or my doctor will be fired. >> he wrote the medical report himself. you know that. >> yeah. >> he wrote it himself. >> that's kind of awkward. >> who saw that coming? >> no one saw that coming. >> it's like marcus welby. >> like a lot of people back in 2015, jimmy kimmel wasn't kind of sure what medical letter we'd be getting from donald trump's doctor. fast-forward three years and that doctor now says trump wrote the report himself. >> he also says the president's bodyguard raided his office after revealing that he prescribed a hair loss drug for the commander-in-chief. >> you send your bodyguard in to raid the office just because you have male pattern baldness? >> and how about the white house

saying it was standard operating procedure. this is the transfer of medical information from one office to the other. no, no, it's not usually how it works. >> kicking down the doors. >> special insurance plan. >> good morning. everyone, it's wednesday, may 2nd, around the table we have msnbc contributor mike barnicle, president of the council on foreign relations and author of the book "a world in disarray" richard haas. >> really disciplined about those. >> and we're happy to have with us former director of the c.i.a. and the nsa, now a principal at the chertoff group, retired general michael v. hayden the author of the book "the assault on intelligence: american national security in an age of lies." which we'll be talking about a lot this hour and it's great to have you on. >> it's great to have you here. where do we begin this morning? there's a lot to get to.

including the -- >> happy birthday, mika. >> i'm 51. that's like weird. a weird age. >> i was 51 about eight years ago. i had acne. i wonder what the doctor would say about that. >> our top story this morning, deputy attorney general rod rosenstein says the department of justice will not be intimidated. amid reports that house republicans allied with the president had drafted articles of impeachment against him. related to document requests about the russia and clinton email probes. rosenstein said yesterday that people in his department would be guided by the law, not political pressure. >> any reaction to the news that certain members of the house freedom caucus have talked about drafting up articles of impeachment despite your best

efforts to comply with their document request? >> they can't even resist leaking their own drafts. there have been people who have been making threats, privately and publicly against me. for quite some time. and i think they should understand by now, that the department of justice is not going to be extorted. we're going to do what's required by the rule of law and any kind of threats that anybody makes, are not going to affect the way we do our job. we have a responsibility and we take an oath. that's the whole point. when you take these jobs you need to be appointed by the president and confirmed by the senate and that actually is a pretty thorough process and then you raise your right hand and you swear an oath to support and defend the constitution of the united states against all enemies, foreign and domestic. you process to bear true faith and allegiance to the same and you take that obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, so help me god and that's your responsibility. everybody in the department takes that oath.

we have 115,000 employees and if they violate it they're going to be held accountable and i know those folks know i'm not going to violate my oath. >> all right. >> we've got a contrast there, between man who has dedicated his entire life to the rule of law and upholding the constitution, and stooges who couldn't stand donald trump, just two years ago, who are now ready to trash the constitution of the united states and subvert the rule of law, just so a guy who is in the white house, who may not be there two years from now, looks favorably upon them. they don't compare favorably to rod rosenstein. >> i think rosenstein has not been the guy the white house hoped he'd be, which is to say a loyal person in the justice department. remember, he signed off personally on the raid on michael cohen's apartment, his hotel room and his office a couple of weeks ago, that infuriated the president. ratcheted up the president's attacks on rosenstein.

now you're seeing more of it from house republicans. you should watch that entire, that entire event yesterday. rod rosenstein gave an incredible defense of the constitution, of the rule of law. the separation of powers. and -- it's pretty powerful. >> what stooges don't realize and they are stooges, maybe they're stupid, maybe they're just ignorant, but they don't realize that maybe they're corrupt. maybe they're trying to cover up the president's misdeeds. but what they don't, some may not understand, mike, is that rod rosenstein, yes, he approved the review of the records of michael cohen. but you talk to anybody that's worked at the southern district of new york, they will tell you -- they would not have gone after that. and a judge would never have approved it. if there wasn't a crime that was highly likely to have occurred. >> joors, if you watch the

entire interview it becomes clear that mark meadows and jim jordan. two members of the house freedom caucus, this investigation, the roots of this investigation, it's clear from listening to deputy rosenstein during the interview, the roots of this investigation have to do with a foreign state -- russia. attacking the american political process. inflicting damage in our democracy. what meadows and jordan are doing with their antics is nothing less than trying to obstruct or impede an ongoing investigation. that's it. >> anybody who is trying to obstruct this investigation, so we can find out what happened in 2016, are nothing less than useful idiots. i will give these useful idiots, though, some credit. at least the republican party has been consistent in their attacks on rod rosenstein if they had praised him in the past, and said that he was a man of integrity, if the white house

had let's say sarah huckabee sanders had put herself out on the line and said rod rosenstein was a man of integrity -- like if they had done that, then maybe you could attack them for hypocrisy. but at least they have been consistent. this is what republicans had to say about rodenstein just a few months ago. and if you believe anything that i just said about them being consistent, you haven't watched much of this show. >> rosenstein has earned so much bipartisan support to serve as the deputy ag that the judiciary committee reported at his nomination with all but one member. >> mr. rosenstein you have served in the department of justice for a couple of decades now and you've developed a distinguished career marked by integrity and fairness. >> rod rosenstein, who everybody across the board has unequivocally said this guy is a

man of upstanding character and essentially the gold standard of the department of justice. >> he is a man of extraordinary independence and integrity. and a reputation in both political parties, of, of, of great character. >> rod rosenstein was confirmed by this body, by a vote of 94-6. that's probably the only trump nomination so far since he's been president, that has enjoyed such broad bipartisan support, because of his distinguished record. >> i think there's complete confidence in him. and another reason, frankly, for director comey to be out of the way so that they can have somebody leading this effort that everybody across the board has respect and confidence in. >> everybody has respect and confidence in. >> it seems pretty clear, unequivocal. and i -- >> i don't understand what happened. >> i worry.

>> richard, what happened? >> that was a civics lesson, why you need a deep state. it's why you need people whose commitment is not to the person, but is to the process and the law. you would want every high school kid in america to watch that. you know good for him. that's just what this country needs. and that's kind of who we are. that's our dna. that was actually a really good moment. >> and yet, general, you have a president who has been at war with not only the fbi, but also the c.i.a., also the intelligence community from the very beginning. and you have republicans, i can tell you, the republican party of my youth, was the republican party that would strike out against democrats, when they tried to undermine the c.i.a. hell, forget the republican party of my youth, the republican party of -- the time when you were running the c.i.a., and before you were running the c.i.a., and after 9/11, we were the ones that understood the importance of an

independent intel community. but how that has changed. since this life-long democrat from queens, donald trump, became president of the united states. >> so to summarize, this is really weird. because the normal constitutional breaks on excessive executive authority come from the congress. that's not happening. the breaks on executive authority today are coming from within the executive branch, by the folks richard that you just farcically describe as the deep state, career professionals governed by the rule of law. but it gets weirder, now the president enlisting his ailing lies in the other branch in the congress, the one that should be limiting him, in order to limit the agencies and departments that work under him. >> and what's the impact of that? because you certainly look at the first 14, 15 months and

there's so many worrying signs. but the federal courts have pushed back against his abusive, autocratic tendencies, you've seen the press push back against his abusive, autocratic demagoguic tendencies, you see the fbi, rod rosenstein, what a hero of the constitution, christopher wray. mike pompeo, a few weeks back when he was testifying, spoke truth to power. all, dan coates, all of them did. are you, are you heartened by the fact that there have been some players in positions of authority that have pushed back against the abuses? >> absolutely. and that's the good news story, the song you hear on the other end of the acello line are the institutions digging back, pushing back against executive authority and that's been fairly widespread. that said, though, those institutions, and this is how i get off-stage with the book, the

serious thing here is not the immediate, but the long-term. both serious, but i concern myself with the long tern-term, we are eroding institutions, undercutting public confidence in institutions, we are certainly going to need these institutions again. and now tle will be wounded for the longest time. one other thing i need to point out. in pushing back those institutions, my tribe, the intel guys, yours, journalism, the fbi. we have to be careful in pushing back against a norm-busting administration that we don't violate our own norms. in doing that. because if we do, we only add to the destruction of our institutions. >> that everybody doesn't push back too hard. >> that's the real challenge. >> that's what mika has been concerned about for some time. i want to really quickly, when you were on last time, you were talking about quote deep state and you know all the trump

people were, when donald trump was obviously knew about the secret russian meetings and don junior's office, but the rest of us didn't know about it. he knew he had a lot to hide. so he started attacking the obama c.i.a., et cetera, et cetera. and you talked about the lack of turnover between the bush administration and the obama administration and the trump administration. that this isn't some secretive deep state, that these are just career professionals, that have grown up and said hey, you know what, i'm going to devote my life to defending and protecting the constitution of the united states. i don't care who the president is. >> well that's right. the only one who really swapped out was mike pompeo coming in and mike got to choose his deputy, gina, who i hope will be the next director. gina was career nsa, that's not bringing in people from the outside. bringing in people from the campaign. you need somebody who knows how the plumbing works, just like i did.

i picked someone from the inside too. >> with the u.s. system, every president comes in and he gets a chance to appoint about 4,000 people. across the executive branch. but there's hundreds of thousands of people who he inherits or one day she will inherit and that is the uniqueness of the american system. it's this combination of political outsiders hopefully with fresh ideas, with an agenda that the american people just voted for. the career professionals who offer continuity, who have historical memory. who know how to make things work. who can say we tried that two years ago, it didn't work for this reason, you should know that. what we're seeing is what happens when the relationship breaks down. new reports this morning that say in a meeting earlier this year, special counsel robert mueller reminded president trump's legal team that he has the power to subpoena testimony from the president. after they suggested the president could refuse an interview with investigators looking into possible obstruction of justice in russian meddling in the 2016 election.

president trump's former attorney, john dowd, tolded "associated press" that mueller's prosecutors broached the subject during a meeting with trump's legal team. the "washington post" was first to describe the tense meeting that took place on march 5, in which trump lawyers insisted he had no obligation to talk with federal investigators, according to four people familiar with the encounter. but mueller responded that he had another option, if trump declined, he could issue a subpoena for the president to appear before a grand jury. trump's then-attorney john dowd replied, this isn't some game. >> he actually should be telling that or he should have been telling that to his client. he said that according to two people with knowledge of his comments, you are screwing with the work of the president of the united states. dowd quit trump's legal team two and a half weeks later. reportedly over disagreements on strategy. and interview negotiations with

mueller were derailed by the raid on michael cohen's offices three weeks ago, which rudy giuliani says the president is resisting. >> and willie of course now since dowd has left, the president has gone to the washington law firm of larry, moe and curly, that's his new legal team. >> he's got giuliani, too. >> of counsel. >> exactly. and then yesterday president trump slammed the release of potential questions we told you about yesterday. the ones robert mueller would have for the president. >> willie, who would have done that? >> let's find out. >> because mueller had so much discipline and he didn't leak out these reports. >> it might have come from the other side. perhaps "the new york times" publishing those questions said to come from the president's lawyers' notes. trump tweeted so disgraceful that the questions concerning the russian witch hunt were leaked to the media. huh? but this morning no reporting suggests president trump was criticizing notes that came from his own legal team.

