we've got a president who's tough, a president who doesn't listen to the people who are nay sayers and a president that is as committed to regime change as we are. what do you think is going to happen to that agreement? that nuclear agreement? yep. >> rudy giuliani is president trump's newest member of his legal team, but waded into some foreign policy on saturday. he was out in another media blitz over the weekend taking on the mueller probe and trying to clean up his mistakes in the michael cohen matter as giuliani put it, quote, i am focussed on the law more than the facts right now. wow. what a way to start "morning joe" on this monday morning, may 7th. with us we have national affairs

analyst for nbc and msnbc, john heilemann. next to john, pulitzer prize winning historian jon meacham, the soul of america, the battle for our better angels is out now. we'll talk about it throughout the show. i would say, joe, that meachum is the soul of america, don't you think? >> well, either the soul of america or the soul of bell meade, or at least the country club. you know, jon, it's another extraordinary book of your's. and there's a line that i got and i really think it encapsulates this entire project and puts everything in perspective, so much important information for americans out there, but you write in the introduction to know what has come before is to be armed against despair. >> wow. >> you talk about the vanity of the president. we always believed these are the

worst of times, but in the words of that great american philosopher, gladys knight as bad as these days seem, these will one day seen as the good ole days by our children. you put that in historical context. we've been through this before. it's whether we listen to our better angels or not and actually learn from that history that is inside us. tell us about it. >> absolutely. the given era is shaped by whether we open our arms wider or clinch our fists. and this is not a fourth of july homily, not a sermon. as a historical fact, the eras that we look back on that we want to emulate, that we commemorate are those that were never easy but they were ones in which we broaden the definition

wrote, we were all created equal. this is not a call to say, oh, everything has turned out before, so let's sit back and just wait this out. this is in no way is that. people have to work. they have to protest and have conversations like this. they have to vote. they have to listen to the other guy because the other guy may be wrong 99 times out of 100, but there will be 100th time where we can cooperate and move to higher ground. >> well, now i have my own coffee. joe is half way through it and absolutely loving it. thank you, john. also with us this morning, chief white house correspondent for the new york times peter baker, political writer for the new york times and msnbc political analyst nick confessorry and in washington, nbc news national political reporter heidi przybyla. a lot to get to. rudy unravelled more over the weekend, if it's possible, joe. >> he really did. not only did he unravel more

spitting, standing secretary of state, on prepared remarks, and seemed completely out of control, we have to remember this is a man that the white house worked furiously to get as secretary of state even though they were admitting privately during the transition that rudy giuliani had lost quite a few steps. he would fall asleep in the middle of meetings actually five minutes into meetings and his head would be rested on his chest, that he wasn't completely all there. those are the words of donald trump and those around him back two years ago. now we have a man known as america's mayor, a man who did some pretty extraordinary things in new york, was viewed favorably by so many in the days after 9/11, john heilemann, completely humiliating himself. nobody around him to protect himself from himself and the

lose r is not only donald trump because of the mistakes he makes every time he goes out and starts talking about the legal case, but staff members in the white house beyond themselves that these two older gentlemen are seem to be detached from the political reality they have to deal with and clean up everyday and they are going out between them and just making a mess of donald trump's legal situation. >> yes. look, to your point, joe, this is not a we had rudy giuliani off the national stage for a while when he did not get his appointment to the trump administration as he hoped. he sort of went dark for the better part of a year and now he's back. but if you remember what he was like during the campaign, this behavior is not at all inconsistent with his behavior in that period in 2016. he said some extraordinary things in the course of 2016 about hillary clinton's health, he trafficked some conspiracy theories and tendency to rant

and rave. he often won favor with donald trump, people will remember that on the weekend of the "access hollywood" tape when no one else would go on television that sunday the tape came out on a friday, when no one else would go out on television on sunday to defend donald trump, rudy giuliani went out and did five sunday shows. he curried some favor with trump in that moment. yet even then a few months later as you point out when it came time for a job in the administration donald trump turned him away and said a lot of very dismissive things about him all makes all the more extraordinary he turned back to rudy giuliani in this moment. so there's nothing unexpected about his poor performance here. incredible thing is that trump has turned to him and if you look at the way on friday the way that trump threw him under the bus, not once but twice on camera and now trump watching him over the weekend, i wonder and i know i'm not the only one wondering this, how long this

marriage of desperation, of convenience, how long this marriage will last. >> it's peter baker. you've been writing about president trump losing control of the narrative. i would also say he's lost control of his newest lawyer and i'm not sure why it's taking so long to realize this. maybe one of the events of the past five days of rudy would be enough. the guy seems to be a train wreck. >> the problem is it's one thing to have a bad television appearance. it's another thing if you're a lawyer and putting your client in effect in greater legal jeopardy. that's the question a lot of lawyers are doing right now. some of the things that rudy giuliani has said, cause us a talk about him on television or give ammunition to prosecutors. i think that any seasoned lawyer would be asking the president is this really what you want as your chief lawyer right now. >> wow. >> and you have, jon meacham, so

many different arguments that rudy giuliani is making. it's very clear that he's making it up as he goes along. this weekend he let out that there were probably other payments to other women from donald trump, something obviously donald trump wouldn't want out. he's completely blown up every time line, every time line of lies that donald trump has laid out before. it's hard to see rudy giuliani where he is today and where he was on september 11th, 2001. >> absolutely. what giuliani did on the 11th and in the aftermath, particularly on that long and tragic afternoon when the president was moving around on air force one, giuliani in many ways became the focal point of the country. and he was -- it was whatever you think about his mayorship

throughout, that was a great service and something that was virtually churchillian in that terrible hour. it's been downhill since and accelerating, i think. part of what's happened -- and it's tricky to explain to people who maybe haven't lived here, but basically this is the new york city tabloid political culture has gone south to washington. >> uh-huh. >> and it's a world of the new york post and 21 and lots of stake houses, lots of onion loaves, the grand havana room which is a great place, i think. it's the last cigar bar. let's not be too negative here, but it's this roy cone world of just punch. and presidents when they're in trouble, they usually try to send for a stabilizing figure,

lbj sends for clark figure, clinton sent for want somebody to come in and settle things down. george w. bush sends for bob gates. what has trump done? trump sent for a fellow brawler. if anything that tells us what the next x number of months will be like. >> well, there are new questions about michael cohen's role as donald trump's fixer and whether he maintained a secret slush fund to make damaging stories disappear during the election. according to "the wall street journal," cohen gained access to as much as three quarters of a million dollars during the presidential campaign siting real estate records the journal reports in february of 2016, cohen nearly doubled the amount he could use on a line of credit tied to his manhattan condo.

he closed one, $255,000 account and opened another for a half million. three months before that, the journal reports that cohen gained access to another $529,000 tied to his wife's parent's mortgage. cohen is currently under federal investigation in a broad case that includes the payments to stormy daniels and karen mcdougal, the playboy play mate who also claims she had an affair with trump. the journal reports that federal prosecutors and the fbi are examining whether cohen committed bank fraud or by misstating the intended purpose of the loans like when he claimed he used a home equity line of credit to pay stormy daniels. yesterday rudy giuliani was back in front of the cameras and was asked about the tre taner to the president used to reimburse cohen. >> you said he -- this was a

regular arrangement he had with michael cohen. michael cohen make other payments to other women for the president? >> he made payments for the president or conducted business for the president. which means he had legal fees, moneys laid out and expenditures, which i have on my bills to my clients. it was not a campaign contribution because it would have been done any way. this is the kind of thing i settled for celebrities and famous people, every lawyer that does that kind of work has. >> according to rudy giuliani, this was basically common place, that the president had effectively an extramarital affairs slush fund that was administered by michael cohen and he would just be expected to take care of these things. they were a regular occurrence. that in and of itself should be very disturbing. most people of means, most people of wealth and celebrity, they don't have extramarital affairs slush funds and the suggestion is insulting.

>> so, mika, first of all, it's important for us at this point to blow up a lie that donald trump and rudy giuliani keep spitting out there and giuliani keeps saying, oh, this would have been paid any way. even if there weren't a presidential election this would have been paid any way. it bears repeating that donald trump and stormy daniels got together at least met allegedly had an affair in 2006. got it? >> right. >> 2006. they end up paying her off a week before the election. >> i know. >> ten years later. so, rudy giuliani makes himself look like a fool, makes the president look like a liar. makes it look like this is a coverup, which i guess apparently it is because he keeps lying saying this would have happened any way. no, it happened and the timing is what's so devastating. ten years separate from the incident they pay her off

because what's two weeks away? the presidential race. that's why the federal elections commission ultimately needs to be involved. >> well, and heidi, first of all, i don't know why rudy is there right now because he keeps making things worse. it must be that he's free and wants to be near someone in power even though the situation seems to be careening to a terrible end. having said that, is there any other way of looking at these payments? especially the time line that joe laid out. >> he really paraded a public relss and potentially legal problem for the president by making him the president look like a liar when he said on air force one that he didn't know about those payments. joe and mika i was in touch with white house officials over the weekend who was going out on the air trying to clean all of this up and now it looks like there's more than just the president trying to clean up after rudy giuliani but other officials who

are now saying well, let's parse this a little bit more even and say that the president didn't know at the time that the payments were made, not that he didn't know period. and so we still have no clarity from this white house probably because the president himself is giving so many conflicting accounts to his aides of when exactly he learned from this payments. but, no, second -- there is no other way to interpret it. and the second problem here that was created by giuliani over the weekend was saying that they're implicating that there may be other payments. let's do the math here. we have about 400,000 to 700,000that was sent over to michael cohen, only $130,000 now do we have accounted for in terms of the payment to stormy daniels. when rudy giuliani says there could be other women out there and we have previous reporting by michael avenatti saying he was approached by all these other women, you wonder if

there's a second big wave to this story. >> nick confessorry, one of the things i don't understand about michael cohen, the finances and these payoffs and him having to take out a loan against his in-law's houses, you read in the times and "the washington post" this is a guy whose father-in-law was connected, i believe, to ukrainian mobsters, as far as at least they rented out his hall. he had an interest in that. he sells real estate, makes 25 million in profit. all these massive numbers out there. and then he's struggling to get $200,000 to have a credit line on his in-law's parents to pay off stormy daniels in the final days of the campaign. can you help me out on this? what's the difference between the tens of millions of dollars that he seems to be moving around and then him struggling

to make $120,000 hush payment? >> joe, it's the exact right question and cohen's finances are the biggest mystery here. how could he make 30 or $40 million in a real estate flip and be hankering after 100 grand on a home equity loan some years later. it doesn't actually add up and raises the questions that i believe are at the heart of the investigation to cohen, whose money was that really? whose transactions are those? who purchased those apartments from which he made on paper the millions of millions of dollars? it doesn't add up. something is going to drop here. and on a second point, joe, you know, it's not against the law to give your lawyer a bunch of money to run a slush fund to pay off people you had affairs with. it is against the law if you do it for campaign purposes and don't report it to the fbc. it's not just a matter for the fbc, you do that on purpose, not report it and know it's against the law, it's a matter for the

