how committed are you to rolling back the administrative state? >> and mark leibovich, when i'm in new york and talking to small business owners, mid-sized business owners, large corporate ceos it's what i hear time and again. yes, trump's crazy, yes, trump's this, yes i wouldn't want trump around my house, no i wouldn't want trump around my wife or daughter, he's a horrible human being. they'll go down the litany.

i think he's a disgusting human being, i loathe his very existence but he's rolling back regulations and mines are opening in colorado and mines are opening in west virginia and i don't have these 15 regulations to worry about and i'm doing better than i ever have economically. i hear it time and again. >> that's quite a wind up but i think you're right. it's the counterpoint of all of the sturm and drang that we're talking about here. i was talking to a source on capitol hill a couple days ago and he was talking about seed corn issues. and seed corn issues, by that he meant judges, regulations that are being rolled back and these are, again, enduring historical legacy issues for this administration that no matter what the story of the day or week or outrage of the week is are going to be there and they're hard to undo. first what you need are elections and you need it up and

down the ballot and as president obama showed in the other direction over eight years you can make some very small-scale changes. it becomes very large-scale legacy change. and that's what we're seeing. that's what a lot of republicans -- that's what the solid base of the trump coalition is voting on and probably they're banking on this, we'll remember this in november and in 2020. >> job if it's going to help in 2018 but certainly can help donald trump in 2020. natasha, we commented earlier on the show that in donald trump's two years on the political stage there have been exactly two people he hasn't criticized, stormy daniels and vladimir putin but his administration did take some fairly strong steps yesterday in terms of how to deal with russia's attack on british soil. what's your reaction to that and

do you expect more in the coming months? >> so it was a really strong positive step, especially because the u.s. did it in conjunction with our allies in europe and that sends a strong signal to russia that, hey, this is not just the u.s. acting, not just the uk acting, we're acting in concert to punish you for what was essentially a chemical warfare attack on british oil? the 21st century. so it was definitely a positive step but experts i've been speaking to say the stakes are way too high for this to have come in a statement from the press secretary. this needs to have come from the president of the united states, whether in a statement or in a ten-minute appearance condemning russia for this attack and we saw just last week he called vladimir putin, congratulated him on his election victory and so the dichotomy between the action that was taken yesterday against the quote/unquote diplomats who are of course russian intelligence officers

and trump's congratulatory call to putin is hard to square. it makes you think that trump -- his national security apparatus basically said you have no choice here, you have to do this. but trump does not want to be the face of this action and that is something that of course is perplexing and a question people have been asking for two years now. in terms of whether or not we're going to see any further action, there could be. russia is known to escalate this via tit for tat but they haven't always done that. when obama expelled the 35 russian diplomats in december of 26, they at first did not respond at all and then they told the u.s. they had to cut their diplomatic staff by about 700 people. so russia's response is kind of a wild card here and it's also -- it's worth wondering whether or not this was a strong enough move to begin with. many people say we should have

hit the russians with harder sanctions, especially the oligarchs in putin's inner circle and really going after the mafia assets in russia because right now what the sanctions -- what the expulsion of the diplomats does is it strengthen's putin's bond with the russian people, especially after the horrible fire we saw in siberia so this is something that if the u.s. went after the assets, went after the oligarchs it would have a greater impact than just expelling the russian intelligence officers. >> andrea, that's what i was going to ask you following up on natas natasha's last point. richard haass last hour said these are the type of sanctions that vladimir putin loves because it's the old soviet union versus the old american imperialists and suddenly it's a bipartisan world again. suddenly it's the west versus russia and that plays into his hand at home.

do you agree with that? >> i understand what richard is saying and he's right. the problem here is that the president put himself into such a box with his bizarre lack of any kind of action against vladimir putin for the last 15 months, no criticism of him and especially that phone call last tuesday so he had no choice but to join the other 22 countries, he could not be the outlier, he could not join the eu in this. but i agree entirely with natasha, there should have been a presidential statement. there has to be some explanation why this was different. this was chemical warfare and on our closest ally and he should have said something. the explanation, of course, for why putin did not tit for tat and retaliate in kind against the 35 diplomats who were expelled here and the closure of the two residences here which have been used for espionage is precisely because michael flynn was then in transition telling them don't worry, telling kislyak don't worry about it,

we'll take all of these things back by the time we take over so don't respond. so that's the reason why putin did not respond back then. >> joe, it's interesting as we discuss this. you hear more and there are people within the intelligence communities of the united states of america that while this step was necessary and it was better -- they basically say it's better than doing nothing but as natasha pointed out, donald trump's thumb print was not on this. it was an announcement from the white house. and if we're serious about doing something about vladimir putin, the only way to do it is with the money, is with the amounts of money that russian oligarchs launder through london and into america. natasha, i'm wondering what do you hear from your sources in the intelligence community about the lack of our will to be doing exactly that?

>> well, it's something that is not just the lack of the united states as well it's also something prevalent in the uk. the uk has been hesitant to punish the russians from la laundering money, essentially, into london real estate because it's so lucrative. so it's not just the united states, it's our allies. but if we did take it a step further and go after the oligarchs and the assets of putin's inner circle, this would have the dual affeeffect of separating the russian government from its people because the russian people don't care. they don't have any sympathy for the oligarchs stashing their cash in the west. whereas if we are expelling the russian diplomats, if we are making it seem like this is a a cold war era tit for tat battle then that creates the situation where putin can go back to his people saying look, it's us versus the west. this is a problem whereby the

russians have been storing their cash in real estate and the west doesn't want to confront it. >> natasha, thank you so much. natasha bertrand, injurejeremy , we'll read your report in the "new york times" and andrea mitchell, can't wait to see "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc today at noon. thanks so much for being here. still ahead on "morning joe," we'll go live to the white house where kristen welker peppered raj shah for the president's reaction to stormy daniels. kristen joins us straight ahead. first, congress passed that $1 trillion spending plan last week without the help of our next guest, congressman joaquin castro explains why he voted against the omnibus his party's leaders supported. you're watching "morning joe," we'll be right back. rcial we see two travelers at a comfort inn with a glow around them, so people watching will be like,