et tu, jay? >> in march mueller's team agreed to provide the president's lawyers with more specific information about the subjects prosecutors wished to discuss with the preds. according to three sources, trump lawyer jay sekulow compiled a list of 49 questions that the team believed the president would be asked. so everything in the tweet the president put out yesterday, almost everything was incorrect. mainly that it would have been leaked from the mueller side. that it was a witch hunt. quite clearly these questions came from president trump's own legal team or someone very close to it. >> he needs to talk to his own lawyers. which something you could have said over the past six months. >> a couple of things are clearly apparent from the leak of these supposed questions. they're not really questions. they're topics. and 49 different topics, is that's going to be an extensive interview if he ever did indeed sit with bob mueller's team, which he probably won't. but one thing seems to be for

certain now. this investigation is going to drag out for months and months and months, because the president is not going to sit for this interview. he'd be crazy to sit for this interview. >> mueller will subpoena him. >> and then it will go to court. >> as i've said all along, it's sort of the kurt flood rule. you don't want the supreme court to start handing down one decision after another decision after another decision against you. because that final decision they're going to hand down will be that the president of the united states can be indicted. it will start with the subpoena. and then maybe it will move on to a discovery issue. and then finally, the supreme court will decide, that no man is above the law. >> we've talked, general, we're going to talk a lot more about your book next segment. we've talked about push-back from, from people who swore an oath to the constitution. against the constitutional abuses and abnormalities.

but the courts are a shining example from the very beginning, when donald trump attacked a republican judge, i believe appointed by george w. bush, who made an early ruling on one of his muslim bans. and you had gorsuch criticizing him for that and i knew a lot of conservative federal judges, voicing real anger that the president of the united states was as ignorant about the constitution as he was. >> thats with a a moment for me. you mentioned the muslim ban. the first one out of the gate. and it truly did have the blood line back to the campaign about they hate us, they all hate us, we shouldn't let them in the country. a lot of folks like me wrote and eventually joined friend of the court briefs, opposing the ban itself. but the courts jumped in and stopped it.

because it was so much not based on an objective threat. and so much based on the red meat of the campaign. it was really remarkable. richard is a creature of the executive branch. this is an area of the constitution, gives the president great authority. and awful lot of running room. and even here, the court said, not so fast. >> wow. still ahead an "morning joe," hold that thought, mike barnicle -- >> it's mika's birthday. >> stop. general hayden takes us through his book, including his take on the trump tower meeting when the future president's campaign team hosted a group of russians promising dirt on hillary clinton. >> and that lawyer, mika, a lot closer to the kremlin. >> goodness. than any of us expected. >> donald trump actually said that this meeting was about adoption. >> aw. such a nice issue?

>> why is vladimir putin sending one of his kremlin agents over to talk -- do you think they want to adopt a child? >> always possible. >> it is always possible. >> humanitarian. plus mike pence praises joe arpaio as a tireless champion to the rule of law. the same joe arpaio who faced jail time for criminal contempt conviction before being pardoned by president trump. thank you, mr. vice president. >> way to hurt yourself with conservatives, look on twitter. mr. vice president. first here's bill karins with a check on the forecast. bill. >> bill, it's not, it's not 38 and raining, finally. >> finally. that was going to be 90 and sunny. so, yes. >> that's just too hot. no, it's not, we're good. >> we're fine with jumping straight to summer after the april we just got done with. with the warm weather on the east coast, the middle of the country is dealing with severe

storms, yesterday we had 18 tornado reports, kansas and nebraska, thankfully tle were all like this one. out in the open fields, no deaths or injuries, we made it through the first of what's going to be a three-day outbreak in the middle of the country. what's left from the storms of last night traveling through missouri and wisconsin, not severe. throughout the day today this is when we watch the chance of severe storms returning. 30 million people at risk of severe storms, greatest risk is in the area of orange, especially in this area of red through the heart of tornado alley. where you expect it to be in the peak month of the tornado season. wichita, and those storms going to roll through st. yoe self into kansas city. on thursday, same areas. 29 people at risk, kansas city up to des moines and ames. >> and d.c. today, 89 degrees and sunny, low humidity. new york, 86. and in boston, warmest day since the end of last summer with

sunny and 86 degrees, a lot of us waited a long time for this warmth in the northeast to get out and enjoy it today. you're watching "morning joe." ♪ come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away. ♪ ♪ come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away. ♪ no matter how much you clean, does your house still smell stuffy? that's because your home is filled

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so sophie, i have an xfi password, and it's "daditude". simple. easy. awesome. xfinity. the future of awesome. welcome back. we're here now to talk more about general hayden's book, which really cuts to the core of the problem right now with this presidency. it's "the assault on intelligence: american national security in an age of lies." and that's the bottom line. which is breaking down, really, our national security. >> let's start at 30,000 feet. where are we right now? >> i come at it with kind of a three-layered problem. the number one is cultural. that's the biggest one. it's us. the book's about us and our political discourse or lack of discourse, our distrust. that's anchored also on the lack of truth, post-truth world, oxford dictionary definition,

decision-making based upon feeling and preference, rather than objectionable reality and we've gone to our corner, we've pledged allegiance to our tribes and data doesn't matter much. the second layer, the presidency, who quite intelligently saw it, exploited it and now in office use it is and frankly, i think worsens it. you don't hear fact-based arguments, you don't hear data-rich answers to questions from the president. what you get is an appeal to base, an appeal to emotion and identification of the other, the bad other, the ones responsible for your problems. that's the second layer. now the third layer is you've got the russians coming through the perimeter wire. and seeing phase 1, phase 2. and now they're manipulating both for their own advantage. fundamentally, to make us disabled, distracted and not meaningful player in places where they want to go and play. >> exploiting our divisions. >> exactly and that's important. somebody might know a little bit about covert influence, which is the technical name for what the

russians are doing. and an iron law of physics is don't create fractures, you can't do it. what you do is identify fractures and exploit them. a line i use is, the russians tried the same stuff in norway. it's not taking, because the norwegian society isn't in the same state as american society. >> it starts with trump and ends with him. what about the people around him, are you at all surprised at how that is, how that's going at this point? >> so we're all heartened by the caliber of the team he brought in. it's a pretty good team. and then the question would be, how much would that team be connected to actual decision-making? and i think that's the dynamic that's played out over the last year. and that has been at best, intermittent and then members of the team have dropped off, have suffered reputational harm because they've just been in the flying pattern so to speak of so

many things that is happened and now i've seen a movement, and this concerns me a bit, that the president is making decisions more in isolation. and those most closely around him are becoming more and more like him in the way they think and the way they speak. and so i fear this is month self-healing. mcmaster left, all right? hr tried to move heaven and earth to connect all this. to actual decision-making. and i think the bottom line of his experience is -- i couldn't get -- >> couldn't do it. >> you write about institutions under siege. something we've talked so much about in the last couple of years. the president trying to undermine the media the justice department, the fbi, all the intel agencies, what's the long-term impact of all that? i have people ask me all the time. are we going to be okay? if it's three years or eight years whatever it is, when trump's no longer here, can we put this thing back together? what's your answer to that? have we run so far into our corners it's going to be hard to

come back some day? >> it's going to be hard, but i'm not despairing yet. you've got a president who handled most of his life crises the way you just describe and it kind of worked up here in this environment. it really doesn't apply, working within government. to try to simply delegitimize anyone who might be saying something negative about you. but he is taking a pick and shovel to institutions and people, harming both the structures and the individuals who man the structures. and so my advice to folks and i mentioned this specifically in the books you know when i'm in the diner near the agency and people come up and say hey, boss, what are you thinking, the answer is number one, you know how to count. you know who carried ohio, pennsylvania, wisconsin, you know who the president is, go work for the president, make the president as successful as you can make the president, one. number two, we accommodate all presidents. their peculiarities, how they learn, their policies, their priorities, go do that.

but there have to be limits. there are some points beyond which you can't go. number one personally. i always say keep good notes and keep that letter in the lower right-hand desk drawer. if you've got to pull the rip cord. but then i add, that you know your institutions can't leave. your institution has to stay. and therefore, tend to the institution above all. because we're going to need it again someday. so we accommodate to all presidents. but you can't not accommodate so much to any president, that you now undermine the legitimacy of your institution in your eyes. in your eyes, the public, or fundamentally, in the eyes of the next president. >> and we're seeing that's easier said than done. >> the ones who are really on the axe are the bureau and justice. >> how much did your antenna vibrate this week over the white house statement on iran? that to me was a real example of the misrepresentation of intelligence and facts, and i

want to say clearly apparently designed to create a political environment where the administration could say we're pulling out of the iran nuclear deal. to what extent do you watch that and say, that's exactly what the kind of thing we have to worry about? >> there are two explanations and they're both equally bad. and we're talking about the verb, you know, iran has a robust clandestine program. iran had a robust. i'm sitting there, ready to go on tv and the wlous announcement comes out and holy smoke that flies in the face of our community's judgments since december of 2007. so there are two explanations. number one, they knew what they were doing and they were trying for the short-term gain to build up the drama for what it is the president wants to do anyway. and that's back to the idea the president's not particularly fact-based, he bases his decisions on instincts, his priority narrative. i'm going to rip up this deal. the other explanation is raw

incompetence, and you know how much checking he had to do, particularly after the yellow cake speech in the state of the union, there's nothing the white house would say without going upriver and our vote was simply if you say that, we can support that. if you say that we can't support it. that's what they wanted to know from us. that is another sign of the detachment of the fact-based institutions from the policy-political institutions, the family and friends around the president. >> you mentioned earlier. wounds to the system. there are lethal wounds and there are life-threatening wounds to the system. but off of your conversation just now with richard, bibi netanyahu stands up in israel with a tv performance, a tv show. nd suddenly, within a few hours the white house reacts to a tv show that was not fact-based. what harm does that do internally to people in the field, c.i.a., the nsa, in the field, who are fact-based?

>> well i did some soul searching and i bought a lot of breakfasts for folks you know, kind of how do you feel? and one very senior officer gave me what i'm going to tell you now and i think it's a very telling passage in the book. he said now look, mike, life's not binary, we talking trends, all right? these are shades, but what he said, is that everybody belee deck who should have an oar in their hand, and should be rowing, they're still rowing. these are the younger folks, who read the news more, probably get more news from their phones than from newspapers. those people are asking more than at any other time he has experienced, am i still part of a good thing? and the people above deck, the ones you may occasionally see whose names you may associate with the agency, what they're saying more than at any other time in his experience with the agency is -- does this matter? does what i do make a

difference? >> all right so coming up revelations and insights into that trump tower meeting with russians in june of 2016. that's straight ahead on "morning joe." into retirement... and a little nervous. but not so much about what market volatility may do to their retirement savings. that's because they have a shield annuity from brighthouse financial, which allows them to take advantage of growth opportunities in up markets, while maintaining a level of protection in down markets. so they can focus on new things like exotic snacks. talk with your advisor about shield annuities from brighthouse financial- established by metlife. ♪ tired of wrestling with seemingly impossible cleaning tasks? sprays in the bathroom can be ineffective.

