>> maybe he'll be successful, maybe he won't. >> jonathan swan live for us in washington, d.c., we'll be reading axios a.m. in just a little bit. to our viewers, you can sign up for the axios newsletter by going to axios dot-com. that does it for us, i'm yasmin vossoughian alongside ayman mohyeldin and louis burgdorf, "morning joe" starts right now. >> drain the swamp! drain the swamp! drain the swamp! drain the swamp! >> drain the swamp. they actually chanted that last night. for the president's rally in indiana and it came, drain the swamp came on the same day that we learned of the swampiest behavior i've ever heard of in modern american political history. and that's because the

president's personal attorney we learned yesterday, mike the cohen, got hired three days into the trump administration, to help at&t on its merger that the president said he was going to kill and he racked up a total of nearly $3 million from them, and other corporate clients. drain the swamp? what about all of those trump cabinet expenses? drain the swamp? like, drain it with what? ben carson's $31,000 dining set? the $139,000 that ryan zinke spent on doors? let me say that again. let me -- let me say that again, for those of you who were working around the clock, night and day, to try to get your kids, to be able to do better than you have done, like my parents tried to do with me? like it's our dream -- think

about your salary, think about the fact that ryan zinke spent $139,000 on doors. what about scott pruitt? he had luxury flights and sweetheart condo deals from a lobbyist. and don't forget secretary mnuchin took a government jet that you paid for, a government jet that your taxes paid for, along with his wife, to watch the eclipse atop fort knox's stack of gold. drain the swamp? what a joke. and i guess this joke stops being funny for donald trump, who is basically using us all for suckers in his cabinet. who are all using us all for suckers. when we actually start investigating why a guy like

michael cohen, who basically isn't even a practicing lawyer according to what most court records have said and documents have said, michael cohen got paid $600,000 to deal with one of the most complicated mergers and most significant mergers in recent history. mergers and acquisitions. is he a mergers and acquisitions lawyer? no. he's a street fighter. that was just a direct pay-off. that was just a direct bribe. and the bigger question for at&t? the bigger question for time warner, the bigger question for their stockholders is, whether this entire deal is frozen up. because there has to be an investigation. that money really go to cohen? did it go through cohen and go straight to the president's pockets? where did it go? did it go to pay off other porn

stars? other playboy bunnies? where did the money go? and how does any government agency allow the at&t merger to go through as long as this isn't being investigated? well welcome to the show. it's a wind-up and a delivery and a pitch. this is who we have with us, national affairs analyst for nbc news and msnbc and executive producer and co-host of showtime's "the circus," jon heilemann. and donny deutsch with us, he's an advertising legend and a hero. and republican strategist and commentator, susan del pursio and economic analyst steve rattner and washington, d.c., nbc news reporter heidi przybilla and "new york times" reporter michael schmidt. mika has the morning off. will be talking to michael about rudy giuliani's law firm elbowing him out of the way.

because they were embarrassed of what he did on tv. and because firm members by thursday just had enough. willie, listen, this -- i know washington, i've been around it for a quarter of a century. i understand that -- some congressmen, some senators, some members of the administration, former members of the administration, they get paid by lobbyists to make good with the white house. but i've never heard of anything like a $600,000 payment to a guy that knows nothing about mergers, knows nothing about acquisitions. $600,000 to make this at&t deal go through. they admitted that yesterday. to make the at&t deal go through. and my question is, where did that money go through to? because i highly doubt that donald trump would let it sit in michael cohen's account.

>> well remember donald trump during the dpan had come out very strongly against the at&t/time warner merger. so at&t had reason to be concerned when donald trump was going to be elected. michael cohen is not a lobbyist. he's not a registered lobbyist. this was a payment to a guy they thought had the ear of donald trump. might be able to put his thumb on the scale. and make the deal go through. a new report says on the very first business day of the trump administration, the president's personal attorney, michael cohen, signed a contract with at&t to receive $600,000 to consult on long-term planning as well as its pending merger with time warner, which the justice department eventually sued to block last november. documents obtained by the "washington post" show cohen made the deal on january 23rd, 2017. within three days of president trump's inauguration. and just four days after cohen publicly announced he would represent trump as president, and would resign from the trump

administration, the organization to avoid a quote perceived conflict. at&t says it paid cohen for insights, but the "post" found it unclear what insight cohen, a long-time real estate attorney and former taxi cab operator could have provided at&t on complex telecom matters. the health care news site stat reports that the $1.2 million novartis paid cohen's company is almost four times more, four times more than it paid any actual outside lobbyists in the same period of time. a novartis spokesman responded that cohen was a hired consultant and not a lobbyist. and the consulting fees were in line with market terms for consultancy and advisory. joe? >> yeah, lots of luck on that. proving that to your shareholders. jon heilemann, everything just seems to keep exploding out there. surrounding, we have more stories coming out every day

about michael cohen. more stories coming out every day about payoffs to michael cohen. michael avenatti releasing letters, releasing emails. my question, my question is, first of all, where do you think all of this is coming from? all the information is coming from? and secondly, how impactful is it going to be, the $600,000 payoff to michael cohen and whoever michael cohen went ahead and passed the money through. and how does that impact at&t in the merger? >> well a lot of questions there. the first thing i would say, to answer the question where it's coming from, joe, i don't know the answer. but i'll say this having spent some time with michael avenatti on "the circus" a couple of episodes ago and a lot of time this week, one thing as a basic human observation, you walk around new york city, washington, d.c., los angeles, with the guy, and he is being treated by a fair segment-the-public as a hero. he's got become a celebrity.

and in the same way that you've seen bob mueller venerated by the half of the country that wants to see donald trump thrown out of office, you now have a popular view that this guy is like bob mueller, kind of their hope for changing the course of the country. when you get that kind of popular support, where there's people out there rooting for you, you become a television celebrity and you're seen as a political figure, you start to get information from a lot of different sources. people start to want to feed you stuff. some of it is bunk. some of it might not be bunk. and i think he's right now with his firm, inundated with people who are sending him tips, leads, documents. all kinds of things. i don't know what the sources are, but i know there's a groundswell of people out there who see him as a vehicle and a repository for stuff. so that's one thing. the second thing is i think that this notion that michael cohen's

llc, this llc, essential consulting, basically looks like a giant slush fund for influence peddling, some of it from foreign sources, some of it from domestic sources, some of it corporate, some of it other, there's a big story here. and we're all interested in the sources of the money. but the larger questions now are going to be, and there are things that reporters are going to chase for days and weeks to come, is what did the money get spent on? you raised this in your opening statement. the question of, how was it used? who got the payments? that's going to be a fruitful line of inquiry for journalists and investigators going forward. and as to the at&t thing, i will say i just think that there is, i don't want to be naive about this one point. which is -- big companies in america buy influence in american politics. i, a lot of people don't like that. but we have a system of organized bribery, corruption in this country, that lives in washington, d.c. that has to do with pacs and

lobbyists and everything else and there were a lot of companies scrambling around with their hair on fire when donald trump got elected, trying to figure out how do we get to this guy? how do we influence this guy? the normal ways of doing business aren't going to work. so they turn to michael cohen. as an explanation for what happened, i think that's what happened. and clearly at&t was one of those companies. >> boy, and it's an, like i said, it happens. but this is so much more than most lobbyists get. and again, donny, the question is, is that really money that stayed with michael cohen? did it go through a slush fund? you've known michael for a very long time. we both know trump. i find it very hard to believe that donald trump would take a meeting from anybody. i find it impossible to believe that donald trump would take a meeting from anybody, as a favor to michael cohen, knowing that michael cohen was going to make $600,000 off of him, taking that

meeting. and you're sitting there laughing for the same reason. anybody -- it's just absolutely preposterous. donald trump would not have allowed michael cohen to make $600,000 on his back. because of an at&t meeting. >> yeah, i spoke to michael yesterday. and michael first of all, said that basically these companies reached out to him this is according to michael. and said look, there's one thing about this guy, this president, and he says that just if you're a company doing -- this is michael -- if you're a company doing business with him, nobody knows how he's going to react. nobody understands the mind of donald trump. his kids do and i'm probably next in line and he believes that's valuable to companies. that's michael's point of view. whether that money was going to trump, all i can say is this and clearly i have no knowledge of that, is that every time i think why would this guy who is worth $1 billion, he says 10, be getting involved in trump

university to get an extra $100 in his pocket. could this president possibly say, wow, maybe i can make an extra few hundred grand by getting these -- you go that's not possible. but then you go of course it's possible. clearly none of us know the answer to that. michael, as i said, he, when i spoke to him yesterday, he said i'm still in a fighting mood, he said corey lewandoski got $2 million. whether or not we think it's sleazy, the big questions are, did any of it go back to trump? and let us not get head-faked away from russia. because we'll still always come back to the russian money. i think it's a bit of a sidebar. to heilemann's explanation, it's one more demonstration unfortunately as to the way that washington works. and a comment over avenatti, i'm feeling over the last few days, he feels like he's jumping the shark a little bit. we've all watched the media a bit. and obviously he's done a lot of interesting things, if i'm

managing michael avenatti at this point, i wouldn't be on the hour six hours a day. you're starting to feel as somebody who is in the media and watching the media, a guy who is a losing a little sight of where he is of the position he's in. and you almost get the feeling he's already auditions for jeff zucker and phil griffin for his next tv spot. if i was managing his brand a little bit -- i think less is more. >> donny, he's getting under trump's skin. >> correct. >> and doing what trump always does, which is be everywhere all the time. constantly in people's faces. >> fair point. >> and he actually has gotten, gotten in trump's face. but going back to, going back to your friend, is he a mergers and acquisitions lawyer? does he know anything about -- fcc? >> no, no, his point would be, once again i'm not defending him. would be, hey, the valuable

noodle i serve -- over the years i've had many conversations with him, oh, my god, this is happening, everybody is going to think this and trump is going to act this way. theoretically what people are paying for, when abc happens, i'll tell you what def is going to happen. nobody understands this guy better than me and his kids. >> and willie, donny brought up, the question if donald trump has all of these billions of dollars wirks is he risk his reputation on you know getting somebody to pay $49.95 for trump university? you could go down the list of things that don't add up. we talked about it with michael cohen. he's flipping $30 million apartments and he can't afford a $130,000 payoff to the president for a porn star. you could say the same thing about donald trump. a lot of things he does, they don't add up. and yes, this is a guy that would shake somebody down for a

couple of hundred thousand dollars. because we don't know just how cash-poor he is. we don't know if he's even a billionaire. >> and that's why it will be so interesting to see where this $4.4 million that flowed through essential consultants actually ended up. did it all really just go in michael cohen's pocket? or is there some deal with the president? we'll look into that. if you look at the numbers, the "washington post" reports that the $600,000 at&t paid cohen represented 3.5% of their entire lobbying budget for the year. that's a lot of money to give to a guy who has no relationship to telecommunications or mergers and acquisitions. but was seen as we were saying, as one of the few people in the chaos after president trump was elected who might have the president's ear. >> but we're looking at this from the window of he can do something positive for these companies. there's a lot of talk right now that perhaps he was able to say -- you don't want me against you. you don't want, you want me on your side. because i'll go to your

competitor or an at&t, i speak to donald trump. you don't want me whispering in his ear something negative. i think of course he doesn't know about mergers and acquisitions, he doesn't know about accounting or health care. what was his purpose? to maybe interpret some of donald trump's ideas? and then also and probably more important, to make sure that he didn't say -- hey, i can keep you out of trouble. or i won't go to your competitor. and i think it's more of a shakedown than performing services. >> we obviously don't know exactly what happened there. but i agree with what everybody said before. first, this is the swamp in action. this is how washington works on steroids. where normal lobbying, normal payoffs have been escalate odd into paying huge sums of money. to a guy who knows nothing, except he happens to know the president of the united states. here's another point not to repeat what everybody else said. i think it will be very interesting for mueller. the question here is whether what cohen did, did he pay his

taxes on this money? should he have registered as a lobbyist depending on what he did or didn't do? i suspect in all of michael cohen's complicated dealings, mueller will find grist for his investigation and things he can do to have leverage against cohen. maybe flip him or at least go after him. i think this is all going to relate back to what mueller is doing, vis-a-vis trump. >> donny, i want to go back to a question i asked you before, we didn't really put a bow on it you've known michael cohen for a very long time. you know how badly donald trump treats him. you know that he makes fun of him, he mocks him, he ridicules him. he doesn't think much of him personally. and again, we also know how cheap donald trump is. how this is a guy who has been billions in debt we don't know if the guy has any money at all.