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lawyers for the white house are looking into potential

violations of criminal laws or federal ethics regulations surrounding two loans totaling over half a billion dollars to the family business of presidential son-in-law and senior adviser jared kushner. kushner's companies received loans from an arm of apollo global management and citigroup after kushner held white house meetings with leaders of those companies. the office of government ethics confirmed to a democrat on the house oversight committee that the white house counsel's office had started to review potential violations. the white house didn't respond to a request for a comment from the "wall street journal." kushner's company said they hadn't received an inquiry from the white house. the attorney for kushner, abbe lowell said after reporting on the loans, the white house counsel concluded there were no issues involving jared. but richard haass, this has been an issue, obviously. jared kushner's position inside the administration has been a

big question mark even during the transition. a lot of people wondering whether he was doing work to get funding for 666 or whether he was doing work for the united states of america. you could list a thousand other conflicts that people brought up to you and me in realtime during the transition in the early months of the administration and here we are. i guess the only news is that this is no news at all, it's just not surprising these questions are being raised. >> no, and it's been since day one, whether it's the security forms that had to get stated and restated, whether it's foreign governments or various financial firms and the question of whether there's the appearance or worse of a conflict of interest. you have to structural problem, not just the president's son-in-law but someone who has operational roles and specific carved out areas of responsibility. at the same time you have this other person across town called the secretary of state. so you add it all up, this is

about as irregular as it gets, joe, and this has been non-stop. we're now 14 or 15 months in and this issue keeps -- it's like a snowball that keeps gathering more mass. >> even if he had the best of intentions from the very beginni beginning, the ethical minefield that anyone in this position would have to walk through i think is too great. let's bring in a member of the house intelligence and foreign affairs committees, democratic congressman joaquin castro of texas. congressman, let's first start by asking you your reaction to john bolton's appointment and what it means for the united states foreign policy. >> i think it affirms to me the idea, joe, that if diplomacy fails with north korea this administration and this president have a desire to go to work with north korea. i don't say that lightly.

based on everything i've seen in classified and unclassified documents, i believe this president wants to go to war with north korea and the appointment of ambassador bolton is to me reflective of that. >> let's say the united states attacks, bombs unilaterally north korea the way john bolton has said he wants the united states to do. based on unclassified material that you've seen in your committees and in congress, how many deaths does that lead to not only of south koreans but also of americans in that region? >> you're talking about at minimum hundreds of thousands of people dead if not millions of people, that's what's at stake here. >> congressman, do you think you and your colleagues, are you prepared to pass a law or resolution that would try to stop the president from launching a preventative or preemptive military strike against north korea absent specific congressional authorization? >> it's hard to say whether something like that would pass

but it's certainly something we should talk about and pursue in the congress, absolutely. i think this president based on everything that i've seen and heard is determined at some point to go to war with north korea. >> but would you support something like that yourself? >> i'd be likely to, yes. >> congressman, what does the house intelligence committee do given the role of the national security advisers of the president, supposedly an honest broker, assembling the intelligence, forwarding recommendations, options for a president to choose from. when mr. bolton gets high grades for being a responsible -- at least an intellect knows what he's doing and yet he's been accused in the past of twisting intelligence for his own specific purposes. what do you do when you realize what you see on a classified basis is not the same is what the national security adviser is providing to the president? >> well, as members of

congress -- and really it's the responsibility of people in both parties without regard to party -- need to speak up to the press but those who have a link to the white house need to be making the case to the president and folks at the white house but ultimately there has to be a check and balance on the president who is determined to go to war and you'd like to see people around the president who aren't just yes men or women. the clearing of the white house, whether it be secretary tillerson, general mcmaster and others is that the president is clearing out anybody who isn't subservient or obsequious to him. >> yesterday you participated in a day of unity with senator ted cruz. it's inspirational to many of us who want to see democrats and republicans working together but how do you take that one day where you come together and move it forward, whether it's

national security or reaching a daca solution? what is stopping us? is it republicans not willing to work with -- i mean, the president not working with democrats? what does it fall? >> the president sets the tone but it's a few things. gerrymandering has gotten so bad that people are in districts where they only have to please basically primary voters. >> you're in one of those districts. >> i'm in a district that's 60% democrat so i have tried very hard not to be somebody who just because republicans don't have enough voters to beat a democratic candidate in my district that always tries to listen to the other side. in fact, i'm having a town hall on april 3 where i've invited specifically people that disagree with me because i want to hear the other side of the argument so it's almost exclusively for people who disagree with me. i think we need to do more. the structure of congress -- there are structural elements

besides gerrymandering in congress that could change the customs. we sit on each side of the chamber, democrats and republicans, same thing in committees. those seem like small changes but when you're only together about 140 days and for a few hours everyday it can make a different. >> so i'm curious. you had this day of unity yesterday. >> sunday. >> how was it, sir? tell us about your day of unity? >> it was good. it was put together by high school democrats and high school republicans so it was something that was put together by the students and they had the chair of the texas republican party, the democratic party, senator cruz, myself and others. it turned out well. >> one question before we get you out of here. thankfully, i bet you think, you just set getting together -- >> you've been asking easy questions. >> mingling with committee chairs, sitting on the house floor, that you only work 140 days a year for a few hours a day. how come you guys don't work full time? >> that's a question i've been

asking since i came in in january of 2013. i think a few years ago last term, i think it was, or in the last few years, basically, we were only in session about 100 days. this year i think is about 140, maybe 150. so congress ought to be working more. >> you should be asking, mike, how many hours a day he works! we're only together a few hours a day. people work more than. >> that you may want congress to work fewer days. >> congressman joaquin castro, thank you very much and good luck in san antonio, the ncaa is there. >> looking forward to it. still ahead, president trump dumb doesn't hold back when tweeting to his 49 million followers, so why as he stayed so silent on stormy daniels? we'll go live to the white house to try to find out that answer next on "morning joe."