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general michael hayden is back with us, the author of "the assault on intelligence: american national security in an age of lies." and general, you talked about a turning point with the president's relationship with intel community, one of those turning points. being the meeting at trump tower with the russians. >> let me be a little sympathetic to the president. we always have a speed bump with all presidents. very briefly we got to get into the room. we got to get into his head we go through different doors. our door says facts, his door says vision. you know the one you voted for. fact/vision. world as it is/world as we would like it to be. we're inherently inductive. data, data, general conclusions, inherently deductive, the ones you voted for, how do i apply to a specific circumstance this exists all the time.

and we, it's our job to work our way through it and get into the president's head. we always knew that if donald trump were to become president, this is going to be a heavier-than-average lift because all of these traits over here, he had two or three extra doses from the creator, instinctsive, creative, self-confident. we knew it was going to be hard. it is a national tragedy that the first time we had to go and jump that speed bump was down the street here on the 6th of january when we had to go brief the president on a matter that lot of other americans, not us, but a lot of other americans were using to challenge his very legitimacy to be the president of the united states. it was a perfect storm. we went into a ditch and we're still trying to work our way clear of the effects of being in that ditch. >> explain that. what happened? >> well, we get into the briefing, that broadly accepted that the russians had done something. they didn't argue that. they said in the meeting, but it

didn't affect the election. jim clapper and company said -- we're not saying that. we have no art or science that measures how they can or can't affect, did or didn't affect the election. about two hours later team trump went out and gave a press briefing for coming. thanked the guy for coming. thank god the russians didn't affect the election. threw it right in the face of what it was that the team said, we can't say one way or the other. >> and apparently, willie, they were talking about that in front of the briefers, saying how do we spin this? >> yeah, they were, they did. >> on the subject of russia, you say you have one regret in the book, which is that we dropped the ball on russia. what move should have been done? and why wasn't it done? in other words, how did we get to this place where russia saw such an easy mark? >> two or three steps, one which is mine. the first chapter of my

reeducation camp experience here and say i was just so focused on counterterrorism and counterproliferation that i personally didn't -- i went to over 50 countries as director, not one of them was called russia. my bad. but again it's not, ignoring them, it's just you're consumed over here. think that continued for a bit with the laser focus on counterterrorism. and then the russians under a general officer named grazimov, developed a new concept of warfare. one we explored but largely pushed back on, largely for legal and constitutional reasons. we became cyber guys, the russians became information guys, they wanted to go and conduct information warfare and grazimov on the general staff for putin, writes several back about contact-less warfare. how i can use dominance in the information space to directly attack the will of an adversary population and win that way.

they did it to their domestic audience. they did it to us in the europeans with this information bubble over crimea. we're all going i wonder what's going on. who are those little green men. they took their game to north america in 2015. i won't belabor it here. but there was an exercise in texas that russian bots in and the american alt-right media convinced most many texans was an obama plan to round up political dissidents, it got so much traction that the governor of texas had to call out the national guard to observe the federal exercise, to keep the population calm. at that point, i'm figuring the russians are saying, we can go big-time. and at that point i think they made the decision, we're going to play in the electoral process. >> so let's talk about the trump tower meeting with russians in june of 2016. and what the russians got out of that. because obviously everyone got caught up in how the trump family was spinning this.

but the long-term consequences of even having that meeting, and can i use the word -- conspiring about hillary clinton more. what does that give the russians in the big picture. >> three or four things, number one we would have called that a russian soft approach. it's good tradecraft. don't go in there with svr and fsb on your business card as your first encounter. you begin to establish contact. what did they learn? number one, they learned the campaign was willing to deal. >> exactly. >> which is a really big thing. they were willing to accept information on hillary clinton, with the providence of the russian government on it. number three, they learned this is a little indirect, but they seem to have had a pretty sophisticated operation, they learned that the campaign would not go to the feds. with the russian approach coming at them. because they didn't see any

increase in counterintelligence activity around them. >> they learned that not only were the trump team willing to play, but that they learned that the trump team was not going to report the contacts. which is extraordinarily unusual. >> we're experienced here, we wouldn't have done that without a roomful of lawyers and who do you have from the bureau. >> and i've said it before even as a little congressman, if there were russians that approached me toward something i would talk to my chief of staff who would immediately say we need to call the fbi. that's just basic. >> so based upon everything you've just said, all right, the fourth thing the russians achieved with the meeting was, they got this little down payment on kompromot. you've taken the meeting and you didn't report it. they're pretty good, aren't they in. >> i don't think, i feel like it just falls flat. when we heard about this meeting and we just, the president kept moving forward and it doesn't feel like -- the response at

least in public -- >> you can throw it out to naivete, inexperience, they weren't surrounded by anybody whose antennas would go, whoa this can't happen. >> are they as skillful as the russians? >> one hopes. >> based on your experience in intelligence-gathering, does anything you've seen here, maybe the meeting at trump tower, look like collusion to you? >> i don't know the legal definition, so the words i use are, a word i use a lot in the book is something called "convergence." where you may not be actually going this way, in terms of hey, will you do this now, i'll do that. but you each for your own purposes are doing something and your activities are mutually reinforcing. very quickly. remember the take a knee thing? so the president gives a speech, he feeds his base. okay, before he gets back to washington, the russian bots are all over it. take a knee, both sides, all right? the patriotic side and the constitutional side. alt-right media picks it up and

mirrors the russian bots. they inject a powerful raushl content into it. -- racial content into it then it gets to the major networks, mostly to the one down the street and we have this cycle. everyone for their own interests. the president, the base. the russians, to mess with our heads, alt-right, they're conspiratorial. the network, for ratings, they're all driving in the same direction and the sum total is a more divided american society. including within my own family, when it comes to take a knee. >> you know it's fascinating -- >> convergence. >> according to your own family. they said so mika and i, over the past 10 or 11 years, people say do you ever disagree on anything? do you ever get off the -- and really go at it? and we had a couple of examples through the years where we went at it. and but i, it hadn't happened in five or six years. and during the nfl deal, i won't go into the great details, i

won't -- but mika and i were going at it for about three or four days. and then after about three or four days we looked at each other and we were like, you know this is exactly what donald trump wants. not only us, but the entire country to do. which again -- >> is what the russians want us to do. >> and the same thing with this white house dinner -- people are still tweeting about that. >> four days later with north korea, with you name it. that is custom-built for russian bots. >> and a trump win. >> and the origins is a speech on a friday night huntsville campaign style in front of a blood-hot crowd. the weekend before of 1,750 nfl players, the number who did not stand at attention, was six. this was not a national crisis. but it became one. >> and -- >> convergence is the word of

the day. >> the russians used it. coming up, new reporting on the partisan split that could open the november elections to russian interference, we'll explain, ahead on "morning joe."

the new book is called "the assault on intelligence, american national security in an age of lies" general michael hayden, thank you for your time and for being back on "morning joe." >> thank you. good to be back among friends. >> any final thought? >> yeah. we can defeat this. and this truly is about us. it's our fractures, other people are trying to exploit. fix the fractures, it goes away. >> fix the fractures, it goes away. still to come on "morning joe," the justice department pushes back hard in efforts to throw the russia investigation off course. the deputy a.g. vowing not be extorted. we'll talk to "the washington

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i'd like to begin with a question that's on everybody's mind.

uh-oh. [ laughter ]. and i would appreciate a clear and direct answer to set the record straight. how do you pronounce your last name? is it rosen -- stine or rosenstein? >> so there's no right answer to that question. my family, my father pronounces it stine. that's how i pronounce it but i have relatives who pronounce steen. i'll answer to both of them. welcome back to "morning joe." it's wednesday, may 2nd. we have mike barnicle, the president of the council on foreign relations richard haase. joining the conference former aide to state department and george h.w. bush elise jordan. jonath jonathan turley and carol leonnig. good to have you all on board this morning. >> we'll jump in there in a

second. couple quick questions. jonathan turley, obviously the news about bob mueller, saying, well, you know, fantastic. you can say what you want to say, but you've got the power to pardon, but i have the power to subpoena. where do we go from here -- >> a little chilling, isn't it? >> if robert mueller decides to subpoena the president? >> not a good place from the perspective of the president. he can follow the rather checkered legacy of richard nixon and bill clinton. this did not work out well. the law is on mueller's side. i think the president will lose. i'm surprised this is still being entertained. like the old joke, the guy jumping off the high-rise and saying so far so good as he passes floor by floor. it's not going to end well. and so if you're going to fight with the special counsel, he's likely to prevail. you'll have more extended litigation going through the midterms, but he does have the right to call you. but if he calls you before that

grand jury, you cannot bring in an attorney. so, the options are not equal. right now the president has been offered the chance to go in with counsel and answer questions largely in four categories in a restricted period of time. >> right. >> if he goes into the grand jury, most of that is discretionary to the prosecutors and he will not have counsel with him, which is a very dangerous thing for the president. >> and i was just going to say, so dangerously legally for the president that actually it's in the president's best interests, is it not, to go in with counsel, to agree to an interview. if he doesn't, bob mueller subpoenas him, takes him to a grand jury and then he's in there on his own and my god, where that ends is -- of all the places that could end up, none of them are good for donald trump, most likely. >> that's right. many months ago i wrote a column saying take the deal but go in now. the longer this goes on, the

more difficult it will be. they've waited too long in my view, but it's still the best option. he can be prepared for this. and having counsel at his elbow, he can get through it. most of these questions are very predictable. he does have defenses for them. some of them are little more dangerous than others. there are a couple sleeper questions in there, which quite frankly i would be much more concerned with than those getting a lot of attention. >> carol leonnig, tell us about the story. this is your reporting. >> well, you know what i found the most compelling about this when we were talking to our sources was the idea of this showdown on march 5th. we thought we understood everything that happened at this meeting between trump's lawyers and bob mueller. you know, we reported some time ago that at this meeting it is where bob mueller explained to trump's lead lawyer, john dowd, look, your client is not a criminal target at this point. he's a subject of my investigation, which, you know, people were like, okay.