so do you really believe, knowing that relationship, knowing michael cohen, knowing donald trump, as you have, that donald trump would say to michael cohen -- oh, cool, yeah, i'll sit with at&t. or i'll sit with these other companies. you make half a million dollars and i'll just sit here and do nothing. or do you think that donald trump wanted to a cut of that, just like he was going crazy during the debate season, demanding, he was actually thinking about demanding that cnn, msnbc and fox pay him to go on the debate stage. that he needed royalty checks, because they were making so much advertising off of him? do you think that donald trump would go, oh, it's great, michael, you make $600,000 and i'll take some meetings for you. >> first of all, the relation with michael is, he did have a

warm up until this point, a warm relationship. sure he would yell at him just like he yells at his homeland security director in front of the cabinet. do i think if donald trump knew about this, he would say to michael, this is my opinion, hey, michael, i want 80% of that and keep setting up those meetings? absolutely. i don't know if donald trump knew about it, before or after, if that was happening and donald trump either knew or was going to know, that would end up in donald trump's pocket. once again, this is a guy who sold steaks. so i can say that with complete certainty, not knowing exactly what happened. but yes, that would go to donald trump and not only that, donald trump would say to him, hey, by the way, here are the fortune 500 companies, let's go from 1-500 and i would take it up to $1 million a pop. the day donald trump got in office, his attitude and we see it in his son-in-law's attitude not, how can i serve this country. wow, we stormed the gate.

this is really, really cool. >> can i respond to your question about the closeness, which is something that i perceived and for a long time, there's one thing that fights that, which is the disjuncture of michael's aparent view was that he would be white house chief of staff. not only was he not white house chief of staff, but he got left behind. i'm not saying that in a critical way. where was the mismatch there sort of between the relationship that one of them thought i'm going to washington to be your most important person in the white house and the other one said you're not coming to washington at all, stay back in new york. >> michael's contention is no, he didn't want to go, he was in a position to do more outside of it. that's michael's point of view. i was surprised myself knowing their relationship, that he didn't go there. that michael could have done a lot of blocking and tackling, michael has got a lot of sharp elbows. at the time i think he wanted somebody back at the store. it's a little foggy what really went down there.

because it was about as close a relationship other than his kids. michael's point at this point is he didn't want to go, he was in a position to do more in new york. i wasn't there at the time. >> that's not true. he wanted to go, donald trump said he was a bull in a china shop. basically said he couldn't be trusted down there. didn't want him anywhere around. michael was broken-hearted. you've read "the wall street journal" stories, people overhearing him on the phone, saying "boss, i miss you so much." it's really sad. he was run over by donald trump and thrown out. because donald trump didn't think he was good enough to be in the white house. >> i don't know the reason. but i was surprised he was not there. and i do think deep in michael's heart. he probably would have liked to have been there. but once again, what he said to me was, in hindsight, don't shoot the messenger. >> we'll sneak in a break here. heidi przybilla and michael schmidt coming up after the

break. coming up, rudy giuliani has left his manhattan law firm to focus on his work with donald trump. yesterday we heard vice president pence calling for an end to the russia investigation. well now chief of staff john kelly sharing a similar opinion of that probe as well. and if congress cannot protect special counsel robert mueller's job, perhaps it can protect his work. heidi has new exclusive reporting digging into that. we've got a lot more ahead on "morning joe." so, how's it going? well... we had a vacation early in our marriage that kinda put us in a hole. go someplace exotic? yeah, bermuda. a hospital in bermuda. a hospital in bermuda. what? what happened? i got a little over-confident on a moped. even with insurance, we had to dip into our 401(k) so it set us back a little bit. sometimes you don't have a choice. but it doesn't mean you can't get back on track. great. yeah, great. i'd like to go back to bermuda. i hear it's nice. yeah, i'd like to see it. no judgment. just guidance.

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sure. mom,what's up son?alk? i can't be your it guy anymore. what? you guys have xfinity. you can do this. what's a good wifi password, mom? you still have to visit us. i will. no. make that the password: "you_stillóhave_toóvisit_us." that's a good one. [ chuckles ] download the xfinity my account app and set a password you can easily remember. one more way comcast is working to fit into your life, not the other way around. what happenes if robert mueller subpoenas the president? will you comply? >> we don't have to. he's the president of the united states. >> if the president is asked to testify, subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury, and says -- no. not going to do it. >> he's got to do it. you don't have a choice.

>> it's pretty clear that a president can't be subpoenaed to a criminal proceeding about him. >> as far as criminal is law is concerned, the president is a citizen. >> the president cannot be distracted by a criminal investigation. >> all the watergate litigation resolved the fact that the president is not above the law. is not able to avoid subpoenas. >> really, really -- just remarkable. >> it's the same guy, right? >> it's the same guy, except -- as i, as i suggested yesterday, i think when the queen of england, as he calls queen elizabeth, knighted him, perhaps she slipped and struck him on the head and he has short-term memory loss as it pertains to presidents being subpoenaed? i don't know, but that's embarrassing. that's about as embarrassing as mike pence yesterday morning, you just do the side by sides and sehe's splitting.

he's basically being nixonian. giuliani, i don't know if giuliani was at the game last night. but there was a little game last night. >> it took you this long to bring it up, joe. shocking. >> i know, but i'm doing this for a reason. i had to stay up until after 11:00 and listen to the end of the game. thank god the on-deck circle, it was a great game. i want to read while we're looking at some of these images, listen to these stats, willie. really incredible. the red sox started the season winning 17 out of 19 games. the yankees now have won 17 out of 19 games. the yankees began the season 9-9. the red sox last 18 games, their record has been 9-9. they're split for the season series, three. and it's 3-3, season split. and of course, they're both at the top of the american league

east and they both have the best records in baseball. this, this really does look like it's shaping up to just be a great season series. joe kelly coming in at the end and first of all looking like he was going to be the goat. but then shutting them down. but man, what a line-up the yankees have. top to bottom. it's frightening. >> it's brutal. here's the death blow by the way, 4-4 game in the eighth inning, martinez sneaks one -- if judge is an inch taller and catches this -- oh, just doesn't get it, red sox win 5-4, they were up 4-0, yankees came back and tied it up. from may, the feel in that building was alcs feel, three great games. its going to be a fun, fun summer in the al east. >> can i jump in for a second? remember those great days before trump where we would do sports here and highlights? and then donald trump just -- just changed everything for us.

we don't get to kind of talk baseball any more. or talk pop culture. >> donny? >> it's just terrible. >> was it donald trump, donny? or was it us? i think we can, i think, i think we can reclaim who we were before donald trump was sworn in. especially if it's the red sox that beat the yankees. willie? what do we have next? >> as long as the yankees and red sox are competitive we'll have sports on the show. rudy giuliani has resigned from his job at a manhattan law firm to focus on representing president trump in the russia probe. nbc reports partners have grown increasingly frustrated with the way joij has handled himself in the last couple of weeks. especially his leave of absence status at the firm which allows him to collect the president's legal bills. giuliani calls his departure from the firm a mutual decision

and the firm took issue with giuliani's comments that michael cohen's payments to stormy daniels was a common practice. >> that was money that was paid by, by his lawyer, the way i would do out of his law firm funds. michael would take care of things like this. like i take care of things like this for my clients. >> the "times" asked the manhattan law firm about those remarks after giuliani's resignation and received this response. quote we cannot speak for mr. giuliani, with respect to what was intended by his remarks. speaking for ourselves we would not condone payments of the nature alleged to have been made or 0 otherwise without the knowledge and direction of a client. >> wow. >> yesterday a firm spokesperson told nbc news the "times" had mischaracterized the remarks, which they say was an answer to a general question asked earlier this week. michael schmidt, what's the truth about the braeak-up?

i can't imagine a law firm wants its partners saying yeah, these payoffs happen all the time. we pay off porn stars. >> i don't think that the firm liked that. and as you see, they went to lengths to put out a statement to us when they didn't have to say anything. they could have allowed the break-up to sort of stand as it was. they went far enough to put this out there. giuliani coming back to us last night and saying look, greenberg never raised the issue with me. saying this was not something that they came directly to him about. but look, they did speak out about it. the other thing that i think we have to understand about people representing the president, is that in the past six weeks, as jay sekulow has tried to rebuild the president's legal team, several lawyers from big firms said no, because the firms did not want them representing the president. they were afraid about internal backlash from their employees. they were afraid about their lawyers working for someone who has a reputation of not

necessarily following the legal advice of his attorneys and not always paying his bills. so firms, this has been on their mind. and they realize there can be an internal and external issue with going as far to represent this president. >> so michael, talk about also, the law firm's concern about the risk to reputation, we heard about meetings that they had had, by thursday of last week, members of the firm had had enough. they were embarrassed by what giuliani was doing on tv. and they really did start talking among themselves according to your reports and others, talking about the risk to their law firm's reputation. that this could not go on and giuliani could not stay attached to their law firm because he was embarrassing them. >> yeah, and that's the other thing, the nature of giuliani's representation of the president is different than other attorneys. it was incredibly public. lots of television appearances,

being very aggressive. going to push hard on mueller, you know going after rosenstein. raising a lot of larger issues about this. also putting some stuff out there that turned out not necessarily to be true. and having to walk that back. so if you're a firm, your public relations image is going up and down with the up and downs of donald trump and rudy giuliani. and for this particular firm, it's a larger issue, they were tied in with the jack abramoff scandal over a decade ago and when there's negative publicity like this it means even more to them because they've already been associated with a big scandal here in washington. so the sense that we had from what was going on there, is look, we need to put as much distance between us and them as possible. and on the other part of this is that donald trump is just one client to them. this is a law firm as giuliani pointed out that has 2,000 lawyers. donald trump could oent generate so much in fees and there's a lot of other business there. and they need to build a moat

