is here. joe and mika have the morning off. joe barnacle and former aide to the george w. bush white house and elise jordan president of the council of foreign relations and richard haass and press secretary to president obama and nbc news political analyst and suffering kansas city royals fan josh earnest. we were just saying, you knew it was coming. >> when it's spring training and you know it's going to be a long year. >> you can enjoy the summer. take the summer off. >> we'll start rooting for the chiefs. >> start early. some other big stories we're following today. the president tamps down speculation and he'll fire the special council as his allies are ratcheting up the allies on bob mueller's boss at the justice department. bob costas joins us with his new reporting. plus, we already heard from stormy daniels and now a former playboy model is to speak out.

we'll speak to karen mcdougle's attorney. puerto rico, all of it, the entire island was without power yesterday. nearly seven months after hurricane maria. what caused the latest blackout and why it may not be the last. let's begin with president trump hosting abe and resolving the crisis was front and center on their agenda. the north korean crisis. in addition to trump's possible upcoming summit with kim jong-un. >> and i hope to have a very successful meeting. if we don't think it's going to be successful, mark, we won't have it. we won't have it. if i think that it's a meeting that is not going to be fruitful, we're not going to go. if the meeting, when i'm there, is not fruitful, i will respectfully leave the meeting. and we'll continue what we're doing.

>> president trump said on tuesday, five locations currently under consideration for his possible summit with kim and multiple u.s. officials tell nbc news sweden, singapore are among the frontrunners. a senior u.s. officials tells nbc news several locations have been ruled out, including beijing and mongolia. bloomberg reports that the site of the signing has also been ruled out. secretary of state nominee mike pompeo which the president confirmed yesterday in an early morning tweet. >> and, by the way, he just left north korea. had a great meeting with kim jong-un. and got along with him really well, really great. >> the white house issued a correction yesterday on the timing of pompeo's trip to north korea saying it took place over

easter weekend nearly three weeks ago, not last week as the president tweeted. richard haass let me start with you on all of this. >> thanks, willie. >> joint press conference at mar-a-lago the focus of it, obviously, north korea. as you watched this play out from the pompeo meeting and the description of how it took place and the discussion between presidehave you been impressed with what this administration has done? >> they put pressure as agreeing to a presidential summit as the engine. it what the president said yesterday part of it was okay. if he didn't think things were going to be fruitful, they would not go ahead to the summit. that is good. if the preparation suggests that there is not a deal to be had. just as well you don't have to it. you don't want a summit that would fall apart.

then the reaction would be, we tried diplomacy and now we have to try something else, which is not what you want. it will all come down the president used the word fruitful yesterday. what does he mean by fruitful? how ambitious are we going to be? what are we going to require now and what do we require down the road? the devil is in the details and what will we be satisfied with at this point and what are we repr prepared to respond to. >> can you see a universe where kim jong-un gives up the one thing on the world stage? >> he can agree to denuclearization down the road to be determined, tbd. this could be a long-range goal to get rid of all nuclear weapons on the peninsula. he may have the 26 things he would require from us in order to bring that amount. and the real question then is are we prepared to live with a delayed, somewhat vague concept

of denuclearization in exchange for some very specific limits. right now, for example, extend the band on north korea testing of any nuclear warhead or any ballistic missile. but denuclearization can mean anything to anybody and be extraordinarily difficult if we inspect north korea to make sure no nuclear activity is going on and it would be impossible to prove. >> haven't we run into situations where north koreans say one thing and that seems to be the theme through the '90s. you ran into this over the obama administration. >> the north koreans essentially try to use the prospect of possible negotiations as cover to continue to develop their nuclear program. to pick up where richard left off. i actually think the widely criticized iran deal negotiated by the obama administration may provide some bread crumbs about a path here.

one of the benefits, while not perfect, does actually have in place a rig program to verify that iran is not developing a nuclear program. maybe that is where you get the outline of a deal. some kind of rigorous verification measures that the north koreans agree to because they're having trouble with this process of miniaturizing their nuclear capability to fit it on top of a missile. they don't make further advances that would limit the risk that we face even if that's the denuclearization is a longer goal. >> using the iran agreement as an example is a winning argument with this administration. >> they change positions on this like five days a week. >> that comes up on may 12th. they have to make their announcement on the iran deal. that is exactly the kind of thing we wouldn't be able to monitor. the more intrusive, the less likely we'll have the access and the confidence. that's why i like testing freezes. we don't have to get inside north korea to verify a testing freeze. if we need to do certain type of

production freezes, i think we're in a very difficult situation. >> richard, hovering above all of this is the fact that despite pompeo's trip to pyongyang, there is no state department and very little fringe element of a diplomatic approach on this. and one of our, one of our most vital allies in the region president abe in japan and palm beach today, they are sort of on the outside of this looking in. how does that affect this whole thing going forward? >> well, it's a reminder that the united states is not alone here. you have japan and you have south korea, who have very different priorities. we probably all have the same list of interests, we just don't rank them in the same way. he talked about the abductees. japanese citizens who have been taken hostage, essentially kidnapped for decades in north korea. he put that on the agenda. but japan doesn't just talk about long-range ballistic missiles. thafr they're concerned about

short-range missiles that could reach them. where will that fit on the agenda. the fact that pompeo's trip was announced. they didn't know about that. showed how they are not driving the diplomatic train here even though they're so directly affected by it. >> you worked in the state department of mike pompeo the state department nominee. if you listened to president trump talk yesterday, he already said he's already behaving like the secretary of state. maybe he ought to be the secretary of state. is he the right guy to be there is the question. >> it made a lot of sense for mike pompeo to go over to pyongyang. the intel to intel relationship has been one that is a long-standing channel when james clapper went over to try to obtain the release of the two missionaries. i think it does help the timing of this announcement is interesting because it offended the japjapanese. you're announcing it and

undercutting their visit at the same time that mike pompeo needs the boost. i do wonder if this is enough to propel him over the top. days of late, i thought he was going to get confirmed and going to be able to do it, but this might be enough to help proeppe him over the line. >> honest with members of congress about that trip. we don't know whether he disclosed in the context of all the private conversations he's having about whether or not he acknowledged that trip. and particularly if you have a waivering senator who finds out after meeting with you in private the president announces that you did this visit you didn't disclose, that is an odd way to convince wavering senators. >> i think it helps him. i think what it now has done is co-mingled. pompeo's confirmation with the north korea issue and a significant boost for pompeo to

vote against him and say we don't want him to continue in this path in the runp to the north korea summit. i think it would be a controversial vote. >> i completely agree. president trump is showing he has trust in another person and i think they're very -- how is kim jong-un going to fly to any of these locations? does he have aircraft on the way that can go more than 1,000 miles. his old soviet jets. there is a lot of logistical headaches and you look at the trial locations floated and it can't be very far and certainly donald trump is not going to want to go to pyongyang. >> the site of the summit may come down to a simple question of transportation. according to "new york times" it's unclear if kim's fleet of soviet airplanes can fly him more than a few thousand miles from north korea.

one cia analyst says we know he has a plane, no one knows if it works. finding a location within a limited radius might be quite the challenge. the paper concludes that borrowing a plane is out of the question for the north korean leader. he also has the train there, richard. travels like 22 miles an hour because it is so heavily armored. took it to his trip to beijing. >> he does have rockets. >> but, i mean, is this a real concern? can't he just stop and refuel or is this sort of a manufacturer problem? >> what is he going to refuel? >> of the 26 concerns i have about this summit, this is 27. where it happens, the whole thing, again, is expectations. and it's too dangerous here. it's not where it happens. the real danger, is one, the failure option. the other is, what price are we

prepared to pay for tuck sesucc. what about the u.s. -- i'm worried about both ends of the barbells that it fails or quote, unquote succeeds. that's the real issue. not where the summit happens. >> to richard's points, what about troops in south korea. this is something that donald trump banded around constantly on the campaign trail. will he sit down with kim jong-un and be like, yeah, it's okay. yeah, it will save us money. apparently he does, i have heard from officials that president trump does but he understands that the south koreans play a vital role in paying for their contribution, which he appreciates. but who knows. >> in addition to north korea, russia was a big topic at that join news conference yesterday. following days of mixed messages from the white house. discuss where the administration stands on adding new sanctions on moscow for the continued support of the assad regime.

>> sanctions very much deserve it. we will have, that is a question. there has been nobody tougher on russia than president donald trump. we had a very, very severe -- we were talking about it a little while. fight in syria recently. a month ago. between our troops and russian troops. and that's very sad. but many people died in that fight. but russia will tell you, there has been nobody tougher than donald trump. >> that comment came after president trump's new director of the national economic council larry cud low said that u.n. ambassador nikki haley had momentary confusion in his words when she announced new sanctions over the weekend. haley responded over the weekend, simply, with all due respect, i don't get confused and kudlow later apologized to haley. trump spoke about having kudlow

on his team and haley asked about being on the team. >> i am very happy about having larry kudlow with us and we haven't always agreed but i noticed lately larry agreed more and more with me which makes me quite happy. >> ambassador haley, how is your relationship with president trump? >> perfect. >> she said it's perfect there if you couldn't see the text on the screen. donald trump talking about larry kudlow he likes him that he is nice to him and agrees with him. >> i have been the toughest on russia. i would like to talk to some republican members of congress to see if they agree. fact check, not true. >> you know, what we just saw and heard, richard, message discipline is important, obviously, for a president of the united states. we just saw there was no message discipline here. so, what is the level of concern in the world of diplomats around the world about the potential meeting between the president

and the leader of north korea in that he would agree to something during the course of the negotiation that we would have no intention of carrying out? >> i thought you were going to go somewhere else. that they would globally agree, take out the word globally, worse that we might carry out. the feeling with donald trump there is no givens and no assumptions and very little that is sacred. a lot of the tenants of american foreign policy that have served us pretty well tremendous concern in places like japan, south korea, that he could put those on the table and that is the real concern. >> josh, what do you see when you watch the nikki haley, donald trump back and forth the last several days. someone inside the white house and someone had to discipline a message and roll out sanctions and make an announcement on a sunday show as nikki haley did. how could that possibly happen? >> i can't speak to the inner workings of the trump

administration. the first is, nikki haley does not go on a sunday show without doing some prep. she probably had conversations with folks at the national security council and they gave her an indication that these sanctions were coming. she wouldn't lean into them so heavily if she wasn't given that they were coming soon. you noted that mr. kudlow apologized to her. he apologized by saying mrs. haley was not given all the relevant information. it wasn't that she was confused, she was totally out of the loop. my guess is she didn't appreciate the apology either. she took the right approach about letting this die. some new scandal today that overshadows this disagreement. but it is an indication to me that larry kudlow who has not served in government is already showing evidence of that. he is having a hard time mounting a united front and used to being in charge of his own