interesting. but this is a real tense and slightly angry meeting. while they're not yelling at each other, they are warning and threatening each other in legalese. in one, look, you're messing with the president's work. literally he said you're screwing with the president of the united states. and in the other, bob mueller says, look, if you don't want to have him sit down, we can always subpoena him. for both sides, by the way, joe and mika, i think that this is a difficult negative because if this interview doesn't go forward and if there is a subpoena, both sides lose in a way. the president wanted to cast this shadow away from him and away from his presidency, answer these questions. get the obstruction probe, the portion of it over with. and if they fight over a subpoena, it's going to take months and months and months because it will surely go to the

supreme court. >> carol, it's willie. you write in the piece the move that when mueller announced i can subpoena your testimony, mr. president. i can bring you in, set off some infighting on john's legal team and of course john dowd stepped aside and left the legal team. what was the arguments on both sides and which seems to be prevailing in whether or not the president should sit in a room across from the special counsel? >> that's a good question, willie. the debate really was this -- john dowd, the lead lawyer at the time who has now resigned, said the president is not implicated in a crime at this point. but he could be implicated in a crime if he sits down and says something wrong. if he gives a false statement, if he extemporaneously goes off on a tangent, as he has want to do. dowd said my job here is to protect you. i'm going to protect you from yourself. there's no reason for you to sit in that chair. ty cobb and others, you know, he

works in the white house counsel's office so he doesn't represent the president, but he certainly has been giving the president some counsel. he strongly believed if you want this thing over with, it's a good idea to sit down. answer the questions. you won't will not be charged with a crime, dispel this. politically ty also made the argument, you've said over and over again there wasn't any collusion. if you don't sit down and answer these questions, people will wonder why not? >> carol, he's been saying that to him for a very long time, though. and chances are good if the president listened to him a very long time ago we would be much further down the road than we are right now. >> yeah. >> why? why haven't there been enough people around donald trump to say he's not going to charge you. sit down and tell him what you know. and then this is going to get behind you. >> i think the president would have -- would honestly, joe, have been eager to do this every

moment from january until about april 9th. april 9th is when trump's lawyers are sitting down to talk about the actual conditions of an interview and they learn that morning that michael cohen's home office and apartment had been searched under a federal warrant seeking all communications regarding this stormy daniel's payment, the porn star who alleges she had an affair with the president. also, all communications between michael cohen and president trump, then candidate trump. as i understand from that meeting when they're literally talking about the conditions with bob mueller, they are saying to mueller's team, are you acting in good faith? how come we didn't know anything about this? now, there are a lot of legal reasons you don't know about a search warrant beforehand, but it did catch them unawares and did make the president livid. >> you know, joe, as a lawyer, in listening to carol and reading the story and listening

to jonathan, one thing becomes more clear with each passing day, that rudy giuliani, ty cobb, john dowd, none of them know as much as bob mueller knows because their client has not fully told them. >> won't tell them the truth. >> yeah. >> that's always a nightmare. me as a lawyer talking to people or actually good lawyers hearing them tell stories about what a nightmare it is when you have clients and you sit there. if they tell you 90% of the story, guarantee you that when you go into court or when you go into grand jury testimony, it's going to be the 10% that sideswipes you. and what do you hear all the time from the best lawyers in washington, d.c., which donald trump cannot get? one, he doesn't pay. and two, he doesn't tell the truth. >> ever. >> so you as an attorney can't

allow yourself to get into a courtroom and then be blind sided by facts. speaking of his attorneys, there is a report from bloomberg that says that members of the trump legal team currently lack the security clearances they need to discuss -- >> this is -- >> negotiations with special counsel robert mueller. >> larry, mo and curly and of counsel rudy can't actually find out what the truth is. >> well, they probably blur the lines. anyhow, according to two people familiar with the matter, this report comes to us. >> again, this is unbelievable, mika. >> actually nothing surprises me at this point. does it? >> we've been saying it for such a long time, the president is facing an existential threat to his presidency and to his businesses and to him personally. yet, elise, he will not do what

it takes to get attorneys who know what they're doing. this would be like in 1990 instead of getting the best boxer to go up against mike tyson, getting jimmy the brprin ston boxing champ to fight. bob mueller is a cyborg. he keeps coming at you. and he literally has this motley crue that they've never played in this arena before. >> well, no. it's almost like a high school football team going up in the nfl. and they just don't have the qualifications that are necessary, as with this pretty basic requirement of security. he does have -- >> a bad high school football team. go ahead. >> not at texas. >> no. we're not talking texas. this and friday night lights. >> the point i keep going back

to is if this is -- if your family member were in the same position as donald trump, whose legal team would you want them to have? would you want them to have the men and women who are working for robert mueller on this investigation? or the men and women who are currently representing donald trump? and day by day that changes as we know. >> my lord. >> he has severe recruitment issues. would you want rudy giuliani or some of the white collar lawyers who left prestigious firms to go and work for robert mueller. >> rudy giuliani in 1993, that would be pretty good. rudy giuliani in 2018, he's been out of the game. >> yeah. >> listen, i like -- you know. >> remember, rudy -- sorry, mika. his big strategy when he came in is i know mueller a little bit. i'm going to negotiate an end to this whole thing in a couple of weeks. >> how's that going? >> it hasn't gone well. it's weird. >> he's been leaking some great stories. >> or someone on his team has despite him.

all right. deputy attorney general rod rosenstein says the department of justice will not be intimidated. that's amid reports that house republicans allied with the president had drafted articles of impeachment against him related to document requests about the russia and clinton e-mail probes. rosenstein said yesterday that people in his department would be guided by the law not political pressure. >> any reaction to the news that certain members of the house freedom caucus have talked about drafting up articles of impeachment despite your best efforts to comply with their document requests? >> they can't even resist leaking their own drafts. there are people who have been making threats privately and publicly against me for quite some time. and i think they should understand by now the department of justice is not going to be extorted. we're going to do what's required by the rule of law and any kind of threats that anybody

makes are not going to affect the way we do our job. we have a responsibility. we take an oath. that's the whole point when you take these jobs. you need to be appointed by the president and confirmed by the senate. and that actually is a pretty thorough process. and then you raise your right hand and swear an oath to support and defend the constitution of the united states against all enemies foreign and domestic. you promise to bare true faith and allegiance to the same and take this obligation freely without any mental reservation so help me god. that's your speedometer. everybody in the department takes that oath. we have 115,000 employees. if they violate, i know they'll be held accountable. i know those folks know i'm not going to violate my oath. >> if you watch that event was a pretty strong defense by rod rosenstein of the rule of law of the constitution, nothing personal about the president of the united states although he tried to bait him into saying things about him. he wouldn't go there.

this man his head has been on the block for a long time. there were rumors that the president wanted to have him fired to clear the path to getting rid of bob mueller. to find a way they can hold rosenstein in contempt of congress. what was your read of what we saw yesterday and the performance of rod rosenstein in general over the last several months? >> well, i think it's been a very strong performance. particularly yesterday. the impeachment proposal is, i think, pretty frivolous. i was the lead counsel on the last impeachment trial and this falls far short of anything that would meet that very high standard. i think what you have with rosenstein is someone who has gotten a lot of the support of the justice department. hi's reminding them of their core responsibility. and in that sense, i think moral at the department of justice i

think has not taken as much of a hit as you've seen and talked about in the previous hour in the intelligence community. i think part of the problem, by the way, with the president's legal team from their standpoint is first of all, i think there is talent there. i think it's too easy to say this is a team without talent. people like ty cobb have a great deal of experience. part of the problem in dealing with this president is you have to advise him not just as a person but as a president. and in fairness to john dowd, he was approaching this as he should as a criminal defense attorney looking out for the best interest of his client with regard to criminal charges. but at some point particularly in the white house counsel's office, you have to remind the president he's the president. and the route they're taking if they defie robert mueller could lead to him having to make a choice of speaking in a -- testifying alone in a grand jury or taking the fifth amendment. no president has ever done that in history. and someone has to remind him that that should not be an

option for him to consider. >> all right. so this is what some republicans had to say. it's quite incredible just a few months ago this was put together by the group republicans for the rule of law, which aims to protect the independence of the special counsel. take a listen. ♪ >> rosenstein has earned so much bipartisan support to serve as the deputy a.g. that the judiciary committee reported out his nomination with all but one moment. >> mr. rosenstein, you have served in the department of justice for a couple of decades now and you've developed a distinguished career marked by integrity and fairness. >> rod rosenstein, who everybody across the board has unequivocally said this guy is a man of upstanding character and gold standing at the department of justice. >> he is a man of extraordinary independence and integrity and a reputation in both political

parties of great character. >> rod rosenstein was confirmed by this body by a vote of 94-6. that's probably the only trump nomination so far since he's been president that has enjoyed such broad bipartisan support and it's because of his distinguished record. >> i think there's complete confidence in him and another reason, frankly, for director comey to be out of the way so they can have somebody leading this effort that everybody across the board has respect and confidence in. >> wow. >> the money phrase, mika. >> yeah, please. >> sarah huckabee sanders. >> she has the info. >> rod rosenstein. >> uh-huh. >> the gold standard. he's the gold standard. >> directly from the white house press secretary herself. >> put that on his business card. >> joe always tries to give the most always important word to the press about exactly where the president stands. elise, what's your reaction to

that montage? >> i'm sure they could put together similar montage for robert mueller, too. of republicans saying fawning, glowing comments about how wonderful and what an oracle of the rule of law he is. and so it really reflects the bipolar nature of so many republicans unfortunately in the trump era and how they will switch what are fundamental world views for political expediency and to gain favor with the mercurial president who you don't really know where he stands except for he does stand for himself. >> richard, do you know who else you could put a reel like that for republicans? james comey. james comey. you could. >> republicans are meant to stand for procedure. they're supposed to be constitutionalists where you put the law and larger issues before the media and to see people on the hill essentially go after the deputy attorney general,

placing politics above process and law is they've gone from being enablers to facilitators. this is a real determination we've seen in american politics. >> carol, that is one of many reasons why that interview with rod rosenstein is so important because he explains in clear language the justice department will not be extorted. yet you're reporting about the on going trauma and negotiations between the special prosecutor bob mueller and the trump administration. the time line on this we referred to it earlier, but if there is a subpoena issued, it will be fought in court. what's your expectancy in coverage of this story. this could go on for another year, year and a half. >> right. depending on how the courts -- how much this is expedited, if it gets to that fight, mike, it could take 18 months. if we're lucky, maybe 9.

