to you at the white house. >> in the oval office. >> and he told you he had a personal conversation with president putin about hookers? >> yes. >> did you believe him or think he was spiking hyperbolically? >> didn't seem to be speaking hyperbollically. >> it became public at the same time he sat down with rachel maddow. and there's a lot in there. welcome to "morning joe." it's friday, april 20th. i'm willie geist alongside the host of "deadline white house" at 4:00 on msnbc. >> this is so, so early. >> nicolle wallace. you forget how early it is. you're on your cushy 4:00 p.m. schedule. >> you walk in. joe and mika have the morning off. they'll be back on monday. we have maike barnicle with us and executive producer and co-host of the circus on

showtime, john heilemann. >> you know what also? guest host of deadline white house today. that's the best thing on my resume. >> i'm heading to houston. >> i thought you were saying after this you had to go take a nap for the rest of the day. >> they are not mutually exclusive. >> donny deutsch is here. republican strategist and political commentator susan del persio, columnist david ignatius and former justice department spokesman, now an msnbc justice and security analyst matt miller. good morning to you all. let's get right into it. aside from the memos themselves, early reaction from the president and from members of congress. but what does it all mean for the russia investigation? rudy giuliani will be playing a key role in that question as the former new york city mayor joins the president's legal team. there are new developments to just about every part of the equation from michael cohen to paul manafort. we'll jump into all of it right now. we've got leakers, hookers, wiretaps. >> it's a new movie. >> leakers, hookers and

wiretappers. >> just some of the new details in the newly released memos from james comey about his discussions with president trump. after congressional republicans threatened top justice department officials with contempt charges, the doj handed over copies of the comey memos, and they quickly landed in the press. the memos are consistent with comey's claims in public testimony, his recent memoir and interviews while offering new details about allegations in the steele dossier and the investigation of national security adviser michael flynn. comey writes that his private dinner with trump in january 2017, the president told a story about flynn, then pointed his fingers at his head and said the guy has serious judgment issues. comey adds that he did not comment at any point during this topic and there was no mention or acknowledgment of any fbi interest in or contact with general flynn. comey also describes a white house meeting with then chief of staff reince priebus on february 8th, 2017. writing that priebus asked comey

if this was a private conversation. comey replied that it was and priebus asked if comey would answer if you have a fisa order on mike flynn? comey said he'd answer in this instance but that priebus must later go through established channels. comey's answer is classified in the version released last night. flynn resigned his post a week later on february the 13th. nicole, so much in here. we're going to talk about all of it, including the relative quality of russian hookers. as apparently conveyed by vladimir putin to president trump. also the president's obsession with andrew mccabe. some news on him as well. >> and the president's obsession with the dossier. every conversation that jim comey testified to is proven out by the memos that the republicans trying to prosecute jim comey wanted released. so this is really a case where the republicans were checkmated by the facts. >> so, john, we had yesterday the story we reported where

republicans on capitol hill said we want these memos. you better give them to us, rod rosenstein, or else we're setting up a contempt of congress charge and maybe we can push you to the side who knows where that leads in the mueller investigation. doj says, all right, here are the memos. >> it takes a certain special kind of genius on the part of the republicans to think that having these memos and then leaking them would somehow be -- would work out well for the president. this would somehow exonerate him knowing what the substance of the memos were. there may be a few new details but these memos were never going to be good for president trump, and none of them are devastating. there's no huge material fact here that's going to move the investigation. but these details. trump has a craw and stuff gets stuck in the craw and one of the things that's clear from these memos is one of the things in trump's craw at that moment was obsession with the dossier and obsession in particular with this question of stuff that happened, allegedly in the ritz karltson moscow.

the question of hookers and question of behavior by hookers. he comes back to comey on it almost every time they talk. >> unsolicited. >> he's the new president of the united states, either just about to become president or having just become president and the main thing that he comes back to again and again with jim comey is this particular question. and in particular the notion that you can ask comey to go out and prove that he never did these things. i don't know how that works. how does one prove something that you have never done or never would do? go prove that. >> but now this all came out in the light of hearing the stormy daniels things, it makes it -- i'm not going to say more believable, but no one -- most people don't doubt that donald trump slept with storm y daniel. now having that story out there it resets the dossier and definitely has an impact on people's opinions. >> the most important aspect of the memos is not their release and it's not the content of the

memos because comey has basically said everything on the public record that is in the release of those memos. it is the fact they were released under pressure by a political party in the house of representatives about an ongoing federal investigation. that's the critical point. >> that's the real witch hunt. these are republicans carrying out a witch hunt against republican-appointed leaders of the fbi and the doj who are trump's hand-picked selections who are releasing documents that basically corroborate the case against donald trump. >> if you look at one of the memos from comey written in february 2017, he effectively says that large portions of the steele dossier have been corroborated. i explained the analysts from all three agencies graed it was relevant and portions were corroborated by other intelligence. was possibly why the president keeps coming back to this. he wants to know if the salacious parts of it have been proven. >> i was a little insulted when you didn't initially come to me on hookers. i am the hooker expert here.

not the personal experience just from research. that came out wrong. >> that qualification was a little lost there at the end. >> look, i think if you went around -- >> want to take a breather and we'll come back to you. >> i don't thinks there any question that trump is terrified about prostitutes in russia. i think it's just obvious. you can't be deductive reasoning person and taking it both on his history, both on his reaction -- stop smiling at me, barnacle. >> you walked into this. >> after this. >> i think there is going to be a stunning, crashing revelation at some point that will go down in history that is even maybe even beyond -- i know we've seen -- i'm not even going to

use the two p word about the tape. let's do the weather, okay? >> al, take it away. no, to matt miller who has a little cleaner conscience on these topics. as this memo came out yesterday, there was a pretty extraordinary -- >> we are at 6:07 and we are down the rabbit hole. >> last night, rachel maddow has james comey sitting in front of her as these memo comes out. she's in realtime reading them back to her. he's nodding along saying, yeah, i told you so. these are the things i testified about before congress and wrote about in my book. as you heard and you've looked at the contents of these, what sticks out as most significant? >> i think the most significant other than the donny deutsch portions of the memo you've already discussed is that it confirms jim comey's credibility. and that, i think, no one really would have questioned who was telling the truth, whether it was comey versus the president. when you look at both of their

histories of kind of comments in the public record, anyone would think it was comey telling the truth. now we see these confirm that what he said in his senate intelligence committee testimony is what happened in realtime he recorded in these memos. i also think it stands out that not only was the president always obsessed with the more salacious aspects of the dossier, but that he was really obsessed with andrew mccabe from the beginning. he brought it up repeatedly with jim comey in the same sense he still brings it up repeatedly today and continues to demand on twitter that andrew mccabe be jailed. it's kind of inappropriate to see the president bring that up over and over again in private and you can tell that he hasn't let go of that obsession still today a year and a half later. >> yeah, if you -- i'm just looking through at part of the memos and comey writes the president asks whether my deputy andrew mccabe had a problem with him in recounting how hard he'd

been on the campaign trail saying the number two guy at the fbi took a million dollars from the clintons. comey came back and said he's a professional. comey did criticize last night andrew mccabe and saying even a person of integrity can stray and do things wrong when the news about the referral of andrew mccabe for possible criminal charges came down yesterday. >> yeah, that's exactly right. and i think if you read the inspector general report about andrew mccabe, i found it pretty compelling. it's unlikely he'll be charged but it does seem true to me that he was not completely forthcoming with investigators. but if you look at the president's concern about andrew mccabe and compare it to, i thought, the other piece of news in the memos. his concerns with mike flynn and mike flynn's judgment. the strange thing about his -- about that concern in the memos, what he was angry about was the mike flynn had not set up a return call to vladimir putin quickly enough. that to me is telling. it was january 28th they had this conversation. that was the day after sally

yates had come and warned the white house that in previous calls with russians, with the russian ambassador, he may have done something inappropriate, and then had lied to the vice president about it. so the next day, the president's concern is not about that aspect of flynn's behavior but that he wasn't acting quickly enough to make vladimir putin happy. >> david ignatius, you're here to elevate us, save us from ourselves. what, to me, the most striking things are what's not in the memo. at no point does the incoming president or the president because the memos cross both periods of time, ask jim comey about russia's attack on america's democracy. at no point does he ask whether comey is part of an inneragency process to make sure that doesn't happen again. he doesn't suggest taking a hard-line on vladimir putin and russian hacking. and so it seems like the enduring gut punch from the memo release, which was all put in motion by republican enemies of the department of justice, the mueller probe and the fbi, will

be more incriminating, perhaps circumstantial evidence, that the president has never had any interest in understanding russia's attack on our democracy in 2016. >> i don't know that it incriminates trump further, nicolle, but it is an amazing snapshot of the new president talking with the head of counterintelligence investigations in effect against russia and all other foreign countries. and he asks absolutely none of the questions that you'd expect a new president with very little experience to ask. the flow of conversations is about often petty things. almost random conversation. and then as we've all been saying, this repeated mention of what happened in the moscow hotel room allegedly with prostitutes. i found myself wondering if donald trump was ready to ask the fbi director to -- if he could deal with that, take care of that and got no response. i wondered if the president

would have asked his personal lawyer who we now know took care of things for the president that were inconvenient and whether in some strange way michael cohen may have been tasked with an issue that so concerned the president. the other thing that's in these memos that surprised me is james comey's enthusiasm for going after the press. i don't mean to sound petty and personal being a journalist, but i was a little surprised that comey talked about his willingness to go forward in prosecuting leaks in the way that trump wanted. >> comey talks about in that dinner on january 27th, a week after the inauguration, among the topics over dinner, the inauguration, the size of the crowd, the campaign and the president's use of free media, earned media. the luxury of the white house, defending himself that he did not mock a disabled reporter and defending himself about claims against women who alleged him of

sexual assault. to further break down some of the more salacious aspects of the comey memo, former director privately raised the subject of the steele dossier with trump at trump tower in early january 2017. comey's memo says the president-elect interjected there were no prostitutes. there were never prostitutes. comey writes the president raised the subject again at an impromptu oval office meeting in february writing the president said the hookers thing is nonsense but putin told him we have come of the most beautiful hookers in the world. comey writes trump did not say when putin had told him this and comey's observation is redacted. so jim comey says donald trump described a conversation he had with vladimir putin when the russian president said his country has the best hookers in the world. here's what putin was saying publicly around the same time. the translation comes from the independent.