television show and not being part of a team. >> you talk loosely. he's on tv for extended periods of time. >> he just has a word like confused. the other part of this that i think is important is there continues to be, we continue to see the seams of the trump administration policy on russia. can president trump continue to be pushed by people at a high level whether u.n. ambassador or other officials who are telling him, if we actually want to crack down on syria's use of chemical weapons. we need to put pressure on russia to make him stop and president trump is unwilling to do it. not that he is tougher than anybody on russia. if anything, he is weaker than everybody on russia. >> selectively tough. some of the sanctions are significant. the fact that the united states provide lethal defensive articles to ukraine. something the obama administration wouldn't do. to me, a significant step. the major gap is in any response to what the russians have done to the meddling in the american

election and the reaction to chemical. it's all over the place russia policy. >> everyone hold these thoughts. we're just getting starting. president trump relatively restrained when talking about rod rosenstein but his allies on capitol hill are digging in. follow new warnings that the attorney general could meet impeachment if he does not face demands. >> this april has to end, right? we can't continue this cold and snowy across the country and looks like we'll finally hit the peak here and turn the corner. wind chills this morning. we're at 19 in minneapolis. 20 in chicago. not isolated. but feels like 32 this morning in louisville. and we have snow this morning in areas of the hudson valley and western massachusetts and even snow in northern portions of ohio. i don't think i'll show you snow again on the map east of the rockies until november. i think this is it. no signs through the end of the month. once you get to may, extremely

rare to deal with it. storm system through the west. pictures out of oklahoma the last couple days. really intense fires that have been burning through. today we're worried about arizona and new mexico. southern half of the country a little cooler than normal. at least you're sunny. misery in the northeast. today is the worst day we're going to have for a long time because things will begin to improver as we go through the weekend. on friday northern half of the country is quiet. sunday watching rain, oklahoma through texas. the northern half of the country, no snow, no rain. bunch of seasonable, dry days. just getting back to average, which is like 50s and 60s is going to feel warm considering how cold this april has been. to new york city, it's ugly. it's rainy. it's in the 40s. but it gets better from here. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. i'm not a bigwig. or a c-anything-o. but i've got an idea sir. get domo. it'll connect us to everything that's going on in the company. get it for jean who's always cold. for the sales team, it and the warehouse crew.

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attorney general rod rosenstein to be punished. met with rosenstein on monday to press him for more documents concerning the russia probe and the clinton e-mail investigation. the white house could be in the loop. three sources told "the post" that president trump and meadows spoke at some point after the meeting, but they declined to share details of that exchange. citing a potential investigation and other classifications, doj said yesterday it needs more time to evaluate house republicans' request for james comey's memos about meetings with president trump. the chairman of the judiciary committee is poised to issue a subpoena for the documents according to jerry nadler. i fear the majority will have manufactured an excuse to hold the deputy attorney general. president trump repeated yesterday some of his debunked claims about the probe and said

he's been restrained towards the investigators. >> on the mueller probe, have you concluded that it's not worth the political fallout to remove either special counsel mueller or deputy attorney general rosenstein? >> we are giving tremendous amount of paper. this was really a hoax created largely by the democrats as a way of softening the blow of a loss, which is a loss that, frankly, they shouldn't have had from the standpoint that it's very easy for them to have a tremendous advantage in the electoral college. this is what it is and this is where it came from. you look at the kind of money that was paid. probably some went to russia. you look at podesta having a company in russia and people talk about it and don't look at it. you talk about the fact that the server, the dnc server, why did the fbi take it? the fbi takes what they want. they go in and they wouldn't get

the server. this is a hoax. as far as the investigation, nobody has been more transparent than i have instructed our lawyerses be totally transpare. i believe we have given them 1.4 million pages of documents, if you believe this. and haven't used that i know of or for the most part, presidential powers or privilege. so, we are hopefully coming to the end. it is a bad thing for our country. very, very bad thing for our country. but there has been no collusion. they won't find any collusion. it doesn't exist. as far as the two gentlemen you told me about, they have been saying i am going to get rid of them for the last three months, four months, five months. and they are still here. so, we want to get the investigation over with, done with. put it behind us. >> so, he's talking there,

kasie, about rob mueller and rosenstein. a lot of people suspicious and especially what mark meadows and jim jordan are up to when it comes to rob rosenstein. put him in a place where they can hold him to contempt of congress and put him to the side? >> that's the question. i think this effort has sort of been spreading through the republican conference. nun ze nunez has been behind the scenes and the fact that you have a couple other chairman and the chairman of the judiciary committee jerry nadler warning they will subpoena these documents. it sends a signal that frankly house republican leaders who have said repeatedly publicly that they want muller to finish their investigation are to a certain extent losing control of the situation. that this is kind of snowballing in a way that could basically provide the president an excuse to fire these people and potentially precipitate a c

constitutional crisis. >> getting the confidence to say that. mitch mcconnell standing in the way of legislation to protect the special counsel because he says it's not something the president would do. i think they thought that about james comey, as well. >> i know they thought that about jim comey. >> people who are willing to take the president's word for something this important are either foolish or cowardly. they either are in the face of all evidence of the contrary are willing to trust a guy showing he can't be trusted or unwilling to stand up to him. and it's problematic when we're talking about something as fundamental to our constitution as the rule of law. i don't want to be overly dramatic about it. but what we're seeing from congressional republicans is the continued march of politicizing our justice system in a way that should be troubling to americans of all political persuasion. >> there is bipartisan legislation on this. gotten together with democrats and said, we have to protect the

special counsel. >> there was enough alarm, with the news cycles the way they are, i lose track of time. but i think it was last friday that rosenstein was on the verge of being fired and republicans made a significant push in the judiciary committee to put this legislation through the committee. mitch mcconnell put the kubosh on it by going out in public by saying no way, no how am i putting this on the floor. your take on this. one thing that republicans are hoping is true is that the president learned his lesson from firing james comey and that that backfired on him so aggressively and gave him mueller that that argument is convincing him he shouldn't make the same mistake again. >> that's normal logic. but i think it's fantasy land when you're dealing with donald trump and his level of impul impulsivety. to do exactly what everyone says he can't do. why i still think there is

significant risk he is going to fire mueller. mcconnell's posture is interesting and not letting it go to the floor and contrast with how he let the senate intel committee proceed with their investigation. >> it is contradictory to where his conference is. that is one of the interesting dynamics to play out. you come out, they have policy lunches every tuesday. these republicans come out and you hear there is a significant amount of angst about this. >> primary season is about to be over and they're about to run a lot of republicans. only eight, but, still, they have to defend their seats and they're going to have to run as general election candidates. so, you look at where the tide of the country is and i think mcconnell is frankly out of step with where the electorate is. >> at some point, at some day, this is going to end. this is going to be over. this investigation is going to be over and there is going to be a conclusion. >> really? >> at some point. some day. some day it will happen. but the largest danger is not existent in washington today.

it is existent out in the country where all of this coming at people every day, like a fire hose of events and scandals and shocking statements happens every day. repeatedly during the course of the day as i think many, many people to the shock of what is happening to our constitutional system of government on a daily basis. >> i think what i hear a lot out there is call me when it's over. every twist and turn of the russia investigation. let me know what happens at the end of the movie. senators describing whether they think donald trump will figure out a way to get rid of bob mueller. here's orrin hatch talking about that yesterday. >> i don't think so. i don't think the president is going to do something like that. >> we don't need to pass it? >> that's right. we ought to let the president be the president. but i don't think he's about to do that. he would take such criticism

that it wouldn't be worth it to him. >> is that the prevailing opinion in the senate among republicans, kasie? >> certainly the prevailing public view. i think privately, there is enormous concern. and bob corker, i'm not sure we've heard from him yet. i am sure we'll show some of what he said yesterday because he's looike, look, if you're ra senator and you think this is off the rails -- >> why would they say that to you privately and go out in front of cameras and say something entirely different? >> part of it, they all have to run for re-election, and, two, the smart ones. orrin hatch flipped this on his head. the spepeople who have closer relationships with president trump say the president is too smart to fire mueller because they don't want him to but they know flattery can get you to a certain place with this president. our president is way too smart to possibly do anything such as

that. they're trying to send him a message, hey, don't do that. >> lead with flattery. always works with this president. still ahead on "morning joe" a former playboy model is allowed to speak out. karen macdougle talk about t. ♪ i like it, i love it, ♪ i want some more of it. ♪ i try so hard, ♪ i can't rise above it ♪ don't know what it is 'bout that little gal's lovin'. ♪ ♪ but i like it, i love it, ♪ i want some more of it ♪

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seven months after hit by hurricane maria, puerto rico lost power yesterday when a toppled transmission line caused an island-wide blackout. 1.5 million customers scrambled as stoplights went black and businesses and schools closed. the islands residents have grappled with several smaller blackouts. as of last night 300,000 customers were still without power and after nearly $2.5 billion in repair to the island's electrical grid tens of thousands of people still have not had electricity since the hurricane hit. again, that was in september. coming up next, the president's fixer michael cohen may have dodged a legal bullet with news of the settlement involving a former playboy model

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there is news of a settlement in the case brought a by the former playboy model who claims she had an affair with donald trump in 2006. karen mcdougal sued the parent company claiming she was misled when she sold her story to the tabloid in the month to the 2016 election. ami is headed by close friend and ally of donald trump. the settlement allows mcdougal to speak publicly about her claims and keep the $150,000 payment from ami while they retain rights on any future profits of her story. mcdougal alleged that her attorney at the time, keith davidson, also a former lawyer for stormy daniels, never told her that donald trump's attorney michael cohen was secretly involved in the negotiations that resulted in the story being

suppre suppressed. had the case not been settled, mcdougal's attorney said he was prepared to start pretrial discovery. the move would have compelled both sides to share e-mails and other records and, quote, could have provided information that would not be available through the material the fbi seized from michael cohen. cohen is under criminal investigation. prosecutors say they're looking at his business dealings. he denies any wrongdoing. "new york times" reports that investigators sought information to payments on stormy daniels and karen mcdougal. cohen is being investigated for possible bank and wire fraud and campaign finance violations. peter stris joins us in our 8:00 hour. joining us now, help us connect the dots here to this karen mcdougal case, the ami which was a catch and kill as they call it.