we'll see how it all shakes out. and there are a lot of possible twists around turns. i'm with jonathan turley on this. i think mueller has the power to do this. the question is how long it might take and how much of a fight it might be. who knows. rudy giuliani told me yesterday that he has an open mind on the strategy whether or not to sit the president down for an interview. he believes you tailer your strategy to the current events, the best thing that is going to happen for your client. he's not stuck in one mold. we'll see what he decides to recommend and what the president agrees to do. >> jonathan turley, of the 49 questions that "the new york times" acquired a couple days ago and were made public to the rest of us yesterday morning, what is most concerning to you if you're on president trump's legal team and what did we learn from the first real look inside the mueller investigation? >> most of these questions are very predictable. the one i think is the sleeper

is not getting much attention and that is simply when did you first learn about the meeting at trump tower? the democratic members in the house intelligence committee objected that there was no subpoena issued to find out who was the, quote, blocked caller. there was a call between two critical calls with regard to the trump tower meeting. and the democrats have said that the president often used a blocked number to communicate with his son. the president and donald trump jr. said he did not know about the meeting in advance. my guess is that mueller has already subpoenaed that information. if not, he's not the mueller i'm familiar with so he probably does know who the blocked caller is. if that was the president of the united states, it's going to create some serious difficulties for him. now, he could say, if it is, that he called him in the middle of these two critical calls and talked about everything other than the meeting. but that's like calling up mrs. lincoln and saying how was the play? it misses the most obvious

subject matter. >> jonathan turley and carol leonnig, thank you both. still ahead on she show, nbc's andrea mitchell breaks down a change at the top for american foreign relations. how diplomats around the world are sizing up their new boss. secretary of state, mike pompeo. and it's a good chance to sign up for the "morning joe" newsletter by texting. >> this will change your life, oh my god. >> texting morningjoe, one word, 66866, it's like texting the devil. all right. >> no. honey, there's an 8 in the middle. >> yeah. okay. excuse me? >> we'll be 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. i tried to prepare myself for this moment, but to stand here and look at the most important diplomatic core in the world is enormously humbling to

me. i'll speak to the entire work force, i'll lay out for you my expectations, my hopes and most importantly share with you my leadership style. and this is very different. one of the first rules is don't talk down to people, right? so i'll speak to you all right up here. you chose to be a foreign service officer or a civil servant or to come work here in many other capacities and to do so because you're patriots and great americans and because you want to be an important part of america's face to the world. my mission will be to lead you and allow you to do that. the very thing you came here to do. i talked about getting back our swagger. i'll fill in what i mean by that, but it's important. the united states diplomatic core needs to be in every corner, every stretch of the world executing missions on behalf of this country and it's my humble, noble, undertaking to

help you achieve that. so i look forward to -- >> that was really good. >> oh, yeah. >> new secretary of state mike pompeo addressing his department for the first time yesterday. president trump will officially swear him in later today. and joining us now nbc chief foreign affairs correspondent and host of "andrea mitchell reports." it appears he was received very well, andrea. >> boy was he. i was over there. i'm not a cheerleader, as you know, but i'm telling you that there is such a change with mike pompeo. this is a guy who might have come with some -- there might have been some concern from him about people who looked at his past. he was a tea party congressman from kansas. he was really part of that benghazi inquisition, but in fact he comes in with such goodwill over there. he called them patriots. he has proved on his first couple of days he got sworn in. not ceremoniously, just the

quick swearing in, got on a plane, went to nato and went to the middle east. that was really important. rex tillerson had never been to israel as secretary of state other than accompanying the president to a summit. never a solo visit to israel. mike pompeo is trying to take back middle east diplomacy if you will the white house jared kushner and others who were not the dip employee mats and trying to plant his flag there. he made trips talking about the palestinians and dealing with that issue which this administration has not. but that first appearance at the state department was terribly important. it was a big signal. and when you think about rex ill t tillerson, bringing in so-called experts who didn't know that ottawa was in a foreign country. >> right. >> the capital of a foreign country and talking about budget cuts and this guy says i want to listen to you. i'm humble. you diplomats are patriots.

he hit every grace note. >> richard haase? >> he reminded people that foreign service a form of service. there's pride in all that. what is your sense in how mike pompeo ultimately works with the rest of this administration, jim mattis, john bolton. what do you see as the balance of power in the national security lineup? >> well, in fact, that is the biggest question not surprisingly you would hit on it because i think he will be an ally of jim mattis. but, there is a real question about john bolton and how that is all going to work. i've got to tell you in watching your incredible interview with mie hayden in the last hour, you know, that has had mistake, quote, clerical error, that happened while i was on "hardball." and i looked at the paper and said, hey, wait a second. this is incredible. this flies in the face of every intelligence assessment going back to 2007. it contradicts mike pompeo's

confirmation hearing on april 12th when he said they don't have a nuclear program. it contradicts the february threat assessment from all of the intelligence agencies. i had that very day called the intelligence agencies said has anything changed? even netanyahu did not claim they had an active program. they're poised. they're ready to relaunch, kept their archives. it was very interesting that mike pompeo landed at andrews air force base, an hour and a half after this clerical error they fixed it and never corrected it. think didn't correct it quickly. they never issued another statement. they just simply changed has to had on their white house website. so you had to know to look for that. >> elise, your take. >> they still haven't corrected it. i'm suspicious. i'm not a conspiracy theorist. >> yeah. >> i messaged the state department people traveling with him and all of a sudden it got corrected on the website after

an hour and a half. >> uh-huh. elise? >> it's just an example of how these little errors actually sometimes aren't so little and the precision within the press operation does matter. >> andrea, i again and richard you can chime in, i think of -- i don't think this is hysteria at this point. i think of madeleine albright's book out now, farcism, a warning. it starts with a lot of little mistakes and sloppiness and white house press briefings or sheets that are sent out that are spelled badly and wrong information and wrong dates and you have one that might be purposeful that's buried in the sea of stupidity and that's how it happens. is it not? >> well, john bolton and the national security counsel should be approving every statement of such consequence. a statement about whether iran does have or doesn't have nuclear weapons in days before this momentous decision that the president is going to be making,

flying in the face of the european allies and the other signatories of a u.n. approved nuclear agreement as limited as it was and as flawed as it may well be, it is a fact. and the fact that they would not have someone from the national security council approving that or did they. was it deliberate? was it an accident? >> that's the question, whether this was purposeful policy to basically jam this through as a part of a larger effort to undo this nuclear deal which is going to have to be revisited on may 12th. and that is -- this would be the conscious purposeful misrepresentation of facts. this would be real politization of intelligence in foreign policy, someone needs to get to the bottom of this. andrea mitchell, thank you very, very much. we'll see you at noon on "andrea mitchell reports" right here on msnbc. still ahead on "morning joe" -- >> his physical strength and

stamina are extraordinary. if elected, mr. trump i can state unequivocally will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency. >> whoa. i love that. very good. >> how do you get a doctor to write -- >> i said, doc, i want to tell you. i'll be the healthiest president ever. and he said, i think i agree and probably took my words and put them down. >> by the way, somebody looked up -- >> so far a great doctor. >> this is his picture on facebook. this is your doctor. >> oh, wow. >> what kind of a doctor is this? >> it's a serious picture. that's him. back in 2015 donald trump sort of suggested he helped craft his own health report? now his former doctor is confirming that. donald trump personally dictated his own medical history as, quote, astonishingly excellent. we're going to go live to the white house next for much more on this.

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in an nbc news exclooifs, donald trump's former doctor harold born steen is describing how his relationship with mr. trump came to an abrupt end after he says his office was raided by the president's former long-time body guard and two other men. joining us now with more on this, nbc news national correspondent peter alexander.

what is going on here, good morning? >> hey, willie. good morning to you. new information from overnight. the president's former doctor telling nbc news that he did not write that glowing letter about donald trump's health during the campaign. in fact, he says, mr. trump wrote it himself. it comes amid some new revelations about an unusual incident that's raising questions about how the president's aides and his associates conduct themselves on the president's behalf. >> reporter: this morning, more details about a bizarre episode involving the president's former doctor. >> i feel raped. raped. frightened and sad. >> reporter: dr. harold bornstein detailing nbc news what he describes as a raid on his manhattan office two weeks after the inauguration. >> what exactly were they looking for? >> well, all medical records, pictures, anything they could

fine. >> he says three men including keith schiller, then the head of oval office operations and the top lawyer from his personal business the trump organization showed up unannounced and took all the president's medical records. >> they must have been here for 25 to 30 minutes. they created a lot of chaos. >> reporter: the trump organization lawyer declined to comment and nbc news couldn't find schiller. >> as is standard operating procedure for a new president, the white house medical unit took possession of the president's medical records. >> he says he never received a signed medical release form from the president. and acknowledges he may have handed over the records in violation of privacy laws. the incident happened two days after bornstein provided private medical records revealing for years he prescribe olympiad trump propecia, a hair growth medication. >> certainly is not a breach of

medical trust. what's the matter with that? this morning bornstein is painting an unflattering relationship with his relationship with the president. >> more like the slave that carried out, you know, the orders that came from fifth avenue. >> reporter: about that glowing letter wrib under bornstin's name astonishingly excellent, he would be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency, bornstein now says mr. trump dictated it himself. >> he wrote it himself. and me from where i come from, the end of it was just black humor. it wasn't meant to be a serious comment. >> that statement right there san about face for dr. bornstein he told nbc news he had written

the letter. i reached out to the white house overnight. they did not respond to our request for comment about dr. bornstein's claim. >> there's a lot in there. let's bring in mark leibovich. >> i can't believe they would go in and seize all these records because donald trump has male pattern baldness. >> propecia. >> what could it be? >> it's not good that -- >> standard operating procedure to send your body guard and a lawyer. >> to seize records. >> is there snr. >> we don't know. >> do you think he took other things? >> i don't know. >> go back to the ronny jackson briefing which earned him the v.a. secretary nomination. >> yep. >> do you have any question in your mind now that the president wrote large portions of that briefing where respected doctor would go out and say this man

could live to be 200. he has great genes. this is the way god made him? >> i'll be the contrarian on that. i do think that donald trump will probably live to be 110. after his presidency, holding up traffic on fifth avenue around trump tower for decades. i think that -- >> he wrote the letter and the statement. >> someone from the male pattern baldness community, which is i assume why you brought me in here. >> thank you. mark, please. >> break down your doctor's doors. >> i don't want to violate the patient client confidentiality. no. look, this is bizarre. >> this is weird stuff. >> seven laughing about it and it's funny and i assume -- jimmy kimmel thing a couple years ago was funny. >> no, this is messed up. >> i don't know where to begin. we'll be on to something else in the afternoon or tomorrow. >> this is messed up. >> a raid on doctor offices

seizing medical records, a doctor who does not -- >> what doctor lets his patient write his own -- >> what about the other patient's files are in there. this violated the privacy of other patients. >> he'll be open to lawsuits. >> you think? >> yeah. >> no, it's get in line. >> what if you were -- >> this gets so beyond this isn't normal standard. i think it brings it to the next level. >> he used propecia. >> i used it. it doesn't work. >> this character, dr. bornstein is funny and all that. but the health of the president is a very serious matter. if the president himself is dictating to this doctor and perhaps to dr. jackson, the white house doctor, what to say about his health -- >> isn't that medical fraud. >> not giving us the truth about his health, especially during a campaign when hillary clinton's health was criticized and questioned by the trump campaign, it's outrageous. >> ronny jackson stood before

the american people -- >> is it legal? >> richard haass and said if donald trump ate a little better he could live to be 200 years old. genetically he's superior. we heard the secretary treasury say that he is genetically superior. it is bizarre. disturbing. >> goes to other things. >> again, this is what we hear about dear leader in north korea or what we hear about other leaders across the globe. >> those cabinet meetings people had to line up one after another to praise the president. never forget 50% of all doctors graduated in the bottom half of their classes and we're seeing that here. >> you know what, same in law school. >> dr. bornstein does have a great head of hair. >> good advertisement. mark, stay with us. coming up, it's a startling headline. there is nothing to stop the 2018 elections from being hacked.

so, why isn't the government doing something to change that? and are partisan politics to blame? "the atlantic" natasha is here with her new reporting next on "morning joe." i'm not a bigwig. or a c-anything-o. but i've got an idea sir. get domo. it'll connect us to everything that's going on in the company. get it for jean who's always cold. for the sales team, it and the warehouse crew. give us the data we need. in one place, anywhere we need it. help us do our jobs better.