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you know what's not awesome? gig-speed internet. start winning today. 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. there's new reporting that president trump has expressed hope that former white house staff secretary rob porter will return to work in the west wing. the "new york times" says that the president stayed in touch with porter since he was run out of the white house in february.

that's according to people familiar with the conversations. porter resigned after reports of domestic abuse and allegations by his two ex-wives came to light. one story included a photo with one of his ex-wives with a black eye. porter denied the allegations but people familiar with the conversations tell the "times" the president's calls with mr. porter have increased in the last few weeks as the number of people he is close to in the white house has dwindled. the president told advisers he knows he can probably not bring mr. porter back but he has made it clear he misses the staff structure mr. porter helped build and implement and susan, yi, yes in america everybody is innocent until proven guilty, but in the case of rob porter there's been no pushback to

speak of that would contradict his two ex-wives and the photo, even the photo of one of his wives with the black eye, to suggest the president should even be thinking about rob porter returning. >> and let's don't forget the words general kelly used when saying how upset he was. you still plan on having john kelly as chief of staff and bringing porter back is never going to happen but it's a spectacularly horrible idea. how can you bring back someone, especially donald trump, who has been charged with being aggressive with women and then bring back someone charged with being a domestic abuser. it's a no go. but it goes to donald trump's insecurities. he can't stand on his own. he needs people who will get him to wear he's comfortable. donald trump needs to start leading, leading is not easy nor is it comfortable. >> >> it speaks to donald

trump's state of mind. here's amman on an "access hollywood" taped a mitted to sexual abuse of women, grabbing women without them agreeing to it by the fact that he was rich and powerful, it speaks to his state of mind that he even lamented the fact that he couldn't bring back a guy that apparently beat up one of his wives and abused the others. >> joe, it's the kind of deafness that i can't wrap any mind around. and it's happening where women are making an argument that will shift the culture of the country and he's so deaf to the issue that he would invite someone who has beaten his wife, or ex-wife. it makes no sense, it flies in the face of the me too movement. it flies in the face of women whether they're from the suburbs of philadelphia, the suburbs of

chicago, or from the delta of mississippi. it flies in the face of women all across the country that he would even consider such a thing. and it seems it's more than just a reflection after just his adolescence and maturity, it's a reflection of a fundamentally flawed character that he would think of this. i find it to be disgusting, joe. >> i think when we read the history of the trump presidency you can go back to the very beginning it was the first week when there was the women's march in washington, d.c., women inspired to get out, march, organize, make a difference. we talked about it all the time during virginia. women standing in the rain in northern virginia for hours just to make a statement against the presidency of donald trump. you see the things he's been doing since then and this rob

porter incident is yet another example of it and stormy daniels, a story we didn't cover at the beginning much at all, that's another story that obviously is going to feed in to how he treats women, especially when you have "60 minutes" having 22 million people watching that interview. and it being the most-watched interview in a decade, since barack and michelle obama were interviewed on "60 minutes." so this story along with so many other stories, you can even talk about roy moore's problems. all of those stories add up together and energize women to get out, march, organize, vote and speak out against what they see as a misogynistic president and a republican party that is tone deaf to their rights and to their political needs. let's bring in nbc news white house correspondent

kristen welker. kristen, speaking of stormy daniels, donald trump's known for hitting back but he has been so quiet about the allegations against stormy that stormy daniels made against him, despite the fact that over 20 million americans heard those allegations on "60 minutes" and for a man who cares about ratings above all else, his silence is even more perplexing. what can you tell us? >> it's been stunning. she may be one of his only antagonists who hasn't met the other end of an angry trump tweet. i've been talking to officials at the white house. they tell me the president has been asking if he should respond to stormy daniels and his aides have advised him, look, he shouldn't directly engage. she's an adult film actress, they're making the case that it doesn't rise to a presidential response and they're making a political case, joe, based on my conversations.

they're saying the president so far is not being impacted by this. they also bring up what you were just talking about, the "access hollywood" tape. the fact he survived that, they say look, your next election is still years away so leaving it to officials to be on the front lines. we saw that when raj shah took on daniels directly. he even disputed the bombshell claim she was physically threatened in 2011. take a listen. was the president aware of a physical threat made against ms. daniels when she was with her daughter back in 2011? >> well, the president doesn't believe any of the claims she made were accurate. >> he doesn't believe she was threatened? >> he does not. >> what's his basis for that, raj? >> sorry? >> what's his basis for that. >> he doesn't believe that -- there's nothing to corroborate her claim. >> of course daniels and her attorney say there will be some proof that they provide at some point but this morning daniels

fighting back, alleging in new court documents that president trump's personal lawyer michael cohen defamed her by insinuating she lied about the affair and that he violated campaign finance laws when he paid daniels $130,000 to silence her. cohen says that isn't the case but that's the big question hovering over this, joe, were there any laws that were violated? >> all right, kristen, thank you so much. nbc's kristen welker at the white house. still ahead, hillary clinton's 2016 campaign communications director says they were "foolish" not to push back harder against the e-mail controversy. we're going to have that and new revelations from former clinton campaign official jim palmieri ahead in our 8:00 a.m. hour on the final days of the clinton campaign. and much more still ahead this hour. stay with us on "morning joe."

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>> translator: they do not represent the government. i could not care less. they do not represent the interest of the russian state. maybe they're not even russians, maybe they're ukraines, tartars, jews with russian citizenship. maybe they have dual citizenship, maybe a green card, maybe it was the americans who paid them for this work. how do you know? i don't know. >> that was russian president vladimir putin a few weeks back suggesting to nbc news that jews and others were somehow responsible for election meddling. that dog whistle in russia has parallels to anti-semitism here at home, although often the bigotry is far more explicit. with us now, deputy washington editor for the "new york times," jonathan wiseman. his new book is entitled "semitism, being jew fish

america in the age of trump." thank you for being with us. >> thank you for having me. >> we had the disturbing news coming out of paris that a survivor of the holocaust was killed, was hurded. that's being treated as a hate crime and that had jeffrey goldberg reposting an article that he reposted for the "atlantic" asking "is it time for jews to leave europe?" we have seen a rise of anti-semitism across europe and across college campuses in the united states for some time now. has it riszen to more dangerous levels since donald trump has been elected president? >> i absolutely think so. it began during the campaign itself when you started seeing the guardrails come off of what was considered okay in polite society. now it seems to be all right in certain circles to express hatred and bigotry not just against jews but against

immigrants, latinos, blacks and what we are seeing in the united states is disturbing. what we're seeing in france and in london as well is really scary. >> and, again, it has been for some time. i'm wondering about the age of trump. you've seen the president being misogynistic and you've seen women pushing back aggressively. we talked about the virginia example a good bit. you have to believe younger voters are going to organize and push back this fall based on the numbers we saw in washington this past week. has there been any example of the jewish community or allies of the jewish community pushing back against the latest round of anti-semitism the in the united states.? >> that is a good question, joe. really, i wrote -- i was pred hard on jewish organizes in this book and said that they have been too quiet.