justice department. >> giuliani got him in trouble and of course donald trump made the situation worse because first of all, you're exactly right. john heilemann, if you make the payment, or if somebody makes a payment for you, like for instance, let me break this down. we always freaked out in my political campaigns about whether we got the exact value of the barbecue that somebody contributed for a fundraiser. and if it was $3,422, we had to go up to them, we had to get the receipts, we had to write it down because that's called an in-kind contribution. somebody is doing us a favor. and those are subject to the same limits as cash payments. >> right. >> well, in this case, if he gets an in-kind contribution, well, that's illegal. unless trump says he thinks he

paid it back. but there's still no reporting there. and $120,000 right before a presidential campaign, that is significant. >> right. it's significant. there's no doubt about it. the campaign finance issues that rudy has caused problems for trump repeatedly every time he tries to talk about it to clean up, he raises the possibility of a new campaign violation. i'll just say to go back to your point, joe, let's focus a little more on the time line you did before, make it clearer about what's really going on in this time line. the alleged affair took place in 2006. stormy daniels said she had one sexual encounter with donald trump. okay? so, ten years go by in which according -- the story they're telling is the reason that she was paid off was to save melania trump from the pain of hearing about this affair. all right? so for ten years no money exchanges hands. now we get to october of 2016, as you point out, it's a few

weeks, couple weeks before the presidential election, but on top of that it's coming after the access hollywood tape. what happened is the "access hollywood" tape has come out where we hear donald trump talking about grabbing women by the private parts. more than a dozen women have come forward and accused donald trump of sexuality assault or sexual harassment. at the end of that, melania trump heard all those things, after all that, their argument is that then they said you know what, melania trump could hear all those accusations and the marriage was still in tact. if she heard about the one time he had sex with a porn star ten years ago, that would be devastating to her. it makes zero sense. >> it makes zero -- yeah. >> no sense whatsoever. >> yeah. absolutely no sense whatsoever, mika. again, you look at it and look at the timing, there's just -- there is absolutely no

explanation other than the fact that they were trying to keep it quiet. rudy giuliani, talk about maybe the greatest admission against interests when he was blabbing on tv shows this past week saying could you imagine hillary clinton having that information before the second debate? bingo. >> and he looks just a little too pleased to be there. i mean, he's just like a run away beer truck. still ahead on "morning joe" -- >> there you go. >> to help us naf gate the president's legal troubles, former white house counsel to president obama bob bauer and jonathan turley join us to discuss how a porn star could take down a president. plus, the drama around the president's pick for cia director gina has kel tried to withdraw her nomination until the president convinced her otherwise. carol leonnig is here with her reporting. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. hey allergy muddlers.

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xfinity. the future of awesome. president trump's personal attorney has acknowledged paying an adult film actress tens of thousands of dollars in the final days of the 2016 presidential campaign. cohen said neither the trump organization nor the trump campaign was a party to the transaction and neither reimbursed me for the payment either directly or indirectly. >> did you know about the $130,000 payment to stormy daniels? >> no, no. >> do you know where he got the money to make that payment? >> i don't know. no. >> michael would represent me and represent me on some things. he represents me like with this crazy stormy daniels deal. he represented me. >> the president repaid it. >> oh, he did. >> wasn't for the campaign. it was to save their marriage as

much as their reputation. however, imagine if that came out on october 15th, 2016? >> sure. >> in the middle of the last debate with hillary clinton. >> mr. president -- >> stormny daniels. >> we're not changing any stories. >> joining us now law professor at george washington university, jonathan turley with a new piece this morning in usa today entitled rudy giuliani's flubs may let stormy daniels take down president trump. and former white house counsel to president obama and nyu law professor bob bauer with a new piece in law fair entitled the cohen reimburses and retainers,al tales and other possibilities. joe, it seems like rudy giuliani has made it quite clear, although we can take it to the legal panel, there are few other possibilities? >> well, there are many other possibilities. you also -- i mean, you had rudy giuliani on "fox and friends" and our friends over at "fox and

friends" looked like somebody taking a cadle prod to him when he was saying the things he was saying. it was shocking. they followed up with great questions. >> yep. >> then he even shocked -- something happened on sean hannity show that doesn't usually happened. it went off script and even shocked sean hannity with that admission that donald trump paid her off. i'm wondering, though, jonathan turley, let's take it out of the realm of cable news and take it to the courts. all of these admissions, all of these conflicting statements actually can put donald trump in serious legal jeopardy. you write about it this morning. tell us about it. >> well, i can. the problem is not the campaign finance charge itself. it can be brought as a criminal case. there is a good defense here being lost in bad delivery. there is the irrespective test

that is used by the f.e.c. that they are trying to articulate. but the problem is really the investigation itself. the investigation has been in the field. they have a search warrant referring to the payments of stormy daniels. any effort to influence witnesses, with hold evidence, produce false narratives could be the obstruction case that has so far evaded robert mueller. with regard to the comey matter, it's more complex because the president is using his inherent constitutional powers. but with stormy daniels, all that falls away. if you try to influence witnesses, obstruct efforts with regard to that investigation, it's a much clearer shot for the southern district to allege something like obstruction. >> so, bob bauer, you talk aboutabout tall tales and other

possibilities. if this retainer exists, there's probably other payments. >> that's correct. the problem right from the beginning is that there is no coherent theory that mr. giuliani articulated. i think professor turley was indicating, there's an argument he might make but the reimbursement has nothing to do with it. it doesn't cure the violation in any way whatsoever. why are they putting this forward so aggressively? the answer may be that this payment to mr. cohen may take place in the context of other concerns, concerned unrelated to campaign finance that mr. trump may have. bear in mind that at some point in the interviews that mr. giuliani has said, he suggested these payments may have been made as late as 2018. here you have the president in the middle of the mueller investigation making payments to mr. cohen. those are payments, by the way, that exceed $400,000, well in excess of the amount that was paid by mr. cohen to mr. daniels. the question is what are these payments for? what is the reason for this

particular timing? >> joe? >> yeah. peter baker, can you tell us -- take us inside the white house and the sense of helplessness that staff members must have trump and giuliani winging as they go, leaving them in an unenviable position trying to explain the latest narrative, wherever those two decide it's going to roam. >> yeah, you can imagine what that's like. those who have been out in public on television or elsewhere defending him suddenly seeing rudy giuliani give a very different version of events and now you're left holding the bag. how do you explain it? how do you defend the president? are you nechb part of the conversation? you're not. for any white house, that is a very, very disconcerting feeling. sarah sanders was left feeling from the podium to explain she has the best information given at any time meaning they're not

telling her the truth. no press secretary likes that. that's a very big point of friction inside a white house. i imagine you can see something like that happening or playing out in the days to come. >> so, i was talking the other day on friday to jack quinn, one of big clinton's white house counsel in the '95, '97, premonica but the middle of white water. jack made this point, president clinton at the time attacked not himself but he had a whole operation set up. that was set up so that mike mccurry could stand at the white house podium and never have to take questions that would get him into the kind of trouble that sarah huckabee sanders has gotten into where she has had to give bad information, lie, whatever. that bifurcation worked really

well for them. that was both a good political strategy and good for the country. is that not part of the problem here for trump which is that the whole operation just in terms of trump's self interest is the lack of a coherent strategy. they're not doing this in a rigorous, thoughtful way. it's just indiscriminate flailing. >> there's a couple norms breaking down. one is the press secretary role. the other is the white house counsel itself which used to represent the office of the president institutionally and now representing the president and his personal capacity whether there are nuances there. but clearly i heard somebody say this weekend a wonderful line, there's the west wing and then there's donald trump. and one of the mysteries of the era to me is why he doesn't do what is self evidently in his own interest.

what you're saying about setting up a lanny davis-like operation outside the white house. the other thing, a more general point, but he creates his own dramas, right? so he says something. he electively challenges some cultural convention then gets mad when people like us talk about it. it's the self defeating cycle. and it doesn't -- we used to say it doesn't have to be this way. maybe it just does. maybe there's no capacity to learn or grow. >> they have tried to do exactly what you're talking about last summer. they explored this idea of a bifurcated system, a lanny davis part of the west wing is different from the part doing the policy. steve bannon tried to do, it didn't fly because this president doesn't want to separate these things. he didn't want to not be part of it himself. >> so bob bauer i want to ask

you this question because on friday as you know paul manafort case, there were news reports that came out where the job was tough on bob mueller's investigation and said this manafort case has nothing to do with the campaign. donald trump seized on that on friday. i want you to ask answer the question whether you think legally what's going on there and what that portends in the manafort case and more broadly for mueller and then talk about even if it's a good political talking point for the white house, it's not of any particular consequence unless it turns out to be damaging on the legal front. >> yes. i think the white house is getting ahead of itself here. i wouldn't read nearly as much as the judge being tough on the government. that's not unusual. we see this sort of thing happen all the time where in the course of the questioning the court seems to be pushing hard on both parties. so who is to say what ultimately will happen here. i have to say and i done know many people i spoken to in the

legal community would disagree. it's hard for me to see anything in the mueller investigation that doesn't constitute standard investigative technique for him to push hard on the campaign manager for donald trump on these other issues and to attempt to induce his cooperation on the matters that are squarely within his mandate doesn't seem exceptional. but the i think the white house tugt be careful not to push that talking point too hard because they may be embarrassed by the outcome. >> nick. >> and that is what was -- for me this weekend hard to read from some friends who are so excited, write in some conservative journals. they were acting as if the judge in the eastern district of virginia somehow put a thor-like lightning bolt on the head of robert mueller. it was procedural.

he said, listen, what they did in the southern district of new york where they moved the case that didn't fit neatly in to your area, robert mueller, they moved it there. why didn't you do it in virginia? that may be a more relevant way to -- better way to do it than legally than the way that you've done it here. but yet nick confessorry -- that's basically what he's saying. i think maybe you should kick this back to the eastern district and have them do for manafort what the southern district of new york is doing with cohen. so, nick, that hardly seems like this knockout blow that we've been reading about all weekend. >> well, look, it's hard to know at this stage. it's certainly possible the judge was beating the government around the ears a little bit on procedure, but the question for professor turley, i want to go back to this payments to cohen for a second. so, to put you on the spot, jonathan, if you're looking at the four corners of the facts of

the law here, the versions of the story put out by the president, by his lawyer, and by his other people, what judgment will a judge make about the purpose of these payments, do you think? >> well, the problem with the giuliani defense is not that it's not legitimate, it's just that the facts don't fit neatly. in fact the department of justice showed with john edwards that simply claiming that these payments would be made irrespectively is not an absolute defense. the problem, of course, is the delivery. it's the same problem with the clown car. the problem with the clown car is not the car. it's the fact that it's filled with a clown. you take the clowns out and you have a perfectly good car. >> so the clowns in this metaphor -- >> the point is simply that, look, they have a viable case here in terms of irrespective test. but they need to have beater delivery. but at the end of the day, it's

not an absolute defense. giuliani did not move this ball by converting something from a gift to a loan to an expenditure. it comes down to the context and whether it's believable that this would have been paid irrespectively of the campaign. >> thank you both for your insight this morning. and still ahead, one official says she didn't want to be the next ronny jackson. trump cia pick gina haspel tried to back out of her nomination but was talked out of it by the white house. "the washington post" carol leonnig joins us with her latest reporting next on "morning joe."