they pay a lot of money for the story so it goes away and michael cohen. we laid it out a little bit, but take us through it. >> the issue really is the fact that karen mcdougal and her attorney got paid to have this story run exclusively in this magazine. but the key thing is here is that president trump's fixer, the person loyal to the president was behind the scenes making this deal and his involvement not just in this case, but a number of cases involving women and their secrecies and agreements to not talk about the relationship with the president. trump is not just the subject of several civil lawsuits but also now this federal investigation where people -- where agents might have seized what i heard are recordings of michael cohen was known to make. so, what we have here is a settlement where one woman is, one, free to talk. so, we can learn more about what karen mcdougal and donald trump did. who was arranging. things that could have been

michael cohen. the other thing is there is a good side for the president. which is that this is one small chapter closed legally, civilly that they don't have to go through. they don't have to come out and produce e-mails. michael cohen doesn't have to go before another judge and explain himself. but i don't think it's anywhere near over because stormy daniels is still getting out of that agreement and federal prosecutors are closing in on michael cohen and interest ared in all the things that he has to say and all the secrets he has been keeping for the president. >> i'm curious, where does this fall on the hierarchy of concern. you mentioned quite a few stormy daniels. do they feel like this is actually closed or do you think that there is still a sense that this is something that ultimately could hurt them or damage the president's relationship with his wife in an unpredictable way? >> my sources tell me that people -- that the president and the people around him aren't as concerned about karen mcdougal

of what she might say because she's already spoken pretty at length about her relationship with president trump. she talked about this was a month-long affair and she was the one who cut it off and the president even spoke to her about his wife. this idea that she's already been out there with her story. the bigger issue is what she might say about michael cohen and what she might say about the president's workings and how people keep secrets around the president. however y don't know and the sources that i talk to, the president has so many other issues, including the fact that there's robert mueller out there looking into an obstruction case that this might not be on the top of their list of things to be worried about because the president has so many other legal issues. >> meanwhile a long-time legal adviser to donald trump said he warned the president on friday not to trust his personal attorney michael cohen. "wall street journal" reports on friday that trump called jay goldberg who represented trump in the early '90s and 2000s seeking advice. he cautioned the president, michael will never stand up for

you if charged by the government. he told trump on a scale of 100 to one where 100 is fully protecting the president mr. cohen isn't even a one. for his part cohen tweeted the day before the raid, quote, i will always protect our president, donald trump. mike, this is the dilemma we have been talking about for a couple weeks now. if you're michael cohen you pledged your loyalty and been loyal to him for a dozen years or so and you have a wife and two kids. when a federal prosecutor comes and says you might not see them for the next 20, 25 years. that is an easy call. >> might not be a candidate of the harvard law review, but michael cohen is certainly smart enough to know that given the pending charges that might be lodged against him by the federal government that he could be buried beneath a jail for 20, 25 years. with young children, that is a huge factor and you making up your mind whether you cooperate or noncooperate.

>> president trump had a two-word strategy for trying to address this, scooter libby. he was hang with me, pal, and i'll hang with you. i'll have your back with all of this. if this is the prisoner's dilemma, one, is cohen going to flip knowing that trump could potentially protect him. on a scale of 101 and trump is totally having cohen's back. if i'm michael cohen, i'm not sure president trump is a one either. that may be why they were such good business partners. but in the end, i think it's why the white house is so concerned about what mr. cohen may say to federal investigators. >> inside some of those seized materials is information that the paymedirected payment to st daniels. that is the president with shinzo abe yesterday in japan and talking about north korea.

we will have the meeting i may walk away from the meeting, i might not go to the meeting if i don't like what the conditions are. how is the white house feeling about its relationship and push with north korea? >> the white house, the message that they're sending is that things are going better than ever. president trump was trading insalts with the leader of north korea calling him rocketman and mike pompeo went out there and things went very smoothly and this is a place where president trump could show his leadership. one of the important things is that president abe flattering president trump. we know your determination and your leadership is going to get us through this. really, he is trying to make president trump feel as though he has the keys to this answer. and the white house is spinning that in that way. the fact that the president is talking about going to meet with him, talking about this idea that he's certain -- it's almost like he's certain this is going to happen. of course, so many logistical things to work out about what

will happen. but the white house sources i talked to dee feel positively about what could happen. japan said very clearly there, one of the top concerns was to talk to president trump about denuclearization because it is a high concern of theirs, along with trade. so, things seem to be going smoothly, but, of course, that could be different if the president gets mad and sends a tweet. >> which could happen later this morning. we never know with him. thank you very much. good to see you, as always. the attorney for karen mcdougal peter stris our guest. senator elizabeth warren and elijah cummings join us for a joint interview. because you've made sure this sensor and this machine are integrated. atta, boy. & yes, some people assign genders to machines. & with edge-to-edge intelligence,

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yesterday after ambassador nikki haley told the u.n. the united states was going to level more sanctions against russia, the white house quickly contradicted her saying she suffered from momentary confusion. being called confused by the trump white house, that's like being called hateful and mean-spirited by -- well, by the trump white house! >> coming up, president trump seems to sidestep a question on whether he plans to fire bob mueller or rod rosenstein. and white house aides open president trump's visit to

mar-a-lago this week would be a distraction back to washington, but apparently the florida resort comes with its own problems. plus, dave davitas joins the table with richard hopps. we'll be right back. ♪ bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens ♪ ♪ brown paper packages tied up with strings ♪ ♪ these are a few of my favorite things ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ these are a few of my favorite things ♪ you'll make my morning, buty the price ruin my day.ou? complicated relationship with milk? pour on the lactaid, 100% real milk, just without that annoying lactose. mmm, that's good.

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now if you had liberty mutual new car replacement™, you'd get your whole car back. i guess they don't want you driving around on three wheels. smart. with liberty mutual new car replacement™, we'll replace the full value of your car. liberty stands with you™. liberty mutual insurance. any republican senator that hasn't been conflicted over this presidency is either comatose or is pretty useless in their blindness. i don't know what its history has been. i think the rallies, you know, generated much of the policy, right? so -- and you find, you know, a lot of movement, right? one day we're doing this, the next day we're doing that. for a chief of staff, it's got to be a nightmare, right, that at night there are people calling in from all around the country, he's calling them. the chief of staff doesn't know

who he is talking with. there are people that the chief of staff is not vetting that are giving input. my staff here make sure i'm meeting with people that aren't crackpots. he gets input at 11:00 at night, say, he comes in the next morning and has a different mindset. some of it i would attribute to the constant chaos and the way this decision-making process is or isn't. >> that is the sound bite kacie hunt was talking about a mu minutes ago. republican bob corker yesterday seemed to double down on the critique of the trump administration for the ongoing confusion surrounding policy announcements. welcome back to "morning joe." it's thursday, april 19. i'm alongside the host of kas kasiedc. we have richard hopps, and

former aides elise jordan. joining the conversation is jonathan lemere, and now retired four-star general james davise. and in washington, political reporter for the "washington post," msnbc political analyst and moderator of "washington week" on pbs. you guys have long titles. >> can we go to a commercial break? >> i'm afraid we're out of time. ka sirks ark kasie, you were referencing the bob corker sound. >> yes. >> he's a guy who speaks his mind when he feels it's appropriate. he's a guy who is leaving town, which makes it a little easier. what's he getting at there? what's the frustration? what's he giving voice to? >> don't forget bob corker is someone who had a good relationship with president trump on the campaign trail but

was also subject to his wins. there were reports that why he didn't end up being secretary of state was that the president thought he was too short for the job. there is a distinct height discrepancy for the job. not exactly what bob corker would argue. he's a very serious guy, bob corker. sk and he, i think, is giving voice to the frustration i certainly hear privately from republicans running for reelection that are in a much different position, but that is probably the most blunt i have heard him be, especially when there are cameras pointing at him. >> i like what he said, but even more, he has a platform called the senate relations committee. there should be sustained hearings about the iran agreement, about the north korea summit, just go down the list. there are so many fundamental issues of foreign policy where bob corker and the senate should hold this administration accountable. i would hope he would do that in his remaining time.

>> bob costa, i'm remembering during the early days of the trump administration when we had senator corker on shothe show, was one of the people that said, i'm going to give the president time and space. i don't agree with the way he's conducting himself as president, but i want to give him time. at some point the expiration date came up on that patience for bob corker. >> the expiration date certainly came up, and what came after that was the clarity of retirement, as kasie was saying. he's one of these many republicans who are heading for the exits this year, and now they find themselves more comfortable weighing in on the trump administration. but so many republicans still there who are going to face voters this fall, they don't want to say this kind of candid stuff, because they fear the wrath of president trump and his own voters. >> there is, elise, we were talking about this, there is general fear not just of the president but the people that elected him into office and the people they need to be reelected to office. >> the republicans are petrified

of enraging president trump and unleashing his anger, and you look at what happened with bob corker. is that a cautionary tale? maybe he wouldn't have made it through the primary in tennessee. politically what he said yesterday was pretty interesting. he essentially gave governor phil bredison, the very popular former governor who is running against congresswoman marcia blackburg. he basically endorsed phil bredison over marcia blackburg. he said, that phil bredison, he's a good guy. >> they worked together, and phil bredison, popular governor of tennessee, who had this relationship with corker, is leading tennessee. and marcia blackburg could be so potentially unpopular there. >> i think republicans are

underestimate that go seat could go to a democrat. i've never seen anything like it. in the focus groups we did for the ashton group in tennessee, we heard from republicans who said, phil bredison, i could vote for him. i've never seen a crossover like that in the 16 months we've been doing this. let's turn to north korea. resolving the crisis there was key in his meeting with shinzo abe yesterday in mar-a-lago. in a joint news conference, the president discussed the possible upcoming summit with kim jong-un. >> and i hope to have a very successful meeting. if we don't think it's going to be successful, mark, we won't have it. we won't have it. if i think that it's a meeting that is not going to be fruitful, we're not going to go. if the meeting when i'm there is not fruitful, i will respectfully leave the meeting

and we'll continue what we're doing. >> admiral savritas, obviously c cia director mike pompeo made the trip to see kim jong-un. what's your opinion of the trip he took right now? >> i want to talk about little bob corker as someone of even stature. i always see eye to eye with senator corker. he looks tall to me. and i definitely disagree with his comments this morning. back to secretary of state nominee pompeo. i think it was a good move sending him there, not only because he is the secretary of state designate but also his personality. he's voluble, he can communicate well, he knows the incident

inside and out. the question is should we get optimistic about what's happening now? i would say no. you know the saying, it's going to get worse before it gets better. i think it will get better and then worse again. >> what would the outcome of the meeting be between president trump and kim jong-un? what do we want out of that meeting? >> what we want is relationship-building, laying the groundwork for further talks. this is the work of a year or two. i think we should also be realistic. i don't think kim jong-un is going to give up his nuclear weapons, i truly don't. and if i was his adviser, i'm not sure i would tell him to do so. i think the second thing we want is to get china involved. in the end, all roads to pyongyang lead through beijing. i think you want to get from two-party talks to four-party talks, so get south korea, china, u.s., north korea. that would be, in my view, the next logical step, and do it at

a level below that of the president and kim jong-un. then at some point you think about japan and russia, you're into six is-party talks, then i think you could resolve this long-term. >> john, do we have a sense of what the white house thinks it can get? do they think they will denuclearize if they offer certain carrots? >> you mentioned a year in the making. they're still talking early june to have this meeting. trump feels like if he goes in the room with kim jong-un -- that seems to be his approach to foreign policy is to build that reels sh relationship with the other leader and then strike up a deal. the american citizens still held in north korea, he was not going to demand that they be released ahead of time to have this meeting. shinzo abe, the prime minister of japan, is also pushing for the japanese citizens who have been abducted that are still there.