and protect that. >> susan you worked with giuliani. giuliani says the firm doesn't understand what i said. saying this kind of payment is in fact common. he said they never brought it up and he was surprised by the split. what's your reaction? >> i think that giuliani is used to be an executive. similar to trump. i think giuliani came from his own law firm, giuliani and brasswell and he was not able to make a transition to working with other people. as we see even now. when he went on television. he kind of went rogue. he wasn't working with the legal team. this is typical giuliani. he's used to doing what he wants, how he wants to do it. i think there was a lot of people upset that he didn't really take into consideration that he was part of the law firm and he was just doing his own thing? >> so heidi przybilla. rudy giuliani with these appearances on tv has referenced the mueller probe. we've heard comments from vice president pence yesterday saying it's time to wrap up the mueller probe. we heard chief of staff, we'll

hear these comments shortly, john kelly suggesting the same that not much has been found, maybe it's time to wrap this up. you've got new reporting about what's happening on capitol hill in reaction to all that. >> nbc has exclusive new reporting about a movement afoot on capitol hill to develop a plan b. to try and protect the russia investigation. as you know, senator mitch mcconnell has said he will not bring to the floor a vote of a separate bipartisan effort to try and protect mueller's job. and so senator blumenthal has told me that he is organizing a bipartisan effort, he's working with republicans, that's notable here, to try to protect mueller's work. senator mcconnell and other republicans raised objections to the initial effort saying it was not constitutional to put any kind of shackles on the president's ability to hire and fire personnel. well what this does, is totally skirts that. and focuses simply on transparency in terms of the work that mueller is doing.

for instance, it allows congress to demand that they get to see his work. and i think that would surprise a lot of people to know right now mueller is not operating under that rule. similar to what ken starr operated under, which was that congress, no matter what, gets to see the fruition, the product of his work. so this new potential legislation would simply bring that statute, bring those rules to be the same as what ken starr operated under. secondly, it would allow mueller to essentially release his work if he were fired. and to release his work if he felt like he was starting to be stifled. and this is important, guys. because now a lot of the talk on capitol hill is not about the saturday night massacre scenario of mueller himself being fired. but potentially rosenstein being pushed aside, which would allow a trump loyalist to be put into

that job and could squeeze the resources going to mueller. so senator blumenthal tells me he is working with a number of republicans on this. they think that it will bring more pressure to bear on mcconnell, because every republican you talk to, up on the hill seems to agree when you talk to them, that this investigation needs to continue unimpeded and at the same time, we're seeing this escalating rhetoric coming not only from the president, but from everyone around him. from giuliani to now the vice president and reportedly now even john kelly. >> and jon heilemann, it's what we are entering a new phase now, as heidi said, where you have mike pence playing spiro agnew, lifting lines directly from richard nixon before he went down for watergate. you have kelly, playing earl lickman and halderman trying to kill this investigation. you have devin nunes with the

full support of paul ryen, the shameful support of paul ryan, trying to expose an intel asset. trying desperately to stop this russian investigation. it really is, it's directly out of "homeland." you have somebody in devin nunes. devon nunes knows exactly what he's trying to do the russian investigation has indicted 13 russians, more indictments of russians obviously on the way. and yet nunes is doing putin's bidding and paul ryan is letting him do putin's bidding. and the question is, where are the grown-ups in the republican party that can explain to paul ryan that while he may be going home to wisconsin after this, this year is over, the rest of them are going to have to deal in the aftermath of what's going to be a very messy situation.

when it's revealed just how much they are covering up for vladimir putin and russia. >> joe, i don't know where the adults have gone and, the ways in which the republican party has behaved around this, have been just, it's been defining deviancy down over the last year and a half. i don't imagine that's going to change until unless and until, the kinds of things we've been talking about earlier in the show start to become so glaring, i'm talking about some stuff related to michael cohen. i'm talking about some of the other things, the ways in which the michael cohen story is not just about michael cohen now, it's now about michael cohen and stormy daniels and russia and all of that. the kind of threads are all coming together into one garment. and as those details, as start to come out, and the picture, the potential picture of the kind of international conspiracies and financial

crimes that were starting to get hints of, early hints of now as those things come together, the only, i think the picture of that is the only thing eventually, along with, a drubbing at the polls in november, for the republicans, or the only thing that's going to change the calculuss that have been worked in the way that they have, that allow some of these things to go on that you're talking about, i imagine the combination of those two things, most importantly in some extent, the electoral consequences for the party. but a republican party that's lost the house and maybe lost the senate and as as they're looking at these kinds of stories increasingly coming out in potentially a flood, that is maybe the thing that will cause some of the grown-ups or ostensible grown-ups in the republican party, house and senate alike, to look up and say, we've got to change course. >> michael schmidt you've done a ton of reporting on the russia investigation, on what bob mueller has been up to. we know he referred the information led to the cohen

raid. and when we got the avenatti report that mueller's special counsel people stopped viktor vekselberg at the airport and took his devices away from him. do you have a sense of where bob mueller is in his investigation and what he's digging up at this point? >> i get a lot of questions about the timing. how far along is mueller? when would he be done? mueller has been a very difficult black box for us to penetrate to understand where his head is at on any of this stuff. he's given very little clues on it. look, he has been looking at the president now for a year. we're coming up on the year marker, as mike pence pointed out the other day. this has been a year, we should be done with it. the thing i, that obviously there's a lot of people that want immediate answers to this. they want to know exactly where it is. i think they have to understand that this these things takes a very long time. iran contra went on for six years. that may have been not nearly as complex as this.

and the investigation, the russia investigation has so many different tentacles, it has a collusion tentacle. it has an obstruction, social media, interference, in the questions about foreign agents and how americans are lobbying for foreign governments, they're looking at qataris, how money was coming in from uae and the gulf. there's so many different parts of this. and the problem that mueller has, that people have to understand is that mueller wants to look underneath every single rock. because if he ever closes up shop, and something else comes out, that's going to look pretty bad. so he has to examine every single different thread and i just find it hard to believe that he's close to being done with any of that. >> as all the noise comes out of the white house, noise on tv, noise online, he continues his work in quiet. michael schmidt, thank you as always we appreciate it. coming up next, how strong is the economy really?

president trump says it's far better than it was under president obama. steve rattner is cooking up his charts as we speak. says the data might suggest otherwise, that's next on "morning joe." plus a white house aide reportedly mocks republican senator john mccain's cancer diagnosis. we'll tell you what she said, when we come back. ♪ ♪ ♪ raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens ♪ ♪ bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens ♪ ♪ brown paper packages tied up with strings ♪ ♪ these are a few of my favorite things ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ these are a few of my favorite things ♪ but as it grew bigger and bigger,ness. it took a whole lot more. that's why i switched to the spark cash card from capital one. with it, i earn unlimited 2% cash back on everything i buy.

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a top white house communications aide mocked senator john mccain's brain cancer diagnosis. the comments which were first reported by the hill came during a meeting yesterday after senator mccain announced he would oppose the nomination of gina haspel to become director of the c.i.a. kelly sadler reportedly said the arizona as senator is quote, dying anyway. according to three sources with direct knowledge of the meeting. the white house did not deny that sadler made the remark. asked for a comment, it said in a statement only we respect senator mccain's service to our nation and he and his family are in our prayers during this difficult time. senator mccain's office had no comment but his wife, cindy mccain, addressed sadler on twitter, writing, may i remind

you, my husband has a family, seven children and five grandchildren. joe? >> the fish rots from the head. we've talked about how a talked president is much more than his positions on supreme court justice justices. much more than tax and regulation policy. and as john mn meacham has been telling us all week, it's a position of moral authority and if you have someone with humanity and kindness then yes, we can't be shock ed in the people who work for him. ultimately online and for children this is a tragedy and the fact that somebody who said that is still working there this

morning says all you need to know about donald trump, a man who mocked john mccain for being a p.o.w., a man who made fun of people with disabilities, a man who has called beauty queens fat a man who derided gold star mothers, who respects nobody or no thing, who has absolutely no moral authority and has no business sitting in the same chair, in the same office that abraham lincoln, fdr and ronald reagan have sat in before. >> when i heard that, joe, i wondered about how someone working in the license would have they could say something like that and i thought about how one of the first acts of president trump was to question the heroism and courage of john mccain and now here we are. still ahead, last month, nbc news reported chief of staff

john kelly called president trump an idiot multiple times. now he may be trying to make up for that. we have kelly's new comments about the president ahead. "morning joe's" coming right back.

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still ahead on "morning joe," in 2016 there were dozens of counties in the midwest that flipped to trump after decades of voting for democrats. we'll talk to a reporter who spent the past 16 months talking to voters in that part of the country. plus, the north korean summit date is officially on the calendar and the "washington post's" eugene robinson writes about it in his new column titled "lord save the world." he joins us next. that and steve rattner's charts all in a packed 7:00 a.m. hour coming right up on "morning joe." this is your wake-up call. if you have moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis,

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>> that's interesting. he delivered -- he's delivered more than he's promised. where's that wall? where's the wall? where's the wall? i don't see a wall. do you see a wall, willie? i don't see a wall. i also -- where where's that health care coverage that was going to be more affordable, that was going to be better, cheaper, more affordable. we have stories coming in that insurance companies are having to raise their prices because donald trump and the republicans -- well, they tried to destroyed the affordable care act but didn't bother replacing it so the impact is going to be chaotic. we can go down the list of lies during the campaign but i'll just start with one, where's the wall? >> well, and the ohmland security secretary heard a lot about there not being a wall, reportedly in a meeting to the point where she drafted her own

resignation letter in the way she was treated by the president. we'll get to that in just a minute. still with us, national affairs analyst for nbc news and msnbc and executive producer and co-host of show time's "the circus" which is just on fire this season, john heilemann. republican strategist and political commentator susan del percio. former treasury official whose charts are about to be on fire on this show, steve rattner. >> holy moly! >> nbc news national political reporter heidi przybyla and joining the conversation pulitzer prize winning columnist and associate editor of the "washington post" and msnbc political analyst, always on fire, eugene robinson. and the host of msnbc's politics nation and the president of the national action network, the reverend al sharpton. >> on fire. >> mika will be back with us on monda monday. >> he's not on fire, he is fire.