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president trump's pick to lead the cia is set to go before lawmakers on capitol hill this week for her confirmation hearing, but ahead of that sit-down, gina haspel allegedly considering pulling her nomination. two u.s. officials tell nbc news that has pel raised the idea on friday, siting the likelihood that the debate over brutal interrogation tactics could be reopened during the hearing and that she feared it could damage the spy agency's reputation and her own. one official tells nbc that h

haspel decided to go ahead with the hearing after a weekend phone call with the president and after white house officials wen to cia headquarters to reassure her that she had the administration's support. let's bring in investigative reporter for the washington post msnbc contributor carol leonnig, one of the first people to report on this news about gina haspel and the first question goes to heidi. >> hi, carol. looking forward to these hearings. gina haspel has had a 33 year career in law enforcement by all regards has been very respected. when we go forward to these hearings, to what extent do you think members of congress will be able to determine given that a lot of this information about her role in the black site remains classified, to what extent will members of congress be able to determine to what extent she was just executing a policy that was legal at the time versus being really an

overly aggressive, overly zealous enforcer of that policy. >> well, that's a great question. you know in the last month democrats have been pushing hard to get a lot of these cables and internal memos declassified or shared with them in some form so they are not sort of caught off guard later. you know, the comment that i heard from various sources is that we don't want to name a cia director and find out later there was something in the declassified material that we didn't know. i mean, here is what's known. she ran a black site during this period. she was a supporter in the sense that many people in the cia were that were in management roles of a post 9/11 torture program enhanced interrogation methods that are now widely viewed as torture. the big issue should be right now how much new information have they received in the last

week we understand lawmakers did get new materials declassified that they were able to review and that they asked the white house a series of questions. this led to the white house summening of gina very dramatically to the white house on friday from her prep session in langley to try to go through this so that they could get boned up on what exactly would be her answers. >> well, and you know, the thing is, peter baker, it's not convenient in 2018 to remind many of the democrats who were so shocked and stunned and deeply saddened by what she went along with back in the years after 911 that many of the top democrats in the house and the senate were read in on this program, knew about this program, approved of this program. and maybe that's why. and this is an extraordinary list, if i can read it to you and then ask whether you think it will hold sway. these are the people have come

out in support of gina haspel because they believe that she will keep the cia independent of donald trump's political influence. john brennan, james clapper, not friends of donald trump. michael hayden, leon panetta, george tenent, john kerry, mike moral. the list goes on and on. and it's people that had a say in the intel community for george w. bush, bill clinton, barack obama and it's pretty widespread support. you think that carries the day in the end on capitol hill? >> well, it certainly has some impact obviously. it speaks to her reputation within the intelligence community that all those people as you say not friends of the president but make sure to come out on her behalf. but it's also striking, remember when john brennan was considered for this very position at the very beginning of the obama

administration, he was considered at the time considered to be too radioactive because he had been in the cia leadership at the time of this torture program, hadn't been part of it, told people he opposed it. the idea that gina haspel wouldn't be aware that this hearing was going to be as rough as it looks like it will be a is little startling, somebody supposed to be in the intelligence world, how would you not expect this would be the subject of her confirmation. makes you wonder what there might be out there that we don't know that may have come to light in the last few days that shaped her last-minute decision to rethink this. but you had to know from the minute she was nominated this was going to be a tough, tough road to get to this nomination. >> but carol, for democrats, this has to be a balancing act. you have two choices. one, you can tear down somebody because of her association with george w. bush cia or you can

support someone who people like john kerry and james clapper say will be independent against donald trump's influences. >> you're right, joe. it's an interesting choice really where what an interesting group of people politically that support gina who really disagree about a lot of things as sarah sanders said yesterday in a robust comment supporting the nominee. obviously dianne feinstein is facing a lot of pressure because the senator -- the democratic senator from california, because there's a lot of supporters of her's who are wondering how can you promote a person who promoted torture. and on the other hand, gina haspel has apparently the interests of the agency at heart. and is worried about that agency being slimed and being slimed herself in the process of revisiting all of this material. >> wow. "the washington post" carol leonnig, thank you very much.

and still ahead, almost a decade before he ran for president, donald trump was paying for massive properties with all cash. but how did he afford his buying spree when his companies strugg? the "washington post's" david farren ho farenthold is following the money and he's joining us with his new reporting. we'll be right back. so, that goal you've been saving for,

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so peter baker, where do we end up in the continuing saga of rudy giuliani? what's next? >> we were just talking about that. >> we are in a position now where people are going to ask is ruled di going to hang around? you hear scaramucci's name being raised? >> no. >> well, we measure white house aides in terms like will he last a full scaramucci? >> oh, i see. >> 24 days? a priebus is several months. so rudy has been around for

about a scaramucci. >> i remember early on -- >> it's called the mooch. as a measurement of time it's the mooch measure. >> i remember early on, joe, that jared wanted rudy really badly in the administration. it was a big argument about jared wanting rudy. heidi przybyla, what are you looking at today? >> primary races tomorrow in several state which is i think are putting into vivid color the trump affect in our elections going forward that we can look forward to in november. for instance, in north carolina, two republican incumbents who are really facing serious questions about their loyalty to the president, whether they're supportive enough of this president and the i coun second candidate, don blankenship, who served a prison sentence, won't release his financial records, who's going after mitch mcconnell and his family in very

demagogic terms referring to them as "china people." yet he seems to be riding a boom. there is hush talk he may be seeing a last-minute surge. if that happens he would be practically handing the seat back to joe manchin, according to my sources. >> heidi, thank you very much. peter baker, thank you as well. still ahead, rudy giuliani is still trying to clean up the mess he caused last week but did he make more of a mess? i think he did. plus, last november it was reported president trump thought a government shutdown might be good for him. does he still think that? he renewed his threat to close down the federal government over the weekend. plus the "washington post's" ruth marcus joins us with her latest piece entitled "buying trump's narrative would make chumps out of us all. why we can't lower the behavior for the bar we should expect from our chief executive." "morning joe" is coming right back. this is your wake-up call.

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it's what this country is made of. but right now, our bond is fraying. how do we get back to "us"? the y fills the gaps. and bridges our divides. donate to your local y today. because where there's a y, there's an us. has this president ever lied? >> this president speaks in hyperbole and hyperbole is interpreted by some as lies and by the president it's interpreted as just his exaggeration. >> when he lies about something and you know it's a lie, shouldn't you speak out? >> that's your job. >> but that's your -- you're a united states senator. >> have you ever heard the president lie? >> i have not. >> really? >> does it bother you when he says things that are clear

demonstrable falsehoods to the american people? >> he communicates differently than i do or anybody else ever has. >> does it bother you, though? >> it would bother me less if we weren't getting things done. >> oh, my gosh, i got a headache. i just have a headache. >> well, can i -- >> go ahead, joe. please. >> this goes exactly to what john meach jon meacham has said and what i wrote in the "washington post." our founding fathers envisioned a time -- and jon talks about this in his book as well, "the soul of america" now available at amazon and bookstores somewhere near you. >> it's amazing. >> jon meacham, the founders long envisioned the possibility of a tyrant being elected and becoming president of the united states. they never let their imaginations be darkened by a congress at the same time being so compliant. when a chief executive with

autocratic tendencies went in and did the sort of things that donald trump did. these republicans not only owe an apology to this nation, they owe an apology to their children. >> a couple of things. you're exactly right. the founders foresaw this. i think if you had told the men in philadelphia in 1787 that, you know what? we won't get a really terrible one at the very top until 2016 they would have thought you were fantasizing. they're -- it's the reason for the three branches and the divided sovereignty with the states. ambition is supposed to counteract ambition. the resilience of the constitution, the genius of the constitution is that it recognizes human sinfulness, it recognizes human weakness and it was an attempt to give reason a chance to be in the arena against passion. >> i don't want to get too -- i'm sorry, jon, let me read one and have you continue.

i don't want to get too far into the book right now but this is so appropriate. even when the drafting was done, the precise nature of the presiden presidency was an open mistery to the framers yet they were willing to live with the ambiguity, why? because of george washington. from the start americans recognized the elasticity of the presidency and hoped for the best, such hopes have not been realized. and then you talk about donald trump the day before being sworn in saying those around him "i want you to look at everyday as a reality tv show where i vanquish all comers." >> and vanquish is the scariest part of that. that was the story that peter did in december of last year. if a president is busy vanquishing his enemies, he's not rebuilding a middle-class, he's not improving our standing in the world. he's busy watching television

and tweeting about it. and to me -- this is not a case for mindless optimism, but the founders did foresee that we were going to need these checks and balances because the presidency itself was a wager on character. they were looking at the first president when they were trying to figure out the powers of the presidency. just one thing about the wonderful montage there. these guys have got to start thinking about the oil portrait test. what are we going to think when we look at their portraits? >> right. >> and maybe they think getting fast next couple of days or getting through a fund-raiser is important but you want to be margaret chase smith who in 1950, four years before the men caught up, gave the first anti-mccarthy speech. you don't want to be at the end of the game here. >> meacham talked about that montage of republicans just not

able to answer the question as to whether or not the president lies. that was republican senator roy blunt adding his names to the list of senators that would rather not acknowledge the president has a penchant for lying. by the "washington post's" account, the president has lied or misled the public more than 3,000 times. >> that's more than a penchant, that's more like a pathology. >> it's a pathological problem. >> can i just say? >> please. >> we're talking about vanquishing enemies by the president of the united states. the enemies are his fellow americans which he swore an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the constitution of the united states and americans aren't just connected to each other in this time. we're connected to each other through the generations and we have an obligation to the generations of americans not yet born to build a stronger country. and the abdication of that responsibility, the founders

predicted that one day we would have a president trump. what they could never have imagined is the weakness, the submissiveness of this class of quiz li quiz. -- quizlings who hold the name united states senator. we have never seen such weakness, such submissiveness and none of these people will ever have an oil portrait unless there's extra wall space at the sewage treatment facility on the grounds of the white house. >> so a lesson in citizenship for members of congress which is just staggering so we still have the aforementioned pulitzer prize winning historian jon meacham, the author of the new book "the soul of america, the battle for our better angels" out today. national affairs analyst for nbc news and msnbc and executive producer and co-host of show time's "the circus" john

