>> i don't understand. >> welcome to "morning joe." >> how can he keep saying that? >> stop. we're on the air. >> he put out a tweet a couple days ago that was hateful and uninformed. fit right in with yesterday. >> last jedi, he was hateful? >> oh my gosh. >> back to the news. >> april 30th. oh my gosh, it doesn't feel like it around here. >> unless you're in nova scotia. >> with us we have political writer for the new york times and msnbc analyst nick confessorry and caddy cay whose book "the confidence code for girls" is number one. it's amazing. >> it was out this weekend. >> in the sunday paper. it feels good. i was so happy with the response. >> they're reading it. >> who told you? >> you told me.

>> i did. >> it's time. we're looking at girls. >> associate editor noah rothman is with us and columnist and associate editor of the washington post david ignatius joins us from washington. we begin with breaking news, at least 21 people are dead, 43 others wounded after a double suicide bombing in afghanistan's capital of kabul early this morning. afghan officials say at least seven journalists are among those killed. six are from local networks. one is an a.p. photographer. authorities also say that the second bombing was intended to hit the people rushing to the scene to help the victims of the first explosion. the attack occurred on the same street as the afghan intelligence agency and nato's afghanistan headquarters and just 500 meters from the u.s. embassy. isis has claimed responsibility. >> david ignatius, 17 years

later, the fighting continues in afghanistan. what is this white house -- what is the pentagon what are our allies planning to do as we move forward over the next 17 years? >> well, for the moment i'm sure the answer is to stay the course and not panic. but the inability to secure the capital and these areas of kabul are supposed to be the most secure. these are streets i've walked down. they're extensively checked. and yet year after year it's not possible to keep infill traitors with bombs from these areas. i'm sure that's deeply, deeply worrying. we have an outstanding commander in kabul who has been fighting this war off and on for -- i first met him 2006 or 2007. and if anybody knows the terrain and the conflict, it's him. but he just is struggling with a

stalemate in which security in key areas like this is penetrated regularly. this is a particularly horrible kind of bomb. sometimes referred to as a double tap where they try to get the people who are coming to take care that leads to worse loss of life. this illustrates something i want to note in a day when we're talking a lot about journalism, the face of our business is not the white house correspondent's dinner. it's the young men and women who are in kabul everyday covering this story, risking their lives everyday. this could happen any day you're there and they do it faithfully with great professionalism. people need to remember when they're getting into serious discussions about journalism, the young men and women in ka l kabul. >> we'll get to the controversy. >> big talker. >> big talker over the weekend. in a little bit. but there's actually news to

cover first. >> for mika and me, at least, that was our thought going into the white house correspondent's dinner. we haven't gone in a while. don't knock those that do go. >> we didn't go this weekend. >> but these are really serious times. and people are doing extraordinary work. and journalists across the world are more in danger today than they have been in quite some time. and they're doing extraordinary work. so, why do you not have an awards show? why don't you just reward the people who are doing the most extraordinary journalism and have an inspiring speech and be done with that because this is what journalists do. >> yeah. all around the world 50 journalists were killed around the world last year, some 250 journalists are in prison for doing their jobs. the number of journalists who

are being put in prison for propagating what is being called by authoritarian regimes fake news is on the rise. i think you're right the white house correspondent's dinner ought to be a celebration of those people and the work they do rather than the naval-gazing event where we look at ourselves and become the headline. every time we talk about ourselves, we're not doing our industry any favors. we should not be consuming hours of news time talking about ourselves and our own industry. we should be honoring those people around the world, seven more have been killed, local journalists in afghanistan this morning. we should be honoring those journalists around the world who are giving their lives in the pursuit of trying to tell the truth. >> by the way, let the great comedians -- >> perform somewhere else. >> on netflix where we watch dave chappelle. >> i'm like you, i haven't been for years. i would rather spend my saturday night with kids. >> we'll get to that

conversation in just a moment. we're going to talk about that more and there's a little bit of a debate going on. turning now to the latest out of the korean peninsula, following friday's historic summit with south korean president moon jae-in, north korean leader kim jong-un is vowing to shut down his nation's nuclear test site by the end of may. according to moon's office and north korean state media, kim also says that he will open the process up to foreign experts and journalists from south korea and the united states. north korea last used the site during last september's test of a thermo nuclear bomb and reports indicate that the site partially collapsed rendering it unuzable going forward. north korea also says it will alter its time zone by half an hour to align with south korean standard time. president trump addressed the developments out of the korean peninsula alongside german chancellor angela merkel on friday and during his rally in

michigan on saturday. >> lot of very positive things happened over the last 24 hours. we're in total touch with both north korea and south korea. we're speaking very much with south korea and with north korea. the relationships are building and building strongly. and this will be a great thing for the world. oh, i don't think he's playing. no, i don't think he's playing. and you know, it's never gone like this. it's never gone this far. i don't think it's ever had this enthusiasm for somebody -- for them wanting to make a deal. yeah, i agree. the united states has been played beautifully like a fiddle because you had a different kind of a leader. we're not going to be played, okay? we're going to hopefully make a deal. if we don't, that's fine. this isn't like past administratio administrations. we're not going to play games. >> i'm not going to give you what's actually going to happen because we don't really know. i'm going to tell you one thing, we're not playing games. and i remember was very rough three, four months ago.

that's very nice. thank you. that's very nice. nobel. i just want to get the job done. i had one of the fake news groups this morning now, they were saying what do you think president trump had to do with it? i'll tell you what, like how about everything? >> actually sounded like they were saying nobel. they were talking about no tell michael cohen and the fifth amendment. david ignatius, let's go back to

the time zone change plan. giving up a site that partially collapsed. i'm not being a skeptic, suggest this has gone farther than anything else has gone in terms of negotiating a final agreement that will get the job done is hard to say. of course, nobel prizes were handed out for what happened in 1994 and it ended up that the 1994 plan in the clinton administration only provided more cover for this regime. do you see anything developing that would suggest an end game that is going to be different? >> these are preliminaries. they're confidence building measures. nominating yourself for a nobel peace prize is unusual. i think it's a mistake to minimize the importance of what's happening. >> right. >> or to say that president trump hasn't had a role in it.

he chafes at this idea that he's not being given credit. and he does deserve credit for seizing the moment when it arrives. we don't know where that moment is going. i just would stress for viewers that the driving force in this story is this really quite unusual and surprising young north korean leader kim jong-un who it was easy to take him less than seriously given the way he looked and acted, but he has had for the last couple years, if you look carefully at his speeches and statements an idea that north korea would push to get nuclear weapons. i'm sorry to say they do have nuclear weapons and then would pivot towards negotiation, towards working on its economy, towards turning to the west. he's done exactly what he said. he laid out the script in a speech on january 1 and he's been following it, helped along by south korea. so i think it's great that president trump sees that moment

and engaged in and properly but skeptically doesn't know what's going to happen. but the process is a good one. we now know the right questions to ask. what are the traps and the things that might not work out. but, you know, let's see. >> let's see what happens. >> and see encouragement from the president. >> you heard the president on stage talking about fake news. there is now a controversy brewing over the choice of entertainment at this year's white house correspondent's dinner in washington over the weekend. most notably, the comedian michelle wolf's routine which as the nok times frames it opened a divide over the limits of comedy under a president who rarely hesitates to attack the press. the biggest dividing line surrounded wolf's comments about white house press secretary sarah huckabee sanders. >> graced with sarah's presence tonight. i have to say i'm a little star struck. i love you as auntd lydia and the hand maid's tale.

mike pence, if you haven't seen it, you would love it. every time sarah steps up to the podium, i get excited because i'm not really sure what we're going to get. you know, a press briefing, a bunch of lies or a divided into softball teams. i actually really like sarah. i think she's very resourceful. like she burns facts and then she uses that ash to create a perfect smoky eye. like maybe she's born with it. maybe it's lies. and i'm never really sure what to call sarah huckabee sanders, you know? is it sarah sanders. is it sarah huckabee sanders. is it cousin huckabee. is it antihuckabee sanders. what's uncle tom but for white women who disappoint other white women? oh, i know, aunt colter. >> lot of other raunchy

statements as well. many people are calling on the white house correspondent's association to apologize to the press secretary. here is the president of the correspondent's association margaret reacting the morning after the dinner. >> it was a great honor to be able to preside over last night's dinner and to represent all the journalists who cover the white house. my aim and the way i sought to put together the program was to build a spirit of unity in that room. my only regret is that. >> also released a statement last night saying, quote the program was meant to offer a unifying message about our congressmen commitment to a vigorous and free press while honoring civility, great reporting and scholarship winners not to divide people. unfortunately the entertainer's monologue was not in the spirit of that mission. president trump who skipped the dinner tweeted, quote, the white

house correspondent's dinner was a failure last year but this year was an embarrassment to every associated with it. the filthy comedian totally bombed, couldn't even deliver her lines much like seth meyers weak performance. >> he's still obsessed onset meyers. >> the association president said she and the in-coming president are, quote, committed to hearing from the members on the format of the dinner going forward finally. >> there is so much we can unwind here, but let's not waste too much time. >> okay. >> charlie sykes summed up one of the biggest dumpster fire days in twitter history yesterday when he said -- and it's only thing i tweeted other than being very excited about the "homeland" finale starting. the lack of self awareness is jarring. >> yeah. so i was on vacation last week. i deleted my twitter app from my

phone, unplugged and turned it on on sunday. >> no. >> i have to do that for my job. it was like walking into a bar fight. i had no idea why everybody was at each other's head. revolving door, turn right around and walk out. >> you should have went back on holiday. >> i almost did. i feel like that's what people who don't saturate themselves in the news cycle. we might overinflate. >> it's a tough room, it's a tough business. i understand the pressure she was under. that wasn't my cup of tea. it's art. i don't like judging art like that. >> by the way, as my law professor always taught me about the first amendment, it's time, place, manner. for instance, if they had invited linny bruce to come speak during, you know, the early kennedy years, they would

get lenny bruce. you couldn't be shocked. he did what he did. or did dave chappelle at the end of the clinton administration. he would have said things that nobody -- what were they thinking? it's not on the artist. it's not on the comedian to change their act. >> right. >> don't invite her or don't invite lenny bruce or don't invite dave chappelle unless you want them to do what they're going to do. >> that's what's most striking about this. the white house correspondent's dinner, distinct from the association. the association does very good work protecting journalists from an adversarial institution in the white house. the dinner on the other hand has been a problem for the institution of journalism for years. wasn't recognized under the obama administration when they would hobb knob with celebrities. now it's overtly hostile and it