>> i want to be serious for a second and add to the credibility of this. i know about a half a dozen guys, serious people that have gone to russia and talk about the cult tlur. when you go there, you are really presented with women. if you go to a nightclub and there are 500 women in there and it seems like a regular nightclub, a vast majority of them are working girls. it's very much part of the culture when somebody comes there. you put that together with who donald trump is. and there's almost no question. but i don't think we understand how it works there.

the other thing i've been told by every guy that goes there. be careful. you know your room is being bugged. so everything that you hear about this, i've heard from every businessman, every welalty guy that's ever gone over there. once again, you put trump in there. >> the specific thing here, it's a classic trump thing. in theory, we don't know what communication donald trump may or may not have had with vladimir putin in the past. literally, we have no idea. but the public record suggests that the one time that trump had ever spoken to putin was right after the election. so the notion that putin calls trump on the first call after to congratulate him on winning the presidency and starts talking to him privately about how beautiful the hookers are seems like it kind of stretches the begg beggar's belief. donald trump being donald trump saw this television interview and did what donald trump has done in the past which is to turn a public thing into a private thing. for the fact and fantasy, get mixed up with trump. i was having this conversation with vladimir putin. he said this thing to me.

it's like the story of trump saying he met -- he had an interview with putin around "60 minutes" when they weren't in the same room. it goes to the basic credibility of trump and he says to comey over and over, i never spent the night in moscow. it could never have happened. we now know because keith schuller has testified he spent one night during the miss universe pageant in that hotel room in moscow. just to the question of credibility. trump can't even remember whether he spent the night there. >> he also happens to lie gratuitously. one of the things that came out in the memo, at the beginning of his dinner, chief of staff priebus doesn't know you're here. oh, he knows you were here and can talk to him. for no reason did he have to lie but he just can't help himself. >> the president in these memos did say, i did not spend the night in russia. he said i came to the hotel room, took a shower, changed my clothes and we went to whatever the paggent was that night. that's contradicted by testimony from other people.

>> with trump, if you are an investigator and you are looking at this thing and you are looking at these comey memos, there's a tell in there. and the tell is that trump is upset with flynn because flynn did not tell him on time -- >> return the call. >> that's the tell. >> what makes him mad is when he's afraid he's going to make putin mad. what nikki haley is in right noufr now, a sea of pain is because putin got mad. any action or statement that may anger vladimir putin undoes the president. >> an entirely new euphemism from vladimir putin this morning. girls of reduced social responsibility. >> you don't think that about me, do you? >> donny is the table expert on girls of reduced social responsibility. >> i'll cut this off and continue this on the other side of the break. president trump reacted to news the comey memos have been

released. he said it clearly shows there was no collusion and no obstruction. also he leaked classified information, wow. will the witch hunt continue, the president asks. we'll have a lot more ahead on the memo. plus rudy giuliani has known donald trump for decades. he's now joining the president's legal team. his first order of business, he says, trying to wrap up the mueller probe, and quick. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. david. what's going on? oh hey! ♪ that's it? yeah. that's it? everybody two seconds! "dear sebastian, after careful consideration of your application, it is with great pleasure that we offer our congratulations on your acceptance..." through the tuition assistance program, every day mcdonald's helps more people go to college. it's part of our commitment to being america's best first job. bp is taking safety glasses to a whole new level.

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you know, you're really beautiful. a woman that looks like that has to have her own special scent. >> oh, thank you. maybe you can tell me what you think of this scent. mm, i like that. >> this may be the best of all. >> oh, you dirty boy you.

donald, i thought you were a gentleman. >> you can't say i didn't try. >> that's the president of the united states. >> and his lawyer. >> and his new attorney. former new york city mayor rudy giuliani who was a constant companion to the president on the campaign has joined the president's legal team. he warmed up the crowd at 37 trump rallies between august and election day 2016. as far as the new role goes, giuliani told "the washington post," quote, i am doing it because i hope we can negotiate an end to this for the good of the country and because i have high regard for the president and for bob mueller. maggie haberman of "the new york times" reports there's a belief giuliani was like the kool aid man bursting through a wall to join the trump team. four people close to the white house say he resisted joining but trump, wanting a big name who he's comfortable with, pushed for it. trump has also added marty

raskin and jane serene-raskin, a husband/wife team who experience in white collar cases. also jay goldberg who represented the president in the 1990s said he's been acting as legal counsel to the president and confer with the white house special counsel ty cobb. susan, you worked in the giuliani administration. you worked on a couple of his campaigns. what's your reaction to the news that he's joining the legal team? >> depends which rudy shows up. we don't know if it's going to be the rudy that wants to go out there and be on tv and discussing this matter or if it's going to be the former prosecutor who knows you have to be methodical and go after this to really help the president. he definitely ticks off two boxes for donald trump. he's -- donald trump is comfortable with him and he's a big name. but it's going to be interesting to see how he approaches this. he still does have relationships within the southern district which he represented in the '80s. and there was even some rumors that he was one of the people that kind of forced comey's hand

to release the information about the anthony weiner e-mails because he was still -- he was hearing that from the southern district at the time. >> and he was going on fox doing his whispering, there's something big coming four days before the election. >> he's thautd to be one of the pipelines from the leaks that go from trump favorable forces inside doj and fbi to fox news. i heard something similar to what maggie reported that the president's friends from legal circles, chris christie, rudy giuliani, former attorney general mukasey have been on the president's raid car for months and and rudy was the one he wore down first. >> you think about the joe degenova thing. the president is a restless client. he's calling up jay -- jay goldberg on the phone. trying to hire joe digenova. he's not happy with his legal team and you see him casting a ballot for legal advice. he either doesn't like the

advice he's getting or doesn't like the way in which the lawyers he has present themselves. a big part of why he wanted digenova, is he wanted someonon to television arguing a vigorous case for him. he doesn't like these lawyers that sit around and do what lawyers do. he wants a television lawyer. he sees giuliani and says that's a guy that will go out and do what he did during the campaign. be a fierce surrogate on the tv. take the fight to mueller and rosenstein. i'm sure that's a large part of it. the second thing is the notion that rudy giuliani is talking about his role is going to be to strike a settlement with bob mueller. >> it's also -- >> in the next couple weeks. >> that's matt miller, what i was going to next. we can't overlook the fact the reason he said he's looking to negotiate a settlement and in the next two or three weeks. how would he begin to do that? >> that's a completely absurd thing to say. he said it's been reported elsewhere the president wanted to hire him is because giuliani still knows people in the -- still knows people at doj and knows mueller very well and can

go get this done. you're not going to get this done just because you know bob mueller. that's kind of absurd. and i think what it goes to a little bit is the idea that, you know, there's a time when rudy giuliani probably would have been a good choice for a serious high-profile criminal defense lawyer but that was around 1989. this is not the kind layoff he practices anymore. he hasn't practiced this kind of law in a long time. just because he knows bob mueller for a long time, he's going to sprinkle some pixie dust and get things finished. that's not how serious legal investigations work. >> is there any world, matt, that you can imagine where there's even a negotiation about that? what would that look like? would giuliani approach the special counsel's office and say, hey, let's cut a deal of some kind? >> the only thing i can see them cutting a deal on is the president's testimony. the reports are now that the president has cooled on that idea. you could see him going in negotiating, saying, well, the president will talk for this amount of time. he'll cover these subjects and

try to avoid getting a subpoena from the special counsel. but in terms of how you're going to end the investigation, that's not what doj does, unless you're talking about a plea agreement. that's when you get to negotiating with the department of justice. when you've decided to plead guilty to something. i don't think that's what we're talking about right now. >> by the way, james comey was asked by rachel last night as that news broke. what about this idea of killing the investigation. comey says you can't kill the investigation. you may get rid of the one guy conducting the investigation but another one comes in after him. nbc has new reporting on the concern in trump world that michael cohen may flip on the president. "morning joe" is coming right back. you totanobody's hurt, new car. but there will still be pain. it comes when your insurance company says they'll only pay

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so john heilemann, this sunday's episode of "the circ circus," "morning joe" has your first look at your interview with michael avenatti and the chaotic scene outside the courthouse on monday. check it out. >> stormy -- >> oh, be careful. careful. >> for years, mr. cohen has

acted like he is above the law. that ends now. >> the president trusted mr. cohen with his inner most secrets, and i think the chickens are about to come home to roost. thank you. >> god will protect you, michael. >> yeah. >> you did a great job. >> thank you. >> i'm so proud of you. all right. bye-bye. >> her doing that statement, beyond the substance of the words like the plain reading of the words is to leave what impression. the average viewer looks up and sees her. >> we hope the impression is reality. and the reality is that stormy daniels, stephanie clifford, is an incredibly brave, smart woman

who is done taking [ bleep ] and is willing to literally put her life on the line, put her family on the line, put everything she has on the line in order to get to the truth and do the right thing. >> i love in that scrum of about 300 reporters, john heilemann just gets in the car with michael avenatti. the one guy in the car with avenatti. >> we were in the avenatti/daniels bubble from about 8:00 that morning until 8:00 that night. so that's a very small snatch of it. he's obviously very available to the media. the exclusivity of the interview isn't really the thing. it's a very circusy thing. we are behind the scenes. as far behind the scenes as you can be with those two people who are extraordinary just in this sense. almost everything that's happening, as weird as this story is, all the things going woiths trump in the legal realm, the most unexpect sides not the dowds and comeys of the world but this l.a. lawyer with a porn star client kind of came out of nowhere, landed in the middle of this and went off like a bomb.

in some ways in the narrative kind of -- we probably wouldn't have the michael cohen criminal prosecution if it weren't for the stormy daniels lawsuit that kind of triggered the question of, did he violate campaign finance law? let's look into that. she's not the most important player in the story but in some ways, she's the thing that's propelled this element of the story line which people now accept what's going on in the southern district may be the ultimate threat to donald trump more than bob mueller. >> i said half jokingly when he said i'm going to depose cohen and depose the president. i said what do you mean? you're no bob mueller. bob mueller can't even get an interview. he said, i think i am. something about his audacity is the most simmetrical fight donald trump has had so far. donald trump out-audacitied hillary clinton and jeb bush. >> we have talked about this on this program a couple weeks ago. michael avenatti is doing to donald trump what donald trump did to everyone in 2016 which is disregard all the rules.

understand the new media environment. under social media and the art of the deep tease and say, screw it. i don't care about all your niceties and traditions and established norms. i'm going to play this game in a different way and it's the first person who has met trump on that playing field and has made him an incredibly powerful opponent to the president. >> he said on this show a couple days ago, the biggest surprise for him has been how weak the president's defense team has been. he thought he was going to be up against murderer's row. he said this is pretty easy for me. >> trump's management style is pure cronyism. the kind of people trump needs now, he doesn't know personally but he's not going to bring them in. you see goldberg and giuliani and this rogue's gallery of people he knows and that's why he hours a them. that's not going to be the best people. what rod rosenstein reportedly told the president that may have saved his job, for now. we're back in a moment.