heilemann is with us. political writer for the "new york times" and msnbc political analyst nick confessore. you saw joining the conversation we have republican campaign strategist msnbc political analyst and recent gkrencent gut of the circus "steve schmidt." plus political reporter for the "washington post," moderator of "washington week" on pbs, robert costa. and columnist and deputy editorial page editor of the "washington post" and nbc news and msnbc contributor ruth marcus. joe? >> steve thschmidt, i was thinkg about you this weekend as our republican friends had this gleeful response to a federal judge in the eastern district of virginia. what were they gleeful about? they acted as if it was the death knell, as if thor had put the ax through thanos' skull and won the day for the avengers when, in fact, the judge was chiding them on the best

jurisdiction to bring charges against paul manafort and basically was saying, wait, why are you guys bringing this to me? shouldn't this be the eastern district of virginia? toss it back to them, they can charge him there just like the southern district of new york is most likely going to charge cohen. and yept these republicans -- and unfortunately a lot of our friends -- are desperate to end an investigation into russian interference in the 2016 campaign. and let's just stop pretending that they're trying to do anything else other than that. they don't want americans to know how much influence vladimir putin or tried to have in the 2016 election. sign me up as within who says i think it was the letter from comey that probably had the most to do with hillary losing along with her running the worst general election campaign in

modern american history, not visiting wisconsin. that said, we as americans still need to know how much influence the russians had and what they're going try to do coming back the next two years. our remember friends, so many of them, don't care. they don't want americans to know. talk a sick democracy, that is a sick party in a sick democracy. >> sure is, joe, they are faithless to their oaths. what is certainly true is that the united states of america was attacked by the russian federation through their interference in our democratic election process. we talked about george washington a few moments ago. this was george washington's warning to the country upon the occasion of his farewell. he warned about foreign interference and the perniciousness of foreign interference in american

democracy and he warned about factionalism which i think in today's vocabulary would speak to the tribalism of the two parties. this is an important day in history. 73 years ago today from reames, the supreme commander of the expeditionary force, the dwight eisenhower sent a message back that said "the mission of this force was fulfilled at 0200 hours local time may 7, 1945. peace was at hand in europe. there was no grand eloquent statement. that was the statement by the man, the general of the army who had commanded the most powerful military force ever assembled in all of human history to strike down the most evil regime that ever existed in human history. to defense of this country is the most solemn obligation for

any person who raises their hand and swears allegiance and fidelity to the constitution of the united states. there is no oath that we take in this country to the president. there is no oath that we take to a political party. we taken a oath to the country and every one of these republican members, they are -- mr. it's gates, jordan, meadows, ryan, nunes -- all of these people are literally straight out of the script of this season's homeland. they are the senator paley character. they have no higher fidelity than obeying, obedience, servility to their leader donald j. trump,sunday sundayer -- sundering the country, a former reality tv host that they swear allegiance to him above the constitution of

the united states is a scandal for the ages. >> it really is. and that brings us to rudy giuliani who is not ruling out the possibility of president trump takesing the fifth amendment in the russia probe. in a phone interview with nbc news last night, the guy continued his runaway beer trucks routine accusing -- >> wait, mika, mika, mika, hold on. >> uh-huh. >> didn't donald trump say -- i must have got this wrong. >> what happened? >> somebody help me here. i thought donald trump said only the mob took the fifth. >> well -- >> well, he was right. >> yeah. there you go. >> i'm confused. it's kind of like general flynn saying the same thing. donald trump, is he really that scared? i'm curious. and now he's got giuliani who thinks he's too stupid to go up

against the st. paul's man and a princeton man in bob mueller. is giuliani the latest in the long line of people who think that donald trump is too stupid to stand toe to toe? robert mueller? like do they -- i don't know, do they think he's lost his mind? do they think his education is insufficient? i know a lot of my good friends went to -- what school did trump go to, of t rkhofstra? >> no -- i can't remember. >> fordham. i have a lot of good friends that went to fordham and i don't understand why he's so intimidated by robert mueller just because mueller went to st. paul's and went to princeton. i think he could probably stand in there and not make a fool of himself but why is he scared? so now he's saying he's going to take the fifth but he says that's what the mob does, mika. >> right, it's weird. anyhow, giuliani accused mueller

and his team of being "heavy handed" and setting the president up for perjury and in interviews over the weekend giuliani said president trump would not have to cooperate with a subpoena from mueller. >> what happens if robert mueller subpoenas the president. will you comply? >> we don't have to, he's the president of the united states, we can assert the same privileges other presidents have. >> are you confident the president will not take the fifth in this case? >> how could i ever be confident of that? when i'm facing a situation in which every lawyer in america thinks he'd be a fool to testify, i have a client who wants to testify, please, he said it yesterday. and jay and i said to ourselves, my goodness, i hope we get a chance to tell him the risk he's taking so he may testify. it kind of gives the american people a glimpse of what we have to deal with day in and day out with the abuses not so much of

bob mueller but the people that work for him. they're way over the top. when you look at the questions they profound, what do you think? what do you feel? it's like come on in and commit perjury. >> unless you just tell the truth, john heilemann. where do we begin with this? >> where would you like to begin? >> i -- i can't -- what the heck is going on? why would they let this guy continue? why is he even there? >> i think two things are going on -- more than two but i'll focus on two. minor point, which is laughable to hear rudy giuliani accusing bob mueller of heavy-handed tactics. anybody who lives in this city or has any memory whatsoever remembers back to the time when rudy giuliani was number three in the justice department and ran the southern district of new york where if you lived in new york under rudy when he was in the southern district, if you were caught jaywalking rudy could slap a ricco claim against you. he was constantly accused of

prosecutorial overreach, he constantly pushed the limited of the law. he was a tough, aggressive prosecutor who did things in that setting that would have been very much akin to if not more aggressive than what bob mueller is doing right now so there is a high level of either hypocrisy or amnesia on rudy's part about what it looks like -- >> something's going on there. >> -- to be a tough prosecutor. but i think it's clear donald trump is prosecuting a political strategy alongside the legal strategies, the michael cohen case, the stormy daniels case and bob mueller. those are different lawyers assigned to them, there's lawyers inside the white house, the president has legal strategies applied to each one of those matters but the overarching political strategy -- and this is where you get to rudy -- is the president recognizes in all of those cases he faces rising legal jeopardy and in the face of that rising legal jeopardy and an increasingly weak hand on

the law he's decided the only way he can win is in the political realm, to cast all of it as a hoax and witch-hunt. that's what rudy is hired to do. he's a tv lawyer. >> one of the worst i've ever seen. i guess if you're watching "arrested develop." he might be the attorney on that show. >> so he's failing at his job but the reason he was brought on board is to go out -- for the same reason trump thought about hiring joe digenova. get him on fox news around throw a lot of accusations and conspiracy theories at the wall. >> if what you're saying is true, jon is saying get a bad attorney and have him go on tv and make more of a mess than has been made twice over? >> he has says before he hasn't caught up with the case and read the documents but he's on tv all the time. so how would he have time to do that? bob costa, as someone who has spoken to giuliani, how do you

envision he sees his job? does he see his job to go on tv and be the attack dog or is he involved in crafting the legal strategy for the? >> according to giuliani, who i spoke to at length yesterday after he met with the president at his virginia golf club, you have giuliani trying to be the tv lawyer for the president but it's more complicated than just being a messenger on television because at this moment he's also the chief negotiator with bob mueller for the president of the united states thinking through that interview so you have giuliani looking through the cohen documents -- he acknowledged he has been distracted by the cohen situation to be sure but he has to make a decision on the interview that is why he's been reading federal judge elliot and his statement on friday thinking can he make a case to the president about how it doesn't make sense to do an interview because as everyone in the white house tells you, the president is still trying to do the interview because he believes it will close the investigation that has covered over this

presidency. >> joe? >> ruth marcus, one thing right has done that you've written about is made it so much harder for us and even trump supporters to buy into trump's narrative. >> he is just prosecuting this scorched earth strategy aimed at discrediting bob mueller who's a pretty hard guy to discredit and taking such a fundamentally different approach than the last president who was working with the special counsel thinking about bill clinton. bill clinton and his lawyers were tempted to fight the legitimacy of ken starr's subpoena. bill clinton and his lawyers were tempted to think about invoking the fifth amendment. bill clinton and his lawyers not necessarily in the -- they didn't have twitter those days and they were a little more obscure about it but they complained about a partisan

prosecutor through cutouts, not directly going after them. but in the end they understood that the president of the united states is in a different position than an ordinary subject of a criminal investigation which is to say he's got a responsibility and he's going to pay a political -- at least that was the calculus then, pay a political price for resisting a legitimate subpoena for doing the extraordinary thing of taking the fifth amendment. i believe in constitutional rights. if you're going to incriminate yourself your lawyers by all means are well advised to tell you to assert your fifth amendment privilege but for goodness sakes, a president of with the united states taking the fifth? bob bauer was here earlier. he would tell you any white house employee involved in a criminal investigation who was pleading the fifty amendmeh ame would be out the door before he got to the grand jury room or

the witness box so this is not normal and this is not acceptable and as the president attacks mueller and as his folks attack mueller, we need to keep that in mind and keep in mind that the president of the united states has a responsibility to cooperate with a legitimate law enforcement investigation. >> not only that, it would be politically untenable for donald trump, for any president, especially this president, to plead the fifth, there's nothing wrong with pleading the fifth, you have a constitutional right to plead the fifth but when you have so little respect for the constitution, so little understanding about what the fifth amendment protections were laid in place there for and you run around saying that hillary clinton should never plead the fifth, that the only time you plead the fifth is when you're guilty, that only the mob pleads the fifth, there's no way donald trump can plead the fifth without looking like he's cowering, like he's weak, like he's afraid of robert mueller.