and they're all saying, though, no, we're out there. we are working. and, really, at the synagogue level, at the individual level, among some of the smaller organizations, certainly they've been speaking out against anti-semitism and bigotry. they've been aligning with muslim groups and groups to try to stand up against hate. but i do feel there is a quiettude and dissidence in the main line jewish organization. frankly, if you heard the jewish voice out there speaking out against hatred, we would know et. they are a loud, powerful group. we are a loud, powerful group and we should be more vocal. >> you know, i was when i was in congress speaking to apac one time and we had some people asking me in south florida about those crazy right wing religious fanatics. and i said, you don't understand. we ee van fwel kals believe if

we don't support israel, we're going straight to hell. this is personal for us. isn't there a great irony that donald trump is supported by so many evangelicals who see jews as god's chosen people and who for years, for decades, have been some of israel's most strident allies. yet from the same base and support, you see these acts of anti-semitism and social media and jewish graveyards and in other political settings. >> well, you know, i make this point in the book. i feel like on the right and the left, the one thing that everyone seems to agree in the american body politics is support for israel. but that support for israel has lulled juws into a sense of complacency.

they've got to like israel because they feel like israel is a nationalist homeland. they want to wipe nationalist homeland in the united states and they want jews to have -- it's time for us to think about where the jewish place is in america right thou. >> jonathan, let's go back to europe for a second. in britain, one of the big controversy about the leader of the labor party and whether he's trafficking. in germany, you have the revival of the far right in the most recent elections. france, we've already talked about the national front hasn't gone away and we'll see how mr. macron basically weathers the political storm. how serious is the revival of anti-semitism in europe and is it something that jews

everywhere ought to be worried about? >> i think jews in europe must feel it coming from both sides here. you have a murder like yesterday which is an immigrant community, we've seen other acts on elderly jews in paris coming from muslim immigrants. but you have the national front rising from the right. you just -- a white nationalist movement take a plurality of the parliament in italy. you have hundreds of thousands of people in the streets of budapest marching on -- in support of orbonn, the head of hungary, who is actually out there campaigning against george soros. talk about a -- i wouldn't call it a dog, like a bull horn. you have a rise of nationalist hatred on the right in europe. at the same time as you have a rise of anti-semitism on the

left. that is a very, very dangerous place for jew ss to be. >> jonathan, how much do you think this is confined or driven by social media? it seems in addition to trump being, you know, such a national -- right now -- twitter is -- you don't want to. twitter is just the tip of the iceberg. what the alt-right nationalists have found out is that you can use these chat rooms to organize and to spread your message. they have been kind of living in their own little worlds in the daily stormer and storm front

for a long time. now they found they can spread he their message on more accessible media. and it really is working. we've seen it among the mass shooters. we still think the mass shooter in parkland was probably in this world, too. >> all right. jonathan, thank you so much for being with us. we're looking forward to reading your new book, semitism and jewish the in america. thanks so much. this morning, we are told that lawyers are not clamoring to join his russian defense team. in fact, far away from it as they possibly can. ♪ if you have moderate to severe plaque psoriasis,

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i needthat's whenvice foi remembered that my ex-ex- ex-boyfriend actually went to law school, so i called him. he didn't call me back! if your ex-ex- ex-boyfriend isn't a lawyer, call legalzoom and we'll connect you with an attorney. legalzoom. where life meets legal. you know, i've been saying to her this whole campaign that i would counterpunch. you happened that. i'm responding. i then respond times maybe ten. i don't know. i mean, i respond pretty strongly. >> you were 27. he was 60. were you physically attracted to him? >> no. >> not at all? >> no. >> well, for somebody who can

hardly wait to punch back, president donald trump has been uncharacteristically quiet about stormy daniels, at least in public. meanwhile, the president is still struggling to hire new lawyers while reportedly dismissing others over poor chemistry and their appearance. it all comes as much of the world, including the united states, finally, finally takes a hard stance against russian aggression. good morning. and welcome to "morning joe." it's tuesday. we have mike barnacle, we have the chair of the department of african-american studies at police ton university, eddie, and richard haass, susan delpercio and pulitzer prize winning historian john meachum. meek ya will be back with us tomorrow. before we start this, mike barnacle, it has been

remarkable,s has it not, that there has been complete silence from donald trump when it's come to stormy daniels from the beginning. you could go through all the people that have crossed donald trump's path over the last 2 1/2 turbulent years in in politics and there have only been two that he has not struck back on. vladimir putin and a porn star named stormy daniels. >> yeah. he's afraid of both. it's odd, when you mention the president's inability to hire new legal teams because of his own personal flaws. there was laughter around the table here when you indicated that sometimes their appearance would preclude them from being hired. but it's really not funny any more when you consider what is going on with the president, his legal team and his failure to obviously, as you indicated, tweet about anybody he fears.

and he really fears what's happening. >> yeah, he really does. and, you know, his struggle to attack his legal team conditions. as a prominent chicago defense attorney and his partner both declined an invitation to represent the president of the united states. think about how extraordinary that is. this is the dream of a lifetime for any attorney to be able to represent the president of the united states. think about it. you're billing hours while sitting in the oval office talking to the more past ur person in the free world and yet every lawyer keeps coming back telling donald trump regardless of the tweets the same thing. no, sir, no thank you, we don't want to have anything to do with you. and the latest is dan webb, a former u.s. attorney and the reagan administration and a special prosecutor during iran contra contra. he said he couldn't represent the team.