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so general michael flynn's life can be totally destroyed while shady james comey can leak and lie and make lots of money from a third rate book that should never have been written. is that really the way life in america is supposed to work? i don't think so, writes the president. joining us now, national political reporter for axios, jonathan swan. good morning. you've got some new reporting on the future of rod rosenstein that includes the line rosenstein possibly about to be spit-roasted. what's going on here? >> there's been some reporting recently, particularly in the last 48 hours, that suggests that rod rosenstein, the president's cooled off on rod rosenstein. i'm told that's not so. that he still very much wants to get rid of him. one of the problems is that internally, they have not settled on or don't believe that there is a clean -- that was the word used by a source who has discussed this with the president -- a clean way to get rid of him or a clear idea of how to actually orchestrate it within the department of

justice. and i can tell you there's a lot of confusion about what was actually said in that room with rod rosenstein and the president in the oval office. there was a bloomberg report that rosenstein told him he wasn't a target of either the mueller investigation or the michael cohen situation. but two sources have told me that that's not their understanding of what was said in that room. it may be what donald trump took out of the room and told people, but there was only three people in that room, and i'm very skeptical that that actually exactly happened the way that trump may have told people. >> jonathan, i've heard that part of the hold-up in making personnel changes at doj is that he would like to replace both jeff sessions and rosenstein. that one or the other does not do the job he wants done. are you hearing that there's any process under way at the white house counsel's office or anywhere else to bring him

options for both slots? >> they are very different cases because sessions is still propped up and supported by a lot of conservatives on capitol hill, whereas you actually have conservatives on capitol hill laying the groundwork to build a case to remove rosenstein. that's what mark meadows and jim jordan are doing in the house. house freedom caucus members. they're setting the predicate that will build a case for trump to get rid of him. they aren't doing that with sessions. more existential than the daily crisis that is jeff sessions. you hear from conservatives on capitol hill saying he's doing a great job at doj, et cetera, et cetera. you'll never get that with rosenstein. >> does the release by the doj of these redacted comey memos change the calculus now because the threat from meadows and jordan and congressional republicans was if you don't turn offer these memos, we may hold you in contempt of congress

and that may be the way to get him out. but doj released the memos, so what now? >> i've been told nothing that suggests to me that rod rosenstein's job security is fundamentally changed from the release of those memos. the president doesn't trust him, doesn't like him. wants to get rid of him. very much fixated on that. but, again, it's complicated legally and politically. and that keeps him in this sort of holding pattern. >> all right, jonathan swan of axios, always good to have you on. see you soon. coming up -- why did the president's personal attorney michael cohen drop his lawsuit against buzzfeed over the steele dossier? we'll talk to buzzfeed's editor in chief ben smith ahead on "morning joe." may do to their retirement savings. that's because they have a shield annuity from brighthouse financial, which allows them to take advantage of growth opportunities in up markets, while maintaining a level of protection in down markets.

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we've got some new reporting on the concern inside the trump white house that michael cohen might flip on the president. cohen and the president are currently battling prosecutors as you know in the southern district of new york over how to handle the materials seized in last week's raid on cohen's home office and hotel room. we're now awaiting the judge's decision on who gets to decide which material federal investigators can review and which materials protected by attorney/client privilege. that investigation and the fact that cohen is a figure in the mueller probe has led to spe speculation over whether he'd protect the president if pressed by prosecutors. katy tur spoke with five sources and reports that the general sense is that when faced with jailtime, cohen will not remain

loyal to trump. they all think the new york investigation is a way to get to trump, and that none would be surprised if cohen did break the law. a source who has worked closely with cohen for ten years tells katy, michael might believe he won't flip on the president, but he will. it's one thing to be loyal when you're taking shots at the press. it's another to be loyal to a guy who hasn't been loyal to you when it's going to ruin your family. when asked if the white house is worried that cohen would flip, a staffer said, of course, just look how they're portraying him. trying to make him look like paul mafrnafort, some low-level staffer. people may debate whether cohen flips but no one says that cohen absolutely did not do anything wrong. cohen has not been charged with a crime and denies any wrongdoing. donny, you know michael cohen pretty well. we've had this conversation about when the question is put to you, it's go to jail for 20 years or see your kids grow up? >> we speak regularly. and i think michael is going to be like any other person in this

position. and if it does come down to, you know, i believe, and i would say this about anybody. if it's going to come down to him or the president and not seeing his family for decades, i do believe michael will do what probably anybody at this table will do. michael, as i've said many times, is fiercely loyal and still has this very emotional connection to the president. i think it's almost like a father-like figure. and i do think if there was a way out for michael if trump could somehow pardon him, that would be his first choice, frankly. i don't know if that's an option. michael -- i spoke to michael yesterday. he was going to his son's baseball game. he said i need to take the afternoon off. obviously, it weighs on him heavily. nobody knows what michael is going to do other than michael. and i think when the time comes, michael will do what's right for michael and his family, as donald trump would, do as mike barnicle will do, and that's just my best take on it. and i don't think anybody can look at it any differently than that. now, obviously, there's a lot that can happen between now and

then. he also feels very isolated at this point. he feels trump has 85 lawyers around him and just -- he's out there on his own. and as i said, i his first choice would be to be loyal. i think when the guns are pointed at him, i think he'll have to look in the mirror and make a very, very hard life decision. >> david ignatius, some have suggested last week's pardon of "scooter" libby, a guy who the president said frequently i never met and i don't know but i heard he got a raw deal, was perhaps a signal to michael cohen that if you go down, i'll take care of you down the road. >> i read it that way. it was a message, be loyal, stay tough. i saw the same message, to be honest, in rudy giuliani's comments about being asked to join the president's legal team. he's saying my job is to get this over with quickly, which is a message to trump, i'm going to take care of you, boss. but it is also a message to

people like michael cohen, we're going to try to wind this up, get it done with. it is strange, giuliani spoke almost as if this is a piece of civil litigation, that you can just go settle. this is a criminal kourpt intelligence investigation. you don't stop a grand jury and prosecutor with a settlement as if it is a civil lawsuit. but yeah, i think the messages are being sent in every direction to people, hold tight. >> matt miller, one thing that's striking about the conversation around michael cohen is that all the president's allies put the goalpost as between he's guilty and he will go to jail, or he's guilty and he will cooperate with prosecutors and incriminate the president. the whole conversation around cohen doesn't even contemplate for sort of a sea full of people who lie about big things and small things, no one's even pretending that cohen doesn't have the capacity to incriminate the president. >> yeah. i actually think that's the most remarkable thing about this. it is the president's defenders,

not even on background but they say it openly on the record. they accept this premise that really the president is a criminal, that michael cohen has something to give that would implicate donald trump in criminal wrongdoing. if my -- you never hear from them, well, it's really unfortunate for michael cohen that he's in this situation but i don't think the president did anything wrong so he shouldn't have any worry. if my personal lawyer's office was raided, i would be very concerned for him but i wouldn't be worried about it for myself because i'm confident i didn't do anything wrong, i wouldn't worry about an investigation coming to me. i think you can take a couple things away from it, but maybe the most important thing is, i think a lot of people in donald trump's orbit who work for him in government are kind of new to him. i know what happened during the campaign, they had kind of seen what happened in office, they may have some concerns about the russia investigation. but what happened before he joined -- before he ran in this campaign is a big black box to everyone in government. they have no idea what his business was like and they certainly have no idea was michael cohen was doing on his

behalf. >> and that box is a black box and a pandora's box being opened up in the southern district. michael cohen says he is a fixer, really he is a biz deb guy for trump on the global stage. donny knows him well. the period of time he worked for trump was the time when trump was running around the world trying to slap a trump name on a bunch of real estate developments in some of the shadiest parts of the world. as you know in new york, you deal with shady people but other parts of the world where trump wanted to go is even shadier and skeevye skeevyer. if you look carefully at that you will find crimes. >> the interesting thing about michael cohen at this stage is the human nature aspect of what he is going through and his family are going through. we talk about it in terms of indictments. we read the newspapers and it is all legalese and which lawyers

are going to represent which clients. but the stress of this, the financial stress, the personal stress around the kitchen table in the morning with your wife and your children is enormous. >> taking your son to a baseball son. coming up here, president trump claims he's been vindicated by fired fbi director james comey's memos tweet be they show, quote, no collusion and no obstruction. we'll dig in to the memos. plus, more on the president's decision to beef up his russian defense team with rudy giuliani. "morning joe's" coming right back. but as it grew bigger and bigger, it took a whole lot more. that's why i switched to the spark cash card from capital one. with it, i earn unlimited 2% cash back on everything i buy. everything. and that 2% cash back adds up to thousands of dollars each year... so i can keep growing my business in big leaps! what's in your wallet?

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that information that was false and fake and never happened got released to the public. as far as buzz feed, which is a failing pile of garbage, writing it? i think they're going to suffer the consequences. they already are. it is a disgrace what took place. it is a disgrace.

and i think they ought to apologize to start with, michael cohen. >> that was the president early last year giving buzz feed the type of endorsement he usually saves for amazon and "the new york times." the president's pe a's personal attorney, michael cohen, threatened to sue buzz feed after it publish the steele dossier. but with other issues on his place, cohen announced he is dropping his suit against buzz feed. i'm willie geist. joe and mika are back on monday. john heilemann and donny deutsch. susan delpercio. david ignatius. and this hour, former press secretary to president obama, nbc news political analyst, josh earnest. and the editor in chief of buzz feed himself, ben smith. this is like an old new york one reunion. let's talk about the lawsuit

that was dropped by michael cohen. he had spoken aggressively about what he was going to do to buzz feed. he might keep you on after he owned buzz feed. why did he drop it now? >> i think -- you would really have to ask him why he dropped it. i do think one thing that's changed since we pub accomplished bsh published it, since donald trump made those remarks it has become pretty clear to a lot of us that the dossier was of public interest and the central investigation of the russia story. a lot of democrats said when we pub accomplished it salished it important document. a lot dismissed it. this is the one thing devin nunes agrees on. nobody says that it is irrelevant or not in the public

interest. you would have to ask michael cohen but i do think that part of it is that the underlying claims in the case really, that the tide really turned in our direction. >> then the other piece of this is that as a matter of discovery you were all going pretty aggressively from documents for michael cohen's side which could have been embarrassing to the president. >> i don't know how he felt about that but certainly part of a legal proceeding is discovery. >> i also think there is a reality for michael, he's said this and i believe this to be true -- he's got a lot on his plate and a lot of financial stress on his plate. i really think that's what drove this, is that simply he's got so many guns to point and only so many resources and he's going to focus a lot more on what's going on with mueller than with you guys. i think it is as simple as that. >> guns to point puts the wrong -- it's one thing to file a nuisance suit against a news organization when you are riding high. it is another thing to file a nuisance suit when you are under criminal investigation in the southern district of new york. you got to go into defense mode.