like he thinks robert mueller is smarter than him, quicker than him, like he thinks mueller is going to get the best of him. so i just don't see how pleading the fifth is politically sustainable for this president. bob costa, let me bring you back in here. these are awfully difficult days to be republicans on capitol hill. you've got a pot, your president, who is under a multifront criminal investigation that either touches on him or people who have worked for him. he hires as one of my friends just texted me a celebrity rain maker to go out and negotiate with the most seasoned prosecutor of our time and then this weekend you had donald trump going to ohio doing something that really sends chills up their spine. alex, do we have a clip? let's watch this clip and then i want to talk to you about it on the other side, bob. >> the democrats are very weak

on borders. you look at the borders, that i don't want the wall but we'll get the wall. even if we have to think about closing up the country for a while, we'll get the wall, we have no moisturize. >> so once again donald trump threatening to shut down the government over the wall and then again you have rudy giuliani going out there. talk about the rising level of anxiety among republican house members. >> there's certainly a lot of anxiety and heidi was right about the west virginia primary on tuesday being a major point of that anxiety. as steve and john were referring to joe mccarthy, there is a lot of talk among republicans on capitol hill that just like bobby kennedy in the 1950s and '60s was attracted to mccarthy then became a progressive liberal ideologue and leader and changed his politics, there is a hope among some republicans that maybe this trump moment is a ploints point and the party can survive, others are more

apocalyptic and negative that the party is under the grip of president trump politically, emotionally that they won't be able to move on from this moment and i think the midterms if anything will be a time -- it is a juncture in the road where the party will have to choose, is this how we go forward or not? as they barrel towards the midterm, they don't feel in control of the party's future. >> speaking of, the president just tweeted about west virginia. >> he has weighed into the race in west virginia and he said that don blankenship cannot win the general election in your state and he's urging people in west virginia to vote for the two other gop candidate fwls that state and, look, this is a real high-stakes move by him. he endorsed roy moore and moore won, now he's trying to make sure the candidate who comes out of the primary a k beat joe manchin. it's a high-stakes move. >> i guess they've learned a little lesson? >> blankenship is a sign of a me tast i can cancer that has taken

over the conservative movement. let's look in california for a second. the rules of the california primary are such that the two top vote getters run against each other. that's why you had two democrats running against each other in the general election. the number-two candidate in the polls running behind dianne feinstein as a republican is a legitimate 100% avowed nazi. he's a nazi. so we have rampant criminality all around. we have these marginal a,er thes. this guy is a felon. he's responsible for the deaths of minors. he's a racist demagogue and he may well win and i guess trump's admonition is don't vote for this guy in the general election isn't based on because he's unfit to serve in the united states senate, it's based on he can't win. and i think of the old jack kennedy quote about the danger of riding the tiger is sometimes you wind up inside the tiger.

>> bob costa, thank you for being on. joining us from washington, foreign secretary with the united kingdom, boris johnson who has an op-ed in the "new york times" entitled "don't scuttle the iran nuclear deal." sir, we'll start there because rudy giuliani over the weekend took to the stage in front of a crowd on saturday night and spit on a piece of paper that he was using as an example of the iran nuclear deal and what will be happening with it. >> well, you know, i understand that people have anxieties about this deal and they're right in the sense that it's very far from perfect, but it's the best thing that we have at the moment and what the president did in january was to address the bad stuff that iran is doing in the region, in the middle east, to stop them getting icbms and to fix the biggest weakness in the

deal, that it doesn't go beyond 2025. and then there's the real prospect of iran being able to go very rapidly for a nuclear weapon without sanctions going on. but i think we can do that and i think we can meet the president's challenge and be tougher on iran which is what we've got to do. but without throwing away the heart of that iran nuclear deal. because what it does -- and it's worked so far -- it has stopped the iranian's getting a nuclear weapon. and we've got to ask ourselves how else would we do that? and what's happened over the last few years is that we've had, i think, 400 inspections of iran by the atomic -- international atomic energy organization. they've been able to verify that iran has reduced its enriched uranium by 95%, it's cut its centrifuges by two-thirds and

this is not done on the basis of trust, this is done on the basis of verification and inspection and what we want to do now is to work with other european countries, work with the united states, as i say, to find a way of being tougher on iran but to protract the good bits of that deal. >> jon meacham? >> sir, you've written about winston churchill, he envisioned a role particularly after the second world war where your country would be i think as mcmillan may have once put it the greeks in the new roman empire, sort of helping us along on the world stage. is that part of that role? your attempt to walk trump's america into -- introducing trump's america to obama's america? >> no. sorry, i don't want to be -- >> that's fine. >> the president is right to see

defects in this thing. nobody's going to deny that because it expires and what happens in 2025, there's a sun set clause that means the iranians can start going, if they want, for all of enriched uranium which could involve a warhead and we need to prepare for that. we need to think now about how we're going to build scaffolding, a superstructure around this deal to stop that happening and that i think is what thes is thinking about and that's where we and other european countries want to help. >> joe? >> mr. johnson, joe scarborough here. i visited london this last week and i'm always struck by the frustration so many people on where britain stands regarding brexit. >> frustration? >> where they stand regarding the world. >> come on. >> yeah, great, great frustration. >> come on, we are coming out

of -- the let me clarify for you. we are coming out of the european union, we are taking back control of our borders, our laws, our money, we want to be a great free trading nation again, we want to do our own thing and run our own economic policy, have our own legislative program. what you have to understand about the european union, it involves trying to create a federal organization out of 28 countries in a way that i think the united states would never accept. we're talking now about the way the united states acts in the world and you see some very, very strong and original decisions by the president. this stuff he's doing in north -- with korea, fascinating the way he's playing that, taking a very tough line on iran. we in the uk, we want to be strong, independent actors again. >> would you like to borrow donald trump? >> well, we're going to, good point. >> we can send him your way.

>> you've succeeded, he's coming on july 13 and we have high hopes. >> well, you enjoy him. so you seem to be -- >> can i just say something there? >> but let's go back to brexit. hold on one second. you seem far more confident about the future of your country than just about every britain that i speak to. >> that's because of so much of the left wing liberal media in our country and we need to -- seriously, we have a massive opportunity now and we can do things -- if we do things in the right way, we can do free trade deals around the world, we can have a lot of fun doing it. we obviously want to do one with the united states very early on in the proceedings but this is not that we want to turn our backs on our friends in europe. on the contrary, we want to build very strong trading relations with them, even stronger than they are now. we want to continue to work with

them on security and defense, all the stuff i've been talking about with the iran nuclear deal. we're saying to donald trump yes, you have a good point, yes we need to be tougher on iran and here's how we do it so we think we can do both things at once. >> so i'm going to ask you a question, it's going to be concise, understanding brevity is the soul of wit, let me get to the end of the question and then you respond, okay? >> fine. >> here we go. >> i'm ready, i'm braced. >> look at that. how do you communicate the sense of confidence that you have about britain's future to the people whom you represent in britain who constantly tell mika and me when we go to your country that britain is lost, that britain doesn't know its way forward, how do you get that message across to both tories and labor alike? >> joe, i don't know who you're

getting on your show but it's an honor for me to come on and talk to you this morning but believe me there are plenty of people who think like me and who are as bursting with slightly irritating confidence as i am and it's going to be great and i urge our friends in, my to watch our progress because after all it was 1776 you guys decided there should be no taxation without representation, you decided you didn't want control by an alien power and so on and so forth and that was your sovereign decision. we decided to do things in our own way but that doesn't mean we'll be at all negative about our friends in europe or our engagement with the rest of the world. on the contrary, we'll be more engaged with the world than ever before. >> okay, mr. johnson, boris johnson, thank you so much for being with us, always love talking to you and i will say as i did last time people need to buy your book on churchill and read it, it's one of the best.

>> joe, thank you very much. thank you. >> you're welcome, thank you. boy, there's quite a delay here. i think he's on mars or maybe pakistan or antarctica. jon meacham, mika and i every time we go to great britain are struck by how many people -- again, whether they're tories or whether they are members of the labor party who are concerned about where britain is right now. having a hard time figuring out what life is going to look like after the eu. boris johnson doesn't seem to be belabored by those concerns. >> well, it's a front in this global move toward populist nationalism that is in fact one of the great stories of our time. seems to me in the same way in the american context slavery was

the defining issue of the 19th century civil rights and race relations and the middle-class economy in the 20th, right now the central issue for the whole world is globalization and its implications. . i think donald trump is president of the united states because people are -- enough people are fearful of what it means for the true implications of the free flow of people and ideas and i think that what you're seeing with johnson and with the brexit people is the transatlantic manifestation of a concern that the republican party in the united states does not have a coherent answer, neither does the democratic party because if they think simply a very left progressive agenda is going to somehow sweep the country, i think they're wrong, too. >> mika, you can confirm for me

that we were in london for two weeks last year, when i was there last week it didn't matter whether you were talking to politicians on both parties or whether you were talking to people in pubs or whether you were talking to people right off of a soccer pitch, it was all the same. it was we are a nation that is lost. we don't know which direction we're going in. we took a jump off the cliff on brexit and now we can't figure out where we take this government, where we take this system of ours. >> maybe a good way to end this segment is to go back to ruth and ask why we're all trump's chumps, ruth marcus. because in a way i think some people are feeling concerned about the direction of this country. >> so i'm going to try to end on a little bit of an optimistic note. we are definitely all at risk of becomes trump's chumps. some of us as that montage of the republicans who didn't want

to talk about lying indicated, some of us are trumper than others but i think there is a branch of government we haven't talked about very much, which is the judiciary which the comments of judge ellis i sidaside -- an agree they've been overblown in the notion that he announced rampant misconduct by bob mueller is delusional, iter state what is he said but the judiciary in the end, its job is to prevent us from being chumps by applying the rule of law and the dictates of the constitution, by saying for example that the court did in "united states v. nixon" that even the president is not above the law and needs to comply with a lawful court order so we are -- we are in need of some help of not becoming trump's

chumps and that is one place i'm looking to get that very necessary assistance. >> and for more, people can read your column in the "washington post." ruth marcus, thank you very much. still ahead, michael mcfaul is here with knichis new book a u.s. russian relation. it's nice that the kremlin scheduled vladimir putin's swearing in to coincide with his pub date. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. going on? ! ♪ that's it? yeah. that's it? everybody two seconds! "dear sebastian, after careful consideration of your application, it is with great pleasure that we offer our congratulations on your acceptance..." through the tuition assistance program, every day mcdonald's helps more people go to college. it's part of our commitment to being america's best first job.

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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 call myself the king of debt. i'm great with debt. nobody knows debt better than me. i made a fortune by using debt. if things don't work out, i renegotiate the debt. that's a smart thing, not a stupid thing. >> how do you renegotiate it? >> i go "guess what? the economy just crashed, i'll give you back half." >> donald trump during the campaign touted himself as the king of debt yet a new report is

shedding light on trump's business empire before winning the presidency and a spending spree that's raising questions over where the vast amounts of money came from. according to the "washington post," in the nine years before he ran for president, trump's company spent more than $400 million in cash on new properties reportedly including 14 transactions paid for in full without borrowing from banks. joining us now, one of the authors of that report, a reporter for the "washington post" and msnbc political analyst david david fahrenthold. joe, it's sort of -- it must be amazing to have that much cash. >> did donald trump learn from the mistakes he made in the 1990s which i -- i sort of gather through the years he did.

what did you learn in your investigation? >> it's an unusual change. davi. he uses debt to buy more properties and in 2006, a number of years after those bad experiences with debt, he starts buying in all cash. he bought two golf courses for $80 million total and bumped in $160 million because they needed renovation so he went from being heavily dependent on debt to buying these things in all cash. i can't tell he didn't or did have the money. i can't see inside the business in that way but people told us even if you did have the money, this is a strange way to spend it. most investors use debt to augment their own cash.