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so sophie, i have an xfi password, and it's "daditude". simple. easy. awesome. xfinity. the future of awesome. activity in the leadup to the 2018 election cycle? >> yes, we have seen russian activity and intentions to have an impact on the next election cycle here. >> director? >> yes, we are. >> anyone else? >> admiral rogers? >> yes. >> we do need a u.s. government strategy and clear authorities to go achieve that strategy. >> it's just common sense, if someone is attacking you and there's no retribution or response, it's just going to incentivize more contacts. >> all right. >> right now lot of blank checks. a lot of things we need to do. >> so what's being done to protect the sanctity of the 2018

midterms? natasha bertrand covering national security and the intelligence community and msnbc contributor has new reporting that not much is being done due to a divide between the democratic and between the democratic and republican parties. she writes in part, russia's successful interference in the 2016 election, when moscow hacked both democrats and republicans, has spurred fears of a recurrence in 2018. but although congressional democrats are pledging not to use stolen or hacked materials in their campaigns this fall, their republican counterparts have so far declined to match that commitment. the split could leave it open to interference. neither response could encourage future attacks. natasha joins us now. a fairly bleak outlook on bipartisan approach to a problem

that affects american democracy. bha can you tell us? >> right, this should not be difficult. when i first reached out to the national republican congressional committee, i asked them, are you willing to say categorically that you will discourage the candidates in the 2018 midterm elections from using hacked material if they are presented with it? and the answer i got was really no comment, essentially. the spokesman told me that they couldn't comment on a hypothetical situation, that they are committed to cyber security, but the spokesman seemed more concerned with the idea that a letter written by the dccc last year to the nrcc asking for their cooperation to not use hacked material had been leaked to the press. so the idea is that the nrcc now is saying they can't trust the dccc to work with them in good faith because the letter was made into a pr issue, according to this spokesman. and, of course, when it comes to election hacking, you're really

only as strong as your weakest link. if the republicans do not commit to using hacked material, we're just going to see a recurrence of this in 2018 because hackers will say, well, i have a platform now. i have people willing to use all of this material, and there won't be any kind of punishment for that. so that's really what the democrats are worried about now, is that they have committed to not using this hacked material, but the republicans won't do the same. >> and lisa, it's not really a hypothetical situation. it happened in our last election. >> in the use of stolen materials, unfortunately, something the nrcc never really completely disavows, but the stakes are different now in this era. natasha, one of the points in kbro your story that i found interesting was that elliott brod brodie, while he was still the nrcc financial chair, he had been hacked and said the nrcc

was willing to help with this issue. has the equation changed since he has stepped down? >> not in my reporting, that it had changed their calculation. this is not a partisan issue. the russians are the foreigners that are trying to meddle in the u.s. elections and trying to meddle with our political system. they're not discriminating between democrats and republicans. they did hack into -- that's what elliott brodie says, that they hacked into his e-mail so they could shop around certain documents in his e-mail to the "new york times," for example, and other media outlets. we also know according to former fbi director jim comey, the republican national committee was also hacked during the 2016 election. so this is not an area where there should be partisan disagreement, because both parties are vulnerable to being attacked. but i think republicans are aware that if they come out and they say, no, we are not going to use these hacked documents, they will be implicitly

criticizing the president for having done the exact same thing in 2016. of course, he brought hacked documents with him on stage during rallies that were leaked by wikileaks. so by saying they're going to make this commitment, they're also criticizing the president. >> natasha, say they were saying all the right things, the republican campaign committee were saying all the right things about how important this is. what could they actually do? if the intelligence committee, if the fbi isn't fully on board, isn't it their job to be driving this? >> right. i mean, this is -- so what they could do is they could just say if they get their hands on hacked materials, there is kind of a non-aggression pact with the democrats not to use them, and therefore, you would stop this style of these hacked materials being used to influence our elections. now, of course, there is nothing they can actually do short of cyber security hygiene to prevent them being attacked by these adversaries themselves. of course, we know what the dccc and the nrcc are doing now is

they're doing training to make sure that staffers don't click on blue links and don't fall prey to phishing e-mails, for example, that could allow their documents and e-mails to be hacked. but, of course, this is going to be an issue where if democrats and republicans don't come together on it, then it's going to make the whole election, the 2018 midterms, it's going to be a repeat of what we saw in 2016, and that, of course, is not something that the fbi or the, you know, nsa or the cia can guard against. >> we shouldn't kid ourselves. we won't be able to deal with this problem by digital hygiene, by protecting boosts in illinois. this is a foreign policy problem. this has to be a priority for the united states in its relationship with russia. we have to deter russia or stop russia from doing this. we are kidding ourselves if we think we can protect this or that voting machine. ain't gonna work. >> natasha bertrand, thank you so much for your reporting this

morning. and mark lebovich, thank you as well. >> i did a lot of work on that. if i could have one person talk about their e-mail pattern, one other person. the deputy attorney general under attack by some republicans for his role overseeing the russia investigation hits back. plus, new reporting that bob mueller warned the president's legal team that he'd issue a subpoena if the president refused to sit for an interview. >> i like that. i can pardon. i can subpoena. >> could this case be headed to the supreme court and what would that mean? meanwhile, the president is up and tweeting, writing that there was no collusion and it's a hoax, and there is no obstruction of justice and that it's a setup and a trap. concluding his tweet with, witch

hunt. you should read my tweet, mr. president. it's about those witches. there are a lot of witches being hunted, and some of them are -- >> the witch you had running in foreign policy, the witch that helped on the campaign, the national security advising witch. >> believe it. believe it. this year, we're taking it up a notch. so in this commercial we see two travelers at a comfort inn with a glow around them, so people watching will be like, "wow, maybe i'll glow too if i book direct at choicehotels.com". who glows? just say, badda book. badda boom. nobody glows. he gets it. always the lowest price, guaranteed. book now at choicehotels.com when did you see the sign? when i needed to jumpstart sales. build attendance for an event. help people find their way. fastsigns designed new directional signage.

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after months of refusing to release his medical records, which is something most of the other candidates have already done. trump tweeted, as a presidential candidate, i have instructed my long-time doctor to issue within two weeks a full medical report. it will show perfection. or my doctor will be fired. >> i will also tell you that letter that showed up in "the times" about his health he wrote himself. you know that. >> yeah. >> he wrote it himself. >> that's kind of awkward. >> we never saw that coming. >> no one saw that coming. >> it's like marcus welby. >> like a lot of people in 2015, jimmy kimmel wasn't sure what kind of medical letter we would be getting from trump's medical doctor. fast forward three years and that doctor now says trump wrote the report himself. he also says the president's bodyguard raided his office after revealing that he prescribed a hair loss drug for the commander in chief for other

things. >> you send your bodyguard in to raid the office just because you have male pattern baldness? >> and how about them saying this is standard operating procedure, this is the transfer of medical operation from one office to another. no, no, not usually how it works. >> kicking down the doors. >> special insurance plan. >> all right. good morning, everyone. it's wednesday, may 2nd. around the table we have msnbc contributor mark barnacle, president of the council on foreign relations and author. >> marinades. there's a mango one. >> we're happy to have with us former director of the cia and the nsa, retired general michael hayden. he is the author of the great new book "the altogether on intelligence, american national

security in an age of laws," which we'll be talking about a lot this hour, and it's great to have you on. good to see you. >> great to have you here. >> wow, where do we begin this morning? there is a lot to get to, including -- >> by the way, happy birthday. >> happy birthday mika. >> i'm 51. that's weird. that's a weird age. >> i was 51 about eight years ago. it was fun. >> okay. i don't know how that happened. it goes quickly. trying to write my own report. our top story this morning, deputy attorney general rod rosenstein says the department of justice will not be intimidated. that's amid reports that the they allied with the president, that the president drafted articles of impeachment against him related to documented requests about the russian clinton e-mail probes.

rosenstein said people against him would be guided by the law, not political pressure. >> any reaction to the news that certain members of the house freedom caucus have talked about drafting up articles of impeachment despite your best efforts to comply with their document requests? >> they can't even resist leaking their own drafts. there are people who have been making threats privately and publicly against me for quite some time, and i think they should understand by now that the department of justice is not going to be extorted. we're going to do what's required by the rule of law, and any kind of threats that anybody makes are not going to affect the way we do our job. we have a responsibility. we take an oath, that's the whole point. when you take these jobs, you need to be appointed by the president and confirmed by the senate, and that actually is a pretty thorough process. and then you raise your right hand and you swear an oath to support and defend the constitution of the united states against all enemies foreign and domestic. you promise to bear true faith

and allegiance to the faisame a you take this obligation freely under terms of no reservation, so help you god. we have over 1500 employees. they all take that oath, and if they violate it, they know they'll be held accountable, and i hope those folks know i'm not going to violate my oath. >> we've got a contrast there, willie, between a man who has dedicated his entire life to the rule of law and upholding the constitution. and stooges who couldn't stand donald trump just a year ago and were ready to trash the constitution of the united states to avert the law just so a guy in the white house, who may not be there two years from now, look favorably to rod rosenstein. >> i don't think rosenstein is the guy the white house hoped they would be, which is to say a loyal person in the justice

department. remember he signed off personally on the raid of michael cohen's apartment, his hotel room and office a couple weeks ago? that infuriated the president, ratcheted up the president's attacks on rosenstein. you should go watch that entire vent yesterday. he gave an incredible defense of the constitution, the rule of law, the separation of powers. it was pretty powerful. >> what stooges don't realize, and they are stooges. maybe they're stupid, maybe they're just ignorant. >> maybe they're corrupt. >> yeah, maybe they're corrupt, maybe they're trying to cover up the president's misdeeds. what some may not understand, mike, rod rosenstein, yes, he approved the review of the records of michael cohen, but you talk to anybody that's worked in the southern district of new york, and they will tell

you they would not have gone after that. and a judge would never have approved it if there wasn't a crime that was highly likely to have occurred. >> joe, if you watch the entire interview, it becomes clear that mark meadows and jim jordan, two members of the house freedom caucus, this investigation, the roots of this investigation, and it's clear from listening to deputy rosenstein during the interview, the roots of this investigation have to do with a foreign state, russia, attacking the american political process, inflicting damage in our democracy. what meadows and jordan are doing with their antics is nothing less than trying to obstruct or impede an ongoing investigation. that's it. >> anyone who is trying to obstruct this investigation, so we can find out what happened in 2016, are nothing less than useful idiots. i will give these useful idiots,

though, some credit. at least the republican party has been consistent in their attacks on rod rosenstein. if they had praised him in the past and said that he was a man of integrity, if a white house, let's say sarah huckabee sanders, had put herself out on the line and said that rod rosenstein was a man of integrity, if they had done that, then maybe you could attack them for hypocrisy, but at least they have been consistent. this is what republicans had to say about rosenstein just a few months ago, and if you believe anything that i just said about them being consistent, you haven't watched much of this show. roll it. >> rosenstein has earned so much bipartisan support to serve as the deputy ag that the judiciary committee reported on his nomination with all but one

nomination. >> you have served as deputy attorney general and have served with equity and fairness. >> rod rosenstein is somebody that people across the board has unequivocally said this is a man of upstanding character in the department of justice. >> he is a man of extraordinary independence and integrity and a reputation in both political parties of great character. >> rod rosenstein was confirmed by this body by a vote of 94-6. that's probably the only trump nomination so far since he's been president that has enjoyed such broad bipartisan support, and it's because of his distinguished record. >> i think there is complete confidence in him. and another reason, frankly, for director comey to be out of the way so they can have somebody leading this effort that everybody across the board has respect and confidence in.