he is fire he's verified, he is sanctified, he is -- also on fire. >> trying not to be crucified. >> well, stay away from that, it's already been done, no second acts there, rev. so john heilemann, let's talk for a second, "the circus" on fire but another show on fire -- well not this season but we've been talking about "peaky blinders" man and i've got to say, cilian murphy -- well, the whole cast is extraordinary but when murphy and tom hardy are working across the table the acting is extraordinary. i even have mika watching it. >> i am so pleased you found your way to this show. i was late to it and i watched it over christmas, all four seasons and it is one of the most extraordinary things i've

ever seen. cil cilian murphy is amazing. eventually you get to adrian brody who comes in and off pacino de niro in heat quality to the scenery dchew between those two. and the combination of the stylized period piece british post-world war i gangster thing with music by the arctic monkeys and nick cave and radio head and all these creates this kind of amazing thing. the music people were -- the musicians were so into this show, musicians who never let their music be played on television, like radiohead. they started throwing music at the guys who make the show to the point where before david bowie died he gave them a song for an episode that you have not yet seen.

it's an amazing thing, a real phenomenon in britain, not as much here, but i'm glad you're in the fan category now. >> how do you pronounce the nee lead's -- >> killian. >> cilian was a musician himself three of these guys were in dunkirk but cillian murphy, what an extraordinary actor. you have to see this guy act, he's one of the best. >> willie? >> let's turn to our panel on this. the combination of period acting

and music, go ahead. >> i have absolutely no idea what we're talking about. >> not a clue. >> i have heard great things about the show. rev, got anything? i've never seen you at a loss for words. >> i'm at a loss for understanding. they're trying to put out my fire. i need to get my swag bag. >> this is not the culture vulture panel here. >> let's get back on topic. john heilemann, this sunday's new episode of "the circus" goes behind the scenes with michael avenatti, the attorney for stormy daniels as avenatti prepared to expose michael cohen's allege connection to a russian oligarch with close ties to vladimir putin. "morning joe" has this exclusive look as you join avenatti before he makes headlines that make that claim, let's check it out. >> we may do that. i'm in the process of verifying some stuff. it's going to reset this discussion in a very big way. you weren't supposed to be here. you were going go home, go off

the grid. >> correct. what happened was on saturday some information came to us and we decided that we can't sit on it, we need to break it. >> don't keep me in suspense. >> we have information now that the president's personal attorney michael cohen has been accepting money from the russians after the election. >> russians means what? >> well, money from one of the leading russian oligarchs who is known to be at the right hand of vladimir putin. >> what's the money for? >> we don't know but this was the same bank account set up for the purpose of paying my client the $130,000. >> and you know about this how? >> because we're good. you got the final version? let's just see how it plays out. >> you have a tweet written? >> two tweets. >> two tweets. it was just sent. >> it was just sent. there it is.

summary, michael cohen -- how many pages is this thing? >> seven pages. >> what does it say? >> it says they here in a lot of [ bleep ] is what it says. >> that information from avenatti continues to drive the news cycle. a new report says on the first business day of the trump administration the president's personal attorney michael cohen signed a contract with at&t to receive $600,000 to consult on long-term planning as well as his pending merger with time warner which the justice department sued the block last november. documents obtained by the "washington post" show cohen made the deal on january 23, 2017, within three days of president trump's inauguration and just four days after cohen publicly announced he would represent trump as president and would resign from the trump organization to avoid a "perceived conflict." at&t says it paid cohen for "insights" but the "post" found it unclear what insight cohen could have provided at&t on

complex telecom matters. meanwhile, the health care news site stat reports the $1.2 million novartis paid cohen's company is almost four times more than it paid actual outside lobbyists in that same time period. a novartis spokesperson responded cohen was hired as a consultant and not as a lobbyist and that the consulting fees were in line with market terms for consultancy and advisory. john, go back to the clip of avenatti where this started. he didn't tell you where this started. >> very explicitly did not talk about that. >> what are his suspicions about what this means in the bigger picture. he mentioned russia, about what michael cohen may have been up to with this company. >> however this information came to him and whatever -- he was very confident. we had a long discussion monday night where i was saying are you going to put evidence out and he said i'm not but i'm going to hope journalists are going to verify this and i'm very

confident they will and i pressed him, i fed is this turns out to be false, these assertions, your career is over, you're done, you won't be serving your client well, this will be a catastrophe and he said he understood that which gave me the sense he had access to or had seen something or told something he had a high degree of confidence that it would be verified and that it was quickly by the "new york times" and other news outlets so he has the same questions we all have which is there are two sides of these transactions. one is what are the sources and victor vekselberg is the most high profile one because it brings the collusion questions into play but there's big american corporations and foreign corporations paying michael cohen for in what looks like an influence operation. and then there's the question of what happened to that money. there's a lot of money that flowed into that account. a lot of money flowed out and we see stories about michael cohen being in financial duress, having to take out mortgages an

homes. so the question is if michael cohen was sucking in all this money to be -- provide access or insight into donald trump's thinking, where did it go? to the point where he seems to be in a not great place financially if you think about the reporting we've heard. and those things, where the money got paid out, did it go to other women donald trump may have had relationships with? those are the questions michael avenatti is raising, asking and questions we should be raising. >> reverend sharpton you're not naive about politics, you know how lobbying works, there's a system set up where money goes in to gain influence over politicians. michael cohen not a registered lobbyist, michael cohen set up this company, took in $4.4 million that we know of. $600,000 from at&t which represented 3.5% of the total lobbying budget for the year to a guy who isn't a lobbyist. what do you see as you hear this story about michael cohen?

>> i wonder, and i talked about this last night with ari is whether or not michael cohen was, in fact, selling a bill of goods to different people that he couldn't deliver on. here's a man that president trump did not bring in who thought he would be brought in, wanted to be brought in and maybe his get even was i'm going to go out here and make me some money and did it by, in a sense, overprojecting what he could do because a lot of these corporations are not silly, certainly i don't think they thought they were doing anything like bribing because it's not enough money, i think they felt they would get some insight. the question now that i think runs into the piece that john is doing or the next piece he may do is does the government have some kind of e-mail trail or something where he was

defrauding the companies promising them things he couldn't deliver, overstepping boundaries, that would not make their intentions wrong but his intentions wrong and then the president not playing along or not even knowing which is not good news for the president because if, in fact, he did, they have more leverage to squeeze him to talk about other matters. >> >> i think there's a couple pieces that relate back to mueller and other things. first is the point that when mueller gets into cohen's business, he's going to find things that i think are illegal or improper and that will give him leverage over cohen. the second thing is joe made a compelling case for why the swamp has gotten bigger in washington, not smaller and the one thing i would add is that what they have allowed trump and kushner and family members to do in terms of retaining business interests continue to be in business, continue to microsoft are from business is not only

disgusting, it's completely inconsistent with any other administration in history. i was part of one. i had to get rid of every single thing i owned that could have possibly had anything do with anything and these guys are allowed to keep ownership interest and act like they're still in business. >> and gene robinson we've detailed and highlighted so of the things that were purchased by agency -- cabinet agency hea heads. $31,000 for this piece of furniture. $100,000 for zinke's doors. you had $140,000 for the maxwell smart phone booth for scott pruitt. you have all of scott pruitt's private jet flights. i could go down the list of former hhs secretaries. you have $600,000 for a guy who right now the court is trying to figure out whether he's a lawyer

or not to influence and at&t merger. but gene, that doesn't start to get into the real money. jared kushner bouncing around during transition trying to figure out whether he was raising money for his 666 project or whether he was going to be in government. you have ivanka trump getting her merchandising fast tracked in china. the list goes on forever. this is in the history of american politics, this is the muck -- the muckiest swamp we have ever seen and we're only a year and a half in. >> i think it will be seen as the most corrupt administration this country has seen at least since harding. and history may decide that harding got a bad rap and that it's number one.

i've never seen anything like this. and first of all, why shouldn't every cabinet member have a cone of silence? remember the cone of silence maxwell smart would -- that's what i think of when i think of scott pruitt. and the michael cohen stuff, i wonder if it wasn't a protection racket. remember donald trump was tweeting about specific companies and causing their stock prices to go up and down and i imagine cohen's pitches being something like, you know, that's a nice little drug company you got there, it would be a shame if something happened to it -- like a tweet. >> and he's been known to tweet threats before. so heidi. i'm curious, i'm always asking about the response on capitol hill but there have to be people around that remember when members of congress and people i

served with went on a golf trip with jack abramoff, came back and gave a speech on the floor and suddenly they were thrown in jail. remember robert mcdonald's life was ruined but he allowed a guy that had given him a watch -- which was legal under virginia law, put up some display for vitamin sublimits or something inside the governor's residency and reception. but you have donald trump here -- we're moving millions and millions of dollars around in this administration if you look at all the business being done on the side and you look at all the money that his cabinet secretaries are wasting, how do republicans in congress deal with this? how do they go back to their districts with a straight face and defend this? >> for all of the reasons you outlined, this is going to

surprise no one, joe. i take you back to several months ago when corey lewandowski himself left the administration and set up blocks from the white house as a lobbyist but i wanted to point out one thing i think is important in understanding, another scenario which this may have occurred. under our ethics rules you only have to register as a lobbyist if you've had contact with two or more government officials so michael cohen as the president's attorney had one very important contact that made him extremely valuable to at&t and any other company that came beggaring at his door and that is donald trump. if you read down in that report, it says that in january, both michael cohen and the ceo of at&t were seen going into trump tower around the same time. now, the ceo says that they did not meet, that it had nothing to do with the merger but it was days later that this contract

was inked and so michael cohen clearly was seen as a valuable asset if only for the fact that he had direct access to donald trump and according to these rules would not have had to register as a lobbyist just for providing that service. and we will never know, we will never know what his conversations were with donald trump. >> robert mueller may get some insight if cohen decides he doesn't want to go to jail for the rest of his life. willie, it's easy to get frustrated by the corruption in washington, d.c. and think donald trump and zinke and pruitt and the rest of the crew will be getting away with it but it's a devastating 30-second ad, to have donald trump talking about draining the swamp and boom show the $31,000 piece of furniture, have him talk about

draining the swatch and showing one after another -- $130,000, or $20,000 for doors, payoffs, at&t bribes, legal bribes but basically bribes all the same. that's a devastating 30-second add and i don't think donald trump or the republican party will be able to do anything to get around that. >> you'll see that ad this fall in those swing districts that voted for donald trump last time and maybe aren't getting what they thought they were going to get in terms of the swamp being drained. rev, i want to ask you about your interview with meek mill. you sat down with him. he's been an important figure with his release from prison. what did you want to know from meek? >> he said to me when i visited him in jail and did some rallies because i felt he was being held unjustly that he really wanted to be -- what he really wants to

do, how he sees criminal justice reform now, what he thought about fellow rapper kanye west and would he attend this so-called projected trump meeting, summit meeting of artists and athletes around race. he and i talked about it. it will be on sunday morning. i will say joe said the president has not kept his promises starting with the wall. but one promise he kept, joe, is he said to black americans what do you have to lose? well, we've lost criminal justice reform. we've lost part of the affordable care act and we've lost the dignity of the white house standing on the right side of things like charlottesville. so he kept that promise, joe. he's let black america know what we had to lose with him as president and we're still going down, down, down. >> and the can question is how do parents of black american

kids -- what do parents say to their children when the president of the united states uses his position to paint a moral equivalency between white supremacists and neo-nazis and those marching on the side of -- well, my god what thomas jefferson talked about. how we are a nation where all men are supposed to be created equal. that domest-- the bitter irony t happening in charlottesville and the president of the united states defending white supremacist, defending neo-nazis. what impact, reverend sharpton, does that have? and i guess because i've got four children that's what i'm most concerned about right now. what impact does that have on a nine-year-old boy or ten-year-old girl hearing that from the president of the united states? >> it has tremendous impact because it more normalizes bigo

it normalizes people growing up at that age feeling it's all right to represent supremacy over other human beings because the highest figure in the land has made this all right and made the moral equivalence so parents like you or me, how do we then make the balance he has made in their mind become something they understand is not balanced and that you cannot have a moerl society like that? it poisons american values and i think that that is something more than most that i think is unpardonable so far this presidency. >> reverend al sharpton, thank you as always. we'll watch politics nation this sunday at 8:00 a.m. with that interview with meek mill. still ahead on "morning joe," the "washington post's" george will says trump is no longer the worse person in government. that honor, he says, now belongs to mike pence. for someone in trump's inner circle, the vice president has a