>> it's like the among "money for nothing." interest rates were in a historically low place. so this would be the worst time in donald trump's entire adult life to pay all cash for propertie properties. >> there's so many benefits to buying with debt. he says he's the king of debt but he's privately spending all cash. the explanation we got from eric trump was we decided in 2006 we wanted to be more conservative. that's their explanation. i don't have any other at this point. >> sounds like you could read the story and conclude the trump family was prudent in the second

half of their career as investors and that they used income coming from licensing deals and tv in toback roll purchase purchases. >> well, the way you described it is how the trump organization has described it to us, they had so much money coming in, trump was working on "the apprentice"" they had money laying around. golf courses don't produce that much revenue. so the only people they usually see buy golf courses in all cash, it's two categories, one is a rich guy who would buy a small golf course as a trophy for himself. tend two million dollars to have a place to hang out and rule the roost or in the big purchase, the people who buy big golf courses with cash are people

like sovereign wealth funds of dubai or sovereign wealth fund of norway who has so much money they don't need individual transactions to make money, they're just looking for a place to park their money and diversify. trump doesn't seem to fit into those categories. he's trying to invest in golf i think to make money. people that do that say it's better to do it with debt and co-investors because your money goes further. you're not sinking your own money into a small number of golf courses. >> david farenthold, thank you very much. we'll look at your reporting for the "washington post." still ahead, rudy giuliani was hired to represent donald trump in the mueller investigation. but he spent the weekend talking about stormy daniels and pretending to be secretary of state. that's him spitting on the iran deal. we'll explain ahead on "morning joe."

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while saving for the things 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. some sad news out of canada. a conservative member of canada's parliament passed away last week after suffering a

heart attack in his parliament hill office. it was 57 years old. brown served as an mp since 2004 and has been described by his colleagues as a tenacious competitor in hockey, a tireless worker that emphasized service above partisan ship but they had described him as a good man. the house of commons remembered brown during their session last wednesday offering tributes, prayers to his memory and for his wife and their kids chance and tristan. >> last had lunch with brown on parliament hill not too long ago. he was a supremely nice man. he was a great canadian patriot, a great friend of the united states, but his legacy is such in canada -- it's one that he's

remembered most for his fundamental decency. in this tribal era of politics in the united states, it says something that though he was the minority whip on the conservative party, the mourning was equal on both sides. the majority and the minority. he was a man known for his decency and politics at 57 it's too young to go obviously and we never know when that hour comes. and it's going to come for all of us and he lived a good life and he lived a life of service to his countrymen, he lived a life of decency, and he was someone who was very admired and we look at all the toxic politics and he's a north star in the sky of how you can act, how you can be fiercely

dedicated to your ideas and positions but not make things worse. he'll be missed. >> yeah. he'll be missed. john meacham, i want to go back to the soul of america and we'll be talking about it more throughout this show but also in the coming weeks and months. you have that great quote from fdr that he used in his inaugural address, a come of months before he died talking about how the arc of civilization was ever upward. you quote liberally from thomas jefferson, a slave holder, andrew jackson, a slave holder and you -- you talk about how the trend is upward that it was jefferson's words that became american creed, quoted by lincoln at gettiesburg to free the slaves. quoted by mlk and so many others. it was jefferson's words that eventually led to the election

of america's first black president but you also say this of andrew jackson. to him the nation was a sacred thing, he lost his mother and brother in the revolutionary war. risen the highest levels of slave owning society. when you talk about how jackson is obviously not highly admired these days, but again, it's always a move forward throughout the ages. >> yeah, the key question in my mind is are you devoted to -- as a citizen, as a leader, as both, are you devoted to the experiment of the journey toward a more perfect union? >> not a perfect union because the world is not perfectible, but can we move ahead? and when you think about the american revolution which is in and of itself the greatest act

of faith you can possibly imagine, we're still fighting that revolution every day because it's a counterintuitive idea that human beings driven by appetite and ambition and passion can govern themselves in a civilized way, living under the rule of law and recognizing the dignity of every other person. it's a remarkable achievement and it's one that you know, women have not voted for quite a century yet. in our native region in the south we had functional apartide until 50 years ago. we're not quite three years into the marriage equality decision. it's a bloody, tragic, difficult history but what is our immigration issue in this country? people want to come here and we've got to protect that. >> much more as his book debuts.

trying to find the truth behind michael cohen's reimbursements and retainers. we'll talk to one expert about the payment to stormy daniels and how they could impact donald trump's presidency, a very packed 8:00 a.m. hour still ahead on "morning joe." we're back in 90 seconds. comings now, yeah... cool. so, i want to show you guys these three chevy suv's. the first one is called the trax. beautiful! do you think it would be good for moving in together? moving in together?! ahhh! - ahhh! okay, well, this is the chevy equinox... wow. nice. perfect for when you two have your first kid. give me some time... okay, this is the traverse. for when you have your five kids, two dogs and one cat. (laughter) whoa! five? ahhh... well, no matter what stage of life you're in chevy has an suv for you. you have it all planned out, thanks. and it's also a story mail aabout people and while we make more e-commerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country, we never forget... that your business is our business the united states postal service.

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listen to the people who are nay sayers and a president that as committed to regime change as we are. what do you think is going to happen to that agreement? that nuclear agreement? yep. >> rudy giuliani is president trump's newest member of his legal team but waded into some foreign policy on saturday. he was out in another media blitz over the weekend taking on the mueller probe and trying to clean up his mistakes in the michael cohen matter. i am focused on the law more than the facts right now. wow. with us we have national affairs analyst for nbc news. next to john, john meacham.

his new book, "the soul of america" is out now. i would say joe, that meacham is the soul of america. don't you think? >> well, either the soul of america or the soul of bill meade or at least the country club, but you know, john, it's another extraordinary book of yours and there's a line that i got in it and i really think it encapsulates this entire project and puts everything in perspective so much -- so much important information for americans out there, but you write in the introduction, to know what has come before is to be armed against despair. you talk about the vanity of the present. we always believe these are the worst of times, but the words of that great american philosopher gladys knight as bad as these days seem, these will one day be

seen as the good old kdays by or children. we've been through this before. it's whether we learn from that history that is inside us. tell us about it. >> absolutely. i mean, the given era is shaped by whether we open our arms wider or whether we clinch our fists and this is not a 4th of july oration. it's not a sermon. as a historical fact, the eras that we look back on, that we want to emulate, that we commemorate are those that were never easy, but that they were ones in which we broadened the definition of what jefferson meant when he wrote that we were all created equal and this is not an argument -- this is not culture nostalgia, it is not a call to say oh, everything's turned out before so let's sit back and wait this out. no way is this that. they have to protest, they have

to have conversations like this. they have to listen to the other guy because the other guy may be wrong 99 times out of 100 but there's going to be 100th time where we can move to higher ground. >> joe is halfway through it and absolutely loving it. also with us this morning chief white house correspondent for the new york times peter baker. and in washington, nbc news national political reporter, so a lot to get to this morning. joe, rudy just -- if it's possible unravelled more over the weekend. >> he really did and not only did he unravel more playing stand in secretary of state spitting on prepared remarks and seemed completely out of control, we have to remember this is a man that the white house worked furiously to get as

secretary of state even though they were admitting private di during the transition that rudie giuliani had lost quite a few steps. he would fall asleep in the middle of meetings actually five minutes into meetings and his head would be rested on his chest, that he wasn't completely all there. those were the words of donald trump and those around him back two years ago and here we have a man known as american's mayor, a man who did some pretty extraordinary things in new york, was viewed favorably by so many in the days of 9/11. john, completely humiliating himself, there's nobody around to protect him from himself and the loser is not only donald trump because of the mistakes every time he goes out and starts talking about the legal case, but staff members inside the white house beyond themselves, that these two older

gentlemen are -- seem to be detached at least from the political reality that they have to deal with and clean up every day and they are going out between them and just making a ple mess of donald trump's legal situation. >> yes, look, to your point, joe, this is not a -- we've had rudy giuliani off the national stage for a while when he did not get his appointment to the trump administration as he had hoped he went dark for the better part of a year, but if you remember what he was like during the campaign this is not inconsistent with his behavior in that period. he said some extraordinary things about hillary clinton's health. he had a tendency to rant and rave. he often won some favor with donald trump, people will remember that on the weekend of the access hollywood tape back in october of 2016 when no one else would go on television that sunday, the tape came out on a

friday, when no one would go out on television, giuliani was the one who went out. did five sundays that sunday. and so he curried some favor with trump in that moment and yet even then a few months later as you point out when it came time for a job in the administration donald trump turned him away and said a lot of dismissive things about him. all of which makes it extraordinary that he's turned back to him in this moment. there's nothing unexpected about his poor performance. the incredible thing is that president trump has turned to him and if you look on friday the way president trump threw him under the bus, i wonder over the weekend and i know i'm not the only one wondering this, how long this marriage of desperation, of convenience? >> you've been writing about president trump losing control of the narrative. i'd also say he's lost control

of his newest lawyer and i'm not sure why it's taking so long to realize this. maybe one of the events of the past five days with rudy that we've covered would be enough. the guy seems to be a train wreck. >> the problem is it's one thing to have bad television appearances, another if you're putting your client in greater legal jeopardy and that's the question a lot of lawyers are asking. are some of the things things that embarrass him publicly that cause us to talk about him on television or is it ammunition for prosecutors. and i think any seasoned lawyer would, ask, is this something you want as your chief lawyer right now? >> and you have john meacham, so many different arguments he's making. his's making it up as we goes along. this weekend he let out that

there were probably other payments to other women. he's completely blown up every time line, every time line of lies that donald trump has laid out before. it's hard to see rudy giuliani where he is today and where he was on september 11th, 2001. >> absolutely. i mean, what giuliani did on the 11th and in the aftermath, particularly on that long and tragic afternoon when the president was moving around on air force one, giuliani in many ways became the focal point of the country and he was -- it was -- whatever you think about, his mayorship throughout, that was a great service and something that was virtually great in that terrible hour. it's kind of been downhill since and it's accelerating, i think.

part of what's happened and it's tricky to explain to people who haven't maybe lived here, but basically this is the new york city tabloid political culture has gone south to washington. and it's the world of the new york post and 21 and lots of steak houses, lots of onion loaves. >> the grand havana room. >> which is a great place i think. it's the last cigar bar, so let's not be too negative here, but it's the world of just punch and presidents when they're in trouble they usually try to send for a stabilizing figure. lbj sends for clark clifford. clinton -- they want somebody to act calm and calm everything

down. >> clinton pinetta. george w. bush sends for bob gates. what has trump done? trump sent for a fellow brawler and i think if anything, that tells us what the x number of months is going to be like. >> new questions on whether the president's fixer, michael cohen ran a secret slush fund to protect the president during the campaign. the now reporting is straight ahead on "morning joe." mom? dad? hi! i had a very minor fender bender tonight in an unreasonably narrow fast food drive thru lane. but what a powerful life lesson. and don't worry i have everything handled. i already spoke to our allstate agent, and i know that we have accident forgiveness. which is so smart on your guy's part. like fact that they'll just... forgive you... four weeks without the car. okay, yup. good night. with accident forgiveness