webb's office also said, quote, president trump reached out to dan webb and tom buchanan to provide legal representation. they were unable to take on representation due to business conflicts. however, they consider the opportunity to represent the president to be the highest honor and they sincerely regret that they cannot do so. it's like when you're in high school and every girl you ask out says you are the sweetest guy in the world, but no, i'm not going to the dance with you. that's what keeps happening to this president. this as ted olson said nobody is asking to be on that team and no one wants to be on that team. he asked about being on that team and he rolled his eyes suggesting he was never going to be his lawyer. that wasn't going to happen. it's not just a matter of

conflicts. he continued, in the last few days, has any lawyer come up to you and said i'm willing to work for trump? olson said no. yesterday he told andrea mitchell that he's taken aback by the amount of chaos and turnover within the trump administration. >> i think everybody would agree this is turmoil, chaos, confusion, it's not good for anything. we always believe there should be an orderly process and government is not clean or orderly ever, but this seems to be beyond normal bounds. meanwhile, an official statement says joseph digenova and victoria toesing's conflicts prevented them from joining the team. but administration sources claimed it was more personal. according to the "new york

times," the trump met with the pair of lawyers, but did not believe he had personal chemistry with them and a senior administration official told politico that donald trump believed the couple looked disheveled. not really where to go with that. richard haass, you've been around washington a very long time. lawyers figure out a way around not representing clients who have conflicts with the president of the united states. they figure out a way to get there. but it is very clear and we heard it around washington. you heard ted olson talking about it. no one wants to be this guy's lawyer. as we said yesterday, don't want to be this lawyer because first of all, he doesn't pay his bills and secondly he lie tos to lawy all the time. talk about how significant this is now as we have robert mueller lining up all of his evidence, lining up his witnesses, getting all the cooperating witnesses

with him. this is a president going into the legal battle of his life and it's -- he's basically unilaterally sdarmd himself. disarmed himself. >> absolutely. there aren't many people who come out of this administration with their reputation at hand. i would think this would be one of the most difficult if not the most difficult imaginable clients. whether it's the tweets or he decides he wants to represent himself, the inconsistency, the instability, i would think it would be near impossible to.map an effective defense in addition to all the stuff you were saying given the reputation, the history, and so forth.

i think the real question isn't simply lawyers, but more broadly, how are you going to recruit the best to come into this administration given the legal overhang and the fact that so many people have left washington diminished. >> a lawyer can put up with many things. the one thing a lawyer can't put up with is being lied to. when it's you and your client in the board room and you're sitting there talking and you're going through the facts, you have to -- you just sit down with your client. you say, liven, you've got to tell me everything. whatever you tell me doesn't leave this room. but i can't prepare for your case unless you tell me the truth about everything. enterprise me now. do not surprise me in the courtroom. yesterday here is donald trump knowing that any lawyer he gets, he believes he's smarter than the lawyer. he's going to lie to him. and there's no way that he can mount any defense for donald trump. >> yeah. and interestingly, we're all kind of in that position, aren't

we? we're all kind of asking him, please don't surprise us any more and, yet, it happens. i totally agree with richard. i think the broader point is really riveting. so he can't find someone to defend him and even more important in in many ways, the people he finds to serve him and therefore us are people like the new national security adviser and people who are not, how do we put it, on the a-team of the sane. and so i think that we're in in this odd position where we sometimes think of the presidency and ben wrightly is the loneliest job and the buck stops there. but it's a big operation. and you have to have people that you can trust and that we can trust to actually execute the public business. and right now, everything i know

you're hearing and everything that i'm hearing, people just don't want to go in. >> this morning, joe, rupert murdoch's wa"wall street journa editorial board writes, quote, every sentian voter understood that donald trump had a bad history with women. but mistakes of character tend to catch up with everyone and that's what is now happening with president trump and his many women. mr. trump can't retain the best legal counsel because no one wants a client that ignore all advice. he wants to answer questions with mr. mueller, but probably won't prepare enough to avoid accidental self-incrimination. the stormy daniels is typical of mr. trump's prepresidential behavior and thinking he can with enough threats and disassembling get away with anything. he's never understood that a president can't behave that way and this may be the cause of his

downfall. susan, this is just among the first cracks in terms of support from the journal. >> but the journal is exactly right. when you talk about the fault of his character coming back to haunt him, that not only he mays to the president, but also plays to a lot of republicans in the house and the senate right now who should be saying i will stand up for what's right, i will speak against the president and what he's doing, whether it's his policies or even some of the things -- the attacks he makes on women and other people. but the stormy daniels thing is just something that hits him so differently. i am not -- we know he hasn't tweeted, he hasn't gone anywhere. but i think it's just a matter of time. that's what i think a lot of people are waiting for. >> there's a piece in the "new york times" today about jonathan martin about various republicans running around the country and they can't stand up and talk

about real issues that affect people because the first question out of the box is the president's behavior. >> right. it seems to me that this teflon nod is no longer when it comes to the stormy daniels problems. there's the case, there's the client, and there's the climate. i don't think any lawyer in their right mind wants to take on the case, i don't think any lawyer worth his or her salt wants to pay attention to a client that will not follow advice and will not pay, and then there's the client. the "me too" movement has changed the way in which people understand and accept certain kinds of behavior, how they judge that behavior. there's the climate in terms of the serious, i think, response to russian interference in our elections. there's kind of an economic uncertainty. there's the chaos coming out of the white house. so all of this that i think informs how people are judging and assessing what's going on i think is also shaping and informing how lawyers are

assessing whether or not they will take on this case. coming up in the words of one member of congress, you don't see headlines saying porn stars with nancy pelosi. the president's conduct could be a referendum on republicans just months before the midterms. we're going to be talking about that in the months straight ahead. but first, here is bill karins with a check on the forecast. >> eventually, the east coast will warm up, but first we have to deal with weather and flooding concerns in the middle of the country. we have a lot of rain from the ohio valley back through st. louis, southern missouri. we have thunderstorms in eastern portions of oklahoma. as we go throughout the day today, we're going to get new thunderstorms. we have about 9 million people at risk for severe weather today. i don't think tornado risk is too high. maybe one or two at most. dallas included san antonio. could have some airport problems. now as we go throughout the next two to three days, the storm is going to stall out. northeast texas, arkansas, into portions of st. louis and in

towards indianapolis. that's why we have flood watches in effect. just like severe weather where we give you a slight to moderate and high risk, we do the same thing for flash flooding.. the green is a moderate risk of flash flooding. that is a serious risk of concern that we could have life threatening and flash flooding today. almost covers the entire state of arkansas, extreme portions of southern missouri. tomorrow, because we're only going to take this storm further to the south, we're going to watch our friends down in areas of louisiana and also mississippi and add you into the moderate risk of flash flooding. this is the story over the next couple of days. and we have a warm-up for both coasts as all our bad weather is in the middle of the nation. new york city, top of the rock, temperatures heading to 60 degrees on thursday. that's about as close to spring as you're going to get for a while. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