demonstrates the biases that are inherent. >> and hypocrisy. >> and hypocrisy. >> of course, all this comes when yesterday on twitter there's so many people that supported donald trump, were so shocked and stunned and deeply saddened by what happened. but as your fellow traveler said about trumpkins. they probably should put a big mirror up in front of them and look at the person they've been laughing with and supporting for some time. in march of 2016, donald trump retweeted a photo of ted cruz's wife heidi comparing her to a photo of melania. and in december 2017, this trump tweet about senator kirsten jill brand would come to my office begging for campaign

contributions and would do anything for them. in june 2017, trump tweets at mika attacking her intelligence, attacking her appearance. are these comments attacking everyone from miss universe to a gold star mom to rosie o'donne l o'donnell. >> the very last question, i know that person, that person was a miss universe person. and she was the worst we ever had. the worst. the absolute worst. she was impossible. she was the winner. and she gained a massive amount of weight. and it was real problem. >> he said you wouldn't have even let his son in america. >> he doesn't know. he doesn't know that. i saw him. he was, you know, very emotional and probably looked like a nice guy to me. his wife if you look at his wife, she was standing there. she had nothing to say. she probably -- maybe she wasn't allowed to have anything to say. you tell me, but plenty of

people have written that. she was extremely quiet. and looked like she had nothing to say. a lot of people have said that. >> rosie o'donnell is disgusting, both inside and out. you take a look at her, she's a slob. she talks like a truck driver. if i were running "the view" i would fire rosy. i would look her in the fat, ugly face of your's, you're fired. rosy is a very unattractive person both inside and out. >> so, we could get into the birtherism and get into the insults about -- >> it's flabber gasting. >> it goes on forever and ever. in fact, "the new york times" compiled a list of 446 people, places and things that donald trump has insulted just on twitter just since he took office 15 months ago. so really, mika, the criticism from trump supporters is rich.

i must say, there were quite a few people that i've noun and i've considered friends for some time saying they were shocked and stunned and deeply saddened and they were so shocked by the personal insults that they left early. and then they went to afterparties and had a great time there, but these friends of mine for 20 years certainly didn't call me up and say, hey, joe, we're thinking about you. so sorry he attacked your fiance's appearance. >> yeah. >> hey, joe, we're sorry that donald trump said you're a murderer and you had to explain to your 9 or 14-year-old boy. i understand it. i'm a big boy. i didn't bitch about it at the time. but these people so shocked and stunned and deeply saddened that a comedian did what comedians do and yet they just apologized for donald trump over and over again and kept their mouths shut, what a joke. >> that is rich. >> and you had concerns. >> i did. i have always about the dinner. i'll say that, you know, given

what we just -- the montage that we just displayed, i don't think that the media at any point right now should be stooping to the same level. or choosing an entertainer who would stoop to the same level. having said that, she was very funny. i would watch her netflix special and i thought that a lot of her jokes, though some of them were really raunchy probably were very funny. but there now, why? who didn't predict it becoming a huge problem having a comedian who is a little edgy coming into the white house dinner when the press is under fire by the president himself. we have to hold ourselves to a higher standard. i think it's really having it both ways to have this woman at the dinner and then apologize for it. you own it, white house correspondent's association. you invited her. we should be honoring journalist. maybe have a more serious dinner. maybe have someone like a gold

star mother up there, something different. maybe this would be the year for something different, but i really thought the pain of the people on stage when sarah huckabee sanders was being made fun of, everybody felt pain for her, she felt pain and it really bothered me. there's big controversy about whether or not her appearance was being made fun of, come on, stop it. don't even. >> here is some more hypocrisied. >> she looked pained. do we really want to be laughing at that? it's not funny. >> hypocrisy from the left also suggesting that her appearance wasn't brought into it. again a lot of people i respect. >> we can debate. we can look at the words and debate. >> there's no debate. everybody that was in there, everybody that i talked to so many people that have so little use for donald trump, who have contempt for donald trump all felt uncomfortable, all said

inside that room that it was obvious that you could talk about picking the softball teams, as maggie haberman brought up. the hand maidens tale. let's look at a picture of who she was referring to yesterday and you tell me if this was just about her personality and character or how she looked? the attacks -- >> an actress who is dressed to look drab. but here is the thing, i think at this point you have to look at the whole thing and think whether or not it was a good choice, but this was a win for trump. so, if you didn't want this to be a win for trump, you gave them one in a big way. i have covered sarah huckabee sanders. i have been extremely critical. and i think women should be able to be critical of other women equally as they are to men. i'm all for that. but i think that this was over the top. >> yeah. >> look, mika, actually the joke was about lying and not her looks. i think the reference to aunt lydia was reference to the character on that show.

that's my opinion. >> it was veiled. sure. everyone can see it a different way. everyone was in pain on the stage. can you agree? >> what i will say is this whole event has become problematic. it is not journalistic. it is a celebration of the wrong values. >> right. >> and if you invite a comedian to it, you are putting the entire press core on the hook for whatever that comedian says. you are. >> yeah. >> and it's pointless. and i've watched this stupid theater play out year after year and this year we have the most powerful man in the world, the president, and the party that controls every institution in washington playing that they're victims of a comedian. >> right. >> i'm sorry. i don't care if you're victims of a comedian, but i do care that she becomes a stand-in for the work that my colleagues do in the white house as a lot of good and hard-working people who work everyday to bring the truth to their readers and their viewers. i want to see that celebrated as it should be. >> you look at -- i wasn't there but you look at the twitter feed

after it and we're living in such a time where people are so divided already that all i could see during the course of yesterday was women being pitted against men, black against white, republicans against democrats. it's not the job of journalists to bring us all together, but that dinner exceeded on playing on multiple divisions and multiplying. >> it was a wonderful two days for donald trump. >> yeah. we shouldn't be talking about a charity dinner as though it was a political victory for one party or another. there was a time in living memory we could take ourselves a little less seriously in a room full of colleagues. >> actually not right now. i think right now we need to hunker down and get to work. i would say the times for a long night of partying and making fun of ourselves and raunchy jokes is not now at all. i was horrified by it because we were actually undermining ourselves. >> i agree with you. i think the hyperplitization of events like this which used to

be expressly apolitical is a dispirting development. >> and inevitable. >> another thing that john said was -- nobody is going to remember this in two weeks. now michelle wolf will because i think it was a big night for michelle wolf and she spoke -- i talked to a lot of people the next day not involved in politics and they were saying did you see this joke. they were coming up showing me michelle wolf on youtube. yeah, that's pretty funny. again, david, it's all time, place, manner. by the way -- >> i would love to hear what david thinks. >> david, it's not the comedians job to change her act. >> nope. >> as she said in the middle of her speech, i guess i didn't do much research. here you have journalists not doing much research on michelle wolf. >> maybe they did. >> and what she does. but the part that was the most jarring for me and why they really need to stop bringing comedians in was the part where she did -- again, she's doing her job. her job is to be edgy.

>> make us think. >> when she said how poosh r is donald trump is so poor. you have the scene where the journalists were answering pow poor is he, basically taking part in a bit that was intended primarily to humiliate donald trump. i just -- none of us here think that believe that journalists should put themselves in that position. >> i think mika said it right. it's a time when we should hunker down and get to work. we do need to understand that journalists, our professional is not popular with too many americans. they don't trust us. they think we're the people who put on tuxedos and go to fancy parties and laugh at jokes that are mocking people in the administration. and that image is a dangerous one for us because the country

needs to believe not in this press core or any other but in the first amendment, in the right to say and think what you believe. the idea of finding a comic who is going to say acceptable jokes what a nightmare. let's cancel the dinner rather than do that search. but i think mika has it right. this is a period when we need to do our jobs and be seen to do that. the country says, boy, i'm glad they're out there doing the tough work. i'm glad they're telling me the things i need to know. >> by the way, mee karks the press has been trying to figure out all the hand ringing about why people think that we're not straight forward. >> right. >> we don't get it right, that we're biased against people in middle america. i challenge anybody today to find the monologue during barack obama's eight years as president where a comedian went after barack obama 1/100th of the way every comedian is going to go after donald trump or george w.

bush or george h.w. bush or newt gingrich or any other republican of prominence. it is unbalanced. that's just the way it is. hold the damn awards show. reward people like maggie haberman and josh dossy. >> and there's seven journalists that just got killed in afghanistan. >> there's seven journalists that just got killed in afghanistan. we don't have to like be entertained at the end. we can just celebrate one night a year. >> i agree. still ahead on "morning joe," two new developments in the russia probe. the lawyer who met with don jr. tells nbc news she's more linked up to the kremlin than previously known. >> plus we'll talk to a member of the house intel committee that just released its report on russia collusion. >> before she admitted that she was closer to the kremlin than previously known. >> president trump is seizing on that. and so is james comey.

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xfinity. the future of awesome. it is kind of crazy that the trump campaign was in contact with russia when the hillary campaign wasn't even in contact with michigan. democrats are harder to make fun of because you guys don't do anything. people think you might flip the house and senate this november, but you guys always find a way to mess it up. you're somehow going to lose by 12 points to a guy named jeff pedofhile nazi doctor. >> there were funny jokes. >> in a dark bar at a comedy club, the whole thing would have been pretty hilarious. >> or sitting in a la-z-boy watching it on netflix. >> she's really good. >> she's hilarious.

there were some really offensive jokes about abortion, about southwest airlines but guess what the thing is as a comedian -- >> that's what you do. >> you take chances. you bomb. what about southwest airlines. we're not going to do that. >> awful. if you're not offending somebody at some point -- >> exactly. after stephen colbert bombed in the room as badly as he did, and he did bombed in the room, they had rich little the next year who bombed in the room because he went the other way. don't go either way. let's watch some on netflix. let's celebrate the great journalists out there putting their lives on the line. >> i was corrected. he was very polite because jonathan wald is an honorable man, very polite. he reminded me of a democrat getting absolutely screwered. david ignatius, you were probably there.

oh my god. you don't want to remember the don imes attack of bill clinton and hillary and peter jennings. it was -- that actually was perhaps even more vicious than that. >> i'm sorry to say or happy to say, i'm not sure which, that i haven't been to that event in forever. but the point of these comedy routines is to be mean. i mean, so a nice comedy skit, what's the point of that? i think this particular moment as we've been saying, we keep telling ourselves, this is not a normal moment. we have president who is attacking our profession and we just set ourselves up saturday night for all the people who think we're the people in tuxedos who have snide comics.