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suici as much as three quarters of a million dollars. cohen nearly doubled the amount he could use on a line of credit tied to his manhattan condo. he closed one $255,000 account and opened another for a half million. three months before that the journal reports that cohen gained access to another $529,000 tied to his wife's parents' mortgage. cohen is currently under federal investigation in a broad case that includes the payments to stormy daniels and the playboy play mate who also claims she had an affair with trump. the federal prosecutors and the fbi are examining whether cohen committed bank fraud or by misstating the intended purpose of the loans like when he claimed he used a home equity

line of credit to pay stormy daniels. yesterday, giuliani was back in front of the cameras and was asked about the retainer the president used to reimburse cohen. >> you said this was a regular arrangement. did michael cohen payment payments to other women for the president? >> i have no knowledge of that but i would think if it was necessary yes. he made payments for the president. he's conducted business for the president which means he had legal fees, monies laid out and expenditures which i have on my bills to my clients. >> it was not a campaign contribution because it would have been done anyway. this is the kind of thing that i've settled for famous people. every lawyer that does that kind of work has. >> according to rudy giuliani this was basically common place. the president had extramarital affairs slush fund that was administered by michael cohen and that he would just be expected to take care of these things. they were a regular occurrence.

i mean, that in and of itself should be very disturbing. most people of wealth and celebty, they don't have extramarital affairs slush fund and the suggest is insulting. >> so mika, first of all, it's important for us at this point to blow up a lie that donald trump and rudy giuliani keep spitting outs there and he says this would have been paid anyway. even if there weren't a presidential election, it bears repeating that donald trump and stormy daniels got together at least met allegedly had an affair in 2006. got it? >> right. >> 2006. they end up paying her off a week before the election. >> i know. >> ten years later. >> so rudy giuliani makes himself look like a fool, makes the president look like a liar, makes it look like this is a

coverup which i guess is apparently what it is. it happened and the timing is what's so devastating. ten years separate from the incident, they pay her off because what's two weeks away? the presidential race. that's why the federal elections commission ultimately needs to be involved. >> well, and i mean, heidi, first of all i don't know why rudy is there right now because he keeps making things worse and it must be that he's free and he wants to be near someone in power even though the situation seems to be careening to a terrible end. having said that, is there any other way of looking at these payments especially the timeline that joe laid out? >> he really created a public relations and potentially legal problem for the president by making him, the president look like a liar when he said on air force one that he didn't know about those payments. joe and mika, i was in touch

with white house officials over the weekend who were going out on the air trying to clean all of this up and now it looks like there's more than just the president trying to clean up after rudy giuliani but other officials who are saying well, let's parse this and say the president didn't know at the time that the payments were made, not that he didn't know period. and so we still have no clarity from which white house probably because the president himself is giving so many conflicting accounts to his aids of when exactly he learned of these payments but no, there is no other way to interpret it and the second problem here that was created by giuliani over the weekend was saying that they're implicating that there may be other payments. let's do the math here. we've got about 400,000 to about $700,000 that was sent over to michael cohen. only $130,000 now do we have accounted for in terms of the payment to stormy daniels.

so when giuliani says there could be other women out there and we have previous reporting fr saying there's all these other women you have to wonder if there isn't a second big wave to this story. >> one thing i don't understand about michael cohen, the finances and these payoffs and him having to take out a loan against his in-laws' houses, you read in the times and the washington post, this is a guy whose father was connected to ukranian mobsters, he had interest in that. he's sells real estate, makes 25 million in profit or -- all these massive numbers out there. and then he's struggling to get $200,000 to have a credit line on his in laws' parents to pay off stormy daniels in the final

days of the campaign. can you help me out on this? what's the difference between the tens of millions of dollars that he seems to be moving around and then him struggling to make $120,000 hush payment? >> well, joe, it's the exact right question. cohen's finances are the biggest mystery here. how could he make 30 or $40 million in a real estate flip and be hankering after 100 grand on a home equity loan some years later? it doesn't actually add up and it raises the questions that i believe are at the heart of the investigation. whose money was that really? who purchased those apartments on which he made on paper the millions of dollars? something is going to drop here. on a second point, joe, you know, it's not against the law to give your lawyer a bunch of money to run a slush fund to pay off money you've had affairs

with. it is against the law if you do it for campaign purposes and don't report it to the fec. if you know it's against the law it's a matter for the justice department. >> up next, two experts are here to help us understand the president's current legal situation, constitutional law professional and former white house counsel to president obama, we're back in just a moment. once there was an organism so small no one thought much of it at all. people said it just made a mess until exxonmobil scientists put it to the test. they thought someday it could become fuel and power our cars wouldn't that be cool? and that's why exxonmobil scientists think it's not small at all.

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joining us now law professor at george washington university, a new piece this morning entitled flubs may take down president trump. and nyu law professor who has a new piece entitled the cohen reimbursements and retainer, all tales and other possibilities. so there's actually -- it seems like giuliani has made it quite clear although we can take it to the legal panel that there are few other possibilities. >> well, there are many other possibilities, you also -- i mean, you had rudy giuliani on fox and friends and our friends over at fox and friends looked leukosomebody taking a cattle

prod to them when he was -- when he was saying the things he was saying. it was shocking. they fallollowed up with some gt questions and he actually shocked -- something happened on the hannity show that doesn't happen and even shocked sean hannity with that admission that donald trump paid -- paid her off. i'm wondering though, jonathan t turley, let's take it out of the realm of cable news and take it to the courts. all of these admissions, all of these conflicting statements actually could put donald trump in serious legal jeopardy and you write about it this morning. tell us about it. >> well, i can. the problem is not the campaign finance charge itself. it can be brought as a criminal case. there is a good defense here being lost in bad delivery. there is the irrespective test

that is used by the fec that they are trying to articulate. but the problem is really the investigation itself. the investigation has been in the field, they have a search warrant referring to the payments of stormy daniels. any effort to influence witnesses, with hold evidence, produce false narratives could be the obstruction case that has so far evaded robert mueller because with regard to the comey matter, it's more complex because the president is using his inherent constitutional powers, but with stormy daniels, all that falls away. if you try to influence witnesses, obstruct efforts with regard to that investigation, it's a much clearer shot for the southern district to allege something like obstruction. >> so you talk about tall tales and other possibilities. are the other possibilities i mean, what i feel like is just obvious here, if this retainer exists there's probably other

payments. >> that's correct. the problem right from the beginning is that there is no coherent theory that mr. giuliani articulated. i think as the professor was d indicating, there's argument but the reimbursement doesn't cure it whatsoever. this payment to mr. cohen may take place in the context of other concerns, concerns unrelated to campaign finance that mr. trump may have, bear in mind that at some point in the interviews that mr. giuliani has said he's suggested these payments might have been made as late as 2018. so here you have the president making payments to mr. cohen and those are payments by the way, that exceed $400,000 well in excess of the amount that was paid by mr. cohen to ms. daniels. so the question is what is this particular timing?

>> yeah. peter baker, can you tell us -- take us inside the white house and the sense of helplessness that staff members must have with giuliani and donald trump sort of winging it as they go leaving them in a position of trying to explain the latest -- the latest narrative wherever those two decide it's going to roam? >> yeah, you can imagine what that's like. particularly those who have been out in public on television or elsewhere defending him suddenly seeing giuliani give a very different version of emptss and now you're left holding the bag. are you even in part of the conversation? you're not. and i think for any white house that is a very, very disconcerting feeling. sarah sanders was left to explain she has the best information she has at any given time meaning she's left at the podium to explain that.

no white house press secretary likes that. others have rebelled when that happened. that's become a very big point of friction inside the white house and i can imagine you can see something like that happening playing out in the days to come. >> thank you both for your insight this morning. coming up on "morning joe," it's inauguration day for vladimir putin. sworn in for his fourth term as russia's president this morning. former u.s. 'em bass door is here with his new book, tracing u.s. russian ties from the cold war to a hot peace. we'll be right back. dear great-great-grandfather,

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for this to all go away? >> a resignation. >> yeah, right. i solve north and south korea, why can't i solve us? >> it's too late for that. i know you don't believe in clie gnat change, but a storm is acoming, baby. >> stormy daniels appearing on snl. the following morning the president's attorney appeared on abc and used that snl appearance to deflect what what was shaping up to be an awkward exchange. >> the president duoes acknowledge meeting stormy daniels. correct? >> i'm not really involved many the daniels thing so i don't know. he denies that it happened. she has written a letter denying it. >> ewith do have a picture of them together. >> so depends on what you mean by met her. right? >> yeah, there's the picture right there. i want to get that fact on the table. >> looks like my friend donald

trump before he was president, but -- and that looks like the woman who was on saturday night live last night. that's pretty interesting. i think she kind of. >> giuliani also told the washington post that the snl appearance was a quote, admission that all they're looking for is fame, glory, money attention and comedy. daniels' lawyer says the cameo will not harm his case setting trump's own snl appearance during the presidential election. joining us now, not to comment on that, professor of political science and director of the institute for international studies at stanford university, the ambassador's book from cold war to hot peace, an american ambassador to putin's russia is out tomorrow. good to have you. >> it's competitive book day. >> it is very competitive book

day. wonderful to have you and what great timing because today i believe vladimir putin is celebrating inauguration day, yes. >> another what, 100 years for his dictatorship. >> his inauguration was today. i was at the last one six years ago. i didn't get my invite for this one. >> you didn't sf. >> no. got lost in the mail or on twitter. >> so what is a hot peace? >> well, today we're in a very confrontational relationship with russia. i don't it's like the cold war but it's similar to the cold war so that's why i use this term to compare and contrast. and the book tries to explain why. the end of the cold war for me was a glorious moment. it was a fantastic moment in the world and the united states and u.s./russia relations. now we're in a confrontation, what happened and that's what i try to explain in the book. >> let's go from cold war to book wars. john meacham, you have the next question. >> i'm always night.