you don't have time for offense mode. you just got to like saddle up and deal with that one thing. the focus has to be there. >> but ben, when you released that dossier, that was, as you said, a very lonely day. do you feel vindicated in a way now? >> i mean it has been -- you're right. when we published it a lot of people criticized us. you were one of the very few in your profession who thought it was a good idea at the time. it has been remarkable. nobody now is saying, wow, i wish i had spent the last year with no idea what was going on around me because we had kept secret this central element of the story. >> i'll repeat from the comey memos, "i explained to the president the analysts from all three agencies agreed the memo was relevant and that portions of the material were corroborated by other intelligence." that's from a memo he wrote february 2017. let's look into some of the other memos written by james comey, they are consistent with his claims in public testimony. his recent memoir and interviews, while offering new details about allegations in the steele dossier and the

investigation of national security advisor michael flynn. comey writes that at his private dinner with trump in january 20 2017 the president told a story about flynn, then pointed his fingers at his head and said, "the guy has serious judgment issues." comey adds, he did not comment at any time during this topic and there was no mention of any fbi interest or contact with general flynn. comey also describes a white house meeting with then chief of staff reince priebus on february 8, 2017, writing priebus asked comey if this was a private conversation. comey replied that it was. and priebus asked if comey would answer, do you have a fisa order, or in other words, a wiretap on mike flynn? comey said he would answer in this instance but that priebus must later go through established channels. comey's answer is classified in the version released last night. flynn resigned his post a week later on february 13th. president trump tweeted a short time ago, so general michael flynn's life can be totally destroyed while shady james

comey can leak and lie and make loads of money from a third rate book that never should have been written. is that really the way life in america is supposed to work? i don't think so. so, josh, the president's tweet this morning aside, what did you make as you comb there you some of these comey memos? a lot of which we heard about in his public testimony last year. >> i don't think there was anything we were particularly shocked by. i think just the texture and graphic detail does put you inside the room with the president of the united states when he is talking to the fbi director. i think it only adds to the kind of concern that we have. traditionally there's been such a clear divide to prevent even the appearance of a politicized department of justice. and that divide has just been trampled on by president trump essentially leading the charge in trampling those norms even as the rest of his white house has followed. again, it is everybody depth from the memos that are admittedly written by jim comey that he tried to stand up to those norms. he is, after all, the hero of his own book.

but it is an indication that there is some durability to these norms but they are under a lot of pressure right now from people in the white house. >> matt miller, there is a big stack of memos people will begin reading through today as they did last night. you've looked through them and have a certain expertise having worked inside the justice department and understanding what all this means. what should people be focused on, the headline for you? >> i think the point josh earnest made is the right one. you step back from the few new pieces of information, the president's obsession with the more salacious aspects of the dossier, his obsession with andrew mccabe. the big take-away is the president's kind of repeated, crossing the line to interfere with the department of justice in a way that's really unprecedented. it wasn't just the president. we also learned for the first time in this memo, the chief of staff, reince priebus, also asked james comey about an ongoing matter, something that's completely inappropriate. when i was working at the

justice department and josh was at the white house, i think we'd both attest -- we'd have never dreamed to have anything close to these conversations. we were always so careful that there was any kind of investigative matter. i can tell you from the justice department's side, we never talked to the white house about it, period. i can tell you, we were never asked by the white house. the white house -- josh never came to me, others never came to the attorney general or others and asked about investigative matters because we understood that for the department of justice to have any credibility at all, it needed to be completely free from politics and completely free from white house interference. >> the president focused on the steele dossier, also on andrew mccabe who at the time was really an unknown but somebody put a bug in the president's ear that mccabe had been corrupted by donations to his wife's campaign through terry mcauliffe's group, the president believes, representing hillary clinton, although it wasn't directly. meanwhile, top house republicans are claiming the memo showed there is no basis for an obstruction investigation into the president.

devin nunes last night released a statement, with others, that reads in part, the memos also show former director comey never wrote that he felt obstructed or threatened, while he went great lengths to set dining room scenes, discuss height requirements, describe the multiple times he felt complimented. he never once mentioned the most relevant fact of all which was whether or not he felt obstructed in his investigation. they go on. comey was willing to work for someone he deemed morally unsuited for office, capable of lying, requiring a personal loyalty, worthy of impeachment and sharing the traits of a mob boss. in comey's eyes, they claim the real crime was his own firing. the release of the comey memos followed weeks of pressure and threats by a number of house republicans directed at the j us tis department with deputy attorney general rod rosenstein being warned privately in his office and publicly over the airwaves and in the halls of congress. >> i think that it is members of congress who have a bigger problem with rod rosenstein, myself included, that he's not

giving us the documents and he's not doing his job and if he's not going to do the job, he needs to go and find one that he will do. >> should you guys hold them in contempt? >> absolutely. >> if the 1.2 million documents aren't in the capitol, then he should immediately move to hold department of justice and the fbi in contempt. and if we have to vote on contempt, then we should immediately move to impeach those officials. that would be using the full power of the congress. >> david ignatius, those were comments over the last couple of days and weeks from congressional leaders. the idea there being that if rod rosenstein did not turn over those comey memos, that he ought to step aside. as mark meadows said, find a different job. people saw that, maybe that's their way of getting rid of rod rosenstein to somehow get to bob mueller or install somebody in rod rosenstein's spot to get rid of memo.

>> i think they'll look for other ways to go off rosenstein. it is clear from the reporting, including this morning from axios, that rosenstein's still very much in the white house's sights. one thing that i've noticed about the comey memos that we haven't discussed is the way the president several times talks about being under a cloud because of the russia investigation. uses that phrase. i'm just sure that we're going to hear that again in these coming weeks as rudy giuliani tries to negotiate in his words an end to the investigation as trump goes to meet with kim jong-un, the leader of north korea, goes if to other sensitive negotiations. and he is going to make that same argument, i am under a cloud, i am trying to do the nation's business but i can't. so i think as far back as the first weeks of his presidency he was sounding that theme. we'll hear a lot more about it. >> i want to just go back to one thing we went quickly past the trump tweet this morning, this recent tweet where he said the

thing he mentions flynn. it is the case that donald trump is on twitter this morning yet again defending michael flynn who's a convicted -- he copped a plea. he took a plea deal, he is an admitted criminal. i can't -- strikes me as shocking that still these many months later that he is a critic of jim comey not surprising. we know all about that. but the notion he is still defending michael flynn just kind of blows my mind. ben, what is it about the mike flynn relationship that donald trump can't seem to let go, even as the man has copped to a federal crime? >> well, i feel like the thing about mike flynn that people forget, he is a professional loyalist. before he went down in flames for donald trump, he went down in flames for stanley mcchrystal. and for all his -- whatever his flaws, he is a guy who is -- was incredibly loyal. i think trump is somebody who rewards loyalty. he is also in a situation where it is very important that he signal he rewards loyalty. i think it is very important he signaled to michael cohen that

whatever happens, that donald trump will have his back, donald trump has pardon power. i think -- i'm not sure. it is very, very easy to overread every tweet. >> but this has been a consistent theme. >> the thread that runs through this is the sort of -- is of his loyalty being rewarded. >> it's not about flynn. it's about trump. he doubles, he triples, he quadruples down. it has nothing do with the logic that he's already copped a plea. donald trump and once again, this goes back to roy cohen. roy cohen taught donald trump one thing. even when you lose, you are winning. if there are two bodies there, you say there are no bodies there. you want to trace donald trump's twist of truth or modus operandi about when he doubles, triples down, that's roy cohen living in his jeans. >> as a communications professional at the highest level, has this been a good week or bad week for jim comey?

start with the stephanopoulos interview and go through. a lot of criticism, lots of obsession about what he did in the 2016 campaign naturally, then there is this focus on trump period which we are now really focused on because of the release of the memo. as we come to the end of comey week one, where does jim comey stand? >> well, look. the goal of this week nor jim comey was to sell books. he had no trouble putting himself in the headlines. i'm sure that's been very good for book sales. i'm sure his agent and his publisher are very happy about that. i think that's probably his number one goal. that's the reason you write a book, to go out and convince people so they'll read your story. the second thing is, any time a public official wants to put their credibility up against donald trump's they'll look pretty good. i think he's benefited from that. the third thing that i think hasn't been so good for him, he did have this strictly non-partisan by-the-book law man reputation, and some of the --

his willingness to inject himself and his story into this hotly politicized context has eroded that a little bit. it's been degraded. i think that's probably okay because he in his own mind, because is he no longer pursuing a career in law enforcement. he has now entered a different phase in his career. i think all this notoriety and book sales gives him a platform to share his own personal views in a way that he hasn't been able to do at any other time in his career. so my guess is that he would say it has been a really good week because of how it sets him up to continue making this argument in the future. >> there is no question he is selling books, ben. john and i have talked about this this week. i think he thought he was somehow, with the book and with his pub application statements about president trump, being morally unfit and all that, he was somehow going to become a new hero of the resistance. and the resistance has said, effectively, no, no, you're the reason that our hero is not the president of the united states. so i think maybe it hasn't gone quite the way he thought it was going to go from that regard. yes, the books are sold. but i think he was positioning himself in a way that hasn't

quite borne out. >> just his acknowledgement that he made a political calculation around the clinton e-mails is incredibly damning. just in isolation as a law enforcement official. it is not what those guys are supposed to do. i think also, right, what josh says, basically he's fed himself into the partisan machine of american politics, ultimately we'll wind up with 60%-something of people liking it, 40%, somewhere in the ballpark, hating him. you just see over and over with any broadly liked public figure who steps anywhere near american politics. that's where you wind up. >> he just sold books. i don't think he changed one inch either direction. i think the ambivalence. the nebulousness of the things. nothing changed because he sold books. >> do you really thought he thought all the baggage of his hailing of the clinton investigation he thought would

go away? >> not that two go away. >> i don't think he has a constituency. everyone has abandoned him on this release. i think he's trying to sell books but i think he damaged himself a lot in these interviews in the roll-out. >> also, i think he thought that if he had a chance to explain what he did in 2016, that people would credit that explanation. he believed it clearly. he did the things he did. he finds his explanation convincing. and i think he believed, like a lot of people in these situations -- and people with less self-regard than he has, which is a lot -- that he could go out and make the case for why what he did was acceptable and people broadly would accept it. i don't think that has been the case. there are a lot of other ways it could be credited. >> the same calculation barack obama made in taking it easy on russia through the election who i think has suffered from that less. comey wasn't alone in making

that bet. >> the press secretary's fighting sense has just -- >> i don't think it is an accurate characterization to say that we went easy on russia. i think there was a calculation that was made about the most effective way to try to protect the country from their influence. >> from behind the podium. >> i am. i will acknowledge what i didn't behind the podium, obviously it didn't work as well as we had hoped. i don't think it was perfect but i think it was an overstatement. >> how is it this week it changed the view of james comey in history? >> when you are a senior justice department official, fbi, attorney general, your words have great power and you have great credibility precisely because you use them so sparingly. the rules limit what you can talk about. he experienced this in the 2016 campaign. when you depart from those rules and from what people expect of senior justice department officials, you really lose a lot of that value that people see in that position. and you see that i think again this week.