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stormy daniels is now suing donald trump's personal lawyer, michael cohen, for defamation, claiming that he betrayed hers as a liar when denying claims of her affair with donald trump. the new filing argues that the $130,000 hush money agreement signed just 11 days before the election should be nullified because it violated campaign finance law. meanwhile, the white house is trying to explain why the president harnt responded to the porn star directly. yesterday, the morning after her "60 minutes on" interview aired, the president tweeted, quote, so much fake news, never been more voluminous orr inaccurate. but through it all, our country is doing great. a senior administration official tells nbc news that the president has discussed his response and has been told that the stormy daniels issue doesn't

rival to the level of a presidential response. the senior official counseled trump telling him it doesn't endanger his presidency or agenda. here is the white house yesterday. >> can you state categorically that the president is campaigned and the trump organization did not violate federal laws, specifically the election law regarding that payment? >> i can speak for only the white house and i can say categorically obviously the white house didn't engage in any wrongdoing. the campaign or mr. cohen can address anything with respect to their actions. with respect to that interview, i will say the president strongly, clearly and has consistently denied these underlying claims and the only person who has been inconsistent is the one making the claims. >> was the president aware of the physical threat made against miss daniels when she was with her daughter in 2001? >> the president doesn't believe

any of the claims miss daniels made in the interview are accurate. >> he doesn't believe she was threatened? >> no. >> what's his basis for that. >> he doesn't believe that -- you know, there's nothing to corroborate her claim. >> all right. we've also learned that 22 million people watched $60 minutes" sunday. porn star interview was actually news magazine's highest episode in a decade, second only to barack and michelle obama's sit down in 2008, beating donald trump's 2016 interview and any interview donald trump has ever had on "60 minutes." stormy daniels lawyer did some trolling, though, tweeting quote since this is really what matters, lol, the ratings for my client, stormy daniel's appearance on "60 minutes" last night crushed by million any apprentice show in the last ten yearses as well as mr. had trump's november 2016 appearance. #priorities.

we will leave that there. meanwhile, republican lawyermakers are finding it increasingly tough to be in mr. trump's shadow. quote, i don't see headlines with porn stars sues nancy pelosi. and ryan costello in discussing his decision not to seek re-election to the house said the president was getting in the way of the gop's message. >> we're talking about porn stars and the president rather than about tax policy or what we need to get done by the end of the year or what with should have been in the omnibus. it's very difficult to get that message out because we're talking about stormy daniels or it was mccabe, before that it was rex tillerson and where he heard the news that he was fired and just one thing after another. it is deeply frustrating, i will

certainly say that. >> john meachum, that is ryan kos the tell low, a rising star in pennsylvania politics. he was expected to go places in the house. now he's going home. and we find in the article this "new york times" article talks about the catch-22 that we've been discussing for the past year. and that is republicans have to act a certain way to get past the primary process. or they believe they do. i think they're badly mistaken. but they think they have to bow and scrape to donald trump and a apologize to donald trump to get through that primary process. but if you do that in a nevada senatorial primary or in an arizona senatorial primary, as the article explains, you make yourself radioactive in the general election and you lose. >> as congressman costello ever said who he voted for for president in 2016? is he surprised by this?

is this a -- you know, it's a -- it makes claude reigns look like a documentary. of course this candidate is getting in the way of an agenda. i mean, what planet are they on? this is the world we've all been living in since the escalator is the same one. and so to suddenly discover like miranda and the tempest that oh, brave new world, donald trump st a distraction from the issues of substance facing america? coming up, what is really at stake for us?

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russia's recent poisoning of an ex spy in the united kingdom using an extremely toxic military nerve agent which russia denies using. the united states is kicking out 60 russians, including 12 intelligence officers from u.n.'s mission headquarters in new york. it is the largest expulsion of russian personnel ever by the united states. in addition, the trump administration ordered the closure of the russian consulate in seattle, which a senior administration official says is near a base that houses u.s. nuclear submarines. russian state media is reporting that moscow will respond by expelling, quote, no less than 60 american dip low the mats. russia's u.s. embassy tweeted a poll asked which u.s. conlat the public would like the kremlin to close. so richard haass, this seems to be the sort of step that a lot of americans, a lot of foreign policymakers in this country

have wanted donald trump to take for a long time. are you satisfied with it? is it enough? >> the good news here is the united states and others, one, reacted to what russia did and, two, it was almost like the old days where the united states and its allies form something of a common position. the not so good part of this, joe, this is foreign policy on auto pilot. if you expel russian diplomates, shockingly enough, the russians will expel american and european depp low mats. it's rachet up economic sanctions and go after putin's inner circle and that would have been something the russians could not have retaliated against us in kind. i basically challenge the specifics of this. >> mike barnacle, you actually had the united states deciding and this president in particular deciding that he was going to stand next to our ally and

special relationship. i mean, you get to say for a woman who has been pushed around and criticized as much as theresa may has domestically in great britain, she has come through and has brought together a strong coalition and gave donald trump and the government in the united states few choices but to stand by great britain. >> yeah, you're right, joe. we really had no chons choice once theresa may pull together a coalition. it was theresa may who pulled together the coalition. to richard's point, we still could have done a lot more. if we really wanted to hurt the russians and putin specifically, you go after the banks here where there is still a lot of russian money being housed. john meachum, this is now and has been for quite some time no longer an ian fleminging novel about, you know, russian spies. they're here. they're in our electoral

systems. they are all over us. nearly every single day. >> yeah. and i always think of of you and james bond in the same kind of frame of mind. so i know it resinates with me. >> let's got give the whole thing up, though. i'm still sort of under cover. >> all right. good boy. you're more roger moore, i think, than sean connery, but we can work on that. >> oh, come on. >> the great question, this is the great unanswered question. is some people think theness a is obvious of the current era. this is an odd return of great game seeking of advantage in a context in which there are nuclear weapons and that is still not an unthinkable threat. coming up on "morning joe,"

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if you look at the map in the united states, there's all of that red in the middle that trump won. i won the places that are optimistic, diverse, dynamic, moving forward, and his whole campaign, make america great again, was looking backwards. >> i think it was wrong how she put it. i think it certainly is being taken out of context which, you know -- but she knows things you say are taken out of context. so for those of us that are in states that trump won, we would appreciate if she would be more careful and show respect to every american voter and not just the ones who voted for her.