>> everybody has respect and confidence in him. >> it seems pretty clear, unequivocal. >> it does seem pretty clear. i don't understand. what happened? >> i worry. >> richard, what happened? >> that was a civics lesson and it's why you need a deep state. it's why you need people whose commitment is not to the person but is to the process and the law. you would want every high school kid in america to watch that. good for him. that's just what this country needs, and that's kind of who we are. that's our dna. that was actually a really good moment. >> and yet, general, you have a president who has been at war with not only the fbi but also the cia, also the intelligence community from the very beginning, and you have republicans -- i can tell you the republican party of my youth was the republican party that would strike out against democrats when they tried to undermine the cia. hell, forget the republican

party of my youth, the republican party of the time when you were running the cia and before you were running the cia and after 9/11, we were the ones that understood the importance of an independent intel community. but how that has changed since this lifelong democrat from queens, donald trump, became president of the united states. >> so to summarize, this is really weird because the normal constitutional breaks on excessive executive authority come from the congress. that's not happening. the breaks on executive authority today are coming from within the executive branch by the folks, richard, that you just described as the deep state, career professionals governed by the rule of law. but it gets weirder. now the president sen liis enli his branch in the other congress, the ones that should be with him, in order to limit

the agencies and departments that work under him. >> what's the impact of that? because you certainly look at the first 14, 15 months and there's so many worrying signs. but the federal courts have pushed back against his abusive, autocratic tendencies. you've seen the press push back against his abusive, autocraticic, demagogic tendencies. christopher wray, mike pompeo a few weeks back when he was testifying spoke truth to power, dan coats, all of them did. are you heartened by the fact that there have been some players in positions of authority that have pushed back against the abuses? >> absolutely. and that's the good news story. the sound you hear on the other

end of the line are these institutions digging in, pushing back against executive authority. that's been fairly widespread. that said, though, those institutions, and this is how i get off stage with the book, the serious thing here is not the immediate but the long term. both serious, but i really concern myself with the long term because we are rooting institutions, we are cutting public confidence in institutions that whatever you think of them now and their current circumstances we are certainly going to need again, and now they will be wounded for the longest time. there's one other thing i need to point out. in pushing back, those institutions might drive the intel guys, yours, journalism, the fbi. we have to be careful in pushing back against a norm-busting administration that we don't violent our own norms in doing that, because if we do, we only add to the destruction. >> that everybody doesn't push back too hard.

that's what mika has been concerned about for some time. i want to really -- when you were on last time, you were talking about so-called, quote, deep state and all the trump people, when donald trump obviously knew about the secret russian meetings in don jr.'s office but the rest of us didn't know about it. he knew he had a lot to hide, so he started attacking the obama, cia, et cetera, et cetera. and you talked about the lack of turnover between the bush administration and the obama administration and the trump administration, that this isn't some secretive deep state, that these are just career professionals that have grown up and said, hey, you know what? i'm going to devote my life to defending and protecting the constitution of the united states, i don't care who the president is. >> that's right. the only one who really swapped out was mike pompeo coming in, and then mike got to choose his

deputy, gina, who i hope will be the next director, that gina was career nsa. that's not bringing people in from the outside, bringing people in from the campaign. you know somebody who knows how the plumbing works, just like i did. i picked someone from the inside, too. still ahead on "morning joe," president trump likes to remind people that he has the power to pardon. bob mueller recently reminded the president that he has the power to subpoena. we'll break down the counsel's potential plan b if he declines an interview with investigators. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. this is a story about mail and packages.

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election. president trump's former attorney, john dowd, told the associated press that mueller's prosecutors broached the subject during a meeting with trump's legal team. the "washington post" was first to describe the tense meeting that took place on march 5th in which trump lawyers insisted he had no obligation to talk with federal investigators according to four people familiar with the encounter. but mueller responded that he had another option if trump declined. he could issue a subpoena for the president to appear before a grand jury. trump's then-attorney john dowd replied, this isn't some game. >> he actually should be telling that, or he should have been telling that to his client. >> yeah. he said that according to two people with knowledge of his comments. you are screwing with the work of the president of the united states. dowd quit trump's legal team two and a half weeks later, reportedly over disagreements on

strategy and interview negotiations with mueller were derailed by the raid on michael jackson -- michael cohen's offices three weeks ago in which rudy giuliani said the president is resisting. >> and since dowd has left, the president has gone to the washington law firm of larry moe and curly, so that's his new legal team. >> he's got giuliani there, too. >> of counsel. >> cannexactly. and yesterday trump slammed the release of potential questions, the ones that mueller had for the president. >> who would have done that? >> we'll find out. >> who would have done that? moore had so much discipline and he didn't leak these out. >> it may have been from the other side. the "new york times" said they came from the president's notes. it was so disgraceful that the questions concerning the russian witch hunt were leaked to the media. this morning president trump was

criticizing notes that came from his own legal team. the "washington post" reports that in march mueller's team agreed to provide the president's lawyers with more specific information about the subjects prosecutors wished to discuss with the president. according to three sources, trump lawyer jay sekulow compiled a list of 49 questions that the team believed the president would be asked. so everything in that tweet the president put out yesterday, almost everything was incorrect. mainly that it had been leaked from the mueller side, that it was a witch hunt. quite clearly these questions came from president trump's own legal team or someone very close to it. >> yeah. he needs to talk to his own lawyers which is something you could have said over the past six months. >> a couple of things are clearly apparent from the leak of the supposed questions. they're not really questions, they're topics. and 49 different topics, that's going to be an extensive interview if he ever did indeed sit with bob mueller's team,

which he probably won't. but one thing seems to be for certain now. this investigation is going to drag out for months and months and months because the president is not going to sit for this interview. he would be crazy to sit for this interview. coming up on "morning joe," two of the key questions that bob mueller reportedly has for president trump. when did you become aware of the trump tower meeting with russians? and what involvement did you have in the release of don jr.'s e-mails trying to explain it away? former cia director michael hayden weighs in next on "morning joe." we had long deployments in iraq. i'm really grateful that usaa was able to take care of my family while i was overseas serving. it was my very first car accident. we were hit from behind. i called usaa and the first thing they asked was

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we're so pleased to have back with us general michael hayden. he's the author of "assault on intelligence, american national security in an age of lies." >> let's talk about the trump tower meeting with russians in june 2016 and what the russians got out of that. because obviously everyone got caught up in how the trump family was spinning this. but the long-term consequences of even having that meeting and can i use the word conspiring about hillary clinton, perhaps more?

what does that give the russians in the big picture. >> three or four things. number one, we would have called that a russian soft approach. it's good tradecraft. don't go in there with svr on your business card in your first encounter but you begin to establish contact. what did they learn? number one, they learned the campaign was willing to deal, which is a really big thing. >> exactly. >> they were willing to accept information on hillary clinton with the providence of the russian government on it. number three, they learned, and this is a little indirect, but they seemed to have had a pretty sophisticated operation. they learned that the campaign would not go to the feds with the russian approach coming at them because they didn't see any increase in counter-intelligence activity around them. >> so they learned that not only were the trump team willing to play, but they learned that the trump team was not going to report their contacts, which is

extraordinarily unusual. >> we wouldn't have done that without a room full of lawyers, a and who do you have from the bureau. >> i said that even as a congressman, if there were reports on me, we would have immediately said, let's call the fbi. that's just basic. >> the fourth thing the russians achieved with the meeting was they got this little down payment the counterment. you attended the meeting and you didn't report it. >> i feel like it just falls flat. when we heard about this meeting and the president kept moving forward, and it doesn't feel like the response, at least -- >> you can throw it out to naivete, inexperience. they weren't surrounded by anyone with antenna that would

say, whoa, this can't happen. >> based on your intelligence and information gathering, does anything you've seen at trump tower look like collusion to you? >> i don't know the legal definition. the words i use, a word i use a lot in the book is something called convergence where you may not be actually going this way in terms of, hey, will you do this now, i'll do that. but you each for your own purposes are doing something and your activities are mutually reinforcing. very quickly, the president gives his speech, he feeds his base. before he gets back, the russians are all over it, the patriotic side and the constitutional side. all right media picks it up and mirrors the russian bots. they inject a powerful racial content into it. then it gets to the major networks, mostly through the one down the street, and we have this cycle.

everyone for their own interests. the president, the base, the russians to mess with our heads, outright conspiratorial, the network for readings. b but they're all driving in the same direction and the sum total is a more american-driven society. coming up on "morning joe," she helped with the scoop that white house leader john kelly has repeatedly described his boss as an idiot. stay tuned for more on that. once there was an organism so small

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>> all right. vice president mike pence's tough talk on immigration rallied the crowd in phoenix last night during an event on tax reform. there pence gave special recognition to controversial former sheriff and current u.s. senate candidate joe arpaio. >> and i just found out when i was walking through the door that we were also going to be joined today by another favor e favorite. a great friend of this president, a tireless champion of strong borders in the rule of law, he spent a lifetime in law enforcement, sheriff joe arpaio! i'm honored to have you here. >> that is beneath contempt. you do wonder how low mike pence will stoop to play to the lowest common denominator. i won't say on the right,

because there's nothing conservative about arpaio. arpaio was convicted of contempt of court after he refused to stop racially profiling latinos in arizona. and before being pardoned by president trump while awaiting sentencing, a lot of conservatives yesterday reacted to those remarkably inane comments. david french described it, quote, as the decline of mike pence. joe goldberg simply wrote, come on. and brett hume called it depressing. >> there you go. >> this is a guy who would torture, kill, allow rapes, allow sexual assaults to continue, would intentionally harass americans of hispanic heritage. chapter and verse, one of the

most contemptible examples of someone in office, and do the best they can to undermine values. what would lead mike pence to say that? >> i don't think you really have to ask at this point in mike pence's career of being an apologist in some of the worst impulses of the american president. that ship sailed a long time ago. joe arpaio is a man who claimed there was a kidnapping, assassination attempt on his life. got a man arrested and imprisoned for four years. the state had to pay the man who was wrongly accused a million bucks from taxpayer dollars. that is the kind of man joe arpaio is. >> mika, we've seen it time and again in politics where mike pence thinks he's playing it smart politically. do you know who is playing it

smart politically? the ambassador to the united nations. >> yes. >> conservatives look at nikki haley, and they say to themselves, okay, i want to be loyal to the republican party, but that is somebody who is tough and independent and who will not scrounge around in the gutter. >> someone i want to ask our next guest about, nbc contribute tore mike lubica, and nbc host stephan stephanie ruhle who is writing about john kelly who is portraying himself as the country's savior, and insulting the president's intelligence, calling him an idiot. >> i'm on the moron and idiot feed. >> we need to apologize for going a minute over yesterday and stepping on your show, but we're glad you're here to make

up the time today. tell us what you told us off the air about everybody who goes into the administration and then responds to pence. >> it truly like every time i've ever dated an awful jerk out there and then thought, you know what? i'm going to be the girl to change him. and every person that touches president trump thinks i'm going to be the girl that turns this guy around, and nobody can. john kelly is an example of someone in the white house who is saying what a lot of people think. when the president wants to take 25,000 troops out of south korea on the eve of the winter olympics, when he openly talks and has no idea about policy or politics around immigration, the economy and trade, one might call him an idiot. >> or a moron. >> this looks like a movie post, although not the sort of reviews you want from peter traverse. an idiot, says john kelly, chief of staff. rex tillerson calls him a blanking moron.

gary cohn, a dope, intelligence of a kirnd gardner. h.r. mcmaster and reince priebus calling him an idiot. >> if you do this, can you go to work every day and lead the white house? unless you show true worship of the grand master wizard that is the president, then you're outskies with him. >> i like this analogy from stephanie. you lead with the political equivalent of an std that donald trump worries about constantly. >> donald trump would even say this would be like one of his staffer's personal vietnam. >> wait a minute, maybe that's why he raided his doctor's office. >> thanks for teeing me up that way, elise. thank you.