this is a president who is drawn to the idea of making history, that big statement. not just breaking with his immediate predecessor, barack obama, which he tries to do on a daily basis, but to do something no president has done before. >> there has been reporting that this is about the trump great man theory of the case. do you agree with that assessment? does he view this as a chance for the greatest foreign policy arrangement since the cold war. >> it's not just like this would be a shiny object to put the bad headlines away. this is bigger than that. he does believe that. his whole image both as businessman, politician and now president is that great theory. this idea that i, one person, alone can do this. and if he can make this deal happen, it would be written about. it would be one of the first lines in the history books about the trump administration. >> i don't know if you agree with me, admiral, but the real question to me is what the definition of success is. if we are willing to accept some concept of denuclearization,

something vaguely defined as a long-term goal, but in the meantime we're willing to take half a loaf. that would be my definition of success. that to me would be plenty ambitious enough given the history here, and the question is, do you think this administration is prepared to essentially accept half a loaf and call it a day? >> i would have said a month or two ago, higher probability. with john bolton in the chair, i think the probability of accepting that deal that you outline and with which i agree has gone down. and i think president trump somehow feels he will walk in, slap the table like he's selling a building in manhattan and walk out the door to collect his nobel peace prize. ain't going to happen that way. this is going to be a process that has to unfold, and ri richard's prescription is the one i agree with. which is, accept some level. freeze the nuclear program. have a long-term goal to get rid

of it and let's deescalate the tension here. >> well, and i worry that we're experiencing this momentary lull post olympics, opening of talks, and say this goes really badly and there aren't any concessions, and donald trump does think it's a terrible deal. does that lay the groundwork to say, well, we tried to talk. it was the last resort, now weaver got to strike. i am very worried about that. >> i think there's that risk. also coming up between now and then is how the united states deals with the iran agreement. may 12, we have a deadline there. that will have repercussions. we're also possibly moving toward something in the middle east between israel and iran. this is not going to happen out there as an oasis. it's going to be an awfully crowded agenda between now and then. >> absolutely, and the iranians are watching this closely. if they see a deal that lets them keep nuclear weapons, that will move in one direction.

and if we, alternatively, the north koreans are watching, and if we break that deal with iran, what is their comments in honfi holding this together? >> and syria is another thing the world is entangled in. you could hear it in president trump's voice yesterday. he wants to do something, and if it's just to prop up his own legacy, so be it. he wants to have led this great pos post-cold war achievement in american diplomacy and stop this cold war around the world. >> and you have secretary jim mattis and others who follow this rules-based international order, who follow a certain code when it comes to foreign policy. but the president now encouraged in part by bolton wants to be more of a disruptive force. white house officials tell me, and they know there is a huge

risk in this kind of approach, but that's the approach he's going to take when it comes to north korea. >> another issue on the table yesterday at that meeting with shinzo abe in the joint press conference was russia and sanctions. admiral savritas, you said no one has been tougher than i have been on russia. your assessment of that statement and what we ought to be doing with russia. >> there is a grain of truth in there. we have increased sanctions. we've thrown out some russian intelligence operatives but he has not been tough personally on putin, in my view, sufficiently, and secondly, we have not sufficiently retaliated in the cyber world for the actions of russia in our elections. so yes on sanctions. it's been fairly tough and getting tougher, but we saw the whole do-si-do yesterday with ambassador nikki haley over at the united nations. i loved her statement, i am not confused about our attitude toward russia.

we are still going too easy on russia. >> let's listen to what the president said yesterday at mar-a-lago. >> i'll do sanctions as soon as they very much deserve it. we will have -- that is a question. there has been nobody tougher on russia than president donald trump. we had a very, very severe -- we were talking about it a little while ago -- fight in syria recently, a month ago, between our troops and russian troops. and that's very sad. but many people died in that fight. but russia will tell you there has been nobody tougher than donald trump. >> jonathan, what is he thinking of when he says that? we did expel diplomats. we had sanctions with russia lately. there has been collusion with russia. does he feel he's been tough

enough on russia? >> there's a long list. it probably calls for a fact check. people around him say he does say this. whether he actually believes it or not, that's not clear to them. but there is a degree of bluster that he wants to be seen as talking tough. a lot of that, yes, is in reaction to the collusion probe, to the mueller investigation, that he feels like he needs to talk. well, i'm doing this even if the facts say otherwise, which is a lot of how he operates day to day. and the dust-up with ambassador haley is certainly an illuminating moment for the white house. she is someone who has been, for the most part, a pretty good ally for the president. they talk quite a bit. she, unlike other members of the cabinet officials, will talk directly to the president before she says something directly. for a while there it seemed like she was adhering to the party line more than rex tillerson, and there was certainly tension there. there were people -- people in the white house suggest that kudlow came out and said, well, she got confused and that led to

it. of course, which was striking, a clap-back from her, which we have not seen from many people in the trump administration, that she's not willing to be thrown down that hole like some of her predecessors. >> zero chance she would have done that without clear signalling and the president changed his mind for whatever reasons. kudlow was basically covering and showing his loyalty to the president. >> i for one appreciated nikki haley's comeback. do you think she still has the confidence of the president? >> i do, because i think it's so unlikely he's going to just throw her off the back of the bus at this point for a wide variety of reasons. i think she's done a good job up there overall. >> a man of great stature, always good to see you. thank you. stay with us if you can. still ahead, challenging the power to pardon. new york's attorney general is moving to change the law so prosecutors can bring criminal charges against people led off

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to remove either special counsel mueller or deputy attorney general rosenstein? >> nobody has ever been more transparent than i have instructed our lawyers. be totally transparent. i believe we've given them 1.4 million pages of documents, if you can believe this. and haven't used, that i know of or for the most part, presidential powers or privilege. as far as the two gentlemen you told me about, they've been saying, i'm going to get rid of them for the last three months, four months, five months. and they're still here. so we want to get the investigation over with, done with, put it behind us.

>> that's the president speaking yesterday at mar-a-lagmar-a-lag. meanwhile the senate judiciary committee reportedly is moving forward with a bipartisan bill to protect robert mueller. despite majority leader mitch mcconnell's legislation this week that it was not necessary. when asked if he would still gifr him a vote, chuck grassley said i will move forward. those concerns came to a head on monday, according to the "washington post," but not from trump. republican congressman mark meadows of north carolina and jim jordan of ohio met in deputy attorney general's rod rosenstein's office, asking about documents pertaining to

hillary clinton's e-mail server. this came down after his concern with rosenstein. >> i think we have a problem with rod rosenstein, myself included, that he's not giving us the documents and he's not doing his job. if he's not doing his job, he needs to find one that he will do. >> the report also said meadows spoke with president trump following the meeting, although the details of the discussion were not shared. and president trump reportedly still fuming over the raid of michael cohen's office, hotel and home last week which rosenstein personally authorized. the post reports that he has taken note of certain commentators who have called for rosenstein to be fired. president trump also reportedly encouraged rosenstein to work with lawmakers on their documents request during a white house meeting on april 12th. also yesterday a group of republican lawmakers calling on james comey to potentially be pr prosecuted. in a letter sent to attorney general jeff sessions, jeff wray

and john huber who were hired to report on investigations of misconduct, they talked about andrew mccabe for violating several statutes. fbi jason bente and lisa page are also named in that letter. joining us now, former u.s. attorney and a former aid to robert mueller, now an nbc news law enforcement analyst, chuck roseberg with us. white house correspondent bloomberg news and bob costa with us as well. you're a former u.s. attorney. what is your view? do you believe that legislation a is effe

a, is effective, b, constitutional? >> let me unpack that. if they were to pass legislation to protect bob mueller, who would have to sign that into law? the president. and that seems to me unlikely. is it necessary? i don't know. is it constitutional? i don't know. again, there is the plenary powers of the president to run his executive branch as he sees fit are quite broad and quite sweeping. it's not clear to me that congress could actually sort of cabin that. >> chuck, the assault of former director comey is fairly predictable. we knew it was coming. but the assault on the justice department itself and elements of the fbi in particular are not only fairly unpredictable but seem to be growing and are deeply, deeply political. what damage has it done to the institution -- never mind the

morale -- but the institution of the justice department itself? >> for the fbi, for the dea, for the men and women of justice to be effective, they have to be believed. they have to go out in the communities to talk to witnesses and talk to victims to make their cases. for them to be effective, people have to trust them. historically there's always been that trust, right? when someone shows up at the door wearing an fbi jacket or with an fbi badge, you trust that woman, right? you know that she's a good, credible, honest, decent person. when we undermine that, putting aside the morale question, i think we potentially maybe actually undermine the effectiveness of their work in the field. >> you wouldn't know this much better than me, obviously, but i was talking to a defense lawyer the other day who said, if i was working on a case completely unrelated to russia, let's say it was a drug trafficking case in chicago. all i would have to do is say, you know, the fbi, can they be trusted? they can just plant a seed and a

jury would say, yeah, there has been something with the fbi, maybe they can't be trusted in this situation. that was the concern of prosecutors out there now. >> you don't need 12 jurors to believe that, you need one. because with one juror ufryou h a mistrial. what you may be seeing, and time will tell, is that this gums up the works, right? you don't have to pick off 12 people to have to retry a case or for the department to have to do something different. there is a corrosive danger to what's going on. look, mike, you mentioned jim comey. i've known jim for years. i trust that he's a good, decent man. he's a man of integrity. you can question what he did, that's fine. but then taking a step further and going after the institution and the men and women who have devoted their careers to doing that justice, that's awful. >> this corrosion, too, and skpr jonathan lemiere, one thing that strikes me day in and day out is

republicans historically have been the ones on the forefront of defending the fbi, talking about how they defended us after the september 11 attacks, kept our country safe, and now it's these 11 republicans who have signed this letter who are essentially carrying this water. >> it's a sharp break from what it used to be, and the president himself during his campaign would bill himself as lawsuit and ord -- law and order candidate. he said he would give them the best equipment and tools and financing they would need, and here he is day after day undermining their cause. playing the clip from mar-a-lago yesterday, it's pretty striking. yes, rosenstein and mueller are still here. the president says, they'll stay here. i'm not going to bother them, they're protected. he pointedly did not do that. he's still so angry at the michael cohen raid which he feels like really crossed the red line into his personal and into his business life, and i think there is concern of people around him, but what they don't

know, what was in that office. there is a degree of exposure now for the president, for his inner circle, for his adult children who all worked for cohen at the trump organization, and who knows what sort of business dealings on and off the books they'll find? >> who signed off on that raid? >> but who else is next? if you're going after michael cohen at his office tightening the noose around him, who is next? are you going after jared kushner? that's the concern i hear coming from the trump orbit. >> mark meadows, what is he up to exactly? we heard him on camera saying if rod rosenstein can't do this job, maybe he should find a job he can do better than this. there is obviously a focus. jim jordan is also alongside this questioning the clinton investigation as well of rod rosenstein. >> everybody is asking the question, whether bob mueller be fired? the real thing to pay attention to as i talk to members of congress is will rod rosenstein,

the deputy attorney, be fired. the president said what he had to say at mar-a-lago yesterday, but mark meadows and jim jordan going to the department of justice to confront rod rosenstein about document production, that is pressure on the hill from the department of justice, and there is perhaps no member of congress who is closer to president trump than mark meadows. we reported that meadows and trump had some kind of conversation after that meeting took place on monday. so you have behind the scenes this effort to really push the justice department into a corner. that's a significant development. >> so, robert, we have one player in here who has yet been unnamed this morning in this drama we're talking about, that you were just talking about right now, and that is the retiring speaker of the house, paul ryan, who is leaving clearly an undisciplined group of people out on their own, apparently, unless he's involved in it. devin nunez doing things with his committee that are just incredibly outrageous in a sense, and now you have two