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not the other way around. >> it's been about a year since this investigation began. >> one year of watergate is enough. >> our administration has been fully cooperating. >> i have provided to the special prosecutor voluntarily a great deal of material. >> our administration has provided over a million documents. >> i believe i have that provided all the material that he needs to conclude his investigations. >> in the interest of the country, i think it's time to wrap it up. >> i believe the time has come. >> and i would very respectfully encourage -- >> that investigation -- >> bring their work -- >> to an end. >> vice president mike pence taking a page from president nixon's playbook calling an end to the russia investigation yesterday. joining us now, editor at large for the "weekly standard" bill kristol and vaughn hillyard.

vaughn, in that interview with andrea mitchell, vice president pence said he did not have any knowledge of the president's personal attorney michael cohen having so in corporate contracts. this is a familiar refrain from vice president mike pence that he gaves that reaganesque head shake and says i didn't know, i didn't have knowledge of. it's a pattern for pence, isn't it? >> welly, vice president pence says the investigation should shut down but over the last year what have we heard from him? essentially pleading ignorance to knowing anything around the investigation at all. here's a couple of the interviews from the last year. >> well general flynn's son has no involvement in the transition whatsoever. >> he has a transition e-mail. >> well, he has no involvement in the transition whatsoever. >> so you are saying as the head of the transition that minute's son is not involved at all in the transition. >> he's not. i joined this campaign in the summer and i can tell you all

the conduct by the trump campaign and associates was with the american people. this is a distraction and all a part of a narrative to delegitimize the election and to question the legitimacy of this presidency. >> former national security adviser michael flynn has filed with the department of justice as a foreign agent. >> let me say hearing that story today was the first i heard of it and i fully support the decision that president trump made to ask for general flynn's resignation. >> you're disappointed by the story? >> the first i heard of it. >> did the president fire director comey to impede the russia investigation? >> he's not under investigation. >> intelligence officials have said there's investigation into potential ties between campaign officials and russian officials. >> that's not what this is about. i've made it very clear i'm not aware of any contacts during the time that i was on the campaign and between any officials of the russian government and officials with the campaign and i stand by

that. >> willie, it's a question of whether mike pence was kept in the dark or whether there was willful ig new orleans at play. i want to go back to august of last year, i was with the vice president overseas and the question that i asked him was from the january 15 cbs "face the nation" interview he did, he made two claims -- one, that the trump campaign had no conversations with russians during the campaign. the second was that michael flynn had no conversations with russian ambassador kislyak about sanctions during the transition. i told pence that we now know both of these to be untrue so my question was has there been at any point in which you had gone back to everybody involved this with the campaign and administration and said come forward around be transparent with me and the american people. i asked him that twice. both times he dodged and i say this because what we have seen him time and time again is pleading ignorance. he doesn't know about the activity about michael cohen. he was not aware of michael

flynn's investigations with kislyak and yet he's maintained as we saw yesterday that this investigation should come to an end. >> vaughn hillyard in washington, very fascinating clips you put together there. we appreciate it as always, vaughn. thanks so much. joe, it's the job and always has been of the vice president to support the white house line to protect the president in some ways but yesterday we saw the beginning of an argument from vice president mike pence where he said it's time to shut down the mueller probe. we'll hear from kelly who suggested the same on npr, giuliani has said the same but to hear it from the vice president's mouth was extraordinary yesterday. >> well, he really did. he -- we like to say on this show that history doesn't repeat but it rhymes but it didn't even rhyme yesterday. he lifted richard nixon's words directly from the nixon speech nine months before nixon had to

resign. >> right. >> and bill kristol, what position is mike pence in to talk about ending any investigation when he's either lying about absolutely everything that's happened between the russians and the trump administration or completely ignorant. we could look at yesterday and say one year is enough, but even in january of 2017, a year and a half ago, he was saying there was no contact ever between any americans around -- any russians and the trump administration. and this is just a distraction to keep us from doing our work. he's been trying to obstruct this investigation from day one. >> what willie said, the guy who gets the job of the vice president -- i thought you were going to finish by saying to be kept in the dark. since i worked for a vice president there's some truth to that. i think mike pence likes to keep himself in the dark but i come

back to what joe is saying, the inappropriateness of the vice president saying it's time to tend investigation. if you were vice president of the united states and the justice department is investigating someone or a set of people and some people have been indicted or pled guilty you say "i'm not commenting on an ongoing investigation." period. that's what you say. it's utterly inappropriate for pence to say this and it's part of a strategy to be -- to keep building the pressure and legitimizing the notion this that this has gone on too long to get the republicans on the bill and conservative on fox to keep attacking mueller and so for forth. >> susan, i remember being bent out of shape several times during the obama administration on hillary clinton's investigation into e-mails when the president president of the united states kept stepping in and saying first of all in the fall of 2015, oh, listen, we know that none of hillary clinton's e-mails dealt with any

national security issues. -the-said it then, he also said in the the spring of 2016, we called it out on this show, it was highly inappropriate, fbi agents were enraged and leaked to the "new york times" that they were enraged and now mike pence is doing the same thing, interfering in an ongoing investigation and trying to kill it along with the chief of staff. this is spiro agnew part two. >> and i think this is more of a political calculation. obviously part of staying in the dark is so he can potentially run with a clean record, if you will and yet i think calling for the end of the mueller investigation is part of saying i never abandoned trump so he has to find the right balance and he's looking towards whether it's 2020 or 2024. >> what's interesting is i don't think there's any choir to be preached to. three quarters of americans think the investigation needs to go on and 56% of republicans so

obviously other than that 30% base, that's pretty much falling on deaf ears. >> i hope so, but i would say -- i have this little organization republicans for the rule of law, the attacks on mueller are having some effect. >> where are we seeing this? >> among republicans. there's an erosion in confidence at mueller. at the beginning when mueller was appointed newt gingrich and others said we can't criticize mueller, impeccable credentials, fbi director served under george w. bush. now it's a free field to slander mueller and attack the fbi so i think it's having some effect. i think there has to be pushback and there needs to be a serious effort by congress to protect mueller. you had an item about how he was talking about plan "b." plan "a," this legislation, passed the senate judiciary committee 14-7. four republicans voted for it, seven against. 14-7, that's 2-1. if that went to the floor to the senate it would be about 2-1, which is what you need to override a veto.

mitch mcconnell says i don't choose to bring it up. there's some legitimate constitutional questions that can be resolved in favor of it but that's why we have debates on the floor of the senate. that's stock? the senate majority leader says i choose not to bring it up. it passes the senate judiciary committee with the support of the chairman of the senate judiciary committee, chuck grassley and we're living in a congress where one guy says i choose not to bring it up. not i'm opposed or want it to be amended and republicans and democrats, i have to say, they're kind of pathetic, well, mitch mcconnell is not bringing it up, we're working on plan "b." make more of a ruckus of plan "a." >> how could mcconnell say after watching the vice president of theites, sits next to the president clearly making an administration case that it ought to be shut down, how can mitch mcconnell be so flippant about it today and say he would never fire mueller, that's outrageous. how can he say that? >> you should ask him, we should

ask him. we put up a little ad -- mitch mcconnell was eloquent 20 years ago when ken starr was investigating president clinton, attacks on starr are unwise for the white house, the investigation needs to conclude, this is a respected investigator. and we saw the giuliani flip-flop from 1998 as well. >> bill is shocked that mitch mcconnell who kept merrick garland's nomination from being considered for an entire year that mitch mcconnell would engage in legislative chicanery on the floor. >> i'm shocked the democrats are rolling over. i think garland -- don't you think on garland they could have done more? >> i think the democrats are being pathetic. i think republicans are being grotesque. >> fair enough. >> gene, last week you saw the shift of the white house's posture i think towards mueller from kind of any ostensible cooperation and conciliation

towards aggression -- war footing, changes of personnel, et cetera, et cetera. this week trump has been quiet on the legal front. he did this event last night in indiana, didn't invoke hoax or witch-hunt at all. they've tried to stay clear of this michael cohen russian oligarch story. they haven't made noise noise about it. but you siemens, you see john kelly now in understated tones compared to trumps wailing and howling that he normally does saying we should end this probe right now sos where this going now? is the white house finally getting to the point where it's not going to have the kind of histrionics of trump but what looks like a more conventional but maybe more dangerous strategy of trying to work through the normal ways that political communication work to effectively cut bob mueller off at the knees? >> well i don't think it's possible to squelch donald

trump's histrionics for very long so i think they'll be back but i think the michael cohen raid changed everything in a way. i think it obviously provoked the president into something of a paroxysm and now i think they're trying to figure out how to shut this thing down. i do think this is kind of a new phase and this is -- somebody i think decided or convinced the president that, well, let's try it this way. let's try to beat the drums with other people rather than with you tweeting all the time and that will hold for a while. you know, all along i was a bit skeptical that trump would, indeed, actually try to fire mueller. i now think he will.

i think it's way too close with michael cohen and i think this is -- we're getting to defcon 1 right now on this issue of are we heading to a constitutional crisis. >> gene robinson, thank you as always. we'll read your new column in today's "washington post" and congratulations on getting the teapot dome scandal into the show earlier. >> and also understanding how the defcon system works. that defcon 1 is more dangerous than defcon 5. that's an important insight. >> you know, meacham is not here this morning so i figured it was up to me to do teapot dome. >> playing the role of jon meacham. thanks. bill kristol, thank you as well. still ahead, voters in the midwest gave donald trump a chance in 2016, many enthusia enthusiastical enthusiastically. how do they feel about their candidate now? the "washington post" post dan balz joins us next on "morning joe." it took guts to start my business.