we couldn't have painted a worst picture of ourselves. >> and who are disconnected. i remember katty and what happens is you make the very people you're lampooning sympathetic figures. >> that's correct. >> i remember ran against a guy in congress but i was really running against bill clinton. i loathed bill clinton, everything about what he was doing in the white house. i remember looking at that, come on. come on, man. it's too much, don. too much. >> yeah. actually you know what, i went into labor during that dinner. i was just looking at it. >> it was that offensive. >> i had to leave quarter of the way through the speech because i went into labor. i knew there was a reason. >> your baby was right. let's get out of here. the last time i've been. still ahead, president trump casually implies he could ruin the career of a u.s. senator. that's nice. why the president attacked montana's jon tester and how the

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he took a gentleman who is a truly high quality human being,

and what they said about him, what they said about this great american doctor, ronny jackson -- this is a high quality individual like they would love in montana. and tester started throwing out things that he's heard. well, i know things about tester that i could say, too. and if i said them, he would never be elected again. >> well, well, well. the one thing we learned about you, mr. president to this point is if you knew something about jon tester that would finish his career, you would have said it 15 days ago. >> blurt it right now. president trump continued his attacks on the democratic senator over allegations that he made against the president's former pick to run the department of veteran's affairs. i do not understand those allegations, though, at the same time. on saturday, the president sent out a series of tweets aimed at

the senator. the top democrat on the veteran's affairs committee trump claimed that the secret service told him that allegations made by tester against dr. ronny jackson are not true, saying that tester should resign before later adding he should lose his re-election race in montana because of his claims. on friday the secret service did issue a statement denying the details of a published report that agents had intervened on an overseas trip to prevent jackson from bothering then president barack obama. and bloomberg reports that signing an unanimous official white house conducted review of available vehicle records and found no evidence that jackson had been in car accident after drinking. among the allegations in the document tester released was that jackson crashed a government vehicle after getting drunk at a secret service going away party. the senator has raised other charges against jackson, questioning his prescribing practices and leadership ability including accusations of being drunk on the job. >> all right.

so, nick, we're going to sort through this for some time. but it is interesting that the republicans on the committee and johnny isaacson, actually the chairman of that committee, is backing tester. and an awful lot of republicans didn't want jackson anywhere near the v.a. >> correct. also i should point out that sources for the new york times reporting on jackson, were, in fact, staff members on the gop side on the hill who were urging the times to go with some of these anecdotes and specifics. i do think that we're going to get more of the story of ronny jackson. we have not heard it all. >> yeah. >> but it is not a partisan hit job at all. >> no, it is a bipartisan hit job. i am curious, david ignatius, we're 44 minutes in and haven't talked about the most important thing yet. what do you think of the "homeland" finale last night? >> you know, i have to be

honest, i am saving that so my wife and i can watch it when we don't have to get up so early to be on "morning joe." >> don't tell him what happened. don't tell him what happened. >> don't say a word. i believe in kerry totally. i'm confidant. >> it is a strange world we live in where you have this huge finale and can't talk about it to anybody. >> no, you cannot. >> joey scarbrough will get mad at me. >> no. up next, the national -- >> i'll sit here silently. >> it's not possible. >> see. it's not possible. >> he couldn't do it. >> talking about star wars, my running joke with joey always was growing up, he said, don't spoil the movie for me, dad. i said, ah, they all die in the

end. don't say that. so then we went to go see "rubio one" and he said how was it? they all died. he didn't believe me. >> you ever confessed to joey your secret love for jar jar binks? >> there's no reason for you to be so hateful because you have "the last jedi" so wrong. >> nerd boys. >> bonus material. >> trekkies? >> love for star wars. >> noah is a trekie. >> yeah. that's why i'm all the way over here. >> yeah. stay there. up next, the national inquiry turns on donald trump's personal lawyer michael cohen. oh, this is not good. we've been through this. >> yes, we have. >> cohen did manage to score a small legal victory against stormy daniels. "morning joe" is coming right back. i feel a great deal of urgency...

i think, keep going, and make a difference. at some point, we are going to be able to beat als. because life is amazing. so i am hoping for a cure. i want this, to uh, to be a reality. um, yeah. we're on a mission to show drip coffee drinkers, it's time to wake up to keurig. wakey! wakey! rise and shine! oh my gosh! how are you? well watch this. i pop that in there. press brew.

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no, no, nick, no.

that wasn't it. that is unbelieveable. >> words to live by, mika. >> no, nick. president trump welcomed 200 u.s. olympians and paralympians from this year's winter games to the white house on friday. trump, who did not attend this year's olympics in person praised their athletes for their performances in pyeongchang, including saying this. >> so today on behalf of the united states i want to thank every olympian and paralympian and that was just incredible and what happened with the paparaly is inspiring to me. it's a little tough too watch too much but i watched as much as i could. >> no. >> that was incredible. just incredible. >> a complete buffoon. >> i'm going to offer a dissent. >> he's saying i didn't watch it. >> i'm going to offer a dissenting view.

>> too tough to watch. >> it's all about trump, right? it's all about him, how bad he feels and how it makes him feel bad to watch it. >> i'm not sure that's what he meant. >> you don't think that's what he meant? >> i'm not sure but he also may have meant he didn't have time to watch it that much, he was busy, didn't tune in. >> hold on -- >> i understand he watches a lot of morning tv. >> he watches 12 hours -- >> if the paralympics are not during executive time -- >> i don't think he saw any of it. >> "it's a little tough to watch" is "it makes me feel uncomfortable watching it." >> oh, my lord. >> "i feel story for myself." >> that was a good sporting try, nick. >> seriously, nick? >> i'm just saying there's some uncertainty in my mind. >> let's run it again. >> because the whole speech is about how it was great of them, how it was inspiring. why would he dig in -- z

>> he doesn't have anything of substance to add which is to suggest he doesn't see events. >> he went off teleprompter and that's why he said what he thought. like when he made material material admissions against himself in the southern district of new york and in the california case. here's the clip again. you be the judge. >> so today on behalf of the united states i want to thank every olympian and paralympian and that was just incredible and what happened with the paraolympics was so incredible and so inspiring to me. and i watched -- it's a little tough to watch too much but i watched as much as i could. >> nick confessore is completely -- >> just awful, this was not a time management issue. >> no, it never is. >> this was not a time management issue. >> that was awful. coming up, breaking news overnight from afghanistan. twin suicide bombings and this

morning isis claiming responsibility. plus, north korea vows to shut down its nuclear site. but is that move anything more than symbolic considering reports are that that nuclear site is already collapsing? david ignatius is here to weigh in on that and america's future concerning the iran nuclear deal. plus, we are going to circle back to the white house correspondent's dinner over the weekend just to keep it going. >> no. let's end it. let's not do that. >> we'll be right back. it's hard to watch. >> i'm here to make jokes. i have no agenda. i'm not trying to get anything accomplished. so everyone that's here from congress you should feel right at home. [ laughter ]

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if i book direct at choicehotels.com". who glows? just say, badda book. badda boom. book now at choicehotels.com donald trump has been saying that he will run for president as republican, which is surprising since i just assumed he was running as a joke. [ laughter ] gary busey said recently that donald trump would make a great president. of course, he said the same thing about an old rusty bird cage he found. donald trump often appears on fox, which is ironic, because a fox often appears on donald trump's head. donald trump said recently he has a great relationship with the blacks. though unless the blacks are a family of white people, i bet he's mistaken. >> hard to believe that seven years ago -- apparently it's still on the president's mind. >> by the way, that is such a historic moment. >> supposedly the moment that inspired him to run for

president. >> it's historic because that is the moment. and mark mckinnon, it's a great example of sometimes it's best to lay off. when barack obama kept poking him and kept poking him and kept poking him, that was the moment he decided he was going to -- screw them all, i'm going to run for president. and i don't know that barack obama thought about it consciously and he was turning over the keys of the white house to donald trump but there had to be a part of him wondering. >> getting elected president is the a revenge served cold. >> that would be. so president trump criticized this year's white house correspondent's association dinner by referencing seth meyers routine from 2011, welcome back to "morning joe." it's monday, april 30. still with us, we have political writer for the "new york times" and msnbc political analyst nick confessore who's written a lot today. >> i was making a list of reporters who have faced real trials and tribulations around

the world, that's for later. >> okay, that's worthy. >> washington anchor for bbc world news america katty kay. associate editor of commentary magazine noah rothman -- trekkie -- and columnist and associate editor of the "washington post," david ignatius. also joining the conversation, former adviser to george w. bush and co-creator and executive producer of "the circus" on show time, mark mckinnon. and with us, political reporter from the "washington post," msnbc political analyst and moderator of "washington week" on pbs. robert costa. >> but wait, there's more. >> media correspondent for the "new york times" michael -- is it. >> grinbaum. >> i've been reading your treats. >> michael, you wrote a great deal article yesterday. i can only stay on twitter so long and i'm like good god, let's read an article and i went to yours and it was a great summation of all the chaos and

nonsense and hypocrisy on both sides that was going on. break it down for us. what happened? >> well, i was in the room on saturday night and i mean there was really this icy silence that fell over the black tie crowd at the hilton. michelle wolf's performance was cutting, there were some pretty raunchy material that she brought out, people were saying it was a real kind of classic comedy club performance but it was some pretty tough remarks about sarah sanders, the white house press secretary and kellyanne conway who both were in the crowd. sarah sanders just a few feet away. i mean, you felt the whole room watching every tick and facial expression that was going across her face. and, you know, it's basically become the talk of washington. there's this whole inquisition about it. as the tweets showed, president

trump gloating calling this an embarrassing failure, evoking that classic seth meyers monologue and, you know, essentially saying this dinner needs to totally end or completely start over. >> well, listen, it does need to start over. i think most of us think, mark mckinnon, enough with the comedians. it's time, place, manner. growing up i loved the sex pistols, i wouldn't have brought them to first baptist church pensacola even if i could have, i would have listened to them somewhere else. same with the clash, same with -- it's time, place, manner. artists are artists, don't bring them in to ceremony and then be shocked by what they -- >> it just reinforces the worst things people think about the press. it's anachronistic and it should change. i hope it will now. >> a lot of people are saying -- i think what made some people uncomfortable about the sarah sanders things and everybody can debate, liberals can pretend that the overall arc of it