members of congress, mark meadows and jim jordan, going down, as you just put it, confronting the justice department, basically saying hand over stuff we want to use for political ends. where is paul ryan and what happens to his reputation? >> where is paul ryan, where is mitch mcconnell? the answers to those questions is pretty easy. they have every opportunity to protect robert mueller's investigation. for whatever reason, they say because the president has not signalled to them that he's going to fire mueller, they have chosen not to pursue that kind of legislation. mcconnell says he won't even bring it to the floor. so you have people like nunez, like mark meadows. they're ascending and powerful when it comes to the tempo and tone that the legislation is taking. >> new york attorney general asked them to take power with

criminal proceedings against president trump. he is talking about the double jeopardy law that shields people from talking about the president in a state prosecution. he said, simply put, a defendant pardoned by the president for a serious federal crime could be freed from all accountability under federal and state criminal law, even though the president has no authority under the u.s. constitution to pardon state crimes. schneiderman and the president faced off before, if you remember. it led to a $20 million settlement. the president has called schneiderman the worst ag and a total loser, all those comments coming off twitter in 2014. chuck, there are concerns. i think some people looked at the scooter libby pardon last week as something of a signal to others in the trump orbit that if you go to jail, there may be something at the end of the rainbow for you, i may take care of you. >> there is a particular irony

there, willy. if you recall, on the very day libby was pardoned, the president had berated jim comey and andrew mccabe for being leakers and liars. what was the common thread with scooter libby? a leaker and a liar. we're telling everybody hang in there, stay with the team. i, the president, have this plenary authority to make tall go away. now it seems there may be an issue with new york state's ability to prosecute, too. >> they better hope he's still president when they get convicted of a crime. i guess you can pardon people ahead -- yeah. >> you can do it on your way out the door. you can do it on your last hour in office. and that's happened before. >> but you have to have been convicted of a crime, first,

right, to pardon someone? you actually have to have a conviction? >> no. you have to have committed the crime. whether or not you've been convicted of it is sort of incidental. >> shannon, in your coverage of the white house, is there serious consideration or direction, perhaps, from the white house of moving rod rosenstein aside through congress, through mark meadows and jim jordan finding some way to do it? >> our reporting doesn't indicate that trump is imminently going to fire rod rosenstein. he'll probably tweet that in like two minutes and people will say, didn't this woman just say he wasn't going to fire him? our reporting indicates he has moved away from that. but there are a lot of other ways to get around this issue than firing mueller, firing rosenstein. you could put in a new attorney general. if you get a new attorney general in there who is not recused from this investigation, you would solve your rod rosenstein problem and you could have someone who would rein in mueller. you could appoint rod rosenstein to a judicial position, name him

a judge. which is something that has been publicly suggested, make rosenstein a judge. you could also just let the pressure on congress, you could have members of congress put pressure on rosenstein to recuse himself. there is this argument that, don't you have a conflict here? weren't you involved with this? so the question of aren't you firing somebody, there are ways to solve your bob mueller overreach questions. >> and the president is softening the ground here, that they're justifying in advance a move the president could make later. >> thank you very much. robert costa, thank you as well. james comey will be a guest of rachel maddow. that's live 9:00 p.m. eastern. and sunday chris mattis hosts

"headliners" sunday, interviewing michael flynn. senator elizabeth warren and elijah cummings join our conversation in an exclusive joint interview ahead on "morning joe." ♪ ♪ this is what getting your car serviced at lincoln looks like. complementary pickup and delivery servicing now comes with every new lincoln. i won. giving you, the luxury of time. that's the lincoln way.

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our next guest argues that we need to fight the opiates. senator elizabeth warren and elijah cummings will join us to talk about that and all the big issues in washington right now. we'll come right back. it took guts to start my business.

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iit was the last song of theh my brnight. it felt like my heart was skipping beats. i went to the er. they said i had afib. afib? what's afib? i knew that meant i was at a greater risk of stroke. i needed answers. once i got the facts, my doctor and i chose xarelto®. xarelto®. to help keep me protected from a stroke. once-daily xarelto®, a latest-generation blood thinner significantly lowers the risk of stroke in people with afib not caused by a heart valve problem. in a clinical study, over 96% of people taking xarelto® remained stroke-free. xarelto® works differently. warfarin interferes with at least 6 of your body's natural blood-clotting factors. xarelto® is selective, targeting just one critical factor. for afib patients well managed on warfarin, there is limited information on how xarelto® compares in reducing the risk of stroke. don't stop taking xarelto® without talking to your doctor,

as this may increase your risk of stroke. while taking, you may bruise more easily or take longer for bleeding to stop. xarelto® can cause serious, and in rare cases, fatal bleeding. it may increase your risk of bleeding if you take certain medicines. get help right away for unexpected bleeding or unusual bruising. do not take xarelto® if you have an artificial heart valve or abnormal bleeding. before starting, tell your doctor about all planned medical or dental procedures and any kidney or liver problems. learn all you can to help protect yourself from a stroke. talk to your doctor about xarelto®. it's so funny to see how excited president trump is about finally getting something right, because as you heard, everyone who works for trump was trying to keep the kim jong-un meeting under wraps. but trump being trump just couldn't keep it to himself. he tweeted about it and then just watching the way trump couldn't hold it in is probably the funniest thing i've seen all day. >> did the administration talk

directly with north korea, sir? >> have you been speaking directly with him? >> yes. >> oh, man. oh, wow. he was trying so hard but he couldn't help himself. he was going, be presidential, be presidential, be presidential. yes. yes, we talked to him, 3:30 p.m. thursday in a secluded location. >> he said he could cancel it or respectfully walk out. we'll talk about that. and we'll bring in senator elizabeth warren and representative elijah cummings next. so i go national, where i can choose any available upgrade

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thank you. call back next week. amy are these timesheets still... you're not amy. i am now. [snaps] don't miss the greatest week in tv. show me watchathon. binge now with on demand or the xfinity stream app until april 22nd. welcome back to "morning joe." we'll have senator elizabeth warren and elijah cummings in just a few minutes, but i want to talk about shinzo abe and president trump at mar-a-lago, sharing a round of golf yesterday. noteworthy in many ways, but also because when president trump said "yes" that there was about the highest level meeting you could have with kim jong-un,

some thought he had talked to him. >> isn't that the question he said yes to, he talked to kim jong-un? >> he wasn't supposed to take questions. he was walking with shinzo abe, and like the reporters do, they yelled questions, have you seen kim jong-un, and as you saw, the president walked, walked, walked and finally said yes. and we were like, oh, that just happened. he spoke to dim jokim jong-un. and then we were like, wait a minute, that's not exactly what happened. it was shouted questions, large shutters from the cameras. it is possible he didn't quite hear, but it goes to show you that in this white house you have a second source from the president and when he does tweet about it, it turns out he got the details wrong. so we need to clean that up as well. a pair of democratic lawmakers who say we should be

treating america's opioid crisis the same way we did 30 years ago. elijah cummings and senator elizabeth warren join us now. thank you for being with us. we appreciate your time. let me start with you, senator warren, and talk about the scope -- before we get into how to approach it -- the scope of the opioid problem. you can talk about your state of massachusetts, if you like. how bad is it and why aren't we talking more about it as a national epidemic? >> it's bad. you can look at the numbers. we lost 2,000 people last year to opioid deaths. life expectancy in the united states has gone down for the second year in a row. and the principal reason is young people who are dying from opioid overdoses. those are the numbers, but i'll tell you this, it's touched every family. every family in massachusetts, families all across this country. i've gone to funerals, i've gone to wakes. it's hitting everywhere in

america. this is a crisis, it's out of control, and we need to have a strong response to it. >> congressman cummings, what are you proposing to do about this that's different from some of the other attempts that we've seen unfold in the past year or so? >> first of all, we're using a model that works. ron white, back in 1990, the congress was wise enough to pass ron white. basically what this does is it gives our bill patterned after that would give a hundred billion dollars over the course of 10 years so that states, counties and organizations can get the funds that they need to address this problem the way that they think it ought to be addressed. that money would also go to making sure that we have science-based treatment. you know, there are all kinds of f fly-by-night organizations popping up saying they treat

people, and really they're not having enough of an effect at all. as a matter of fact, they're discouraging a lot of people because they're not getting well. and we want to make sure our doctors are trained. a lot of times people will come in for for assistance, the doct knows that there is an opoid problem or drug problem, they don't know how to treat it or because of the stigma which senator warren talks whabout a t they say i don't want to be bothered with this. the fact is that 115 people per day are dies in our country. and so what we want to do is make sure that we come up with the best most effective and efficient way to deal with this problem. >> you know, i should add one more part to that and that is, this bill also has some real responsibility for the drug companies. we require in this bill for the executives, for the qceos on th companies, to sign off that they have marketed these things

responsib responsibly, that they haven't laid about how they sell these things. and there will be personal responsibility if they violate what they have signed. and we think it is time. you know, these are the guys who push the pills. this is a big part of the reason there are so many of these pills in circulation. they have devastated our xhuc communities, our families. we think there should be personal responsibility for that. >> senator, president trump's plan to combat this crisis, a lot focuses on preventing the drugs from getting in or punishments for those selling them. he's talked about tougher border controls and the idea of perhaps even the death penalty for major drug traffickers. is that a feasible and reasonable solution? >> of course we want to reduce the number of drugs in circulation. whether they are coming from pharmaceutical companies or whether they are coming across the border or whether they are coming from some other illicit channel. but let's be clear. the problem of addiction is a

medical problem. and right now it is treated with enormous stigma. people don't get the help they need. family members don't recommend the help, try to get help for their family members. and we treat it differently from all other medical problems. because we don't put the resources in, think about this way, somebody breaks a leg, we don't say to him, hey, listen, we'll put you on the waiting list and we'll be able to take care of your leg in maybe three, four weeks if something opens up. someone develops cancer, we don't say okay, you got your 30 days of treatment and then that is it, you are back out on the street and on your own. we say those are medical problems, we'll do what is medically necessary to get you to a place where you can live your life normally again. we need to do the same thing with addictions. we need to treat them like the medical problems they are, we want to get rid of the stigma. we want to bring our family members back home. >> speaking of disease, keep in

mind that only 10% of the people who need drug treatment are getting it. now, if somebody -- if we said to all of our cancer patients in the united states, look, only 10%, one out of 10, will be able to get treatment, i mean, the congress would probably go crazy. but the fact is that we've got to get away from the stigma, address it as a disease so we can address it in an effective and efficient manner. >> senator warren, i know you had a briefing at the white house on this very opoid crisis, many of the agencies of the government were represented talking about this administration's plan to fight the opoids. a lot of people for all the criticisms of donald trump and this white house have given them credit for stepping forward on this. there was something like $4 billion at least put toward the opoid crisis in that omnibus bill that you voted against. do you think the trump administration is doing a good job on this and why did you vote