>> we've got a book but we're not going to get to the book quite yet. talk about what you saw with mike pence. here is a guy that was supposed to be sort of the moral grounding for this administration. >> but who thought that? who actually thought that about mike pence looking at his record and the things that he said, and the things that he did when he was the governor of indiana? i watched that thing today and i just thought of an old country-western line, from the gutter to you is not up. because if you'll say that about arpaio, what won't you say? if you'll glorify a guy who makes a smoky and the bandit sheriff look like the fletcher school of diplomacy, what won't you say to further your own ambition? >> that's pathetic. i'm really sad for him. >> the defenses against common sense, justice and whatever come at us every day like a fire hydrant. and it's exhausting even trying to keep up with him.

i think the country is exhausted in not paying much attention to the mike pences of the world right now. >> mike pence might say he sides with jesus, but he's not siding with decency. and jesus was a decent man. >> you always want to get jesus to weigh in on those guys who say they're as close as they are and say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. i didn't say what he said i said. >> yeah. >> it's interesting that part of your report about john kelly and the language that he uses comes from white house staffers being frustrated with his savior complex, that he's the one who is saving it all and just the hubris of everyone thinking they can go in and change donald trump, and donald trump proving time and time again that he doesn't want to be changed because he believes that he's just fine the way he is and doesn't need any expert advice. >> john kelly says don't curse in front of a lady, yet he calls our report b.s. last i checked, the s stands for a curse. >> yeah. >> mika, at what point, and this has nothing to do with john

kelly's service and honor in this country, okay? this is the john kelly we're seeing now. and i have to tell you, just watching this play out, i'm tired of hearing this good soldier stuff, okay? that sense of honor that he brought to serving his country, he has to do that now because does anybody dispute this reporting, really? no. >> i think some would argue that we're seeing a pattern of donald trump, the president of the united states, and anybody who becomes a part of his orbit is destroyed or tainted permanently or changed because they cannot balance what general hayden was talking about this morning. balancing having that resignation letter in the right desk drawer and balancing serving the country and serving the president and trying to understand his i hdeosyncracies and trying to make it work, but

people get sullied in his ability to make decisions. >> i'm sitting next to a big basketball. going to work for the trump white house is like going to work for the knicks. nobody leaves there without being damaged. >> i ask mika, do you feel bad for them? they chose to work there. >> sure. i feel bad for anybody in that position, but, you know, i still think they have to face their responsibility. >> they chose to walk so close to the sun. donald trump has delivered us no surprises. the man he is today is the man he always was. >> that said, though, mike, during the transition you had people like general hayden and robert gates and condy rice and others saying, listen, we understand. this guy is abnormal. we understand that he said a lot of really disturbing things. we only get one president at a time, and if you think you can

serve america by going in there and trying to make a difference, you need to do that. general hayden said you put that resignation letter in the drawer, but one thing that everybody has to be reminded is, yes, there is loyalty to the president, there's also loyalty to the institution that you're serving, and sometimes you stick around to try to save the institution you're serving because, as general hayden said, we're going to need it again when this nightmare is over. >> but he canyou can be termina. >> like john kelly and everyone else who lusted over the white hou house, john kelly came to be chief of staff as a reluctant warrior after being asked time and again to take the position. he comes from a life of integrity and honor, and he

chose to do that job for the country, not for the individual, to your point. >> he's got a hard job. >> i understand there were things in your reporting that was very disturbing. i will say this, though. if anybody thinks that john kelly or general mattis love their job and are excited about their job and would rather be there than retired with their families, away from all of this chaos, then you don't know general kelly and general mattis. >> they're 100% right. >> how much do you take, though? how much of this do you take? >> if you are a general that went into falusia after contractors were hung and scorched in falusia and all hell broke loose. if you're john kelly and you've

buried your boy? guess what, a guy with orange hair acting like a jackass is not such a challenge. you stay the course. they've been through so much more in their lives than this. they've not only had to bury their boys, they've also seen their friends had reduced to mush. so are you going to freak out if this guy in the white house continues doing remarkably stupid things? i don't think you are. i think you sit there and go, you know what, i'm on duty till the morning. >> but you can't become contaminated like mike pence. >> guess what? it depends on whether you walk away from that job going, i don't give a damn what people think of me. i know what i'm doing in here. >> the country that he fought for, he sees what's happening to this country right now. >> right. >> and he believes that's why he's -- >> i understand that, but at

some point you become part of the problem and not the solution. >> let me ask you, is america better off with john kelly, with all of his flaws as chief of staff orac kellyanne conway who wants the job? >> john, when you look at the state of this country, and we don't know what goes on behind the scenes, when you look at the state of this country, how is he helping here? >> you know what? i think one of the biggest mistakes people make is when they say, it can't get worse. it can get a hell of a lot worse. >> on that note, stephanie, i'm sure you're glad you came in. maybe -- >> stephanie, i like your button. tell us about your button. >> it's a campaign love button. you know what it is? the idea is just to remind everyone be a little nicer. love is a verb. you have to actually do it. that's it. >> thanks for that trip down memory lane with your dating

history. >> i had dinner with my sister-in-law last night. she was one brilliant woman. >> we'll see you at 9:00 a.m. sharp right here on msnbc. stay with us, we're back in three minutes with more "morning joe." 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. that's it. so rich. i love it. that's why you should be a keurig man! full-bodied. are you sure you're describing the coffee and not me?

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♪ welcome back. happy birthday to mika. come on, everybody. mika turns 31 today.

>> thank you. you forgot 20 years. >> the 20th anniversary of mika's birthday. >> look at this, look at this cake. >> i know, i baked it myself. >> oh, my gosh, it's so pretty. what's that, apple pie? >> mika loves apple pie. >> oh, my god, i love apple pie and flowers. thank you. >> you could celebrate by watching a "star wars" movie. >> or i could buy a great book, for jack. look at this. >> you're not going to talk about -- >> oh, we're not doing -- >> not yet. >> do you want some icing? >> sure. can i have a fork. >> can we have a fork. this is such a wonderful segway. while mika is getting a fork. the next guest is the going to be so confused. then again, we're always confused ourselves so it's

perfect. let's go to boston. co-founder of the american prospect, columnist for huffing post. and professor at brandeis university. and whose interview resulted in steve bannon's dismissal from the white house now in his new book, can democracy survive global capitalism? and warns without it, the bannons of the world will only gain power with its followers. i've got to tell you, robert, mika taught me something ten years ago. she said, it's all about the voice. as i was driving around in connecticut and i heard you on wnyc, i said, this guy has the best radio voice. >> good. >> talk about this threat. we've seen a lot of books about theent of the west. the end of liberal glodemocracy.

et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. it really does come down to a battle of whether the working middle class is being swept away by globalization, technology or both. tell us your take. >> well, here it is in a nutshell. we had this remarkable period after world war ii where the company delivered for regular people for about 30 years. that was not an accident. the ground rules of globalization that was created at the conference after the war were very deliberate. those rules made 2 possible for each country to have a socially just economy. you had no neofascists in that era because they'd been discredited in the '30s but also because people felt they were getting a rough shake. and then a rough '70s and reagan and thatcher in the '80s, that gives the other team a turn at-bat. the team with the great collapse

by the success of rose velts. and again and again, working people throughout the west, and it takes, you know, about 30 years for that germanate to produce creatures like trump, like erdogan and bannon. >> and what's so fascinating, your take on democrats and their failure is that for some time, working class voters may not have aligned by democrats socially on social issues perfectly. but at least they aligned economically. when there stopped being a big difference between hillary clinton and george w. bush or donald trump, suddenly, we said, wait a second, why do we want to go with people against economic interests. and we disagree with on guns, abortion, et cetera? >> well, this is economic as well as culture. and that's really important. bill clinton did not have to

support nafta which divided his party. he did not have to appoint bob rubin as his top economic guy. he morphed into his economic guru. and the spiritual children ended up advising barack obama to t where paul bulger is seen as two left wing. so working people, look at these folks, democrats, the party of roosevelt. and they said not only are these guys not delivering me but they look down their nose at me as a loser of globalization. and these are the same people who want to take away my guns. they're the same people who think immigrant investigation the same rights as i do. they're the same people to abort a fetus in oute utero.

so you have this brew rationalized by the likes of bannon, and it ends up in 2016 with trump and all of the other neofascists throughout the west. this isn't just a one-off because of the weirdness of 2016. it's a systemic turn ago away of capitalism that delivers people. and the workers of the world don't ute. the workers of the world look to nationalists, neofascists in their own country. and we have to get back to the capitalism of sort that we during the war. >> book is "can democracy survive global capitalism?" >> robert, i hope you come back. this is about a 30-minute discussion. >> it really is. thank you for being on. >> speaking of books, mike lubbock you're out with a book

for young readers, zach & zoe. >> jack scarborough reading all of your books and is a big difference in the way he's doing in school. >> jack scarborough knows my books better than i know my books and i wish i had the series out sooner because he would have started createding these books when he was 6 to 7 years old. these are for 6 to 9 year olds. it's good for the soul to go around and find out how much young people still want to read in this world. >> it's such great news. >> it's zach & zoe mysteries. the missing baseball. >> mike, thank you. and the gallup poll which throws 37% that believes the

president deserves re-election is a national poll, not in the states. >> that nevsure made sense to m. >> there you go. >> happy birthday. >> thank you. >> stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. got to you on time. >> thank you, joe, thank you, mika. good morning again, i'm stephan stephanie ruhle and we're talking about the president again. >> it's extremely unlikely, brian, that mueller would have gone in and discussed the topic of the subpoena with the president's legal team without rod rosenstein's exclusive approval. >> rosenstein under scrutiny. >> i think they should under by now, the department of justice is not going to be distorted. >> there you have it,