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it's time. as promised. steve ratner has new charts. >> is it that time, willie?

it's time, joe. finally the hour is upon us. steve rattner has new charts on the latest economic numbers. >> the question is how good is this economy under donald trump. we have been creating a lot of jobs under donald trump. 187,000 a month. but under president obama since the economy hit bottom we've created more. so it's hard to claim there's been some transformation in the steve on the jobs front. if you then look at another measure of economic progress which is wage growth probably in some ways more important and something i suspect dan balz will talk about, you see a similar pattern. you had very, very small growth in real wages meaning adjusted for inflation under trump 0.4%,

under obama 0.8%. last month wages went down because inflation picked up when you adjust for inflation. so, in fact -- >> can i stop you right there, steve? >> of course you can. >> because a lot of economists can't figure out what's going on there. usually basic laws of supply and demand would mean that when you have more jobs out there, when more people are being hired, when the unemployment rate is down to 3.9% even though job participation rate is historically very low that usually means that employers need to pay more money. a lot of economists were scratching their heads last week saying why did unemployment go down but wages are still depressed? >> it's a great question, joe, and i have one chart i'll get to but it's a complicated answer. it goes from things like

globalization, competition to lower cost labor abroad, stronger power on behalf of corporations because unions are weaker but i'll give you a quick example. there are cases when fast food chains make workers sign non-competition agreements. that if they leave they won't work for another fast food chain in that area so that gives the companies power about wages but on your point about labor force participation, let's look at another chart on one other aspect which is the fact that there has been a noticeable -- not huge but noticeable increase in labor force participation on the part of what we call prime age men, men 25 to 5 4. so donie and i don't make the cut. but the people that work hard, those younger guys are coming back into the labor force, about 700,000 in the last year or so and that keeps pressure on wages from getting too high.

last lay trump talks about having created the greatest investment climate in history and how businesses are adding plants and workers and jobs but let's look at the numbers on what's happening on the investment side and you see a fairly similar picture. 6.3% growth in investment under president obama, 3.8% under trump. it's early days, the tax cut hasn't been in effect that long but every time the president talks about this plan or apple doing this with 25,000 jobs, it's yet to appear in the numbers. >> so, steve, let me ask you about the unemployment number, it dipped below 4% for the first time in a long time last week. how significant is that? any white house would celebrate that number and tout that number. doesn't the president deserve credit for that? if president obama dipped below four there would be mass celebration. >> i think he deserves some credit but it's early the administration to give the president credit or blame for

what happens here. this is a continuation of a trend and i think joe's broader won't is still right that even though labor force participation has come up a bit, it's still very low historically. there's actually more people looking for jobs, 6 million people looking for jobs today, more than anytime in the last 15 years. >> this has always been on ongoing frustration. it's something that, again, we talked about during the obama era and talking about it, again, here. one of the main reasons the unemployment rate dipped to below 4% this last month, even though the job numbers were lower than most analysts were expecting is because the job participation rate, unexpectedly dipped. we have to figure out why we have a system. again, i said it when obama was president and when trump is president. why do we have a system where we measure unemployment where the number actually looks better if

more people get discouraged and stop looking for jobs? that ee that's where we are right now. that said, we should all be grateful. we have had a continuation, a seven-year recovery and not continuing at as fast of a base as barack obama, but a good clip and we should be grateful for that. >> absolutely. what do the numbers mean to voters, the citizens. let's turn to the presidency in congress, the legend himself, dan balz, royalty unease in trump's midwest. a region that turned largely to donald trump in 2016. it's great to have you with us. let's talk about where we are right now. we are talking the upper midwest. where have you spent most of your time? >> what i started out to do in january, 2017, is simply understand better what happened in the election.

i want back to a part of the country where i grew up. i had some grounding as to what this area was like. one of the things i discovered is there are 100 counties that voted five elections, at least five elections in a row for democratic nominees and flipped to trump. half of those are in the upper midwest. a bunch in iowa, wisconsin, illinois and minnesota. i started to go out and find people to sit-down with them and talk to them. my editor said don't go out with the idea that we have to write anything right away, let's see what we hear and take it from there. that ended up being a 15-month process where i would go intermittently. i wasn't living there, but would go every few months and talk to people. i focused on a half dozen or so people, almost all republicans, some republican local officials, some elected officials, some

ordinary citizens. i tried to get a sense of how they were absorbing the trump presidency from the idea, initially, of somebody who many had not anticipated would be the force he was in their area, who came to support him with some enthusiasm and now, as, you know, as the presidency has unfolded, what they think about him and what they think about it. >> what do they think about him? where are they? >> here's the bottom line, i would say. i put people in about three baskets. one group would be what i call still all in. they are very enthusiastic about the president. they think he is doing what he promised he would do or at least is trying to do that and the degree to which he is unable to be as successful as they would wish is not his fault. it's the swamp. it's the opposition. in some cases, it's republican opposition to the things he is

doing. there's a significant portion of those people -- joe, it's a variety of people. you can't -- i can't categorize it as to this type or that type. these are people who are, you know, they are conservative. they feel, in ma ways, disrespected by the elites, by the east and west coast. these are people who are, you know, they are working hard. many of them are, you know, are making less money, probably than they did before and they see in trump somebody who is, you know, who is championing the things they want to see. then there's another group that i would say there's a small second group who have said no more. there's one person featured in the piece, a commercial fisherman and runs an interesting story in wisconsin. he voted for trump and when i first came across him last

summer, he said he'd had it. he would not vote for him again. i went back in april, same place. he said i voted for change but this is not the change i voted for. >> what is the third bucket, dan? >> the third is the most important and holds the key to trump's presidency. they are the people who are conflicted. there are degrees of these people. some are quite conflicted by all the turmoil, all the chaos, all the disruption and, yet, they see a direction that he's trying to take the country and they see conservative policies they really like. they are, in a sense, willing to tolerate things they are uncomfortable with. they think, in policy terms, trump is way, way, way better than anything the democrats would do. there is another group of these people and i can't quantify it. this is not a scientific survey, but they are people who are pulling back. there's in question that over time, as i talk to them, they

were more and more explicit about their unhappiness with trump. i don't know where they are going to be in 2020, but right now they are on the fence. >> the question is, how many of those people are there? how many people took a chance on trump and turning and how many more in the first group that they are support is hardened by what they think is an assault on trump, the media and establish is out to get him. >> depends on how optimistic we are. there's not a lot of optimism in the numbers. when trying to figure out what will happen for 2020, will those voters feel that there is hope with a new democratic candidate or just stay with donald trump because, at least they know what they have. >> you can read the full story in the "washington post." it is fascinating. 16 months worth of reporting. dan balz, thank you so much. go illini. house temperatures released

kremlin-linked ads posted to facebook during the 2016 election. what they reveal about the interference. ? indiana, the crowd yelled drain the swamp for president trump. is that what he is doing? now we have michael cohen and his $600,000 payment from at&t. rudy giuliani resigned from a manhattan law firm to represent president trump. he said it was a mutual decision with the firm. do the partners feel the same way? michael schmidt joins us with his reporting next on "morning joe."

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♪ >> drain the swamp! drain that swamp! drain that swamp. >> under my administration -- >> drain the swamp. they actually chanted that last night for the president's rally in indiana. it came, i mean, drain the swamp came on the same day that we learn of the swampiest name i have ever heard of in modern american political history because the president's personal attorney, we learned yesterday, michael cohen, got hired three days into the trump administration to help at&t on the merger the president said he

was going to kill, then racked up a total of nearly $3 million from them and other corporate clients. drain the swamp? what about the trump cabinet expenses? drain the swamp? drain it with what, ben carson's $31,000 dining set. the $139,000 ryan syn key spent on doors? let me say that again. for those of you who were working around the clock, night and day, to try to get your kids to be able to do better than you have done, like my parnents trid to do with me, it's my dream. think about your salary and the fact that ryan spent $139,000 on

doors. what about scott pruitt? luxury flights and sweetheart deals from a lobbyist. don't forget secretary mnuchin, he took a government jet that you paid for, your taxes paid for, along with his wife, to watch the eclipse atop ft. knox's gold, stack of gold. i mean, drain the swamp? what a joke. and, i guess this joke stops being funny for donald trump whose basically using us all for suckers in his cabinet who are all using us all for suckers. when we actually start investigating why a guy like michael cohen, who basically isn't even a practicing lawyer, according to what most court records have said and documents have said.

michael cohen got paid $600,000 to deal with one of the most complicated mergers and most significant mergers in recent history. mergers and acquisitions. is he a mergers and acquisition lawyer? no. he's a street fighter. that was just a direct pay off. that was a direct bribe. the bigger question for at&t, the bigger question for time warner, the bigger question for their stockholders is whether this entire deal is frozen up because there has to be an investigation. did that money really go to cohen? did it go straight to the president's pockets? where did it go? did it go to pay off other porn stars or playboy bunnies? where did that money go? how do they allow that at&t merger to go through as long as this isn't being investigated?

well, welcome to the show. delivering a pitch. national affairs analyst and executive producer and show host of show time's "the circus," john heilemann. we have donny deutsche with us, a legend. we have republican strategist and political commentator, susan, former treasury official and "morning joe" analyst, steve rattner and political reporter, heidi. a new york times reporter, michael schmidt. mika has the morning off. we are going to talk to michael about rudy giuliani's law firm elbowing him out of the way because they were embarrassed of what he did on tv and because members by thursday had enough.

willie, listen, i know washington. i have been around it for a quarter of a century. i understand that some congressmen, some senators, some members of the administration, former members of the administration, they get paid by lobbyists to make good with the white house. but, i have never heard of anything like a $600,000 payment to a guy who knows nothing about mergers, knows nothing about acquisitions. $600,000 to make this at&t deal go through. they admitted that yesterday. to make the at&t deal go through and my question is, where did that money go through to? because, i highly doubt that donald trump would let it sit in michael cohen's account. >> donald trump, during the campaign came out strongly against the at&t/time warner merger. at&t had reason to be concerned when donald trump was elected, probably didn't expect he was going to be elected and were

scrambling. michael cohen is not a lobbiest. he's not a registered lobbiest. they thought he had the ear of donald trump and might be able to put his thumb on the scale and make the deal go through. that didn't work for them. a report says on the very first business day of the trump administration, the president's personal attorney, michael cohen, signed a contract with at&t to receive $600,000 for the merger of time warner which they sued the block last november. documents obtained show cohen made the deal on january 23, 2017, within three days of president trump's inauguration and four days after cohen publicly announced he would represent trump as president and resign from the trump administration, the organization, to avoid a conflict. at&t paid cohen for insights,

but the post found it unclear what cohen, a real estate attorney and taxi cab operator could provide on tele-com matters. the money they paid cohen is four times more, four times more than it paid any actual outside lobbyist in the same period of time. a spokesman said cohen was a hired consultant, not a lobbyist and the consulting fees were in line with market terms for advisory. joe? >> yeah, lots of luck on that, proving that to your shareholders. john heilemann, everything just seems to keep exploding out there, surrounding. we have more stories coming out every day about michael cohen, more stories coming out about pay offs to michael cohen. michael aven

michael avanatti releasing it. where is all the information coming from and secondly, how impactful is the $600,000 pay off to michael cohen and who cohen passed the money through and how does that impact at&t in the merger? >> a lot of questions there. the first thing i would say to answer the question where it's coming from, joe, i don't know the answer. i will say this, having spent some time with michael avanatti on "the circus" as a human observation, you walk around new york city, washington, d.c., los angeles with the guy and he is being treated by a fair segment of the public as a hero. he's become a celebrity and, in the same way you have seen bob mueller venerated by the half of the country that wants to see donald trump thrown out of office, you have a popular view that this guy is, like bob

mueller, their hope for changing the country. when you get that kind of popular support, where there's people out there rooting for you, you become a television celebrity and seen as a political figure, you start to get information from a lot of different sources. people start to want to feed you stuff. some of it is bunk, some might not be. he's, right now, with his firm, inundated with people sending tips, leads, documents, all kinds of things. i don't know what the sources are. there's a lot, a ground swell of people out there who see him as a vehicle and a repository for stuff. so, that's one thing. the second thing is, i think that this notion that michael cohen's llc, this llc, essential consulting looks like a slush fund for influence peddling, some from foreign, some from domestic sources, some corporate, some other.