wasn't about her appearance and if they want to live in that world and be the donald trumps of this past weekend where donald trump said wait a second, i didn't say all mexicans were rapists. if they want to play that game, they can. but i remember going back to the mid-'90s, don imus, and being so uncomfortable even though i had no use for bill clinton or hillary clinton at the time, being so uncomfortable that imus was standing there and humiliating bill clinton and hillary clinton and everybody else right there with the colleague ligklieg lights on him. >> well, in her remarks, michelle wolf said you should have done your research. >> journalists should have done their research. >> but, b, i'll also say that the comment about sarah sanders an uncle tom for white women who disappoint other white women, that's not really funny, that not only insults sarah sanders, it inas a results 25 million women who voted for dronald trump. >> well, there were a number of levels in which this dinner,

some say, went off the rails. what stood out to you? were you there? i'm hearing the room was icy and didn't like it and you could see the people on stage who were in complete pain at times during this performance. >> it's monday, it's time to get back to work, focus on the reporting. i was at the dinner. what i'm looking at in my notebook mika is not so much the dinner because the lawmakers i'm covering, the people i'm covering aren't paying attention to it. they pay attention to the president's speech and say how can republicans echo that kind of message, that kind of rambling speech he gave, that same night as the dinner and they wonder where is the message on the tax cuts, where is the focus from the white house and there's deep concern in gop ranks that the president may be able to carry himself through the midterms but not carry his own party. >> and mark, that's so funny yesterday, some people were trying to figure out which race this comedian was going to

impact. john podhoretz said two weeks from now nobody will remember this. they may remember like we remember the don imus speech as a footnote but it won't impact any race. it may impact the relationship between the white house and the press corps. >> i think it will impact -- reinforce impressions about the press mostly but not an impact on this race. >> that's exactly what it will do. reinforce impressions about the press negatively. >>ing -- it could help with the president's reelection. >> what does become of the dinner going forward? >> imagine this dinner that's caused so much agita, that became the symbol of the swamp ends up disappearing or changing indirectly because of the president. i can't think of a better talking point for draining the swamp than kicking this dinner off of the annual d.c. schedule. there's a lot of talk in the correspondents' association about changing the format. and i want to remind folks that

the idea of having the entertainer, the comedian roasting the president, roasting politics, it was meant as a counterbalance to the president having a chance to get up there giving his own speech. president obama brought in judd apatow as a ringer to write some of his punchlines so there used to be some semblance of parity here. but now without the president in the room, it just feels lopsided. >> yeah. and completely out of place and i think it's kind of having it both ways to say now we're going to rethink this. the woman got up on stage and i was like this is going to go terribly. this woman has a netflix special. if she's really good, this is going to be really bad for the media. this is a trump win on every level. >> so smart to avoid these things. >> you have to avoid it. and the sarah sanders stuff, i would like to state again, she's a problem for the media. she's -- we are struggling right now with how to cover these press briefings, how she shills for a president who lies, who

bullies, who says raunchy off-color things about people. we don't want to stoop to that level. we have to figure out how to take on a presidency who is trying to take down the media. this was a disaster. you can't apologize now and say you're going rethink it. should haven't done it. >> look, i have some modest proposals for how this dinner should change. i think first of all the cameras, get rid of cameras. it should not be a spectacle. >> it's not about us. >> don't invite a comedian. why don't you invite the families of reporters who have been killed around the world for doing their jobs? right now there are two reporters for reuters under arrest in myanmar for reporting on the massacres of the rohingya. there's a reporter killed in veracruz for reporting on drug cartels. there are eight reporters killed in kabul overnight. those people put their lives at risk in a different way, in a very different way, the people of the white house who are reporters there do an incredible job, work very hard. put the spotlight on the work.

don't make it a spectacle. >> the benefit of doing that -- 50 reporters were killed around the world 2, 250 reporters are in prison. the number of reporters being put in prison for crimes of so-called fake news by authority and regimes is rising. there is a moment at which we can be highlighteding the important work of journalism around the world in this country and other countries. the problem with what we do at the white house correspondents dinner is you undermine trust in journalism, you could make this an event that boosts trusts in journalism by showing what journalists are doing. >> if networks and lobbyists aren't going to buy tables at this thing because there's no speech then shame on them. she should buy tables -- >> they should honor fallen journalists. >> scholarships and also to actually fund -- >> serious business, take it seriously. >> fund investigative web sites, fund investigative reporting units in state capitals across the country that right now are

collapsing because they don't have the money to do their work. >> put surviving family members at each of those tables instead of celebrities. >> amen. >> now the president playing this to his benefit. he held a rally in michigan. bob costa along the audience screaming "nobel" why don't we take a look at some of what the president had to say. >> we have $1.6 billion and this last budget, just so you understand, we had to fund our military, folks. we got -- our military was depleted, general mad dog mattis could not be happier. could not be happier. >> i said yesterday, i said general, do you think we needed this much? we needed it, sir, we need it. we really did. so by doing that the democrats

don't care about our military. the liberal politicians who support criminal aliens and they support them over, far over american citizens, nancy pelosi and her gang. [ boos ] they've got to be voted out of office. that i've got to be voted out of office. we have to have borders and we have to have them fast and we need security, we need the wall, we're going to have it all and that wall has started. we got $1.6 billion. we come up again on september 28 and if we don't get border security, we have no choice, we'll close down the country because we need border security. >> that works, closing down the country. by the way, we do have borders, one. two actually the number of illegal immigrants coming across the border actually add a

ten-year low. >> numbers going down. >> so, please, please, mr. president, don't close down our country. with that said, i'm trying to figure out exactly, bob costa, the president's logic or going out playing to his base when you have republicans' reports over the weekend showing what you were just saying, republicans warning the president things are going terribly wrong right now. that it looks like they're going to lose big in the fall and the president telling everybody no, no, things are going to go gr t great. talk about the concern going on behind you with republicans. >> two revealing things with those clips you just showed. on mattis, you see the defense secretary being touted by the president and you can bet that's being paid close attention to by national security adviser john bolton. there's a real question inside of this administration right now who is going to truly guide president trump on national

security and foreign policy. secretary of state pompeo, bolton or secretary mattis? it shows you that mattis is still at the forefront. and the comment about nancy pelosi, you see the democratic leader, the republicans are trying to have a betwe2010 styl campaign but she's not the same figure because president trump as a cultural and political force is so overwhelming, the republicans are struggled to animate pelosi as a political target. >> and noah, donald trump again doing exactly what he did the win the republican primary and the presidency but right now you look at every poll, it's not working. that is not translating to helping republicans who are right now in endangered seats. >> no, it's district specific, some house districts are from vulnerable senate campaigns and ever has to run their own campaign. in the last hour and a half we've been talking about president loss of civility and

norms and the president going up there and saying democrats don't care about the military, it's something that would have been beyond the pale and it goes right past us. we don't pay attention to it or notice it because it's part of our average daily dialogue. there is no more powerful currency in politics today than victimization the victim being hurt, being offended, being attacked, democrats and republicans and rallying around the idea that they've been wounded by a comedian who roasted some people who were in absentia which doesn't work, you can't roast people who aren't in the room and i imagine democrats will take this and rather than react with just dismissively and say we need to get back to real civility in real politics and understanding we have two different visions for the country but we want this country to succeed, they will posture in victimization as well because that is what works. that is what generates enthusiasm and engagement from base voters. and i think at root a lot of our problems today, our dysfunctional politics are that

posturing victimization effect that creates some sympathy for you but shuts down dialogue. >> the victimization has not worked in virginia, didn't work in alabama, it hasn't worked in one special election after another. donald trump's play book has failed time and again. >> except that it's been a bowerful currency on right and left but it's been powerfully deployed by the right and republicans now control all of washington and i'm curious, mark, just the history of that. how is it that the most powerful man in the world, the president, is able to present himself as the embattled victim of reporters? and why does that work for him at least for his own election, for his own politics. >> running against the media is nothing new. give me your feedback, joe, on this, think about the message the republicans have in the fall to get refocused. you've got peace breaking out on the korean peninsula and prosperity in america and if you get focused on that,

unemployment historic lows, consumer confidence historic highs and korea coming together. that's simple. i'd focus on that, frame it up. >> they can't as noah was saying. here you have the republicans who control the house, who control the senate, basically control -- they control the white house, the administration, they control the supreme court 5-4, robert mueller is a republican, rod rosenstein is a republican, the attorney general is a republican. >> deep state. >> the person running the white house -- running the southern district of new york is a trump sist ste ster. you'd have to go back to calvin coolidge to find a washington more controlled and dominated by republicans and instead of saying hey, look, guess what, you put us in charge, you gave us the keys to the car. we have lower unemployment than ever before, we have peace and prosperity. it hasn't been like this since

ike was president. we're going to bring peace to the korean peninsula. >> morning in america. >> it's extraordinary, this is morning in america. they can't do it. they have played the victim for so long now. they're going to take it right over the cliff because they can have an optimistic reagan-like message but they're so busy playing the victim. they're so busy bitching and moaning and about the media and bitching and moaning about the deep state, making up conspiracies where they don't exist, whether it's seth ridge or pizzagate or the deep state when all they have to do, noah, is just look outside at the birds chirping and the sun is rising and people going back to work. we could do the morning in america but they can't do it because they're so busy being such weak snowflakes, such

victims, they hurt us, there's a conspiracy. we control the world but there's a conspiracy. they sere frail. it's ridiculous. if you have the winning touchdown, go to the sideline and celebrate, stop complaining about something that happened in last year's super bowl. >> quit blaming the refs, you're ahead. >> and democrats don't a very good message and they're not very popular and republicans have a lot of control in government and we've seen republican voters are not showing up at the polls for the special elections and it will play out in november and why wouldn't they be? they're being told we control every office in government but we cannot do anything we want because there's this vast conspiracy preventing us from getting the agenda done, why would you turn out to vote? >> what is your message after telling your voters everything is horrible in washington, the deep state controls things, there's nothing we can do, this

is horrible, vote for us. by the way, we control everything. >> here's the victimization, it's the peddling of fear. if you're a victim, how do you get out of that? you peddle fear. that's what we're seeing a lot of in the republican party and this administration. cambridge analytica ceo said it, our currency is fear, we will delve deeper into your fears than anyone else and that is how we win elections. they said it on tape. >> we should point out, joe, at the valley, the same time as the white house rally, the president was saying people are sneaking over the border from mexico to vote in the elections. >> that's the fear element. >> it's a complete lie. >> it's a complete lie. >> david, can i ask you one other thing about the rally? that was the president talking about the korean peninsula and there were these chants of "nobel" and we would love the idea of winning a nobel peace

prize but i was interested reading press from the korean peninsula and korea watches on the korean peninsula in south korea. they were a whole lot more skeptical than the press that i was reading here about the chances of this succeeding. they were saying what was delivered beyond the spectacle of the two guys walking across the border and holding hands was less than they hoped it would be in terms of specifics. that might be where they are but i was struck how different it wa was. >> the stage has been set for a deal people think can't be done. the deal donald trump demanded is north korea give up its nukes. the analogy is to libya which denuclearized. >> i can't believe kim jong-un loves that analogy. >> i can't imagine that he does. we know what happened to moammar ghadafi after he did that ch.