people expect one thing from an fbi director. they are getting something different from jim comey. he is a private citizen now so he shouldn't be held to the same rules you would expect of a sitting official. but to this point about going back over the 2016 election, i think there were a lot of people that were ready to listen to an explanation from him about that. at least people on the left. i know i was ready to and i have been very critical of him. but i don't think we got the explanation we were hoping for. one thing that came through for me in the book he treated loretta lynch very unfairly in making that decision by not going and briefing her about this classified information that he brings up in the book. so what i think has happened this week, there's no question that he is the credibility figure in this dispute over who's telling the truth about his interactions with the president. but i think when you go back and look at him, he is a man of great integrity. but the thing that comes out often in the book is, he thinks he is the only person of great integrity in the room sometimes and that really was his ultimate downfall. i think in the clinton

investigation. and i think that's what you see coming through in some of the interview this week. >> matt miller, always good to have you with us. david ignatius, before we let you go, let's not forget that in the midst of all this this week, major developments in north korea. the fact that the cia director and the nominee to be secretary of state visited with the leader, kim jong-un, that the president has said again this week that he is prepared to meet with kim jong-un. and getting news yesterday from north korea that perhaps as part of any deal they would be willing to leave american troops in south korea along the border there. it's been a pretty historic week in that regard, as well. >> i think that the white house apparently through miake pompeo soon to be secretary of state if he is confirmed, has been preparing the way for serious negotiation in late may or june between president trump and kim jong-un, more than we realize. they've now begun addressing what the korean peninsula would

look like as you move toward denuclearization. key issue has always been what would happen to u.s. troops and the north koreans have made clear, they are not demanding the withdrawal of u.s. troops. indeed, the more we look at this, every part in the region, even the chinese, certainly the japanese, south koreans, would like the kind of steadying role of the u.s. military to continue in some form. i must say, there was a sense that trump was rushing toward a meeting without preparation. we're seeing that there is quite a lot of preparation on the key issues. >> we will'll see what happens. david ignatius's article, "will our next war be fought among the stars." still ahead, the new issue of "the economist" adds what's become of the republican party. the magazine says the gop is organized around one man, adding, quote, that is dangerous. that conversation next on "morning joe." it's time to get your glow on!

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welcome back to "morning joe." joining us now, commentary editor for "the washington examiner," tim carney. author and nbc news political news analyst, arnan giardadis. "the economist" new issue asks the question, what's become of the republican party. good to have you all here with us. john, you posed the question on the cover "the economist," so i'll ask you -- how different is the republican party today than say two or three years ago? >> i think it's quite a different party. donald trump's republican party today is not really a mainstream conservative party like conservatives in britain or canada. it's sort of a mixture of two different types of political organization. the first is a party like berlusconi's party in italy in the sense that it is a party organized around loyalty, personal loyalty to one man.

as senator corker said, when you go on the campaign trail, people don't want to talk about issues. they want to know are you with trump or are you against trump. the second, it's -- in terms of ideology, it is similar to the french national front in the sense that it is basically a party of ethnic grievance organized around ideals, sort of cultural ideas, who is and isn't a proper american. what isn't not the right way to express your americanness. it is unprecedented because we don't really do that in in esam. >> that explains trump and trumpism. but what happens to any memory of men like paul ryan or mitch mcconnell, like what they used to stand for, line 18 months ago? >> well, turns out president trump is very popular with base voters so it's difficult to sort of stand up to him if you want to win a primary. one of the things he revealed during the campaign is that the economic conservative arguments

that republicans put forth were not really very popular with the base. turns out that for older white voters, cutting medicare and social security is really unpopular and so you will see this sort of collapse of the republican establishment around president trump. >> tim, the president has been a litmus test. they are asked about them constantly. we had charlie dent on a couple days ago and we finally got him to a place, because he is leaving town, where he said, yeah, it is exhausting. it is exhausting to come out of the chamber, or out of the gym and have a reporter come up what do you think about the tweet that trump put out or to have your voters say why aren't you with trump on this? how has trump changed the party? >> he's revealed what was under the surface. it was interesting, you look at political maps, if you guys remember the 2008, 2012 primary, the front-runner, either mccain or romney, then the challenger, huckabee or santorum. you look at the primaries. these are the establishment

ones. we thought the others were the christian conservatives, the religious right. turns out they were two different things. they were stapled together, religious right and populous vote. both huckabee and santorum were barely plucking that. this base was voting republican not because they believe what he believe -- low taxes, low regulation, pro life -- but almost out of a cultural affinity. then trump came and this hidden thing he brought out. the party wasn't really representing the base, the conservative washington establishment, which i agree with, was not representing the base which is not ideological in either party. >> but that explains the sort of swerve toward protectionism and sort of policy shift. what explains giving quarter to someone who wants to grab women in the bleep and someone who-dey after day subjects the whole country to a conversation about sex with porn stars? where do the evangelicals have any sort of line supporting a man like that? is it. >> it is zero sum politics. remember feminists in the 1990s

rallying to bill clinton saying he's going to protect abortion. zero sum politics. you have to stand by your team. i think now we're see egg the destruction of the republican party in the same way bill clinton helped lead to the destruction of the democratic party. >> we're talking about what donald trump's done to the republican party. what about to the country in terms of the way democrats use their rhetoric against donald trump, just the way we speak to each other. >> i mean i think what's interesting is, the republican party has become the party which used to take inventory of fbi bashing. porn star hush money. prolific spending. just vulgarity. not really respecting the rule of law and being against trade. in a year, two years? remarkable. and i think a big part of what's happened to the country and to the party is we are not protecting by any kind of courage. yeah, people may be afraid of being primaried, but i grew up in a country where that was not people's highest fear. we now live in a country where

people are so self-interested that they only speak truth to power once they are on book tour promoting a product. we need to actually have 1 out of 535 members of congress make a speech that doesn't make sense. maybe jeff flake sort of qualified, go out there, risk their career to speak truth to power, some whistle blowers in the fbi. how many people do we actually see who are in a position to speak truth doing so? our country is being revealed as being cowardly in a way that i think actually very few of us understood. >> so john, what's the risk to that? we use ben sass's name a lot. republican from nebraska. a state that donald trump won by a lot in 2016. he's one of the few who hasn't been afraid -- who's not leaving town, who will still be there and have to face his voters who actually speaks truth to power when he sees the principles of conservatives or the principles of republicans being compromised by the president. what is exactly the risk to other members of congress and why won't they speak out against the president? >> well, i think ben sass has

been a welcome exception. i think we need more people like him. i'm curious to see what happens if there is a wave election, as people predict, in november. will you start to see more republicans start to -- because they say these things in private. if you cover congress, people will talk about their exhaustion and frustration with donald trump. they'll say it in private. i suspect you will start to see more people say these things publicly if donald trump leads them into the electoral wilderness. >> tim, i want to pick up where you left off. i actually found myself vigorously agreeing with most of what you said. because i think the other thing that's often overlooked here, there's actually more continuity in this transformation of the republican party than people realize. i'm not the expert who is sitting at this table on this. sarah palin in 2008 grew larger -- or drew larger crowds as the running mate for john mccain than the candidate at the top of the ticket. there are seeds of this we've

been seeing for so long. and it strikes me that what has happened, it is not just if the last 18 months that mitch mcconnell and paul ryan have been willing to suppress their own views, to capitalize on and tap into this emotional charge inside the republican party, that nativist, populist, nationalist sentiment. but they were actually willing to do it back in 2008 in part because i think they saw the power and the persuasion and support that sarah palin had inside the party way back in 2008. i guess the question that i have is around the agenda that republicans now stand for. what is it that republicans can do to actually -- because the other thing that's interesting about this to me at least is that sarah palin sort of gave voice to all of this because it was a sentiment, not an agenda. so once you are now in charge of the government and you have majorities in congress, how do you get back to an agenda? >> i've got this sort of pie in the sky unrealistic idea. populism is a sentiment more

than it is an ideology. right? i've been arguing for years that the republicans needed to become the populist party. i did not mean donald trump needed to be president. i meant they needed to use free market arguments to argue against corporate welfare. they needed to point out that the five richest counties in america are within commuting distance of washington. in that way, do some of the stuff, the draining the swamp stuff that trump has, but you could targets that toward something that says we need to target power towards local communities and less from the government because that's only enriching insiders. that could have been directed toward a conservative agenda. mitt romney said if you're in the bottom 47%, then you don't belong in our party. they tried to push the populism under water and it came up as this giant loch ness monster. >> do you think there is a red line? i would have thought the trump appointed director of the fbi, chris wray, could have pleaded with someone like paul ryan not

to let devon into nein nunes re memo. where do you think there is a red line for republicans who used to stand for something? >> i think it would be foolish to predict one at this point. i would have given you any one of a number of red lines a year or two ago. i can't see one at this point besides losing. that's not really a red line. that's just yourself interest turns in a new direction. question of a red line presupposes that there's some way in which people might go against their own self-interest to do something right by the right. i can't point you to evidence that i have seen from any of these people that they have it. i think this also gets to a deeper issue that trump is not our only problem. i think that's -- it is very important to remember. this is a diseased republic in which so many people agree on not speaking truth to power, in which so many people are so motivated by the protection of their careers, that they won't do the thing that they promised

themselves they would do when they were in high school and college reading about the rise of hitler or reading about corrupt dictators in africa and they said, you know, if i'm ever in a moment like that, you think to yourself in college, i'm going to be that guy who is brave. and the fact that we have an entire governing class on the right in which not one american, with a couple of exceptions, is willing to do this suggests to me a very diseased body politics. >> tim, what is the risk for a member of congress, for paul ryan -- although he is not the example anymore because he is leaving -- coming out and standing up for -- at least for conservatism, at least for blowing a hole in the deficit with an omnibus bill, things that would have been easy in the past. >> well, republicans, like democrats, have never really cared about the deficit. this is a bit of a history where they've always talked -- both parties have always talked about it but neither has actually cared. the problem, a lot of what the base wants is just fidelity to

their guy. you are trying to straddle -- people say "the base" is really pro-trump. there is really no one republican base. there are conservatives, religious conservatives, then a couple trump bases. some people their politics is defined by trump. when they're in the media you can see them and name them. that seems really craven. but people don't go around reading articles my paper is putting out. regular people are going to be more tribal in their politics. that's just the way it works. >> and the more they feel donald trump under attack the more intense their support gets for him. we've seen polling this week again showing that. thanks so much. we'll look for the new issue of "the economist." back if octobn on the, congressional investigators grilled michael cohen. a lot has changed since them. jim himes from the house intel

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donald trump's potentially epic summit with kim jong-un. it's the dispute of the ill-fitting suits. it is the men with the nukes putting up their dukes. in this corner, weighing in at 239 -- haha -- with a terrible haircut, a man child who had everything handed to him by his father. and in the other corner, the exact same thing. let's get ready to bumble! >> i'd watch that. >> me, too! still ahead this morning, was rudy giuliani hired to put a stop to the mueller probe? we'll talk to one of the senators pushing to protect the special counsel's investigation. "morning joe's" coming right back.