>> that was democrat senator claire mccaskill on casey dc responding on sunday to clinton's comments. let's bring in now former white house director of communications under president obama, jen palmera. her new book is titled "dear madam president," an open letter to the women who will run the world. jen, thanks so much for being with us. we want to talk about the book. but first, let's talk about the dust up that hillary clinton had i guess just last week or so when she spoke in india. do you agree with claire mccaskill that she may need to be a bit more careful with the words she chooses? >> yeah, i agree with claire that you need to respect all voters, voters who vote for you and voters who don't. and also that is something that i wrote about in the book is that candidates need to talk to

all voters, whether they're going to vote for you or not, particularly presidential candidates. at a minimum, you want to be the president of the entire country and you need to speak to everyone. you need to have everybody whether they're going to vote for you or not, you see that they have a place in america and i think that that is something that has been lacking in politics. it's something that i own in the book as a mistake, as a political professional that you think about just talking to the voters who are going to vote for you. and i think that's partly to blame for why we have such divisions. >> you know, jen, i remember talking to you. it must have been maybe two days before election day. and i asked how is everything looking? and i remember you the telling me -- and i was surprised at the time you told me this. you said, you know what? if the election went another week, things would be pretty rough in michigan and wisconsin. but we think we're going to hold on, but it's going to be close.

so you actually were -- a lot of us were shocked on election night. you weren't. you all saw things breaking for trump in the last few days of the campaign. tell us about those final days. >> i felt -- it's funny. i don't remember saying that. but i do certainly remember being nervous. i still thought that we were going to win, but part of the reason why i thought we were going to do win is there seems the some sort of carpalic insurance that the harder it got, the uglier the things that trump said were that we would surely win because i believe that's how things worked in in america. and then we lost. >> right. >> and i describe in the book, i wanted to people feel the this and a lot of people do, it felt like he was in a different universe when i woke up on november 9. i felt like my phone wouldn't operate because i felt that disoriented. and tried to make sense of a

place where the -- where a man who i -- you know, who i disagree with so much who, in my opinion, treats women so badly could win. and, you know, then the question is what do women do with that? and what's been remarkable is we've managed to feel empowered by it because i think what it told us was we have been living by the wrong set of rules. you can either decide that donald trump was meant to win or you can decide that what happened was wrong and it shows that we're still living and not that this is anyone's fault because we are all living in the universe that we inherited, but we are still very much living in a world that was built for men. and that we have to imagine a new way. so that means, you know, it's an example that i talk about with hillary, we -- i had this relati

realization in october that what we had done to her was make her the female facsimile of the qualities we look for in a male president. that's something that we have to go back to square one to fix. and i didn't even -- couldn't even imagine what it would look like to fix that. that's when you see we sort of run out of road. i think of hillary's generation, they had to prove they could do the job just as well as any man could do it and that's what we set out to do. and now -- but now you realize, yeah, i can do that and i've always felt that way. i can do a job just as well as a man could, but i don't want to. i want to do the job the woman could. don't just absorb all the blows that you have to absorb because women have to prove that they're strong. if you get a little emotional at work or something moves to you tears, that's okay, too. women get to make their way in

the workplace and in politics and that's what the advice is about. it's not even about politics. i wrote this with little girls and young women what are just starting out in mind. >> mike. >> the last thing i think anybody wants to hear us tuck about is the campaign. hillary clinton versus donald trump. the last thing that i want to talk about, really, is that campaign. but the first chapter of your book is really compelling as stories out of locker rooms are always more interesting, more can compelling than the winning locker rooms. that's my theory. but you just framed it up as if you were hurt when you realized trying to reposition hillary clinton was just trying to make her sound more like a male candidate. that's what you just said. how do you reposition or alter or improve a woman who has been on the national stage for 30

years and is so fixed not just in her positions, but in her attitude, in her view of the country. i halloween, she's filled with enormous amounts of, you know, earned paranoia, i would say. how do you do that? >> well, evidently we didn't, right? and it's painful for me to say this, but the further we get away from that from her campaign, i think what she went through is what the first woman was sort of destined to experience. and for me, anyway, my experience coming out of it is it proved we have to think about this differently. and i don't mean to say we try to turn her into a man. we wanted to prove that she had the qualities that people look for in an american president. you're strong. you're capable. you don't show emotion and you're very stoic. because she's a woman, we had to overcompensate, i think, for

that. and i think -- and it's hard. now we're in the territory of how do you change human behavior that we're living with the manifestation of, you know, thousands of years of interactions with men and women. i think the most important thing you can do is change what's in your own mind. >> what do you tell the next woman? >> be aware of this. i did not think it was a big deal to elect a woman president, okay? i thought we elected the first avenue can american president and that was a harder and bigger deal. i didn't think it was going to be that hard or that different. and what i think women that are running for politics, you know, young woman entering the workforce, what they should understand is it is still a revolutionary idea for women to even be in the workplace, for women to be in politics and step back. women have only had the right to vote for less than a hundred years. and we've only been in the workplace for a hundred years. and we spent centuries and centuries making the workplace a comfortable mays for men. nobody's fault.

it's just the world we inherited. and i think the most important thing is to change what's in your own mind. if you think, that doesn't feel right for me, it's not. it wasn't built with you in mind. >> so, susan, one of the things that i noticed actually we talked about on set in 2008 was what 2008 taught us. and we actually said this in realtime even before barack obama beat hillary clinton in the primaries that it was remarkable that in america it was harder for a woman to get elected president than it was for a black candidate in a majority white country to get elected president. why is it that the united states of america stands alone in the west as the only country where this barrier still exists, where we cannot elect women as presidents? >> and what's also shocking is women outnumber men as voters. so we're not -- women are not

actually supporting other women just based on that. and it kind of brings me to my point, jen, as operatives, we always teach men how to run against women and women how to run against men, but we don't necessarily teach women how to run as themselves. >> right. >> and i think that's the next thing that we have to move forward on. so to all those women who are running in office this year, how do you break down the need to seem strong and do all the things that we look for in an elected official but still run as yourself? >> i think that you have to be -- it's very hard. like i said, we are pushing against human history right now. but this is very learned behind. one is yolanda king, martin luther king's granddaughter who spoke at the march on saturday and emma gonzalez who stood on the stage and cried for 6:30 in the amount of time that it took for the shooting to happen in parkland.