this is progressing toward an extraordinary moment in which donald trump will meet this outlaw leader of north korea and, again, you have to hand it to trump for seizing the moment. i think this set, this scenario has been drawn by kim jong-un. since 2016 he's said what he was going to do and then he did it but trump was there to respond to it against the advice of a lot of people and so i think he's lucky to have john bolton. very hard line national security advisor who is the professional skeptic about north korean claims. watching him on television yesterday on one of thess -- th sundays show, he was very skeptical. so we were worried trump would get hoodwinked.

i'm less worried because i think there is useful skepticism from bolton, from pompeo, from others. the deal that come out of this i think people will insist has to be good and verifiable. >> michael, final thought from you, we've been talking about the impact on washington, d.c., just how big of an impact will this have on michelle wolf's career. how big is that netflix special going to be? because you know in a way just like donald trump speaks to his crowd, she was speaking to a crowd outside the bubble and i have people coming up to me all day yesterday, my kids' baseball practice, all different places i went and they're saying "did you hear that joke about --" and they all had their favorite joke and i was seeing dollar signs over her head going that's going to be a big netflix special. >> the correspondents dinner has always been a launching pad an

opportunity for comedians do make their mark. it's also filled with peril. larry wilmore had a tough time after his performance a couple years ago. no doubt netflix will get bigger numbers for the debut of michelle's show but i don't think she came into this -- she was doing very similar comedy and jokes that she's done in all her appearances onset myers and "the daily show." i think of the scorpion and the frog thing. the correspondents invited in a comedian known for that style of humor and she performed in the style she always does, so i do think it's going put her on the map. she's on the front page of the "post" this morning and -- the executives at netflix will be seeing dollar signs. >> which is what he just said about the scorpion and frog. i said yesterday when people were getting shocked. >> her twitter following doubled overnight. >> there you go. >> michael grynbaum, thank you very much.

robert costa, what are you looking at today? >> one person i was looking at at that dinner was rosenstein sitting two tables away from me. i said to myself, forget about what miss wolf says, what is he going do. and right before she took the stage he left because he knew the cameras were going to come to him so rod rosenstein was there but he didn't stay for wolf's speech. >> bob, thank you. >> smart man. >> mark mckinnon, we'll watch "the circus" on show time. still ahead on "morning joe," michael cohen has seen his name on the front pages with troubling headlines. but for him, this one might be the one of the most concern. what it means now that the "national enquirer" is turning on the president's fixer. what it means on "morning joe." so, that goal you've been saving for, you can do it. we can do this?

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on friday a federal judge grant add 90-day delay in her civil lawsuit against president trump's long-time lawyer michael cohen citing a criminal investigation the attorney is facing. cohen asked for a delay after fbi agents raided his home and office earlier this month. the judge said on friday that the issues in stormy daniels' civil suit overlap with the criminal probe into cohen. meanwhile, the national enchoirer enchoir er -- the "national enquirer" is going after cohen. american media incorporated is run by david pecker who is a friend of president trump and some believe that the two often collude to get national "nation enquirer" front page stories that trump wants so that's probably bad news for michael cohen. joining us now, a pair of former colleagues, mimi rocca and daniel goldman.

they co-wrote an op-ed for the hill entitled "in the cohen case, don't buy the vast government conspiracy defense" and they write "attorney michael cohen has not been charged with a crime but president donald trump and his defenders are so concerned about what incriminating information cohen may give to prosecutors in the southern district of new york that they have begun a campaign to discredit the entire federal criminal justice system. these attacks, however, distort how the system actually works. do not withstand scrutiny and come at the expense of public confidence in our criminal justice process. to say the least, mimi. and let alone michael cohen appears as being hung out to dry. >> absolutely. and this is a common tactic that defense attorneys, savvy defense attorneys do in court when there's a trial and the evidence is strong.

it's one thing to do that in court when defense attorneys do it, it's another thing for the president of the united states to be doing it. his surrogates are doing it, as you pointed out, the "enquirer," alan dershowitz, other people but the president of the united states is med of the government that is this justice system and for his own personal reasons he's willing to completely undermine the confidence and it's frightening. >> it's also short-sighted because you have a judge, kimba woods, who says she has complete confidence in the integrity southern district of new york, the prosecutors. it's one thing if you're attacking cohen and rosenstein, sessions and the fbi. here it's more closely held. you've got kimba woods, the prosecutors and donald trump's -- cohen's defense team. there's not a lot of wiggle room. it seems to me all he's doing is

making a federal judge angry which, by the way, if i did that when i was practicing in northwest florida -- which i would never do because federal judges scare the hell out of me -- i would be pissing off a federal judge. you don't want to do that, whether you're in northwest florida or in the southern district of new york. >> absolutely. it reflects a greater and deeper concern that never existed when we were there, and we were there a combined 26 years. . it was never a situation where we felt like we were doing anything other than specifically what our job was and that was non-partisan and that is literally to follow the evidence and figure it out. >> but what is the upside of making -- maybe things have changed since i practiced law for like two weekends but what is the upside of attacking the

judicial system and making a federal judge angry? >> the only thing i can think of is it's a political play which is to say that -- and i'm not sure that trump is thinking this far out. >> no. >> but let's assume he is. let's assume he's a rational actor for a moment and it's a political play. he's been advised he's likely not going to get charged as a sitting president right now so what is going to play out is there will be a report and it will go to congress and it will be an impeachment issue for congress to deal with at which point it turns political so he's trying to undermine the investigation and the evidence and trying to provide his allies and surrogates in congress with some political cover so that they have a basis on which to attack the information and the evidence that comes out. that's -- it's not a legal play because i don't see -- the legal

system is going to play out. >> so the theory being advanced by alan dershowitz, the president's friend at harvard, is something like this. prosecutors would lie to the judge to get a search warrant, get this evidence and then find terrible things and then threaten cohen with a life sentence. walk us through why this theory doesn't hold up. >> you both touched on this. you really have to buy into this entire conspiracy theory. it's not just michael cohen is a liar, it's the prosecutors are evil and planting evidence. >> didn't he do this with o.j. 20 years something that. >> he's consistent in that at least. >> i'm serious, he did this with o.j. prosecution. >> we're not saying prosecutorial overreach or misconduct never happens. that would be extremely eye yooef and contrary to what's happened in the world but they're here saying it's happening already with no indication it's happening and every indication to the contrary and it's not something that

happens regularly. >> so the prosecutors would have to be in on. >> it the judge, the agents. >> as a matter of law, can the prosecutor say this is the sentence? >> no. there are so many safety checks built into the system and that's the point. they're ignoring all of those, so the judge decides the sentence, the prosecutors don't decide and in a white collar case in particular as we say in the op-ed, the idea that you could manufacture a story like this, you'd have to have started it pretty much like ten years ago. you would have to have started planting the seeds for this so it doesn't make sense. and to take their theory to its logical conclusion, it means really what they're saying is this happens in every case or many cases so we should basically let drug dealers, violent gang members, rapists, we should let them all out of jail because clearly there's

prosecutorial overreach everywhere. >> when and if it comes to the issue of trying to get michael cohen to cooperate, presumably there also has to be substantiating evidence as well. the prosecutor isn't going to go to cohen and say i'm going to give you this deal based on your story. they're going to have a lot of other evidence in order to give him something in return for his cooperation? >> and this is where this theory falls apart. even if you assume the prosecutors are acting improperly and making threats and doing all sorts of improper things to convince michael cohen to cooperate. there are so many checks and balances that happened after that fact so let's say in this hypothetical theory that michael cohen just makes up a story because he's really innocent and everybody else is innocent. in a white collar case you'll have contemporaneous e-mails.

>> which they have. >> you're going to have bank records, you're going to have documents. so in theory if they're innocent he's making up a story of guilt that will be inconsistent with the innocent evidence. that's why it doesn't happen and from the process perspective we would never, ever allow anyone to cooperate if we have not vetted their information and made sure it's truthful, not just that we believe it's truthful, to see other evidence, other witness testimony, other documentary evidence that convinces us it's truthful, then once you have a cooperating witness who you believe, you would never charge nichb based solely on that cooperating witness's testimony. you have to have other corroborating evidence so there are so many different ways that the system ensures that the proper people are being charged. >> and they have volumes of documentary evidence. they have files like this. >> there was already e-mail search warrants on michael cohen's e-mails before the searches. >> you can go through the files and see, it's going to be so

obvious. also, mika, this spiresy theory that anybody who believes that prosecutors in the southern district of new york would go after the president of the united states' attorney without having everything dead to septemberer have no idea how that office or any other prosecutor's office works. do you really want to be the person that crew scrscrewed up national stage and destroy your zpleer th career? that's a rhetorical question. still ahead, house chaplain patrick conroy says he was blindsided when he was ousted by house speaker paul ryan last week. now democrats and republicans alike are pressing for answers. we'll have the latest on that with politico's jake sherman next on "morning joe."

mr. elliot, what's your wifi password? wifi? wifi's ordinary. basic. do i look basic?