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what happens here in the judiciary committee if consideration on the floor was a standard for approving a bill in committee or not, we wouldn't be probably moving any bills out of this committee. >> that was senate judiciary chairman chuck grassley on capitol hill yesterday saying his committee will consider a bill to protect special counsel robert mueller from being fired despite opposition voiced by majority leader mitch mcconnell. joining us, democratic senator tina smith who was appointed to her seat in minnesota earlier this year and will face the voters in that state in a november special election to fill out former senator al franken's term. senator, thanks for being here. >> thank you. >> do you agree with many of your colleagues that legislation is necessary to protect the special counsel for whatever may come from the white house? >> well, i really support this legislation. the most important thing is that this investigation is not interfered with. let's remember what this is about. we know that there was

interference by the russians in our election in 2016 and the purpose of this investigation is to get to the bottom of that. what happened? how did it happen? let's make sure it never happens again. so i think it is just essential that it not be interfered with in any way. that's what this legislation can make sure happens. >> why is the majority leader so adamantly against the legislation. he goes out of his way to find a microphone and say we don't need it. >> i don't know where he gets that confidence. i don't have that confidence. i don't understand why we wouldn't want to just go ahead and do this to make sure. i heard the majority leader yesterday say that he didn't think it was necessary and he didn't think that the president would sign it even if it were passed. well, that doesn't give me a lot of confidence either. >> what is the most disorienting thing? as a non-practicing republican, one of the weirdest things is to see the republican party fail to defend the rule of law, fail to defend the republican appointees at the justice department, fbi,

and to see the democrats step into a role that historically has been adequately filled by republicans. what's sort of the weirdest and most disorienting thing about not just the policy debate but the vibe around these once sort of revered and independent institutions? >> this is what would create a constitutional crisis. i mean it is one thing if the president -- i mean it is one thing if we have somebody who breaks the law. i'm not saying that's happened. i'm just saying that's one thing. the second thing that has to happen in our constitutional form of government is that we then have to have the right balance of power. congress needs to step in. now the republicans are in charge of both houses of congress right now so that is their constitutional duty. and it is a little disorienting. but i'm only -- i've only been in washington for a few months. i'm about three and half months in, so i remain optimistic. one of my old friends used to say that i was hope and he was reality. well, i like to be realistic and hopeful when it comes to the

future of our country. >> so off of that, the fact that you just arrived in the senate three and a half months ago, i was speaking to one of your republican colleagues yesterday who has been there for quite some time. and they were indicating that the lack of discipline from the executive branch, from the white house, the tweets, the constant tweets, the constant ininvestigainvective coming from the white house, providing an emore munormous se depression and futility of operating in the senate. i understand you've only been there three and a half months, but what's your sense of the operation of the senate because of what's going on in the white house? >> yeah. well, it's so interesting you say that because that's what i hear from minnesotans, too. we like things to work. we think people ought to follow the law and follow the rules.

so this sense of kind of chaos and recklessness and instability, it bothers people in my home state. we don't think it should be that way. the weird thing about the senate right now though, i only have a few months under my belt, is that there's sort of this big meta discussion that happens nationally, but then you walk on to the senate floor and you're voting on this and that and -- we've had some important votes but it doesn't all sort of seem to hang together very well, frankly. >> senator, when president obama was announcing his presidential campaign he said that he hadn't been in washington very long but he knew -- had been there long enough to know that washington needed to change. the question i have for you, minnesota's actually a really interesting state this time. two senate races are on the ballot. obviously all the state-wide election -- state wide officials are up and a whole host of congressional battleground seats are on the ballot. so in some ways minnesota really

is ground zero for this. the thing i am curious about is, given the degree to which trump and this chaos you are talking about so pervades the political atmosphere, to what extent have democrats in your state been able to cut through all that noise with an affirmative message about what democrats stand for and why democrats deserve a chance to have a chance at leadership in your state? >> i think it is a great question because minnesotans are basically thinking -- i think most americans -- they're thinking about their lives, like how am i going to get to my mother who is in a nursing home 40 miles away from where you live, and how am i going to get my child to child care when i don't have any good child care that's right nearby. how am i going to pay off my college debt. it is these basic economic issues around whether families have opportunity, whether they have the freedom to live the life that they want to live, or whether they don't. that's what's on minnesotans' minds and that is what democrats are talking about. and i can tell you, though

minnesota is a challenging state. i mean politically, we're not really a blue state. donald trump came within a point and a half of winning minnesota. sort of like wisconsin he barely won, minnesota minnesota he barely lost. boy, i think democrats are fired up and paying attention to what is happening. they, also, people are speaking their mind and they expect to be heard, just like these young students who have been speaking their mind. women are speaking their minds. people in rural cities and towns expect to be heard. >> great to have you up here in new york with us. >> thank you, great to be here. in between tweets about shady james comey and his third grade book at the president puts it. democrats not voting for his tax cut bill, oil prices and michael flynn. nicole is going to try to jail down the message. peter alexander is traveling

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still ahead, house republicans push hard to get james comey's memos, details memories with president trump. are hookers and national security leaks what they are expecting? >> they should have known. >> we have more from the fbi director when "morning joe" comes back. when trying to save for the big things in life,

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the president said the hookers thing is nonsense, but that putin told him, we have some of the most beautiful hookers in the world. he did not say when putin told him this and i don't recall, redact it. the president was saying this in the white house? >> yes. >> he said he has a conversation with president putin about hookers? >> yes. >> did you believe him? >> didn't seem to be speaking hyper bollically. >> last night, jim comey's memos became public at the same time he sat down on msnbc with rachel maddow. there is a lot in there. good morning. welcome to "morning joe." it is friday, april 20th, i'm

will willie geist, along with nicolle wallace. you forgot how early it was. joe and mika are off. we have our guests with us. >> guest host at the white house today. >> today. >> today? whoa! >> that's the best thing on my resume. >> i thought you were saying after this, you have to take a nap. donnie deutsche is here with us, republican strategist and political commentator, susan, editor for "the washington post," david ignatius and former justice spokesman, justice and security analyst, matt. good morning to you all. aside from the memos, there's

reaction from the president and members of congress. what does it mean for the russia investigation? rudy giuliani will play a key role in that question as the former new york mayor joins the president's legal teams. there are new developments from cohen to man forafort. we have leakers, hookers, wiretaps. it was a great flick. just some of the details in the public memos from former fbi director, james comey about his conversations with donald trump after republicans threatened top justice officials with contempt charges. doj handed over copies of the memos and they quickly landed in the press. they are consistent with claims and testimony, his recent memoir and interviews, offering details in the steele dossier and the investigation of michael flynn. comey writes that his private dinner with trump in january, 2017, the president told a story

about flynn and pointed his fingers at his head and said the guy has serious judgment issues. he did not comment at any point during the topic and no mention or acknowledgement of fbi interest in and of flynn. he describes a meeting with reince priebus in 2017 asking if this was a private conversation. comey reflied it was and asked if comey would answer, do you have a fisa order, in other words a wiretap on flynn. he said he would answer in this instance, but in the future needs to go through the channels. flynn resigned on february 13. there's so much in here. we are going to walk through all of it, including the russian hookers conveyed by vladimir putin to president trump, and the obsession with andrew

mccabe. there's news on him as well. >> and the obsession with with the dossier. every conversation that jim comey testifies to is proven by the memos the republicans trying to prosecute wanted relief. this is a case where the republicans were check mated by the facts. >> john, we had, yesterday, with the story we reported where republicans on capitol hill said we want the memos, give them to us or else we are setting up a contempt of congress charge and we can push you to the side and who knows where that leads to in the mueller investigation. the doj says here you go. >> it takes a certain special kind of genius on the side of the republicans to think having these memos and leaking them would somehow work out well for the president and this would exonerate him knowing what the substance of the memos were. might be a few details. the memos were never going to be

good for president trump and none of them are devastating. there's no huge material factor that is going to move the investigation. the details, trump has a craw and one thing that gets stuck in the craw is obsession with the dossier and obsession with the question of stuff that happened, allegedly at the ritz-carlton in moscow and the behaf yor of hookers and comes back to comey on it every time they talk. the main thing he comes back to again and again with jim comey is this particular question and, in particular the notion that you could ask comey to prove he never did these things. i don't know how that works. >> there's nothing in there -- >> what's amazing -- >> never done or would do, prove that. >> now that this came out,

again, in the light of hearing the stormy daniels things, it makes it, i'm not going to say more believable, but most people don't doubt donald trump slept with stormy daniels. having that story out there, it sets the ground, resets the dossier and definitely has an effect on people's opinions. >> the most important aspect of the memos is not their release, not the content of the memos because comey basically said everything on the public record that is in the release of the memos. it is the fact they were released under pressure by a political party and the house of representatives about an ongoing federal investigation. that's the critical point. >> that's the witch hunt. these are republicans carrying out a witch hunt against republican appointed leaders of the fbi, trump's hand picked selections releasing documents that cdo this.