against that bill with all that money in it? >> i was very glad to see the trump administration step forward. i am. but what you have to understand is a headline is not enough. it is not enough to say it is a problem, it's that you've actually got to put a plan together to be able to attack the problem. and that's what congressman cummings and i are doing. we have proposed the kind of money that will really turn this around. this is why we modeled it on the ryan white bill. you know, remember what it was like back in the 1980s. it was that the number of aids cases kept going up year by year and congress would kind of nibble around the edges and say we'll do a little bit, we'll do a little bit, but not make a real change. and then when we passed the ryan white bill, to honor this young man, this 13-year-old who had acquired aids, to say you know as a country, we're ready to fight this, we put real resources behind it and that's

what turned the tide. what congressman cummings and i want to see is real resources. so we've proposed $100 billion over the next ten years, the kind of money that means that the towns and cities and the tribes and the organizations, the health care organizations that are on the front lines will have the resources they need to be able to fight back. and that means outreach, treatment and long term support for people who -- we want to see real change. >> would you agree the money in the omnibus bill was real money that would have helped? >> so look, i'm glad to see every dollar that helps. you bet i am. but the point is we can't keep nibbling around the edge. this is a problem we need to attack head-on. and the way to attack it head-on is to identify it and to say here is enough resources to go into it, here is where the

resources are going to go. we need to turn the tide on this. it is getting to be -- it is a problem that is worse every single year. we can't just hold back and keep working around the edges, we need to hit it head-on. >> and the federal government estimated that the opoid problem back in 2015 cost our economy $500 billion. >> right. >> i mean think about that. and we have a tsunami of people who are dying. not very long ago i was at a dinner, i come out of the hotel and somebody has thrown a body out of a car. and i asked the door man i said what is this? he said it happens all the time. people are together, one overdoses, and they bring them to a public place so that they can -- they know that they will get some kind of treatment. we're a country that is better than that. and what we're saying is let's not nibble around the edges, because while we nibble, people die. >> well, i think that you would

agree this is a problem and an epidemic that should be free of politics. >> that's right. >> so we're glad that you are working with the trump white house to solve this. senator warren, congressman cummings, thank you both so much. >> thank you. still ahead, donald trump says no president has been tougher on russia than him or more transparent. so what about the new sanctions on russia and why did he seem to dodge a question on whether he plans to fire mueller or rosenstein? plus we'll reveal the most 100 most influential people in the world and the former playboy model who claimed that she had an affair with donald trump reaches a deal to speak openly about it. her attorney will join us here onset.

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in a clinical study, over 96% of people taking xarelto® remained stroke-free. xarelto® works differently. warfarin interferes with at least 6 of your body's natural blood-clotting factors. xarelto® is selective, targeting just one critical factor. for afib patients well managed on warfarin, there is limited information on how xarelto® compares in reducing the risk of stroke. don't stop taking xarelto® without talking to your doctor, as this may increase your risk of stroke. while taking, you may bruise more easily or take longer for bleeding to stop. xarelto® can cause serious, and in rare cases, fatal bleeding. it may increase your risk of bleeding if you take certain medicines. get help right away for unexpected bleeding or unusual bruising. do not take xarelto® if you have an artificial heart valve or abnormal bleeding. before starting, tell your doctor about all planned medical or dental procedures and any kidney or liver problems. learn all you can to help protect yourself from a stroke. talk to your doctor about xarelto®.

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not go back into tpp. >> going right to the godfather this morning. president's trade policies among the topics addressed yesterday alongside japan's leader at mar-a-lago. also the russia investigation, the war in syria and his planned leader with north korea's leader. the president says he will walk out if he didn't like what he hears from the nuclear-armed dictator. welcome to "morning joe." i'm willie geist alongside kasie hunt. joe and mika have the morning off. with us we have mike barnicle, elyse jordan, richard haass and also suffering kansas city royals fan josh ernest. knew it.

>> we'll start rooting for the chiefs. >> start early. some other big stories, the president is trying to tamp down spending lags that he wi speculation that he will fire the special counsel. plus we've already heard from stormy daniels and now former playboy model is clear to speak out on her alleged affair with donald trump. we'll talk to karen mcdougal's attorney live about a new legal settlement that allows her to sell that story. and puerto rico, all of it, the entire island was without power yesterday nearly seven months after hurricane maria. what caused the latest blackout and why it may not be the last. but let's begin with president trump hosting japanese prime minister shinzo abe at mar-a-lago yesterday and resolving the crisis was front and center on their agenda. the north korean crisis that is. in addition to trump's possible upcoming summit with kim

jung-un. >> and i hope to have a very successful meeting. if we don't think it's going to be successful, we won't have it. we won't have it. if i think that it's a meeting that is not going to be fruitful, we're not going to go. if the meeting when i'm there is not fruitful, i will respectfully leave the meeting. and we'll continue what we're doing. >> president trump said on tuesday five locations currently under consideration for his possible summit with kim. and multiple u.s. officials tell nbc news switzerland, sweden and singapore are among the frontrunners. a senior u.s. official says that several locations have been ruled out including pyongyang, beijing and mongolia, all of which raise security concerns. bloomberg reports that the site of the korean war armistice signing is also ruled out. president trump also expanded on

outgoing cia director and secretary of state nominee mike pompeo and his secret meeting with kim in north korea which the president confirmed yesterday in an early morning tweet. >> and he just left north korea. had a great meeting with kim jung-un. and got along with him really well, really great. >> the white house issued a correction yesterday on the timing of pompeo's trip to north korea saying it took place over easter weekend nearly three weeks ago, not last week as the president tweeted. richard haass, let me start with you. joint press conference at mar-a-lago with shinzo abe, focus obviously was north korea. as you have watch this had player out from the pompeo meet and the description of how it took place and what may take place next with a meeting between president trump and kim jung-un, have you been impressed by the way this administration has gone forward? >> what the administration has done is put enormous pressure on

itself by agreeing to a presidential summit as the first step. usually that is the caboose of the train. they made it the engine. but the fact that mike pompeo went is good news because that suggests a degree of preparation and what the president said yesterday, part of this was okay. if he didn'ten things we think be fruitful, they would not go ahead. if preparation suggests that there is not a deal to be had, what you don't want to do is have a summit that totally fell apart. it is all going to come down to the president used the word fruitful yesterday. what does he mean by fruitful. how ambitious are we going to be, what will we require now, what will we require down the road, so the devil is in the details and it really comes down to what will we be satisfied with at this point and what are we prepared to postpone until later. >> we've heard the term denuclearization quite a bit,

that that is the goal. can you see a universe where kim jung-un gives up the one thing he has? >> no, but i can see where he will agree to denuclearization down the tbd. he may have the 26 things he would require from us in order to bring that about. and the real question then is are we prepared to live with a delayed somewhat vague concept of de23450nuclearization in exc for very specific limits. for example extended the ban on north korea testing of any nuclear warhead or any ballistic missile. that is the question. but denuclearization could mean anything to anybody. and it can be extraordinarily difficult to bring about if it required that we inspect inside north korea to make sure that there is no nuclear activities going on, imagine how difficult it would be. it would be impossible to prove denuclearization. >> and how do we run into

situations where the north koreans say one thing and do something else? that was the team heme in the '. >> every president has run into this, where the north koreans use the prospect of possible negotiations as cover to continue to develop their nuclear program. just to pick up on where richard left off, i actually think that the widely criticized iran deal that was negotiated by the obama administration actually made provide bread crumbs about a path here because one of the benefits of the iran deal while not perfect does have in place a rigorous program to verify that iran is not further developing their nuclear program. so maybe that is where you get the outline of a deal, some kind of rigorous verification measures that the north koreans agree to. because we already do know that they are having trouble with this process of essentially miniature rising their nuclear capability. maybe you can put in placerisin capability. maybe you can put in place a program that could verify that they don't make advances. >> two things.

i doubt as you know using the iran agreement as an example is going to be a winning argument with this administration. >> they change positions on this like five days a week. >> on may 12, they have to make their announcement. and that's exactly the sort of thing that we probably wouldn't be able to monitor. the more intrusive the requirements, the less likely we'll have the access and confidence. that is why i like testing freezes. we don't have to get inside to monitor a testing freeze. if we need to do monitoring or production freezes, i think it is a difficult situation. >> hovering above all of this is the fact that despite pomgch po trip to pyongyang, there is no state department, there is a fringe amount of a diplomatic approach on this. and one of our most vital allies in the region, prime minister abe in japan, he is in palm beach today, they are sort of on the outside of this looking in. how does this affect this whole

thing going forward? >> well, it is a reminder that the united states is not alone. you have japan and south korea who are very different priorities. we all probably have the same list of interests. we just don't rang thk them in same way. the president gave somebody to prime minister abe, he called about the abductees, japanese citizens essentially kidnapped for decades in north korea. so he put that on the agenda. but japan for example doesn't just talk about long range nuclear missiles, long range ballistic missiles. they are concerned about the short range missiles. also the japanese were embarrassed, the fact that pompeo's trip was announced while abe was here, they didn't know about it and it showed how they are not driving the diplomatic train even though they are so directly affected. >> and there is also the question of mike pompeo being the person to go over, head of the cia, the state department nominee. if you listen to president trump talk yesterday, he seemed to be saying that he is already behaving like the secretary of

state. maybe he should just be the secretary of state. is he the right guy to be there? >> i think it made a lot of sense for mike pompeo to go over to pyongyang. the intel relationship is one that has been a long standing channel as in the obama administration when james clapper went over to try to obtain the release of the two missionaries. so i think that it does help. the timing of this announcement is interesting because it offended the japanese. you are announcing it kind of undercutting the visit at the same time that mike pompeo really needs the boost. and i wonder if this is enough to propel him over the top. because i haven't thought he was going to get confirmed, but this might be enough to actually help propel him over the finish line. >> the complication is that there are questions about whether pompeo was honest with members of congress about that trip. we don't know whether he disclosed in all the private conversations he's having even in classified settings about whether or not he acknowledged

that trip. it is akin to lying on the job interview. if you have a wavering senator who find us out that the president announced that visit that you didn't disclose, that is kind of an odd way to try to convince wavering senators to support your nomination. >> i think it helps him quite honestly. what it now has done is co-mingled pochlmpeo's confirman with the north korea diplomacy issue. i think it is a significant boost for pompeo because now to basically say we don't want him to continue in this path in the run up to the north korea summit, i think that that would be a consequential vote. >> i completely agree. and president trump is showing that he has trust in another person to have a role and to have a seat at the table and i don't think that senators -- i think they will be reticent to undercut that. my big question, where is this actually going to be. >> and to that point, the site of the potential summit may come down simply to a question of transportation. can kim's plan get him to the proposed location. according to the "new york

times," it is unclear if kim's fleet can fly him more than a few thousand miles from north korea. one former cia analyst says that we know he has a plane. no one really knows if it works. finding a location within a limited radius may prove quite the challenge. a swren uvenue in asia may be t easiest. borrowing is question is out of the question. he also has the train, travels like 22 miles an hour because it is so heavily armored. he took it on his trip to beijing. >> he does have rockets. >> i mean is this a real concern? can't he just stop and refuel or is this a manufacturing problem? >> where will he refuel? >> of the 26 concerns i have about the summit, this is 27th. i mean where it happens, the whole thing again is expectations. and there are two dangers. the real danger is the failure option.

and then we say again we tried diplomacy. and the other is what price are we prepared to pay for success. what are we prepared to put on the agenda. for example, what about the u.s./south korean alliance, what about the u.s./japanese. so i'm actually worried about both ends of the barbell, that it fails but it succeeds on terms where i believe we've given up too much. is still ahead, where do things stand inside the trump administration following the dust-up between nickki haley an larry kudlow. and what the president said about the russia sanctions that triggered the exchange in the first place. so we swapped your car out for the all-new chevy traverse. yes. do you think it's going to surprise your daughter? absolutely. wait, is mom here yet? where's mom? she's in this car. what the heck? whoa. yo, whose car is this? this is the all-new chevy traverse. this is beautiful. it has apple carplay compatibility. do those apps look familiar? ohhhhh. do you want to hit this button?