nope! which is why i have xfinity xfi. it's super fast and you can control every device in the house. [ child offscreen ] hey! let's basement. and thanks to these xfi pods, the signal reaches down here, too. so sophie, i have an xfi password, and it's "daditude". simple. easy. awesome. xfinity. the future of awesome. speculation continues to mount about why speaker paul ryan asked jesuit priest patrick conroy to resign as chaplain of the house. father conroy and others believe

ryan's motives are political pointing to a prayer he delivered on the house floor in november urging economic equality while lawmakers debated tax overhaul legislation. ryan denied that move was politically motivated, however democrats on friday forced a vote to start an investigation into conroy's firings but the measure ultimately failed. meanwhile, republican congressman and baptist pastor mark walker, one of the three representatives looking for conroy's replacement announced he has left the committee. kwlaek lawmakers became angered after walker suggested the next chaplain should have a family which would include -- exclude catholics from consideration. joining us now, senior writer at politico and co-author of "the play book," jake sherman. jake, why was -- what were the reasons behind the firing? are we very clear on that? >> no, we're not. this is a very bizarre episode,

the kind you could only have happen in washington. but what happened behind the scenes is there were complaints about this chaplain, about father conroy, people thought he wasn't dynamic enough, people were unhappy with him in some pockets of the republican conference, but there was a way to avoid this which paul ryan appeared not to take, they could have let him stay until the end of the year, they're pushing him out in the middle of may, just a couple weeks after he was told he was going to be gone. so paul ryan privately told republicans on friday this was not political, it had nothing to do with his comments about the tax bill. some republican, believe it or not, were angered he let a muslim imam give a prayer in the capital, so that's something else people are talking about. this was botched and handled in a horrible way. i had a republican text me late next week "now we have to find another catholic priest willing to take the job to prove we're not anti-catholic." so just a strange episode. >> so what -- what do you hear

about the republican conference? were there complaints about him allowing a muslim to pray? was it mainly -- how much of a blowback did you hear after the prayer right before the tax bill which actually pretty much lines up with matthew 25 and most all of jesus' words. >> as a former member of the house republican conference you know there's probably complaints about everything at every single time in congress, someone is always upset. there was a perception that father conroy was closer to democrats and his politics were democratic. at the time of that prayer i would be surprised if more than two or three lawmakers knew that prayer happened. very few people listened to the prayer. the chaplain is not an integral part of congress. something somebody who exists, people seek him out if they want to talk to him. some people don't, it's just a

very bizarre episoetd that highlights a certain element of this republican leadership which is they continue to step on it in some instances and a lot of unforced errors. i don't know if this has a political impact. democrats will try and put this front and center. i'm not sure why the firing of a chaplain is going to be the political winner for democrats. >> to so the theories we have is he was too liberal, too pro muslim and wasn't married enough because he's a catholic priest. any other theories that might come up in the next few weeks? >> i don't think so. listen i think they wanted to replace the guy. i don't think he was particularly popular among republicans who control congress and there's not a lot of catholic republicans. there's a lot of evangelicals and they want somebody more closely aligned to them and i think that's the reality in this very strange episode. >> all right, jake sherman, thank you very much. we'll be reading the political play book every morning.

strange, i don't -- there's something way more with to this. >> there are a lot of catholic republicans in the northeast. >> there are not a lot of jesuit republicans. >> a lot of catholics in wisconsin and michigan and pennsylvania and ohio so let's see if they don't get a catholic or whether they'll allow the insult against all catholic priests to hang out there. coming up, the house intelligence committee issued its final report on russia and the 2016 election, clearing the trump administration of any wrongdoing. >> oh, thank goodness. >> but democrats say they're still investigating. we'll talk to congressman jim himes about that. "morning joe" is coming right back. ♪

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mr. elliot, what's your wiwifi?ssword? wifi's ordinary. basic. do i look basic? nope! which is why i have xfinity xfi. it's super fast and you can control every device in the house. [ child offscreen ] hey! let's basement. and thanks to these xfi pods, the signal reaches down here, too. so sophie, i have an xfi password, and it's "daditude". simple. easy. awesome. xfinity. the future of awesome. >> what where -- what are you doing? >> i have a contact lens problem

so i need to wear mine right now. stop. i'm very uncomfortable. >> i'll take them off. i'll be fine. >> put them back on, i'll go blind. >> david, quick question. so you had macron in washington, very touchy feely but at least they planted a tree on the white house lawn that will be with us for generations to come. and that's an endearing -- wait, that's gone. never mind. >> where's the tree? >> the tree's been dug up. >> they cut it down? did trump finally realize what his speech said? >> maybe so. >> and he got mad. >> the tree is gone. but it's in quarantine right now. but let me ask you, david, it's we were talking about how the french are becoming more in the center of affairs in central -- in europe and across the world. macr

macron, he's been speaking to the iranians, he just tweeted a few minutes ago that he's been on the phone talking to and working with vladimir putin trying to get a solution to the iranian deal, making sure the iranians never get a nuclear bomb and making sure that peace comes to syria. talk about this unique position macron finds himself in. >> hand he's going to have the white house correspondents dinner in paris next year. >> the food would be better. >> when macron met with us on wednesday he said he was going to call the iranian president and see if there was some way to negotiate this bigger deal that he pitched to president trump, that it would include new developments and no surprise, he was told over the weekend, no deal. we're not going to rewrite the i ran nuclear agreement to suit

these new conditions where an the other european leaders teresa may and merkel have agreed with macron that they stand by the agreement, that they think by macron's account that trump is going to drop on may 12th. so the stage is set for a couple of weeks of pretty intense bargaining in which trump is saying he's going to withdraw from something and the iranians are not prepared to negotiate. that's just the scenario that macron described to us. trump believes in that very kind of confrontational bargaining and the french want to be there to catch the wobble in these coming weeks but it's fascinating that macron is positioning himself.

the dangerous iran nuclear agreement, this is a dangerous one. >> still ahead, new video coming in of that twin suicide attack in afghanistan overnight. dozens have been killed including nine journalists. we'll have the latest. plus, the president says he's not being played by the leader of north korea but won't see if he's spoken to kim jong un directly. we'll have the developments on their planned summit and more controversy over the white house correspondent's dinner. >> put in some contacts. >> yeah, okay. push the button. and get back to work. with an industry first, carbon-fiber shaft... lawn care has never been this easy... ...or this powerful. the new ego power+ string trimmer with powerload™ technology. exclusively at the home depot and ego authorized dealers.

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welcome to "morning joe." >> stop, we're on the air. >> he put out a tweet a couple of days ago. >> fit right in with yesterday. >> from the lost jedi? >> he was hateful? >> i just suggested that some of the movies joe likes are not the best star wars monday. >> it's monday, april 30th. oh, my gosh, and it doesn't feel like it around here unless you're anywhere else. with us we have political writer for the new york times and analyst washington anchor for bbc world news america whose book account if confidence code for girls" is number one, new york times best seller. >> it was out this weekend. in the sunday paper. it feels good. >> i knew it. who told you?

>> and reading it. >> who told you? >> you told me. okay. it's time. >> associate editor of commentary magazine is with us and david joins us from washington. all right. we begin this morning with breaking news. at least 21 people are dead, 43 others wounded after a double suicide bombing in afghanistan's capital of kabul early this morning. afghan officials say at least seven journalists are among those killed. six are from local networks. one is an ap photographer. authorities also say that the second bombing was intended to hit the people rushing to the scene to help the victims of the first explosion. the attack occurred on the same street as the afghan intelligence agency and nato's afghanistan headquarters and just 500 meter from the u.s. embassy. isis has claimed responsibility.

>> 17 years later, the fighting continues in afghanistan. what is this white house -- what is the pentagon, what are our allies planning to do as we move forward over the next 17 years? >> well, for the moment i'm sure the answer is to stay the course and not panic. but the inability to secure the capitol and these areas of kabul are supposed to be the most secure. these are streets i've walked down. they're extensively checked and yet year after year, it's not possible to keep infiltrators with bombs from coming in. we have fighting this war off and on since 2006 or '7 and if there's anybody that knows the

terrain and the conflict it's him, but he just is struggling with a stealemate. this is a particularly horrible kind of bomb. sometimes referred to as a double tap. where they're trying to get the people who are coming to take care of or report on the first incident. it leads to even worse loss of life. in a day when we're talking about a lot about joumplism. this could happen any day you're there. and they do it faithfully with great professionalism people just remember when they're getting into serious discussions. >> and you know we're going to get to the controversy. >> the big talker over the weekend in a little bit, but

there's actually some news to cover first. and you know, for mika and me at least, that was our thought going into the white house correspondents' dinner. we haven't gone in a while. don't knock those that do go. >> we didn't go this weekend. >> but these are really serious times and people are doing extraordinary work and journalists across the world are in more in danger today than they have been in quite some time and they're doing extraordinary work. so why do you not have an awards show? why don't you just reward the people who are doing the most extraordinary journalism and have an inspiring speech and be done with that? because this is what journalists do. >> yeah, all around the world, 50 journalists were killed around the world last year. some 250 journalists are in

prison for doing their jobs. the number of journalists willing put in prison for fake news is on the rise. and i think you're right. the white house correspondents' dinner ought to be a celebration of those people and the work they do rather than a gazing event where we look at ourselves. and become the headline. because every time we talk about ourselves we're not doing our industry any favor. we should not be con some usumis of news time talking about ourselves. we should be honoring those journal irists around the worldo are giving their lives. >> and the great comedians? >> perform somewhere else. >> perform on netflix. >> i haven't been for years. i'd rather send my saturday okays hanging outs with my kids than going to a work event that

isn't particularly funny. >> we'll get to that conversation in just a moment. we'll talk about that more and there's a little bit of debate but turning now to the korean peninsula. north korean leader kim jong un is vowing to shut down his nation's nuclear test side by the end of may according to moon's office and north korean state media. kim also says that he will open the process up to foreign experts and journalists from south korea and the united states. north korea last used the site during last september's test of a thermo nuclear bomb and reports indicate that the site partially collapsed rendering it unusable going forward. president trump addressed the developments out of the korean

peninsula alongside german chancellor friday and during his rally in michigan on saturday. >> a lot of very positive things happened over the last 24 hours. we're in total touch with both north korea and south korea. we're speaking very much with south korea and with north korea. the relationships are building and building strongly and this will be a great thing for the world. >> i don't think he's playing. no, i don't think he's playing and it's never gone like this. it's never gone this far. i don't think it's ever had this enthusiasm for somebody for them wanting to make a deal and yeah, i agree, the united states has been played beautifully like a fiddle because you had a different kind of a leader. we're not going to be played. okay? we're going to hopefully make a deal. if we don't, that's fine. this isn't like past administrations. we don't play games. >> i'm not going to give you what's going to actually happen because we don't really flow but i tell you one thing, we're not playing games and i remember,

you know, it was very rough three or four months ago. that's very nice, thank you. that's very nice. nobel. i just want to get the job done. i had one of the fake news groups this morning. no no, they were saying what do you think president trump had to do with it? i'll tell you what. like how about everything? >> that just sounded like they were saying nobel. they were actually staying no tell. they were talking about michael cohen and the 5th amendment.

let's go back to the time zone change plan, giving up a site that's partially collapsed. but to suggest this has gone farther than anything else has gone, in terms of negotiating a final agreement that will get the job done is hard to say. of course nobel prizes were handed out for what happened in the 1994 and it ended up that the clinton administration only provided more cover for the regime. do you see anything developing that would suggest an end game that is going to be different? >> these are preliminaries. they're confidence building measures. their initial pass on one's nominating yourself for nobel peace prizes is unusual. i think it's a mistake to minimize the importance of what's happening. >> right.