>> talk about if you would, is there something in the russia national identity that tends to the autocratic and if so, why is that? we've gone from czars to soviets and now oligarchs. >> there's an historical inheritance that makes it difficult to build a democracy in russia. di haven't the renaissance, they haven't have the churches closer to the state than before and 0 o years of communism, and you can see it in photos of the book, there have been times when russians do demand democracy. i was a student in moscow in 1990 and '91, they flirted with a more democratic system in the 90s. putin came back and restored

autora si, but i don't think that drama is over yet. in fact, two days ago, thousands of people were demonstrating again, some of them as young as 12 years old being arrested by the police. that suggests that something in society is going on, that not everybody is convinced that autokra si is the right way to go. >> the president is tweeting about the russia witch hunt. joe? >> yeah, so mr. ambassador, what -- a trick question here, what should americans fear more? vladimir putin as the president of russia or vladimir putin not the president of russia with no succession plan? >> well, he doesn't have a succession plan. it's a good question. it's not a trick question. it's one of the fundamental questions. this is not a regime that has an ideology. it doesn't have a party. there is no, you know, deputy in the works waiting and so i think the system will be very unstable

after putin goes and let me make a radical prediction as a political scientist. we're bad at predicting the future, but i will predict that vladimir putin will not be the president of russia forever. and so what happens next is actually i think a big question. i hope and see that there are tendencies towards a more pro person approach, more democracy. russia's a developed country today. russia is a rich country. usually when countries become rich thai -- but they could turn russia in a very different direction and make it a more scary place, so i'm more optimistic about the long run but i don't know when that long run starts. vladimir putin is a young guy, works out two or three hours a day. >> yeah, one follow up there. i asked the question about after putin because i remember being

on the armed services committee before putin and we were concerned, had repeated hearings about nuclear proliferation. russian -- russian selling -- selling nuclear weaponry or technology to third parties. there was a political, there was a social, there was a moral anarchy there, preputin. i'm not saying that he righted the ship in the ways that we wanted, but there was for a few brief years when putin was president at least from some quarters, a bit of a relief that we had moved past the chaos of the yeltsen years. >> the 90s were a tough time in russia. an economic depression three times as worse as our depression

and after wards there was recovery. there was recovery of the state. recovery of the economy. i think it's accident tall that putin was president at that time. no demand from russian society for putin to become president. then the economy grew and if you're in a place where the economy is growing it's good for your political career. that's in russia or america. the skaur the scary thing is he is investing in nuclear modernization at a pace much more rapidly than us and they have nuclear weapons that i think are threatening to the united states and unfortunately that means we have to get back to arms control. >> talk -- if you would talk about what the regime's view is of the author from cold war to hot peace. >> well, you know, i first met vladimir putin in the spring of 1991 so i've known him for a long time.

i wouldn't say we're facebook friends although maybe we are given, you know -- who knows? >> exactly. >> that's actually putin controlling me. >> the relationship is complicated. >> it is complicated. part of my problem with putin was to go back to the 90 's, i did have friends that were part of the movement that overthrew the regime. some of them have been assassinated. right as i showed up as ambassador, he was running for re-election and he was down in the polls. he was not doing well and there were massive demonstrations on the street of moscow and the biggest demonstration they'd had since 1991 when the soviet union collapsed. so he needed a new argument to win and he blamed obama, he blamed the west and he blamed me personally.

he blamed me personally with my body gaf bodyguards outside sitting in the kremlin said i know what you're doing and we are going to stop you. >> wow. >> so we're not in a friendly relationship. >> all right. the new book is from cold war to hot peace. ambassador michael mcfaul. thank you very much. president trump urged west virginia voters to reject don blanken ship but is it already too late? that's next on "morning joe." hey, want to try it? ok here you go... over... under... hey whoa, pop, pop... your shoe's untied. ♪ ensure he's well taken care of, even as you build your own plans for retirement. see how lincoln can help protect your savings from the impact of long-term care expenses at lincolnfinancial.com.

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tomorrow voters in north carolina, ohio, i understandi i virginia will head to the polls. in north carolina more than 60 people have signed up to run for 13 congressional seats. while most districts are considered safe for the incumbent, there are a number of races to watch includesing west virginia where republican senate candidate don blankenship's surge in popularity is worrying some republicans. if he prevails he could hurt the republicans. he says we have a really great chance to make a big difference. the problem is don blankenship can't win the general election in your state.

no way. remember, alabama, vote -- representative jenkins or attorney general, meanwhile after receiving backlash for using the phrase, quote, china people in campaign ads, blankenship released this radio spot defending himself. >> the fake news is also pretending to be offended by my use of the words china people. they seem to forget china is a country not a race. send me to the senate and i will represent west virginia people, not china people. >> as we await the outcome of those closely watched contests, our next guest argues that the sboo entire democratic process is in need of a number of radical reforms to making voting mandatory, prize winning

economist and best selling author puts forth a blue print for a new democracy in her latest book entitled "edge of chaos, why economic growth and how to fix it." dambisa joins us now. very big book day. i think your concept is fascinating and frightening at the same time. are we on the edge of chaos? >> well, i believe so. there are numerous head winds, economic head winds that we've stopped talking about, the risk that technology will create this jobless underclass. all these are structural factors which we need to focus on. and yet the democratic process, particularly liberal democracies, are very short term. we have myopia deeply embedded in the process with elections every two years in the united states and that creates the

schism we see. this book is essentially trying to bridge that gap and get policymakers much more focused on these long term issues. >> how strong is the link between the fact that 44% of americans don't have $400 in cash and working class people haven't seen a real wage increase in 25 years in this country? how strong is the link between that and the crisis in our democracy? >> i think it's right at the heart of it. you've touched on one of the key head winds which i talk about in the book which is around debt. we've seen significant disaffection which we've talked about considerably. we also see voter participation is down. it's about 50% of the election. for people who are at low-income levels, sort of around $30,000 a year, it's around 30%. this is very far off from the one-man, one vote mantra of the democratic process. we see the pew survey. freedom house has talked about how people now actually do not

trust the federal government to do what is right on a regular basis. the world economic forum has put out a report that citizens around the world actually trust authoritarian leadership more than they do democratic elected policymakers. i think this underscores the democracy being under siege. >> i'm interested in the last part of the subtitle, and how to fix it. ten radical democratic reforms. give us the top three. >> so ten proposals. the important thing is these proposals all have precedent around the world. on the political side, i talk about increasing the wages, but forcing them to justify why we should pay them. the head of state in singapore gets paid $1.4 million a year but the cabinet gets 30% bonuses based on how they perform. gdp, life expectancy, health outcomes. if we don't see delivery, we actually are able to claw back

on that performance. on the voter side, i'm keen on engagement so ensuring that voters do show up at the election and they have a good understanding of what the issues are on the table. i think this country deserves better than that and the democratic process deserves much more engagement. >> is this something the leadership in terms of making some of these reforms possible, is this a private sector story, public sector or both? >> well, i actually think this is very much about the voters engagement. it is the case that we see short termism and myopia in the public as well as the private sector. i mean, there's real concern around dividends to retained earnings being over 100%. companies are not worried about whether they have long-term prospects for investment. this agenda is about voters saying we have enough. we have short-term consequences. which means the tenures of the heads of state are much shorter, around three years in

democratically elected officials at precisely the time when a lot of the concerns we're dealing with are long term. we do need much more of a ground swell and engagement from voters. i hope this book will provide a way. >> the book is the edge of chaos. thank you so much. >> it's a pleasure. >> it's incredible. joe, three great books on the show this morning that really look at where we stand right now. >> and john meacham's the soul of america, which we've been talking about this morning, such an important book for where we are right now, because we are, john, as you reference, we are what we have been. our history is a part of us. we can't separate who we are as a people with the history. i want to talk about how you end the book. bringing in abraham lincoln. a man who seems to provide the moral foundation for this book.

you talk about a battle on the outskirts of washington, where lincoln was so everybodying the battle. he almost got killed. a man next to him was shot and killed. somebody said get down, you fool. it's a fitting metaphor for abraham lincoln who continued to move forward on freeing the slaves and saving the union. even though in 1864, for most of 1864, his own re-election was highly in doubt. >> absolutely. and lincoln is one of the great -- one of the many tragedies of ford's theater is he's one of the examples, as was president kennedy. it was a clear example of a president learning and growing on the job. lincoln starts out saying slavery can exist where it is, he's not going to touch it. he moves to the emancipation proclamations ultimately. and reconstruction would arguably have been a very

different story had the man who had learned and grown been in charge. the scene you allude to is the last time the confederates got this close. it was the confederate general who later became a pillar of the lost cause. lincoln goes out and the man who said get down, you damn fool, was oliver wendell holmes. right after, one of the regim t regiments that fought in that battle wallas the 166th ohio. there was a tradition that they would come to see the president before they left. the commander in chief knew the sacrifices his people were making. and he gives a talk to them, saying we are fighting this war and it may take two years, it may take three years. so that you may have a fair chance for your industry, and that we may continue this

promise of a tradition of fair play. and lincoln once talked about everybody has the right to rise. and we're not talking about equality of outcome. we're talking about equality of opportunity. that's a fundamental american principle. >> the great optimism in american history is lincoln's assistance that the capitol dome be completed while the country's at war. so the government reconsecrated through the blood of sacrifice would have a place to meet under. william tecumseh sherman, who was incredibly skeptical, he was uneducated, a backwoodsman. reflecting on lincoln's death, sherman is asked of lincoln, what of lincoln, and he said, i've met all the great men of the world. i've met the industrialists.

i've met the kings and generals. but i have met no one that possessed more of the qualities of greatness and goodness than abraham lincoln. a man who even in the middle of civil war, the bloodiest in this nation's history, could never bring himself to hate his enemy, his fellow countrymen. he had love in his heart. i do think one of the anna dotes to trumpism, the one who will beat trump and repudiate it is somebody who has the capacity to look at their countrymen, even the ones they disagree with, and love them. because you can't love your country if you hate half the people who live in it. >> joe, jump in. >> john heilman, how remarkable it is, steve schmidt touched on this, abraham linken, if you read any of his biography, abraham lincoln was seen as a backwoodsman, as being crass. even throughout his first term,

people mocked him continually. yet lincoln and another man, grant, who was always underestimated, his own troops. there's stories in chernoff's biography, his own troops mocked him the first day. by the third day they would march on any battlefield and die for him. these two common men saved our union and still stand as an extraordinary example of who we can be. >> it's trou, and i feel like i'm almost the wrong person to be speaking of this just because jon meacham can speak more to the power by which time, the passage of time and the change that happens in the country, helps us to understand better who are nomet well understood i their eras. one never knows who greatness will kind of be bestowed on later. harry truman, another person in

that category. i'm not sure trump will ever have that kind of reevaluation but it has happened before and we may see it happen again. >> meacham will be back all week as we look for the soul of america and stand at the edge of chaos. the big question today is will they let rudy in front of the camera again. >> speaking of chaos. >> i'm serious, will they let him get in front of a camera. >> let's hope. >> stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage. >> thanks, mika, hi, joe. good morning. i'm stephanie ruhle with a lot to cover today, starting with the blitz is on. rudy giuliani telling nbc he believes robert mueller is setting the precedent up for perjury and raises new concerns about a possible sit-down with the special counsel. >> you couldn't put a lawyer on this show who wants to keep his law license to tell you he should testify. >> plus, hawaii on high alert. officials warn nearly 2,000 residents to evacuate as the world's most active volcano erupts,