there's a big story here and we are all interested in the sources of the money. but, the larger questions, now, are going to be and there are things reporters are going to chase for days and weeks to come, what that money gets spent on. you raised it in your opening thing, your opening statement. the question, how was it used? who got the payments? that is going to be a fruitful line of questioning for investigators going forward. as to the at&t thing, i will say, i think there is, i don't want to be naive about this one point which is big companies in america buy influence in american politics. a lot of people don't like that, but we have a system of organized bribery, corruption in this country that lives in washington, d.c., that has to do with packs and lobbyists. there are a lot of companies scrambling with their hair on fire when donald trump got elected to figure out how to get to this guy, how do we influence this guy? the normal ways of doing it

aren't going to work. they turn to michael cohen. i'm not saying that's a good thing or making an excuse for it. an explanation for what happened, i think that's what happened and clearly, at&t is one of those companies. >> boy, it's, like i said, it happens. but, this is so much more than most lobbyists get. >> yes. >> again, donny, the question is, is that really money that stayed with michael cohen? did it go through a slush fund? you have known cohen for a long time. we both know donald trump. i find it hard to think donald trump would take a meeting from anybody, i find it impossible to believe he would take a meeting with anybody as a favor to michael cohen, knowing he was going to make $600,000 of him taking that meeting. you are sitting there laughing for the same reason. anyone that knows, it's absolutely propostrouse. donald trump would not have

allowed michael cohen to make $600,000 on his back because of a at&t meeting. >> i spoke to michael yesterday. michael, first of all, said basically the companies reached out to him, this is according to michael, and said, look, there's one thing about this guy, this president. he says if you are a company, this is michael, if you are a company doing business with him, nobody knows how he is going to react. nobody understands the mind of donald trump. his kids do, i'm probably next in line. he believes that's valuable. that's michael's point of view. whether that money was going to trump, all i can say is this, clearly i have no knowledge of that. every time i think, why would this guy who is worth a billion dollars, he says ten, get involved in trump university to get an extra 100 bucks in his pocket. could he say, wow, i could make an extra few hundred grand. that's not possible. then you go, of course it's

possible. clearly, none of us know the answer to that. michael, as i said, when i spoke to him yesterday, he said i'm in a fighting mood. corey li corey lewandowski got it. let's not get head faked. did rudy giuliani's media blitz put off his partners at his new york law firm? we'll have the late es on giuliani's resignation from the firm. we'll be right back. it's easy to think that all money managers are pretty much the same. but while some push high commission investment products, fisher investments avoids them. some advisers have hidden and layered fees. fisher investments never does. and while some advisers are happy to earn commissions from you whether you do well or not, fisher investments fees are structured so we do better when you do better. maybe that's why most of our clients come from

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firm, which allows him to collect the president's legal bills personally. he called the departure a mutual decision. they took aim at the comments the payment to stormy daniels was a common practice. >> that was money that was paid by his lawyer, the way i would do out of his law firm funds. michael would take care of things like this, like i take care of things like this for my clients. >> they asked his company about it and received this response. quote, we cannot speak for mr. giuliani, with what was intended by the remarks. speaking for ourselves, we would not condone payments of the nature made without the knowledge and direction of the client. yesterday, a firm spokesperson said the times mischaracterized

the remarks which was in connection to a question asked earlier in the week. what is the truth about the break up here? i can't imagine the firm would like to hear a partner on national television saying yeah, these pay offs happen all the time. people are busy. you can't bother them with the details, so we pay off porn stars. >> i don't think the firm liked that. as you see, they went to the lengths to put out a statement to us, when they didn't have to say anything. they could have allowed the break up to stand as it was. they went far enough to put this out there. giuliani coming back to us to say they never raised the issue with me, saying this was not something they came directly to him about. look, they did speak out about it. the other thing, i think we have to understand about people representing the president is in the past six weeks, as jay sekulow tried to rebuild the

president's legal team, several lawyers from big firms said no because they did not want them representing the president. they were afraid of internal backlash from employees and afraid of their lawyers working with someone who does not follow the legal advice of their attorneys and not always paying their bills. this has been on firm's minds and they realize there can be an internal and external issue with going as far as to represent this president. >> so, michael, talk about, also, the law firm's concern about the risk of representation. we heard about meetings they had had by thursday of last week. members of the firm had enough. they were embarrassed by what giuliani was doing on tv and they really did start talking among themselves, according to your reports and others, talking about the risk to their law firm's reputation, this could not go on and giuliani could not

stay attached to their law firm because he was embarrassing them. >> yeah, that's the other thing. the nature of giuliani's representation of the attorney is different from others. it was public, lots of television appearances, being aggressive, push hard on mueller, going after rosenstein, raising a lot of larger issues and putting stuff out there that turned out to be not necessarily true and having to walk it back. if you are a firm, your public relations image is going up and down with the ups and downs of donald trump and rudy giuliani. for this particular firm, it's a larger issue. they were tied in with a scandal over a decade ago. when there is negative publicity, it means more to them because they have been associated with a scandal here in washington. the sense that we have, from what was going on is they were like, look, we need to put as much distance between us and them as poszable.

the other part of this is donald trump is just one client to them. this is a law firm, as giuliani pointed out with 2,000 lawyers. donald trump could only generate so much in fees. there's a lot of business there and they need to build a mote and protect that. >> you worked with giuliani. he says the firm doesn't understand what i said saying this payment is common. what is your position? >> giuliani is used to being independent. he was not able to make a transition to working with other people, as we see, even now, when he went on television, he went rogue. he wasn't working with the legal team. this is typical giuliani. he's used to doing what he wants, how he wants to do it. i think there were a lot of people upset that he didn't take into consideration he was part of a law firm and doing his own

thing. still ahead, in the wake of russia's 2016 election meddling, facebook made a stunning new admission saying this will never be a solved problem. what does that mean as we head to the 2018 midterms? "morning joe" will be right back. what? directv gives you more for your thing. your... quitting cable and never looking back thing. directv is rated #1 in customer satisfaction over cable. switch to directv and now get a $100 reward card. more for your thing. that's our thing. call 1.800 directv. bp is taking safety to new heights. using drones and robots offshore so engineers can stop potential problems before they start. because safety is never being satisfied and always working to be better.

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democrats on the house intel committee yesterday releases more than 3500 facebook ads, the ones purchased by russia's internet research agency between 2015 and late 2017 used to create divisions in america. facebook released a statement saying troll accounts and posts never will be completely erased from the social media platform. the company wrote, this will never be a solved problem because we are up against a determined, creative adversary. we are making steady progress. joining us now, former fbi special agent, clint watts, his book, "messing with the enemy" comes out next month, reviewed

by the russians. we'll explain in a minute. shelby holiday has done extensive reporting on the facebook loopholes and executive of win view, tom rogers, the former ceo of tebow and vp of nbc. he managed to found cnbc and establish this very network, msnbc. that's a light resume, tom. >> joe? >> boy, that reminds me from a scene from "a hard day's night" where an old man yells to john lennon and says i won the war. john lennon says i bet you're sorry you did. i bet he's sorry he founded this network and cnbc. that's a lot on your shoulders, tom. >> "morning joe" is the ultimate

trophy for past efforts. >> we'll take that. a diplomat. wow. >> let's start with the ads we sfrau democrats in congress. what did we learn? what did they tell us? >> there's two things. one, if you want to influence a population, infiltrate them on social issues. that played out in the ads, the right or left, creating an incident on the left to amplify the right or vice versa. they tried creating physical events to amplify in the virtual world. we talked about homeland the last time we were here. they did a great example. >> what is something they set up? >> an anti-hillary clinton rally in florida. they called people on the phone and got them to show up to the rally in the hopes they would create a situation, it looks like real americans out there doing the protest. the other thing is they will

play on both sides of black lives matter. we should get out and support it and cops, can you see what is happening with this? the other is muslim issues. when they do this, the other thing they are doing is reconning the american audience. whoever shows up to the rallies, those are the people you re-engage in social media and the influence inside the united states of america. that still happens today. >> you mentioned that homeland, we covered this so extraordinarily in art form this past year. the president's statement, near the end of the season it wasn't the russians to blame for this, it was americans to blame for this because we were so divided. it is those fault lines that we see on prime time cable news that we hear on talk radio, that we see on websites and the russians just pick up on that, find these natural divides and

then drive a stake in the heart of it. >> that's exactly right. the forefathers saw it that way. turn a crack into a chasm. whatever the divide is, exploit it. they hit on every polarizing issue socially and politically running into the election and whatever stuck, they amplified that further. we also forget these ads were the smallest component. they didn't have to create negative content. there was so much american content to reamplify and repurpose. they took it and repurposed it and rebroadcast it. that's the most efficient way to do it. >> joe, you have been all over this story. what do you make of facebook's response? this is a problem that can never be resolved? >> facebook, first of all, was honest. it's refreshing to hear them say they can never fix this problem.

we have seen, for example, a lot of content when somebody reposts, facebook doesn't get rid of that. that's an american post. they don't want to delete the content. to the point of negativity, sometimes they weren't negative, they were positive, pumping up certain communities. black for black, they were promoting black businesses and wanted them to sign up and offer promotions and be part of the community. we covered it because it was a way they were gaining information from americans and using that information, at some point in the future. they did play both sides. we saw an anti-beyonce rally after a pro-beyonce rally. this is a big loophole and sophisticated strategy. if you have americans going to rallies taking photos, we saw it with a guy who built the hillary clinton cage in florida, they take photos, upload them.