>> he says large portions of the steele dossier has been co-ob rated. the analysts agreed it was relevant and portions of the material were corroborated with them. the president keeps coming back to it. he wants to know if the salacious parts have been proven. >> that qualification was lost there at the end. >> oh, yeah. >> i think if you went around -- i think if we -- >> uyou want to take a breather? >> yeah. >> human nature, trump or anyone else, i don't think there's any question trump is terrified about prostitutes in russia.

it's obvious. you can't speak, you can't be a deductive reasoning person and take it on his history, his reaction, stop smiling at me. >> you walked into this. >> after this, donnie. >> you think there is going to be a stunning revelation that will go down in history that is beyond -- i'm not going to use the "p" word about the tape. this is a man -- let's do the weather, okay? >> al, take it away. no, let's go to matt miller. rachel maddow has james comey with her as the memos came out. he said i told you so. these are the things i testified about and written about in my book. as you have heard and look at the contents, what sticks out most as most significant? >> i think the most significant thing other than the donny deutsche portions of the memo is

that it confirms jim comey's credibility. you know, that, i think, no one really would have questioned who was telling the truth, whether it was comey versus the president. when you look at both their histories of comments and the public record, anyone would think it was comey telling the truth. now we see these confirmed, what he said in his senate committee testimony and what happened in realtime memos. it stands out, not only was the president obsessed with the salacious aspects of the dossier, but obsessed with andrew mccabe from the beginning. he brought it up repeatedly with jim comey and in the same sense he brings it up today and demands on twitter that andrew mccabe be jailed. it's inappropriate to see the president bring that up over and over again in private. you can tell he hasn't let go of that obsession, still today, a year and a half later. >> looking through, as you are

speaking about part of the memos and comey writes, the president asked whether my deputy, andrew mccabe had a problem with him and how hard he said the number two guy at the fbi took $1 million from the clintons. comey came back and said he is a professional. comey did criticize mccabe saying even a person of integrity can stray when the news of mccabe for possible charges came down yesterday. >> that's right. if you read about mccabe, it's compelling. it's unlikely he will be charged, but it does seem true to me he was not completely forthcoming with investigators. if you look at the president's concern about andrew mccabe and compare it to the other piece of news and the memos, his concern with mike flynn and mike flynn's judgment, the strange thing about the concern in the memos, what he was angry about is mike

flynn had not set up a return call to vladimir putin quickly enough. that, to me, is telling because of the date. january 28th they had the conversation. that was after sally yates said he may have done something inappropriate and lied to the vice president about it. the next day, it's not flynn's behavior, but he wasn't acting quickly enough to make vladimir putin happy. still ahead, rudy giuliani used to work with robert mueller, now he's working with donald trump. the former new york city mayor is joining the president's legal team. those details are next on "morning joe." another dilemma. am i willing to pay the price for loving you? you'll make my morning, but ruin my day. complicated relationship with milk? pour on the lactaid. it's delicious 100% real milk, just without that annoying lactose. mmm, that's good.

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>> hmm. i like that. >> this may be the best of all. oh, you dirty boy you. oh, oh. donald, i thought you were a gentleman. >> you can't say i didn't try. >> that's the president of the united states. >> and his lawyer. >> his attorney. former new york city mayor, rudy giuliani, a constant companion to the president on the campaign joined the president's legal team. he warmed up the crowd at 37 trump rallies in 2016. as far as the new role, giuliani said i'm doing it to negotiate an end to this for the good of the country and because i have high regard for the president and bob mueller.

there's a belief giuliani was the kool-aid man. four people say he resisted joining. trump, wanting a big name he is comfortable with pushed for it. he added marty and jane, a hus and wife pair in south florida and experience of white collar cases and jay goldberg who represented the president in the 1990s said he has been acting as legal counsel to the president and conferring with the white house special counsel, ty cobb. you worked with giuliani. what is your reaction? >> depends on which rudy shows up. we don't know if it's the rudy that wants to be on tv and discussing the matter or the rudy, former prosecutor who knows you have to be method cal and go after this to help the president. he definitely checks off two boxes for donald trump. donald trump is comfortable with

him and he is a big name. it will be interesting to see how he approaches it. he still does have relationships within the southern district, which he represented in the '80s and there were rumors he was one of the people that forced comey's hand to release the information about the anthony weiner e-mails because he was hearing that from the southern district at the time. >> and going on fox news whispering there's something big coming four days before the election. >> he is thought to be a pipeline from the leaks that go from trump to doj and fbi fox news. i heard something similar to what maggie reported. the president's friends, people like chris christie have been on the president's radar for months and that he just, rudy was the one he wore down first. >> the judge, the president is

calling up jay goldberg on the phone friday, trying to hire joe, looking for rudy giuliani. he's not happy with his legal team. you see him casting a ballot for legal advice. he either doesn't like the advice he is getting or the way the lawyers present himself. he wanted someone to be on television, arguing a vigorous case for him. he doesn't like the lawyers that do what lawyers do. he wants a television lawyer. when he sees rudy giuliani, he thinks that's a guy that will do what he did for me on the campaign, take the fight to mueller. take the fight to rosenstein. that's a large part of it. the second thing is the notion rudy giuliani is talking his role is going to be to strike a settlement with mueller. that's what he's planning to do in the next couple weeks. >> next, we can't overlook the fact the reason he is joining the team is to negotiate a

settlement in two or three weeks. what does that mean? how would he do that? >> that's an absurd thing to say. the reason the president wants to hire him is giuliani knows people at doj and knows mueller well and can go get this done. you are not going to get this done because you know bob mueller. it's absurd. i think what it goes to a little bit is the idea that, you know, there's a time when rudy giuliani would have been a good choice for a serious high profile defense lawyer. that time was 1989. this is not the kind of law he practices anymore. he hasn't practiced this kind of law in a long time. the idea rudy giuliani is going to come in because he knows mueller, he is going to sprinkle pixie dust and get things finished. that's not how legal investigations work. >> is there a world you can imagine there's a negotiation about that? what would that look like? would giuliani approach the special counsel and say hey,

let's approach a deal? >> it would be the president's testimony. the reports are the president is cooled on that idea. you can see him going into negotiating saying the president will talk for this amount of time, cover these subjects and avoid getting a subpoena from the special counsel. in terms of how you are going to end the investigation, that's not what doj does, unless you are talking a plea agreement. that's when you get to negotiating with the department of justice. when you decide to plead guilty to something, i don't think that's what we are talking about right now. coming up on "morning joe," congressman jim heinz is standing by. he's been a leading voice on the democrats intel committee. we have plenty to talk to him about next on "morning joe." when trying to save

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while you were director of the fbi and he was your deputy, was there clarity about talking to the press, the issue of leaks and who could authorize the leaks? >> i think so. two people, the deputy and deputy director. andy has the authority to speak

to the media. >> do you think he improperly spoke to the media in that capacity? >> i don't know for sure. i know that he didn't tell me about it or ask me about it before he did it. the report is right in that respect. i would have expected that. i think he had the authority to do that. >> former fbi director, james comey an the rachel maddow show last night discussing andrew mccabe. we learned the inspector general referred it to washington's top federal prosecutor for criminal charges. the report concluded mccabe was less than forthcoming when asked about the disclosure to the media, regarding an investigation to the clinton investigation in 2016. it raises the possibility that mccabe could face charges for the misconduct, but doesn't mean he will be charged. in a statement, the lawyer says, in part, we were adviseed of the

referral although we believe it was unjustified, the standard is low. meanwhile, in the newly released memos from comey, a picture emerges of the fixation on mccabe. comey describes his dinner with trump, he asked me whether your guy, mccabe, has a problem with me. i was rough on him and his wife in the campaign. comey says i explained he was a true professional and had no problem at all. later in the dinner, he asked again about mccabe and if he was going to be okay. he said he would. trump asked comey whether my deputy had a problem with him. the number two guy from the fbi took $1 million from the clinton's. comey writes trump said he hadn't brought up the mccabe thing because i said he was an

honorable guy. joining us now, member of the house intelligence committee, democratic congressman, jim heinz. good to see you. >> good morning. >> you looked through the memos, what leaps out to you. a lot of it is consistent with jim comey's testimony before congress, as you know. anything new here or to be concerned about? >> i have had the opportunity to review the memos in a limited show they did to members of the intelligence committee. it wasn't surprising. jim comey talked about a lot of the stuff in the memos. in combination with, as you were talking, this obsession with andy mccabe that the memos paint a picture of the president. i'm going to deliberately not use the word obstruction. that's a legal term a jury needs to decide or investigator needs to decide. the president interfered in a very big way. i hope you can see your way to

letting michael flynn go. that is a profound violation. the analogy is the accusations leveled at the attorney general when she met with the ex-president on a plane. we don't know what was said. supposedly they talked about grandchildren. this is the head asking them to stop the investigation. >> talking general flynn in that case, see your way clear to let him go. comey agreed he was a good guy. why do you think your colleagues on the republican side were so anxious for these to be public? do they benefit them in some way? >> i don't get it. here are highly detailed memos with time stamps on them that jim comey wrote right after those meetings. by the way, of course, there's one revelation that we did learn, which i'm not sure is helpful to the overall case to the president, apparently, the leader of russia, vladimir putin

was talking about prostitutes to the president of the united states. this is a pattern. it's an open hearing under a republican intelligence committee the fbi director talks about, for the first time, the investigation. it emerges because of the actions of the chairman, the investigation was started not because of the steele dossier, but george papadopoulos. this is a pattern of putting out stuff that is not helpful to the president's case. >> did your committee interview michael cohen? >> we did, yes. >> michael cohen was of interest to bob mueller well before the raid last monday and well before the now, sort of salacious details about his body of legal work, if you will, for various clients. what do you think the michael cohen piece is of the mueller probe and where do you think the intersection is with the kind of things we know the southern district to look into around the "access hollywood" tape, the

hush money around stormy daniels and the other things he tried to fix? >> there are a couple things about the michael cohen angle. word on the street in washington is the president's people are more worried about the michael cohen investigation, which is being run out of the southern district of new york, not the investigation. michael cohen, i think everybody understands was the fixer. he made problems go away. we don't know all the details. obviously, those problems can conceivably rise to be what people are talking ant. remember the clinton investigation, starting with a real estate deal in arkansas. turns into bluegrass. they go in unpredictable directions. >> what did you ask michael cohen, i know you can't talk about the testimony, but were you interested in the banking for the president, his travel or marketing of properties in russia? i guess there's overlap of what the intelligence committee wanted to know and what bob mueller wanted to know? >> we are not focused on the business dealings. we don't have the expertise or

the staff to get into real estate deals. we were there to look at russian connections. we were very focused. i can't get into the details, but focus on questions raised by the steele dossier. the famous question that has been reopened about whether he was in prague. we have a report suggesting he was. he, of course, denies that. that's pretty important to get to the bottom of. that's the one thing people hold up and say, this is a clear error in the steele dossier. as long as that's been out there, most of it has not been refuted, except that point. getting to that fact is important. >> josh? >> immateri want to ask the quen a lot of people's minds. what is the deal with devin nunes. he's taken over the committee and broken down every norm that previously existed about preserving bipartisan comedy among members of the committee

and not allowing the committee to be politicized by other branches of government. he trampled over that. the question is, is he unaware of the norms? is he overly pliable? eager to please donald trump? what is the deal with that guy? >> i think the latter. it's painful on two counts. devin is a friend. we used to have a context where the committee was bipartisan. i think this is what happens and this is speculative on my part. we have that open hearing where jim comey says there actually is an investigation. this is the president's worst nightmare. the president is close to devin nunes. he had a lot to do with mike pompeo becoming director of the cia. speculative on my part, but my guess is the white house after comey announced the investigation, lit him up like you wouldn't believe. devin spent a lot of time and energy trying to make it up and

defend the president. that's sad. that's not the job of the investigative committee. >> before we let you go, good news mike pompeo visited kim jong-un? >> i think so. i think so. you know, i always believe in talking. obviously, this is high stakes poker. i hope the president can get something out of the negotiations other than a photo-op with the guy. i consider mike a friend. we disagree on just about everything politically, but he is a competent, smart guy with integrity and very, very prar practical. i like that he went to pave the way. >> would you go and try and persuade some of your democratic colleagues in the senate to actually confirm him? >> you know, i got in trouble because, i gaagain, i disagree him politically. i said on tv, if i were a

senator, i would be inclined to vote for hichl. no, i'm not pushing senators on that. >> he would be a good secretary of state? >> he would be. i disagree with a lot of things, but a competent secretary of state. >> joe couldn't be here, but he wanted to complain about the weather. >> traffic. >> cable. >> constituents can be hard. >> congressman, thanks. good to talk to you. up next, today is the president's 148th day since he took office. he's been busy on twitter but what else does he have planned for the day? peter alexander is traveling with the president and he joins us next.