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president trump yesterday discussed where the administration stands on adding new sanctions on moscow for its continued support of the assad regime. >> we'll do sanctions as soon as they very much deserve it. we will have -- that is a

question. there has been nobody tougher on russia than president donald trump. we had a very, very severe -- we were talking about it a while -- fight in syria recently a month ago between our troops and russian troops. and that is very sad. but many people died in that fight. but russia will tell you there has been nobody tougher than donald trump. >> that comment came after president trump's new director of the national economic council larry kudlow said that u.n. ambassador nikki haley had some momentary confusion in his wrors when she announced new sanctions would be imminent over the weekend. haley responded stating simply with all due respect i don't get confused. and kudlow reportedly later apologized to haley. yesterday trump spoke about having kudlow on his team and haley was asked about being on trump's team. >> i'm very happy to have larry kudlow with us.

he is a special man. he has been a friend, i've been on his show many, many times over the years and we've had a lot of fun together. we haven't allege agreed, but i know lately larry has agreed more and more with me which makes me quite happy. >> how is your relationship with president trump? >> perfect. >> she said it is perfect there in case you couldn't see the text on the screen. again, donald trump talking about larry kudlow, he likes him to the extent larry kudlow agrees with him. >> and we just dispel the i've been the toughest on russia? i'd like to talk to republican members of congress to see if they agree. >> what we just saw and heard, messaged discipline is important obviously for a president of the united states. we just saw that there is no message discipline here. so what is the level of concern in the world of diplomats around the world about the potential meeting between the president and the leader of north korea in that he would glibly agree to

something during the course of the negotiation that we would have no intention of carrying out? >> i thought you were going somewhere else. that they would glibly agree -- take out the word glibly. that he would agree to terms worse that we might carry out. and the feeling is with donald trump essentially there is no givens, no assumptions and very little that is sacred. so a lot of the tenants of american foreign policy that have served us pretty well, there are tremendous concerns in places like south korea that he could put those on the table. and that is the real concern. >> josh, what do you see when you watch the kninikki haley an donald trump back and forth as someone who has been inside the white house and roll out sanctions on a sunday show as nikki haley did? how does that happen in this case? how could that possibly happen? >> i certainly can't speak to the inner workings of the trump administration, but i think there are a couple things that jump out. the first is nicky makki haley

go on a sunday show without prep. so she clearly had conversations that gave her the conversation that these sanctions were coming. and i think she was given serious assurancassurances. and you note that had mr. kudlow apologized. he apologized to her by saying apparentlythat had mr. kudlow apologized. he apologized to her by saying apparently ambassador haley wasn't given all the information. so she was totally out of the loop. that is not really the way that -- my guess is she didn't really appreciate the apology either. i think that she took the right approach of basically trying to let it die and if we know anything about the trump white house, there will be some new scandal today in overshadows this agreement. but it is an indication that larry kudlow who has not served in government is already showing evidence of that. he is having a hard time mounting a united front. he is used to being in charge of his own television show, not being part of a team. >> and you took loosely on tv.

>> and he just throws out a word like confused. the other part of this that i think is important is there continues to be -- we continue to see the seams of the trump administration policy on russia. president trump continues to be pushed by people at a high level who are telling him if we actually want to crack down on syria's use of chemical weapons, we need to put pressure on russia. and president trump is unwilling to do it. so it is no the that he is tougher than anybody on russia. if anybody, he is weaker than anybody on russia and that has been true since the first day of his administration. coming up, president trump was asked about any potential plans to fire rod rosenstein. his answer on that and how his ale lies on capitol hill could do the dirty work for him. that is next.

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"post" that president trump and meadows spoke at some point after the meeting but they declined to share details of that exchange citing a potential investigation and other class if i kclassifications. doj says it needs more time to evaluated the request for james comey's memos. the chairman of the judiciary committee is poised to issue a subpoena for the documents according to jerry nadler. nadler is said he believes doj cannot meet the republicans' demands adding that i fear the majority will have manufactured an excuse to hold the deputy attorney general in contempt of congress. in yesterday's joint news conference with the japanese prime minister, president trump repeated some of his debunked claims about the probe and said that he has been restrained toward the investigators. >> on the mueller probe, have you concluded that it is not worth the political fallout to remove either special counsel mueller or deputy attorney general rosenstein? >> we are giving tremendous

amounts of paper, this was really a hoax created largely by the democrats as a way of softening the blow of a loss which is a loss that frankly they shouldn't have had from the standpoint that it is very easy for them to have a tremendous advantage in the electoral college. and this is what it is and this is where it came from. you look at the kind of money that was paid probably some went to russia, you look at podesta having a company in russia where nothing happened and people don't talk about it, you look at the fact that their server, the dnc server was never gotten by the fbi. why did the fbi take it? the fbi takes what they want. they go in, they wouldn't get the server. this is a hoax. as far as the investigation, nobody has ever been more transparent than i have instructed our lawyers. be totally transparent. i believe we've given them 1.4 million pages of documents if

you can believe this. and haven't used that i know of or for the most part presidential powers or privilege. so we are hopefully coming to the end. it is a bad thing for our country. very, very bad thing for our country. but there has been no collusion. they won't find any collusion. it doesn't exist. as far as the two gentlemen you you told me about, they have been saying i'm going to get rid of them for the last three months, four months, five months. and they are still here. so we want to get the investigation over with, done with, put it behind us. >> so he is talking there about bob mueller and rod rosenstein. there are a lot of people suspicious now and wondering especially yesterday what mark meadows and jim jordan are up to when it comes to rod rosenstein, are they trying to put him in a place where they could hold him in contempt of congress and maybe push him to the side? >> that is the question. and i think that this effort has

sort of been spreading through the republican conference. so devin nunes has been the president's primary ally in trying to fight back against this behind the scenes. and the fact that you had a couple our chairmen warning that they will perhaps subpoena these documents, it sends a signal that frankly house republican leaders who have said repeatedly publicly the speaker has said this, that they want mueller to be able to finish their investigation, are to a certain extent losing control of the situation. that this is snowballing in a way that could basically provide the president an excuse to fire these people and potentially precipitate a constitutional crisis. >> we've wondered on this show where the people who claim the president would never fire bob mueller are getting the confidence to say that. mitch mcconnell standing in the way much legislation that could protect the special counsel because he says that it is just not something that the president would do. i think that they probably thought that about james comey as well. >> i'm sure they thought that about james comey.

look, people who are willing to take the president's word for something this important are either foolish or cowardly. they either are in the face of all evidence to the contrary willing to trust a guy who has shown he can't be trusted or they are unwilling to stand up to him. coming up, karen mcdougal says she had an affair with president trump. he denies it. now the former playboy model has reached a settlement that allows her to speak out without penalty and her attorney joins us next. he

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i'm all-business when i, travel... even when i travel... for leisure. so i go national, where i can choose any available upgrade in the aisle - without starting any conversations- -or paying any upcharges. what can i say? control suits me. go national. go like a pro. there are developments this morning surrounding the legal challenges involving donald trump's personal attorney michael cohen. choen h cohen has dropped his suits against fusion and gps over the publication of the so-called steele dossier detailing alleged ties between president trump and russia. cohen's attorney said the decision to voluntary discontinue the case was a

difficult one, we believe the defendant, defamed my client and vindicating cohen's rights is still important, but given the events that have unfolded and the time and attention and resource need, we have dismissed the matters despite their merits. according to politico, dropping the suits could help cohen avoid having to turn over evidence which could undercut his defense in a separate federal criminal probe. meanwhile, there is also a settlement in the case brought by the former playboy model who claims that she had an affair with donald trump in 2006. karen mcdougal sued parent company of the "national enquirer" claiming she was misled when she told her story to the tabloid in the months before the 2016 election. ami is headed by david pecker who is a close friend and ally of donald trump. the settlement allows mcdougal to speak publicly about her claims and keep the $150,000 payment from ami while the publisher retains rights of any future profits from her story up to $75,000.

mcdougal alleged that her attorney at the time keith davidson also a former lawyer for zcsome never told her that michael choen wmike khouw and he will cohen was secretly involved in the case. peter stris said that he was prepared to start pretrial discovery. and peter stris joins us now. good to have you with us. did your client get everything that she wanted in this deal? >> absolutely. i mean, karen is sadly kind of the next in a line of women who was manipulated by powerful men. and what i think is difficult for a lot of people to understand is that all she wanted was to be represented. all she wanted was to have someone step in and we're really proud to have done to come in and say what do you want. she wanted out of the contract. she didn't want the "national enquirer" to be able to run a story and put it in that are magazine. she didn't want them to be decide that they were going to sell to someone else.