that's american organic content that facebook won't delete. that helps russia weaponize their social media. >> mark zuckerberg is worth $60 billion, $70 billion. i don't buy we can't do much about it. mark zuckerberg, if i was mark zuckerberg, worth $60 billion and i created potential danger for the country, take $10 billion and say we are going to solve this. it is solvable, certainly. we are making steady progress as they run the warm and fuzzy ads. what do you think the corporate responsibility and moral responsibility and fiscally their responsibility is here? >> it's a great question. facebook saying they are going to hire a lot of people, thousands of people to scrutinize this stuff, maybe that will help and go a long way. i think you are raising the

broader issue, is self-regulation enough? when we only had a handful of markets available, we developed a political broadcasting rule regime, equal opportunities, reasonable access, lowest common denominator pricing. a huge number of ways to make sure broadcasting couldn't over influence elections. ska scarcity, that's about the whole game. i think we are going to face the same question, are these platforms so powerful that self-regulation really isn't enough? we have to step in here and come up with appropriate rules that deal with the power here. it's a lot more powerful to do the kind of data targeting they are doing to do individual by individual influence than broadcasting as a medium ever had. i think we are going to find that the russian dark corner

here is one small issue of social media divisiveness, social media stimulating hatred and we have to come up with a broader government regulation. >> i would add, facebook is a small part. google hasn't said anything about the youtube channels created. twitter hasn't released all their handles. the 3,000 ads are a fraction of the 80,000 posts. we really don't know the full extent. >> clint, if you are advising the next president because this president has made it clear he doesn't want anything done that would curb russia's influence on facebook and other social media circles. if you are advising the next president to take care of the issues you all brought up, shelby brought up, this is one small, dark corner of the internet, what will you do? what is your suggestion? >> the big thing is working with the social media companies to understand foreign manipulators.

the one thing is government has is the intelligence community. they often times pick up on these things early. we talk in cyber, there's a cyber attack out of a foreign country, we share mallware. we have to do the same thing with social media. if we know they are trying to influence you, we need to notify the social media companies. more importantly, this is taking on devastating effects around the world. if you look at southeast asia, facebook is a platform in cambodia, meyanmar, philippines. if i was a foreign country right now and i wanted to influence one of my adversaries in africa or southeast asia, i would be on social media doing it. we need to help those companies out. >> we have been talking about social media and devisiveness.

you are part of a project to try to, let's say, narrow the gap between both sides. tell us about it. >> donny, earlier in the show was talking about how there used to be a time we could talk more about sports and pop culture. trump has boosted news ratings but, believe it or not sports ratings are lagging. a minute ago talking of bringing the broadcast rule regime to social media. i'm involved in win view games bringing social media to broadcasting. talk about how europe has led the way on data protection in terms of the facebook issue. it's also led the way on this exciting new way to watch sports on television. you were talking about yankees/red sox before. what they have in europe is $160 billion industry, bigger than comcast and disney combined

where people are playing along on their smartphones, predicting what is going to happen next on any sports television. we have people doing it with basketball or last night's red sox/yankee's game. is there going to be more than two strikeouts in this inning? yes or no? you get 20 or 25 questions coming at you in the course of an inning or the course of a quarter of basketball. it's a way to draw people into the broadcast experience, taking advantage of the poll of mobile and social media to hopefully create an exciting way for sports to be enjoyed on television. >> wow. >> beyond the larger and more obvious point that network tv ratings are down because people consume media differently, how do you account for the dip in sports ratings? even for big events, they are not what they used to be. is there something else other than we consume media

differently? >> there are a few things at play. millennials watch television, consume media differently. people have so many viewing options that people plopped down and watched for three hours. if it's not close, they are out of there, watching something else. a huge amount of money is poured on what goes on live in an arena or stadium in terms of entertainment. since hi-def television, nothing is going on in the living room to pull social experience and doing things that involve social media more in the living room. europe is way ahead of us on this. 65 million people a year playing along with their sports, predicting what is going to happen next on their mobile phones. for some reason, it never came to the united states. it's a game of skill we do. you can win money. hq trivia is a phenomena. 200 million people showing up a night to play.

we test your sports iq and can do the same with sports television. >> i have to check that out. thank you so much. clint, shelby, thank you as well. still ahead, with a log jam of nominations and must pass spending bills, a number of republicans are pushing mitch mcconnell to cancel the august recess. one is bill kassidy. he will be our guest next on "morning joe." do ndo not misjudgenity quiet tranquility.

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senators aren't supposed to do that. >> senators work in august, typically in our home states, if you will. in this case, we are saying maybe we need to work in washington, d.c. there's been reports checked out, the president's claim, rightly so, at this rate, he'll finish appointing everybody he needs to appoint in nine years. we need to accelerate that and need those folks appointed as soon as possible. >> you want to cancel the recess? >> if that's what's required. the recess, i go back home and have town hall meetings, meet with folks, et cetera. it's very important, but if we are going take nine years to fill all the political positions, we need to have it done more quickly. he needs to execute his agenda. i'm going to something about lowering drug costs today. he needs the appointees to lower the drug costs. let's get it done. >> there's the most controversial thing happening on

the senate side of capitol hill, the gina haspel hearings. i don't think you are on the committee, but it is going to be upon you soon to make the decision. i believe you are for her. what do you think the dynamics are for her fate? it's a close vote. do you think she got done what she needed to do in the hearing to get over the line? >> i think she has. i was in a republican coverage and two senators stood up, saying i was undecided, i heard her testify and now i am for her. i heard some democrats come to the same conclusion. i reviewed the classified material the cia provided and a time line of her employment, the degree of her involvement in various things and she is an incredibly compelling person. when you see that, you understand that i think the objections to her are overstated. >> one person that disagrees with you is senator mccain,

which you would acknowledge has a different kind of moral force on these kinds of questions, given his history and obviously he came out to some people's surprise and denounced he was going to be against her. do you think his position on this is going to have any kind of significant consequence for members of your caucus or giving cover to others who might be on the fence. now that mccain is going away, they want to make sure they are with the senator from arizona, senior senator? >> i can't speak for others, but i can speak for myself. i look at those who voted for john brennan. john brennan was number four in the cia when the things the folks object to about gina haspel were put in place. he helped come up with a policy that was implemented. 36 or something like that democrats voted for john brennan when obama nominated him, who

clearly was more involved in this decision making than was gina haspel. those are some of the same folks objecting to gina haspel. i don't get that, can't square it. for my sake, i say, listen, i think she is qualified. i think she has a moral compass, i definitely think that and i think she will keep our country safe, which is important to us all. >> just to switch topics, the president is coming out with his drug pricing proposal today. have you seen it or have a comment on it? >> i saw an embargoed copy. i'm big into price transparency, how do we use that to lower drug costs? one thing is rebates negotiated by pharmacy managers from pharmaceutical companies are not going to the patient in her deductible. she's paying the nonrebated price. when she overpays, the rebate

goes to the pharmacy manager or insurance company. i could see them changing that. i think that's a very good thing. >> all right, senator bill cassidy, thank you so much. we appreciate you being luck ke washington in august. yesterday, mika called him one of the last people you would expect to see on our set. we'll have more with that special guest when "morning joe" comes right back. t on it. back when the country went west for gold, we were the ones who carried it back east. by steam. by horse. by iron horse. over the years, we built on that trust. we always found the way. until... we lost it. but that isn't where the story ends... it's where it starts again. with a complete recommitment to you. fixing what went wrong. making things right. and ending product sales goals for branch bankers.

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so jake tapper was on the show yesterday for his new book, but the discussion was cut short due to some breaking political news. we wanted to keep the cameras rolling afterwards and bring you a second part of that conversation with jake, here it is. >> tapper's back, he won't leave. he's out now with his new novel entitled "the hellfire club." based on 1950s washington gripped by mccarthyism. really good book. >> thank you. >> i make fun of you, but it's great. so set the scene for us. >> charlie martyr is a world war ii hero and academic. he gets congressional seat. i kind of fibbed on the ruled. i know you can't be appointed to a house sit but it's fiction. he moved down to washington with his very strong independent zoologist wife margaret. and he wants to do good. he wants to help his fellow veterans and he ends up just having to make compromise after

compromise and these thing you know he's embroiled in a scandal having to do with a secret society. where people would engage in the most debauch rueress behavior. >> jake, your book, "the hellfire" club, has given rise to the question, is washington actually the home of secret societies to this day? what do you think? you talk to everybody. there a bunch of secret clubs there? >> i don't know of any, but i can't imagine that there aren't. >> me either. >> i mean wh, what we know of powerful men, wealthy men, we read about it every day in the paper, i can't imagine that there aren't secret societies.

it was a fun way, a fictional way, to try to make sense of things from that era. like columnist joe asap actually doing spying for the cia. or ambassador joseph kennedy convincing mccarthy not to campaign against his son in 1952. i don't know why all that happened. but all that did really happen. >> yes. could i ask quickly, you mentioned in the book somebody who i admire a great deal, margaret chase smith. >> she's a hero of mine. >> she was strong, she was one of the last of the old time -- not one of the last at that time, but she was a liberal republican from the northeast who knew what she thought and why. >> she's incredible. i knew a little bit about her but not until i did the research for this book, and she is incredible. going to the floor of the senate and giving her declaration of

conscience speech. i revere edward r. murrow but he didn't take a scapepel to mccharactm mccarthy until 1954. what she did, a republican, while also running for re-election, it wasn't like she's retiring and all of a sudden here's my courage. she did it while pursuing a career in washington. history recognizes her for that. >> only woman in the senate. >> that raises the question about what's happening right now. as you have republicans, we ask almost every morning on this show, what is the cost of stepping up to the bank of microphones and just saying out loud and explicitly that what the president said or did today is wrong and we shouldn't stand for it. why don't we see more of that right now today? have they not learned from the era of mccarthy where the people

whose legacies are held in high esteem are the people who did come in early and speak out? >> you guys know because you're smart, senator robert taft, mr. republican, senate majority leader of ohio in the 1950s when this book takes place ran for president, lost eisenhower in the primaries. he thought his legacy was going to be secure. then came mccarthy. he didn't do anything about mccarthy. he would say to reporters, why do you cover him? it's the same thing we hear from people today, why do you cover the president? at the end of the day, robert taft kind of dropped des in 1953. his legacy is now in part you didn't stand up to mccarthy. you just hope history sorts out the rest. >> one of the parallels in history is the character in the 1950s, joseph wells. have you no sense of decency.

>> no sense of decency, taking him on, which was the beginning of the end for mccarthy. but up until that point and up until the point that mccarthy was censored, a lot of people have a lot of anxiety. how is this going to end? is it ever going to end? again, as i said earlier, history doesn't repeat itself but it rhymes. there's a lot of rhyming. >> joe. >> well, there's also, jake, and isn't it extraordinary, historically extraordinary, that there is a common denominator, though they're spaced almost 70 years apart between joseph mccarthy and donald trump. and that is of course cohen was the political mentor to both of these demagogues. >> it's incredible when you think about the fact that roy cohen, i think it's fair to call him one of the worst people in american political life in the 20th century. he was just a smear merchant, a

liar, part of one of the worst chapters. the idea that he had a second life in new york city as a power broker. and the idea that he would be a mentor to anyone, let alone president trump, is remarkable and incredibly disappointing. he was a bad, immoral, loathsome person. the book is "the hellfire club." that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage. >> thanks, mika, thanks, joe. this morning, we've got a lot to cover. starting with the growing outrage. sources reveal a white house aide mocked senator john mccain and his battle with brain cancer. this, as a fox business analyst incorrectly claims torture, well, it worked on mccain. >> the fact is john mccain, it worked on john. that's why they call him song bird