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the president's twitter activity this morning, a good time to break out the "morning joe" trump twitter bingo board we unveiled last week. we have markers on the board. china, fake news. crooked hillary, collusion, border/wall, mueller probe, military democrats. we are so close to bingo. there's still time to get falling new york times along with witch hunt, #maga. >> make america great again. where have you been? this is not a hat. >> it was going so well. >> i'm uncomfortable. >> joining us now -- this is serious guys. peter alexander. peter, how is the president responding to the comey memos? >> reporter: donny, good morning. i think good pacing there. a little comprehension. it's okay. the president is --

>> peter alexander with a swipe. >> reporter: there you go. as long as we are here, let's be clear, the president this morning, unclear he grasped the things he is going after. opec, talking tax cuts and touting what will be his remarks, his commencement address at the naval academy. this morning and last night, the president is focusing his fire on james comey saying he feels like he weatherered the storm. here is what he tweeted. general michael flynn's life can be totally destroyed while shady james comey, can leak, lie about a third grade book that never should have been written. is that the way united states is supposed to work? i don't think so. the memos written by james comey. he said the president put husband fingers to his head talking about mike flynn saying he has serious reservations

about flynn's judgment. here is also what the president tweeted last night. comey memos out and show no collusion or obstruction. he leaked classified information. wow, will the witch hunt continue? a fact check on that, james comey said he was careful, not to include classified information in those memos. of course, he hasn't been charged with that at all. back to you. >> peter alexander in west palm beach for us. thanks so much. josh, you know the next guest very well. who is about to come out? >> pat, worked for me in the white house. he started out with the lowest level job you can have in the white house press conference, rose to the ranks of a mid level staffer. his books, which i have read, a good reminder despite what the trump white house has you believe, it can be fun to serve the public and work in the white house. >> that is a tease.

well done. >> take this, peter alexander, more on "morning joe." stay with us. experience the 2018 lexus nx and the nx hybrid with a class leading 31mpg combined estimate. lease the 2018 nx 300 and nx 300 all wheel drive

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joining us now, former senior writer and director of messaging, when we used to have that, pat command. the book is about the six years he spent in the white house called "west winging it, an unpresidential memoir." i want to ask you, we spend so

much time talking about the norms being violated but there's nothing normal about working in the white house, either. >> that's why i wanted to write the book. it was my first job out of college. it was bizarre. i stayed the entire time. >> did you have that feeling every time you got in like you won the lotto? >> yeah, i wanted to write a book, a different kind of book in the age of fire and fury and james comey. i wanted to write a book that's a reminder that the white house can be fun without being wildly dysfunctional and a reminder of what it used to mean to work in the white house and what it can mean again. >> there's a dignity in working in the white house. i think everybody that works in the white house has a vivid memory of their first day. you have an interesting story to tell about that.

>> i had an inauspicious start. i was the lowest guy on the total poll. my first 20 seconds on the job, i get my computer working and click on the justin bieber ad. it blares through the office. i need to come back from that. there's all these d.c. terms and acronyms. i could have googled it but instead i turned to a boss, hey, i heard this term and don't know what it means. what's a potus? potus, of course, president of the united states. i realized there are stupid questions and i just asked one on my first day of the white house. i thought they are kicking me out but somehow i stayed six years. the greatest honor of my life. >> i have seven kids. you just said that this was your first job out of college. how did that happen?

how does that happen? how do you get that? >> a lot of luck. again, i was in college. i had no clue -- >> where? >> university of miami. >> wow, even more impressive. i thought you were going say brown or harvard. >> so -- >> let me just, can i stand-up for you? >> please do. >> who doesn't love the hurricanes? >> how did you get there? >> my roommate in college said, you know, you are really into president obama, i had been writing op-eds, why don't you apply. i thought they went away after the clinton administration. they didn't. applied, didn't get it. applied again, got it. one thing rolled to the next. >> to the young people, you applied. you did something special to get it. >> you -- they ask for essays,

which i think are a valuable thing to ask for because it requires you to put thought into the white house and why you want to work for this specific president and what you are hoping to get out of it. if you are serious and write a good essay, you have a better shot than anybody thinks of working at the white house. >> you tell stories in the book about people you interacts with, including reporters. i'm interested in the reaction you have got. >> most reporters have been generous and nice about what they thought about the book. i thought it was important to write about the press because i sat outside your office, this tiny cramped office between the briefing room and the oval office. i wanted to make a point that the press annoyed us, we definitely annoy the press, but there's a healthy tension and there's facts to argue on. i wanted to make the point, what we remember is we weren't the only public servants going to the white house. the press came in and had just as important of a job as we did.

>> what do you think of the folks that are there right now? >> um, i think the high level folks, it's sad to see. >> what about the guys in your job? >> i hesitate to pass judgment on the younger staffers. you know, the white house is a singular privilege and a unique opportunity to do something good for the american people. i think, unfortunately, their boss doesn't take the view we took, that it is a privilege to sit at the lowest level or highest level. i hope that the younger people there realize that most people will never get to walk into the white house so they should treat it as the privilege it is every day. >> the new book is "west winging it, an unpresidential memoir." pat, thank you so much. it seems like the 2020 presidential primaries are coming to new york city today. why senators elizabeth warren, kristin gillibrand and corey

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tomorrow marks a big event as we celebrate comcast cares day now in its 17th year. it is believed to be the nation's largest single day corporate volunteer event. once again the initiative is locking arms with one of the world's leading nonprofits global citizen. it's aimed at exploring new opportunities for volunteering, fund-raising and taking action to help stamp out poverty. joining us now, senior executive vice president of comcast and the company's chief diversity officer david cohen and ceo of global citizen hugh evans. also with us, host of msnbc's politics nation and president of the national action network the rev al sharpton. start with you guys. why do we do this as a company? >> i think we do this as a company because as a big company, we certainly appreciate that we have a responsibility to give back to the communities and

to try and improve the communities. where our emplies and our customers live and work. and when we're organized like this and we can do 17 years of this incredible day of service which has a huge impact on one day but is really a celebration of the fact that we care every day of the year and give our employees an outlet to volunteer, you know, we'll have over is00,000 employees, members of their families and nonprofit partners volunteering tomorrow. and over 1,000 projects in more than 20 countries. so it's really become a global effort. and part of that i attribute to hugh and our partnership with global citizen and his ambitions to -- for global citizen, but for partners of global citizen like us to help make these efforts have a global impact and not just the domestic impact. >> you know, the level of awareness that this brings is so

important. your mandela campaign, you know, it's striking to me how we don't teach our own history in this country and nelson mandela, such a global figure, his life, the impact his life has had and you're carrying on that now. >> absolutely, mark. in his final speech at trafalgar square, he said we could be the generation to end extreme poverty. he said poverty is man made. and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. that's why we're proud to partner with comcast. global citizen has joined forces with reds no day, with comcast and msnbc to drive action on the local level. the fact there's going to be, you know, the largest, single large of the corporate volunteering event taking place tomorrow powered by comcast driving citizen action in schools, in community groups, you know, planting trees, taking action for the environment, but also for civil society is really

powerful. this year, global citizen has set our sights on trying to drive that really honors the legacy of nelson mandela. so we can be the generation to end extreme poverty within our lifetime. >> we were together -- this is the same thing, this is the same conversation people are having everywhere. these are the conversations people are having in the absence of a lot of leadership coming out of washington. it seems like these efforts are more important now than ever. >> yes, they are. the other day when you and others came -- >> i felt like i was name dropping by saying i got to be there as i pulled back a little bit, but thank you for letting me -- >> yes, we'll name drop -- >> we've all been there -- >> i thought maybe reverend doesn't want to claim me. >> and today we're having a lot of people talking about running for president, liz warren,

bernie sanders and all, because people want to hear substance. people want to know how does it affect me. the magic of what has been done with global citizens anded what comcast has done from a civil rights community perspective. when e first started talking to david cohen, i was like, okay, right. but this is part of the culture. people in this building. and around the comcast world are excited about doing what they're going to do april 21st. this is what i think the way we can bring the world that nelson mandela wanted us. where corporations don't become expensive just for influential wealth, for a purpose, so we have the ability to do good. >> by the way, our, our employees feel this. our employees want to be out in the community. so we actually kicked off comcast cares day on wednesday in philadelphia with a fantastic

service project at a snider youth hockey -- a snider youth hockey foundation hockey rink. we were joined by the limaru twins who are extraordinary young women, who were olympic -- they were comcast sponsored athletes in the olympics and are maintaining a presence with our whole company. so mika just named them contributors to know your value. to add in for their leadership in the gender equality space. i was talking to hugh beforehand. gender equality, a huge part of what global citizen is. the opportunity to tie all these parts of our company together to provide an athlete for us as a company, for our employees, to really make a difference in the communities where our employees live and work is fantastic. >> and the diversity. everybody sit s back and says

this is the real deal and this is what we want to see. we all know we've got problems with the administration. the real question is what each of us -- >> 30 seconds, 30 seconds, give us a great story from last year. >> i have so many great comcast ca cares day stories. i was at a site last year where we were building a computer lab in a school. the kids were around. the parents were around. the technicians were there. near the end of the project, i'm surrounded by a group of the parents. half of them are crying. you have no idea what a difference this is making in our community and without comcast, we have no ability to have this level of teaching engagement and helping to bring our kids into the digital age. >> all right, comcast cares day, a day that makes all of us proud. anyone can take part. you can get more information at comcast in the community.com. david cohen, hugh evans, rev al,

thank you. good luck with a big day. i know how rowdy your crowd is. it was a privilege to be there. that does it for us this morning. joe and mika will be back on monday. chris jansing picks up the coverage. >> i'm chris jansing, in for stephanie ruhle this morning. note to self, the justice department releases memos by fired fbi director james comey revealing new details about his meetings with the president. >> given the nature of the person, as i understood the president-elect, he might not tell the truth about those if it ever became an issue so i needed a written record. >> longtime trump ally rudy giuliani joins the president's legal team to try to negotiate an end to the special counsel's russia probe. keeping up the fight. on the 19th anniversary of columbine, students across the nation plan to walk out of school, demanding action on gun reform. and cracking down. wells fargo reportedly facing yet an