there were many ways that they were controlling her and now she is out of the contract. >> so they she is free to tell story. does that mean that we'll start seeing her on television doing interviews and giving the details of the alleged affair? >> i don't think so. it is funny that the way this is reported is that she is free to tell her story. because although that is true, that is incidental. the way i would put it is she is free. so she doesn't have to have her picture taken and be in their magazines, she doesn't have to deal with them, she doesn't have to worry that they will sell her story. this has never been about her wanting to make this into a crusade. it has been her wanting to free herself from this contract. >> and she of course already did an entinterview with cnn. >> there is a difference between wanting to tell your story and kind of protect yourself and being an opportunist. in other words, i want to be clear about that, the reason she did that story is because people were saying that she was lying. tons of information was leaked through american media saying she had no evidence, she wasn't

credible, she wanted do that story not so she could get on a reality show, but so that people could see her and be like you know what, we believe you. >> so what was the extent of cohen's involvement in this? >> so the true answer is we don't know. and if this litigation had continued, that is the first thing that would have happened. you know, we would have sought to get documents and taken depositions, et cetera. and i know a lot of people -- and i'll be frank about this -- a lot of people are upset that we haven't gone down that road. the point i want to make to kind of the world is that karen is kind of a woman without a country. because if people support trump, they think that she's doing this to hurt him or she's a liar. if people oppose trump, they think, well, why didn't she continue, this is a point where she could have done something. but she doesn't need to be a martyr for anyone else's cause. >> so what you passed on doing,

and you forfeited depositions now of cohen and others, that is still available, that information is still available in an ongoing litigation? >> of course. we haven't forfeited anything in the sense that, one, american media would have fought us tooth and nail. i'm confident that we should have been entitled to those things, but it wouldn't have been easy. and number two, other people including the government have access to this information and i believe it will come out. >> stormy daniels and her attorney this week released a sketch of the man they said threatened her. did karen ever feel any -- did she ever receive any sort of similar threat or pressure perhaps connected to donald trump? >> i want to be very careful in the way i answer it because that is an important question. this has been very difficult. and karen has suffered a lot of abuse. there is no picture, there is no person who showed up in a parking lot and threatened her family. that is not the case. but i'd be lying if i didn't say

that one person kind of going up against the "national enquirer" and these other individuals had it easy. >> what kind of abuse? >> so there is a lot of concerns about information that is either true or false that would be leaked about her or her family, be kind of what i would call smear campaigns. >> are they threatening to blackmail her? >> blackmail presumes that someone says like, oh, like we have this picture and we'll release it unless you do anchts b, c and d. what i'm talking about is more nuanced than that. >> so this was the "national enquirer"? >> no, no, the realty is karen got to this point because there is a number of people, keith david son was her lawyer, he department with michael cohen, other people in her orbit who didn't have her best interests in their heart. so there is a group that have made her very uncomfortable that whether you want to call it

blackmail or just sharp elbows in litigation that if she moved forward with this, it was her up against a billion dollar company and i think that she was really brave to bring the lawsuit in the first case. and to settle it when you essentially get everything that you wanted on day one and that you say that you wanted, i think anyone in her position would do the same thing. >> you mentioned that specifically karen was upset because she was being called a liar. and that is something that stormy daniels said that also made her decide that she was going to fight, just to protect her name and to protect her honor. and to -- because she was telling the truth. and so karen clearly feels strongly about that also. is she going to pursue a defamation case against any of the individuals who spread false claims against her? >> i think it depends upon what happens. karen i like to say is kind of standing on the shoulders of other people. if stormy hadn't come forward, i don't know that we should have been comfortable. if people in the weinstein saga hasn't come forward.

if donald trump tweets tomorrow and starts saying that she's a layer, i feel pretty confident that action will be taken. if she is -- she is going to defend herself, but she also cares about her privacy and her life. she's tried very hard to approach this entire difficult situation with dignity. so if people leave her alone and the chattering class has whatever conversations they want, i don't think she is interested in going after people for the sake of going after them. but part of getting out of this contract is feeling like if she needs to defend herself, she can. and, you know, we think that is pretty important given the overall kind of culture of powerful interests manipulating vulnerable people. >> you say karen was never threatened at any time, but threats don't necessarily have to be explicit, it doesn't have to be a guy walking up to you in a parking lot. at any point in the process whether before the election when the deal was made or since has michael cohen reached out to

karen mcdougal? >> no. >> has anyone representing president trump reached out to her? >> not that i know of. i can speak more to since rather than before. and i can tell you this, if you took the e-mails and the phone calls that i've gotten and to me -- and we deal with difficult cases a lot. they are shocking. >> who are they from? >> people -- random people who say things that are disgusting. >> members of the public or people representing the president? >> members of the public. members of the public basically acting with such -- i can't imagine what stormy daniels is facing given how brave she's been pushing this forward. karen did one interview and was relatively tame i think in how she described what happened. and yet people are acting as if, you know, she is kind of going to destroy their world. so the reason i tell you that is i know the e-mails i've gotten, the phone calls i've gotten, i've discussed this with karen a

little bit, but we haven't gotten to the point where we talked about every conversation, every e-mail. i can't imagine how difficult it is. and the reason to your question, of course it matters if michael cohen are or the president, but i think it matters even if it is not. if you are in an environment where because you had a relationship with the president of the united states, you can't come forward when you've been manipulated like this and suggest and tell the truth, we're in a pretty difficult predicament. i think that the importance of this story is that karen came forward, she got out of the contract, and other people because i am sure there are other people, whether it is with trump or others, that they should know that they can come forward and there are people out there who will represent and support them. to me, that is more important than kind of the political overtones. >> and michael avenatti the attorney for stormy daniels has said that he will not publicly show if he has it evidence of a

relationship between stormy daniels and president trump. does karen mcdougal have evidence whether texts, e-mail, phone messages of a relationship with him and if so will those be made public? >> karen mcdougal has evidence and there are witnesses. i say that first because i don't want to be evasive. but anyone who doesn't believe after the interview that she did that she had this relationship, they will not be persuaded. i could give a videotape that 60 minutes long and they would claim that it was doctored and that someone else was -- >> but she does have evidence of the relationship? >> there is evidence and there are plenty of witnesses who were around at the time who know that this happened. there is no doubt i think in any fair minded person's view that the relationship happened. the question is not did the relationship happen. but what happened afterwards. what was the coverup. you know, was she manipulated. and that's what this lawsuit has always been about. >> i'm sure we'll have you back on to talk more about this. peter stris, thanks so much.

coming up next, cou"time" is ou with its new 100 most influential people in the world. and we will reveal the list next. bp's natural gas teams use smart app technology to share data from any well instantly. so they can analyze trends and stop potential problems in their tracks. because safety is never being satisfied and always working to be better.

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time is out with its list of the 100 most influential person in the world. here for the big reveal is the editorial director. the new issue has six world

cover, each highlighting a member of the time 100. good to see you. so we got the cover with roger feder federer. let's talk about some of the leaders you've got got in here. president trump is on the list. >> president trump is on the list. >> as is kim jong-un. >> yes. >> jeff sessions, robert mueller, scott pruitt. the list goes on and on. let's start with donald trump. >> donald trump, again, think one of the most interesting things to note about donald trump on this list is part of what we try to do with the time 100 is we really consider it the time 200 because we try to get other influential figures to write about the influential figures. for donald trump, we had ted cruz. what's interesting about ted cruz is he really goes all in, saying donald trump is like a bomb thrown into washington and he is shaking things up for the forgotten men and women of america. which is interesting their relationship when you consider where they were just a year and a half ago. >> his nemesis at this point, robert mueller, written by

preet, a u.s. attorney fired by u.s. trump. >> what's interesting about the pairings is he knows robert mueller so he can speak to his character and judgment choices. although mueller might be a polarizing figure right now. >> did you have any turnovers from people you approached about writing? >> i can't give specific names but it's such an involved process. >> come on. >> we have to go after so many different people for these people but i'm really happy with the ones we have. how about that. >> you have newt gingrich writing here about sean hannity. >> i know sean hannity has been in the news a lot especially of late, but as newt gingrich notes, you know, he still has incredible influence between his three hours of radio, his hour of tv, and as we all know, he's very, very close to donald trump, hugely influential person. so sean hannity's influences is unquestionable, however you may feel about him or not. >> i know that attorney general jeff sessions profile is written by mitch mcconnell.

>> exactly. >> which would be perhaps a hint that if the president decides to move away from -- >> you never know, i think people are free to read whatever they want into our writing -- >> i'll go ahead and say yes. >> roseanne obviously a huge month or so for roseanne, with more than 20 million viewers on its return and following it up with big numbers as well, i think pretty clear why she's on the list. >> what's interesting about her write-up is a lot of people have personal feelings, about leaving those aside, people love the character of roseanne on tv. despite how you feel about her situation, her tv show is doing very well. >> you also have of course the teenagers from parkland high school. >> this list more than any other list there are more people under 40 on this list. the parkland kids have a lot to do with that. part of what i love so much about them and obama notes this

and he did their write-up is that obama has been pretty public about his greatest frustration when he was president is he was not able to pass commonsense gun reform and in come the parkland students who are really making inroads. it's really incredible when you look at the different type of influence represented on this list. you don't need a particular power or institution behind you to make a change. >> i see that cardi b is here. recipient of a tweet from bernie sanders. why does she matter? tell us, could she play a role politically? are we seeing someone who would have a voice going forward? >> you never know what role cardi could play. but i think what's impressive about her is like some other people on this list, a year ago, a lot of people didn't know who she was. now she's got the number one album in the country. her first three songs were all simultaneously number one in the bill board.

>> and jeff bez zos written abo. are there any others that when you got the approvals from people, you say wow, this is really great? >> i think my favorite one is adele wrote on rihanna. what i love about that so much is you think about adele of sort of a super star of her own write. but she was just so excited to write about rihanna as a fan. that's just so interesting to me when you have one super famous person who is so excited to write about another. >> tiffany haddish is on one of the covers. she's had an incredible year. a great personal story. >> absolutely. >> and i have to shout out our friends hoda and savannah. >> absolutely. >> in the time 100. >> shout-out to them. it's been a great year for journalists as well. we've got journalists who did the me too movement. rowan farrow on the list as well. >> all right, thanks so much. the big reveal of the time 100.

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president trump somehow feels he will walk in, slap the table like he's selling a building in manhattan and walk out the door to collect his nobel peace prize. ain't going to happen that way. >> quiet, it's time for the noblest nobel prize of all, the peace prize. >> i would kill for that. >> and the nobel prize for peace goes to -- >> isn't this exciting? >> crusty the clown. >> huh! >> we never miss a chance for a simpsons clip. all right, final thoughts. what are you looking for today? >> there's going to be another hearing tomorrow in manhattan with stormy daniels taking on donald trump and i'm watching to see what, you know, monday was pretty explosive so let's see what tomorrow holds. i can't believe it's just thursday. >> it's only thursday. i would like to know what else

it is that michael cohen doesn't want to see the light of day. he dropped this lawsuit against buzz feed over the steele dossier, probably for discovery reasons. >> jonathan? >> i'm disappointed mike barnicle was not on this list. but one thing also to watch, the president, his aides wanted him in part to be at mar-a-lago this week. they suggested that for the site of the abe summit. they wanted to keep him away from distractions. i ste instead, his first tweet ever yesterday about the sketch. so let's see going forward. >> i am concentrating on the 15-2 boston red sox. >> we're only 17 games in, guys, but man, they look good. >> yes, they do, don't they. >> and yankees, let's go. >> live. >> why do you have to -- >> starting to be, starting to be time for mr. stanton to step

it up. all right, that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up our coverage. we will see you tomorrow morning. >> thanks so much, my friend. good morning, everyone. i'm stephanphanie ruhle. the president keeps it brief when asked if he will fire mueller or rosenstein. >> they're still here. so we want to get the investigation over with. >> new concerns emerge about upcome talks with kim jong-un as lawmakers react to mike pompeo's top-secret trip to north korea. >> i think it speaks to the fact president trump has a lot of faith in him. >> you don't go and begin to act you're in that position before you're confirmed. >> and political peril. why one crucial lack of voters may be turning their backs on the gop ahead of the midterm elections. here's a hint why. >> we'll be imposing