>> or to say that president trump hasn't had a role in it. he chafes at the idea that he's not been given credit and he does deserve credit for seizing the moment when it arrives. we don't know where that moment is going. i just would stress for viewers that the driving force in this story is this really quite unusual and surprising young north korean leader kim jong un who it was easy to take him less than seriously given the way he looked and acted, but he has had for the last couple of years if you look carefully at his speech and statements an idea that north korea would push to get nuclear weapons and i'm sorry so they they do have nuclear weapons and then would pivot towards negotiations, towards working on its economy. he's done exactly what he said. he laid out a script in a speech on january 1 and he's been following it. i think it's great that

president trump seized that moment and is engaged in and i think he's properly a little skeptical, doesn't know what's going to happen. we now know the right questions to ask, what the traps and the things that might not work out, but you know, let's see and encouragement with the president. >> so up next we'll play you the jokes that set off the twitter debate along with some context of what the president of the united states has been saying latsly. you're watching -- >> also that national enquirer is such a tell. >> yeah, it means donald is trying to get to you. >> you saw it, he certainly used that against ben carson. >> he did it to us. >> remember he did it to michael flynn. >> should someone tell him it's obvious? ? >> all right. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. it'll connect us to everything that's going on in the company.

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there is now a controversy

brewing over the choice of entertainment at this year's white house correspondents dinner over the weekend. most notably the comedian opened a divide over the limits of comedy under a president who rarely hesitates to attack the press. the biggest dividing line surrounded wolf's comments about sarah huckabay sanders. >> graced with sarah's presence tonight. i have to say i'm a little star struck. i love you in and lid yaydia an hand maid's tale. my friends if you haven't seen it you would love it. every time sarah steps up to the podium i get excited because i'm not really sure what we're going to get. you know, a press briefing, a bunch of lies or divided into softball teams. i actually really like sarah.

i think she's very resourceful. like she burns facts and then she uses that ash to create a perfect smoky eye. like maybe she's born with it. maybe it's lies. and i'm never really sure what to call sarah huckabay sanders. is it sarah sanders, is it cousin huckabay is it aunt huckabay sanders like what's uncle tom for white women that burn other white women. >> a lot of other statements as well. many people calling on the white house corps dents' association to apologize. the morning after the dinner. >> it was a great honor to be able to preside over last night's dinner and to represent all the journalists who cover

the white house. my aim and the way i sought to set the program is to build a spirit of unity. my only regret is to those 15 minutes are now defining four hours of what was a really wonderful unifying night. >> also a statement saying quote, the program was offered a unifying message. great reporting and scholarship winners, not to divide people unfortunately. the entertainer's monologue was notds not in the spirit of that mission. president trump tweeted the white house correspondents' dinner was a failure last year but this year was a failure. the filthy comedian totally bombed. couldn't even deliver her lines much like seth meyers' appearance. >> he's obsessed onset meyers.

>> she said she's committed to hearing from its members on the program going forward. >> there is so much we could unwind here, but let's not waste too much time. >> okay. >> charlie summed up one of the biggest dumpster fire days in twitter history yesterday when he said -- and it's the only thing i tweeted other than being very excited about the homeland's finale started. left wing twitter sounds a lot like right wing twitter today and vice versa. the lack of self-awareness is jarring. >> yeah, so i was on vacation last week. i deleted my twitter app from my fun. i turned it on on sunday because i have to -- >> oh, no. >> it was like walking into a bar fight. i had no idea what everybody was saying. why everybody was at each other's throats. >> breaking chairs over each other's heads. >> imagine -- i kind of feel

like that's what people who don't saturate themselves in the news cycle feel like. we might overinflate this. so i'm not a huge fan of judging comedy from the stands it's a tough room. it's art and i don't really like judging art like that. the white house correspondents' dinner. the dinner on the other hand has been a problem for the ips tugs of jaurnlism for years. it wasn't recognized under the obama administration. now it's overtly hostile and it demonstrates the biases that are inherit. >> and hypocrisy. >> coming up on "morning joe," senator john tester already has a tough election this fall and the president is trying to make it even tougher.

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truly high quality human being and what they said about him, what they said about this great american doctor ronny jackson, this is a high quality individual like they would love in montana, and tester started throwing out things that he's heard. well, i know things about tester that i could say too. and if i said them, he'd never be elected again. >> you know the one thing we've learned about you mr. president at this point, if you knew something about john tester that would finish his career, you would have said it 15 days ago. >> blurt it right out. >> president trump spent part of his weekend continuing his attacks on a senator.

i do not understand those allegations though at the same time. on saturday the president sent out a series of tweets aimed at the senator. the top democrat on the veterans affairs committee, trump claimed that the secret service told him that accusations made against jackson are not true. saying that tester should resign and later adding that he should lose his race because of his claims. on friday the secret service did issue a statement denying the details of a published report that agents had intervened on an overseas trip from bothering then president barack obama and bloomberg saying they found no evidence that jackson had been in any car accident after drinking. among the allegations in the document tester released was that jackson had crashed a government vehicle after getting drunk at a secret service going

away party. >> all right. so nick, we're -- we're going to sort through this for some time. but it is interesting that the republicans on the committee and the chairman of that committee is backing -- is still backing tester and an awful lot of republicans didn't want jackson anywhere near the va. >> correct. and also i should point out that sources for the new york times reporting on jackson some of the anecdotes you heard where in fact gop side on the hill. urging the times to go with some of these anecdotes and specifics. i do think we' ear going to get more of the story but it is not a partisan hit job at all. >> jim comey calls the house intel committee a wreck. many of its members might agree with that assessment. we're joined by jim heims.

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explore cost support options for tremfya®. just moments ago the president again criticized the white house correspondents' dinner on twitter saying quote, dead as we know it. he adds, this was a total disaster and an embarrassment to our great country and all that it stands for. fake news is alive add well and butte fliz represented on saturday night. the president of course is deep in irony there talking about all the lies he told actually in his speech in michigan. quite a few that we'll get you caught up on later. let's bring in it is a commentary convention. editor of the new york post and the weekly standard, john, i brought you on here originally because i followed some of your tweets. you were brave enough to stand

in the sewer a couple of hours yesterday. that was the worst. that was twitter at its worst. >> it was twitter at its worst and what strikes me about this controversy about this dinner, i went to this dinner going on 20 years. i haven't been in a long time so it's total misunderstanding of what it is. it's an annual industry dinner. so if you had a neurologists' convention in washington and there was a comedian who came on who was like you guys are killing people on operating tables all over the place, my god, what's the matter with you people? malpractice insurance rates should be up tenfold. it's not a roast. it's supposed to be a sort of thing where oh, we get together once a year and we're usually rivals but we're going to have a nice evening together and anybody who challenges that approach, the audience gets

rattled and upset and people get all angry because it's supposed to be nice. it's supposed the one evening that's nice. >> and the funny thing is everybody said if you -- if you're critical at all of having a comedian at the end, that actually does, which she does. i'm not critical of her at all, but you have some people commentating that you are somehow helping along the fascist regime. people called mika a nazi yesterday. seriously? we're talking about a roast. >> right. >> but it's not a roast. like i went for years before it became this thing where everybody in show business came. i remember it was a get if your organization could have the secretary of commerce. oh, you're going to host the secretary of commerce at your table? and then clinton came in and suddenly you had to have a movie star or your table stank. it was like this boring dinner

and now you have this weird thing where if the comedian doesn't assault the -- it's okay to assault the president by the way. it's really that question of she's sitting there -- sarah sanders is sitting there three day seats away and she's being insulted by michelle wolf and it puts -- you feel -- it's cringing to me because it's like, what is she supposed to do? now comedians, if you go to a roast everybody on the deal is comedians. they get their licks, they get jokes about them but sarah sanders could only sit there and try to hold her expression. i'm no fan of sarah sanders but socially it's like why are you doing this to her for? >> we have talked all the time, mika even asks reporters why do you go to sarah sanders' press conference because she lies. don't enable the lying and yet there are better ways to handle it. >> she's sitting there like -- >> exactly.

>> and cameras are on there and anything that she does, any move, any eyebrow she raises becomes a news story and you just -- it's like -- i remember somebody saying the other day it's like this is the ratings are going to be -- you know, everybody watching, no one's watching. you know? >> nobody cares. >> no one's watching. we care. there's like 5,000 people on twitter who care a lot and a lot of people are knowing because you're talking about it and all of this, but in four days nobody's going to remember any of this. >> yeah. would you like to comment? give us some commentary on what the editor of commentary said? >> just agree. >> agree. >> really excellent. >> this is a time for me to say very wise. i will add though that the al smith dinner has a different character to it. it is a roast and the president is usually a participant and often his opponent is a participant in an election year and it has a very different feel

to it and think that is much more the venue in which we're going to have the light heartedness that can turn to politics. >> and probably not having any cameras would be a good idea. you have to have the commpoliti opposition as well. >> there are new developments involving the russia investigation. in an interview, the russian lawyer who met with trump campaign officials in 2016 is backtracking on her earlier denials of having ties with the kremlin. she acknowledged she was a source of information from a top kremlin official and not merely a private attorney. meanwhile, after a year long investigation, republicans on the house intelligence committee have released a final full report saying they found no

evidence of collusion between the trump campaign and russia. democrats on the committee argue the 253 page report only shows the lengths to which leaders went to shield president trump from scrutiny. they argue they failed to interview key witnesses or issue subpoenas for necessary information. trump responded to the news on friday and seized on the republican findings. >> it was a great report. no collusion, which i knew anyway, no coordination, no nothing. it's a witch hunt that's all it is. there was no collusion with russia. if you can believe this one. there was -- she probably can't believe it. who can? but the report was very powerful, very strong. no collusion between the trump campaign and the russian people. as i've said many times before i've always said there was no collusion but i've also said there has been nobody tougher on

russia than me. with that all being said if we can get along with russia that's a good thing. i was very honored by the report. it was totally conclusive, strong, powerful. >> i'm just curious if you believe it proves what the president says it proves. he says there's no evidence that the campaign coordinated with hush sha and it was a big hoax based on payments and lies. >> that is not my understanding of what the facts were before i left the fbi and i think the most important piece of work is the one the special counsel is doing now. this strikes me as a political document. >> did the house intelligence committee at all serve a good investigative purpose during all this in your observations? >> not that i can see. >> just totally got too split sized? >> yeah, and it wrecked the committee. the intelligence communities, it was just a wreck. >> more fake news from donald

trump when he was talking because of course, he says it's a witch hunt. so far 13 russian witches i think have been indicted, five witches are turning state's evidence or maybe four turning state's evidence against the president. another witch right now is going to trial who was his campaign manager, so this again, one of my favorite tweets of the past couple years is sometimes when you go on a witch hunt, you find wimps and the witches. >> and jim heims of tarrant county -- connecticut. >> can you defend the weather in connecticut? rain and cold into late april? >> beautiful up here this morning, joe. by the time you get home it will be warm and sunny. >> yeah, whatever, i don't believe you. >> so let's talk about how funny

is it that the house -- not funny, but unintentionally funny that republicans released this sham report. they say there's absolutely no evidence of collusion. they closed the door on it. no evidence of russian influence whatsoever. and then soon after that you have richard engel interviewing a russian lawyer who said yes, actually i was working with an agent of the kremlin when i went to talk to don jr. and the gang. >> well, i mean, it shows the absurdity of nunes brings the investigation to an end way early. and most importantly from the standpoint of the investigation, before we followed up on the most rudimentary of leads and pushed back on a number of the president's key people who refused to answer questions. this is a big part of the story that has not been told. the people closest to the

president, hope hicks, lewandowsk came into the congress and said we're asserting executive privilege not just for a number of narrow conversations we had with the president which is traditionally how it would be asserted but with everything that was said not during when he was president but during the transition. but there's the three key people thumbing their noses at congress and congress should have pushed back on that. >> can you run the time line for me because speaking to former members of your committee they that i had this was a committee that managed to put politics aside and people did act in the best interest of national security. can you pinpoint the moment during the course of last year which that bipartisanship on your commit ttee disappeared.