and what happens is you have all the confidence in the world as a little girl. there's nothing more confident in the world than a little girl. and we learn to lose it, we learn to become inhibited. that is what the focus is about is unlearns those. for women candidates, keeping a positive attitude about it but be aware that this unconscious -- these unconscious biases that exist. we have an acronym on the campaign, there's something about her i just don't like. and that's something that there were interviews about hillary from the '92 campaign before anything, right? before she had been in office, before her husband had been in office. what do you think bill clinton is like? there's something about her i just don't like. and it wasn't malicious. and they weren't sexist comments. it's just we sort of struggle

and are vexed by women that step out of roles that they're traditionally in. so my advice to women candidates is you have to be aware of that, but don't limit yourself to thinking you have to behave in the same path that we've always put candidates on. >> jennifer, you talked to hillary clinton a hair amount. is she in a place now where she can take some solace for what seems to be going on among women candidates certainly being recruited across the field? it's a little early to know where this is all going to lead, but do you have a sense that she's in a solace place or are there other remarks that we saw in india more emblematic or where she is? >> i think she is really inspired by what she sees with all the women candidates running with things like the march for life just on this weekend and just how much people care and are turning out and in their power to do this. >> well, i just found out that

you're a -- >> this is so exciting. >> there's a cultural shift. the "me too" movement represents a cultural shift. something is changing. patrioty is being challenged. what does it mean for women to to exercise power? there's a critique of identity politics. there's no necessary relationship between being a woman and necessarily trying to undermine patriarchy. >> right. >> what do you say to women who want to exercise power and how will that change fundamentally the world for the least of these? >> i really think the most powerful thing you can do is just change what's in your own mind. and that is -- that's what the first chapter of the book is about. i decided to change in my own mind. as devastating as that election result was, i was not going to accept that women were meant to lose. and that i had -- i had some good lessons to draw on from when i worked in the obama white house, you know, that was a scary thing.

you're a white house communications director. you're advising the president of the united states. and when you speak, your words matter. even having the job i was still intimidated by it. president obama said once to a group of women that were meeting with them, it was just women. that happened more than once. and he could see somebody was holding back. and he said speak up. you're in the room. like sort of gesturing around. like see the walls, the oval office, this is it, this is no other room. >> all right. >> and i thought, you know, you got to like -- you're given these opportunities, you got to speak up and believe in your own mind you can make that difference. >> all right. i didn't know you were a pascagoula native. >> yes, this is why i'm also such a fan of pensacola. >> that's why you love pensacola so much. well, head back over to pensacola. everybody misses you. thanks for being with us. the book is "dear madam

president." as always, it's great talking to you. "morning joe" will be back in three minutes. ♪ ♪ excuse me, are you aware of what's happening right now? we're facing 20 billion security events every day. ddos campaigns, ransomware, malware attacks... actually, we just handled all the priority threats. you did that? we did that. really. we analyzed millions of articles and reports. we can identify threats 50% faster. you can do that? we can do that. then do that. ♪ ♪ can we do that? we can do that.

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year. it's very difficult for me to get that message out because we're talking about stormy daniels or it was mccabe, before that it was rex tillerson and where he heard the news that he was fired and just one thing after another. it is deeply frustrating. i will certainly say that. >> welcome back to "morning joe." it's time for our final thoughts. you know, mike, we had pulitzer prize winni ning john meachem o this morning. he was talking about how republicans now are really in no position to act shocked that donald trump's abhorrent behavior is now causing problems in legislation. but this is slow-motion train crash that we can all see. they have to embrace him to get through the primary which leads to their defeat in a lot of districts in the general election. >> well, you know, joe there's a couple of things going on here.

on that train that you just spoke about, character counts. and it's out there. and it's slowly coming in to play. you just get that sense. the other thing that's slowly coming into play and part of it occurred over this past weekend, follow the children. children have parents. a lot of the parents live in suburbs. and a lot of the parents fear for their children's safety. they fear for the country that the children are going to grow up in. but they have to do one thing that we all have to do in common that many of us have not done and that's called voting. >> voting. eddie, we saw women voting in alabama also voting in virginia. we saw black voters in alabama come out in numbers not seen even during barack obama 2008 election. a lot of those young voters

could make a difference if a lot of those young voters register and get out and vote. >> i think they are, joe. we're in a time of seismic shifts. you know, in some ways we're recognizing the death of linda brown and what she meant for the country and particularly for african-americans and we have to recognize her in the context of the death of stephon clark. young activists in sacramento pushing the state to recognize the value of black life against the backdrop of the march for all of our lives. so it seems to me it's a time of seismic shift. we're going to see this play itself out in the current campaign. in the 2018 midterms. >> yet, mark livovich, you have some people on the far right mocking these student protesters. acting as if you have to be a certain age before you have a powerful voice. linda brown proved that to be a lie.

>> yes, no, i mean, look, these kids are a certain age. pretty soon they'll be voting age. and it could be this november in the case of the midterms. i mean, i do think, and -- that there is a bit of an almost premature victory lap going on among the quote/unquote resistance. i do think we have not seen a national election yet. i think we don't know what the primary season's going to look like. we don't know what the general election in these midterms are going to look like. and look, i think it's easy to make some early assumptions based open recent precedent but i do think there's a lot of things to play out and we're not sure the degree to which character actually does count at this point. >> susan, we have a long way to go until november, don't we? >> one thing that's interesting when we talk about the republican party, here in new york, the leading republican candidate for governor is in a primary. he's a never trumper. he has the support of most of the county chairmen.

so politics is taking a very tu. a never trumper the leading person for governor. >> some things are going to happen between now and november. we thank you though for being with us today. greatly appreciate you watching. stick around. chris jansing picks up the news coverage right now. see you tomorrow. >> thank you so much, joe. hi there, i am chris jansing in for stephanie ruhle. this morning. the don't let the door slam behind you good-bye from president trump and 24 other countries. as the u.s. alone expels 60 russian diplomats in response to the poisoning of a double agent. russia promising retaliation. >> time will come. they will understand what kind of grave mistake they did. >> courting trouble. stormy daniels ramps up her fight, suing michael