>> it's always been the one committee where people find agreement across party lines. it's a huge job overseeing an $80 billion intelligence community and i can pinpoint the exact moment. it was the moment in the open hearing in front of my committee about a year ago when jim comey said the department of justice has authorized me to publicly disclose that there is an investigation into the possibility of collusion between trump, trump campaign and russia. in that moment you can -- i mean, metaphorically you can imagine the white house catching fire and you can imagine very shortly thereafter people in the white house calling the chairman of the committee and saying hey, you've been a friend, you've been around and now you did this to us and i think that conversation, which you know, i was not privy to was the moment when all of a sudden the intelligence committee became a mechanism for the defense of the white house, the president and his campaign. >> congressman, there are i think twoish issues that you can separate leer. one is the behavior of the trump

campaign and then the other is the president himself. so while we have all sorts of evidence that there were officials on the campaign who were playing footsy with russian officials and trying to get things out of russia and get things for themselves, did you see any evidence during this year long investigation that the president himself was in any way involved in this? because that's the ultimate question here. right? it's the campaign that's bad news if a political campaign that elected a president was colluding with russia, but the real question is, what the -- whether the president was involved himself in any way in all of these hi jinx. >> that's a really good question because i think when the president says now the president doesn't have a particularly high standard for truth but when he says there's no collusion i think he's thinking what you just said.

i never sat down with vladimir putin and signed a contract that in exchange for releasing the e-mails we're going to get you 200,000 votes in ohio and michig michigan. nobody would do that. the russians certainly wouldn't do that. the russians would do exactly what they did. they would have people sending out feelers. you showed the clip earlier, a lot of people sending out feelers to people like don jr., which happened, to people like flynn and others, carter paige, they would do it much more subtly. so americans expecting some hollywood block buster ending that has vladimir putin and donald trump signing an oath, that's not going to be the outcome here. >> all right. live from a stunning vista actually overlooking the south tracks at stanford's metro north station. thank you so much for being

here. >> this is one of the finest interstates in the country. >> one of the finest interstates in the country. >> if it had four more lanes. >> by finest you mean most congested. thanks so much. >> you get to see stanford. >> all right. john, stay with us. >> i'm going to ask you also because i think i saw you tweeting about the avengers. i took my kids to go see this on friday. >> all right. up next, the trump administration is suing to block aths@frblock at&t from merging with time warner. we'll dig into that ahead on "morning joe." your sorry not sorry thing. your out with the old in with the new, onto bigger and better thing. get the live tv you love. no bulky hardware. no satellite. no annual contract. try directv now for $10/mo for 3 months.

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>> the first rule of diplomacy is the fact that it's a consensus and the sanctions are here to stay. the americans and the british will never live them which means that if we want the people of iraq to survive we have to keep it running even with all its wars and flaws. the second rule is to keep your mouth shut and listen and then if it suits you can talk with discretion. always keeping your cards close to your vest. >> that was a scene from the new movie back stabbing for beginne beginners. we're join ud now along with on of the film's stars.

good to have you both on board. >> so remind people. >> our intentions were good in the sentence that we were trying to feed the people of iraq even though we are ourselves were keeping them on their sanctions because saddam had managed to stay in power after the first gulf war. so it was an unfinished war and we had to find a way to get medicine and food and many other commodity to the civilians of iraq. the program was gamed by saddam in cooperation with over 2,000 international companies. many western governments were involved and the corruption was just too easy. we were using other people's money. >> i was going to ask what the most compelling part of the movie was for you. then i saw you getting to act with ben kingsley, that must

have been remarkable. >> yeah, that helps. >> inspiring a little bit? >> yeah. >> that doesn't suck. >> it's true. he plays a real character. he was the undersecretary general of the u.n. >> a very evil character. right? >> yeah, i mean, evil in the sense that he was -- he -- he thought that for the greater good a small bit of corruption is manageable. right? and that's the moral question of the movie as well. for the greater good do you make these small, you know, injustices here and there. but he has as an actor a great chr craze charisma. he's not a bad guy. and they kind of love and respect each other but at the end of the day the moral question is essentially that. do you keep being corrupt -- >> and you were talking about shades of gray.

micha michael's like well --? >> evil was actually a bit strong. >> well, he was likable. i mean, that was a strange thing. >> he's a complicated character. >> he waslikable. the strange thing is of course you accept a little bit of corruption and in the end it turns out you become corrupt yourself. when i called for an investigation of this, which ended up becoming the largest investigation that had ever occurred at the u.n., and which found more corruption than any ever before on the world stage, i did not know that the actual person i had worked for had also taken money. that got revealed by paul volcker later. so it was quite dramatic to realize when i was just trying to help the system that i ended up as a sort of whistleblower situation. >> did the world learn anything from the controversy around the oil for food program? are we still seeing this kind of

corruption around the world? >> the corruption that happened under oil for food happens every day. what we learned is the actual mechanism. we know precisely how it works. which means that it's always a political decision to go after corruption. and the problem we face in dealing with the developing world and the very unstable middle east which, remember, the arab spring began as a revolt against cocorruption. >> right. >> an entire region that looks at us as being in cahoots. >> you can see the film "back stabbing for beginners" streaming on directv as well as on demand and in theaters. we'll be back in a moment. dark magic told in the time it takes to brew your cup. first, we head to vermont. and go to our coffee shop. and meet dave. hey. why is dark magic so spell-bindingly good, he asks? let me show you. let's go.

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which allows them to take advantage of growth opportunities in up markets, while maintaining a level of protection in down markets. so they can focus on new things like exotic snacks. talk with your advisor about shield annuities from brighthouse financial- established by metlife. a number of mergers this morning including t mobile and sprint joining forces. cnbc's dominic chu. is this one going to go through? what's at&t one looking like? >> you're talking about america's third and fourth biggest cellular phone companies. it's a $26 billion deal. the combined company is going to keep the t mobile name. it solidifies t mobile/sprint together as the number three

player in u.s. wireless. the only guys bigger are verizon and at&t. if it happens, because like you said, this proposed merger is going to be facing a lot of regulatory scrutiny as the government tries to figure out if it's going to harm competition. we know at&t is having a hard time with the time warner and they're not even related businesses. marathon petroleum is going to buy andeavor. it will make america's biggest independent oil and gas refiner in terms of overall capacity. it brings together marathon's oil stations and stations, speedways. so those folks in the western u.s. know that gasoline brand. the last one is a cross borderish-type deal. it's grocery store chain anbury.

asda is owned by walmart, which means if this deal closes, walmart's going to own a 42% stake in the biggest grocery store chain in the united kingdom. so certainly a lot of big deals. >> cnbc's dominic cheu, thank you. >> if you take all of those mergers, add up all the money, it wouldn't be half of what the avengers made. opening. >> the biggest opening in the history of the world. until, you know, six months from now when they'll be something else that has the biggest -- >> that just looks horrible. >> what do you think? >> i was shockingly engaged by it. i really liked it. my thing about the superhero movies is when they start fighting and battling and, you know, hitting each other with hammers and stuff, that i find boring. it's the interactions between these characters, if you like them, and, you know, these

movies are superbly cast, that's one of the reasons that marvel has done so well with its movies and d.c. has done badly with its. we were talking about there are bits in this movie between christopher plat from "guardians of the galaxy" and chris hemsworth as thor that are funny, like laugh out loud funny. >> did you see it? >> i don't get it. >> my wife adores these movies. and i just -- particularly the avenger series. i'm just suffocating under cast members. there are just too many people for me to keep track of -- >> poor noah. >> faces -- yes, i know. >> noah. >> like individual super hero movies, i can handle it but the ensemble is too much. >> they do a really good job of separating them out, putting them in different places and teaming them up. >> he's so right, so smart. john is --

>> he is always right only when he's a -- he's a little -- he needs to be developed, his thoughts -- >> no, you didn't say that, no. >> all right. all right, mika, mika, final thoughts, what are your five thoughts? >> i think it's time for the media to forget about the correspondents dinner for a while and not talk about it anymore. because we're not going to agree. and maybe that was one of the things that we should respect that came out of the performance that was so controversial. >> next year, you know, do it as an award dinner to journalists who are doing a good job. and try and use it to get the public's trust back again, not destroy the public's trust. >> nick. >> i kind of wish people would stop talking about the nobel peace prize because i really wish donald trump would be not committed to a deal on the korean peninsula. he needs to be able to walk away. >> of course i said nick, i meant noah. >> i always do that. >> it's okay. >> john. >> so i think what they need to do is do what they did when things got too controversial in

the bush years and do things and book people like rich little. you need a low-rent, unfunny but totally banal comedian. >> that is an awfully tough indictment on rich little. i grew up loving rich little. >> that does it for us this morning. >> we like you, rich little. >> stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage. >> i'm stephanie ruhle. a lot to cover. starting with the path to peace. north korea vows to clear its nuclear test site within weeks and president trump supporters know exactly who deserves the credit. but while that crowd celebrates, his national security team is doing his best to reel in expectations. >> it appears to have given us this real opportunity for something that would be transformative for the world if we can achieve it. >> may day, exemptions on ste