>> yeah. you know, we've spent so much time talking about trump. overseas. an election in sweden is coming up. fascinating. look at the european union. immigration there, a much bigger issue than here. really changing politics in almost every nation in the eu. a poll just came out. a 21 out of 28 countries that are part of the european union. immigration, the number one topic. here it's four or five. a big issue obviously for republicans but really continuing to up-end politics in europe. many more populist government leaders. >> thank you jim vandehei. stand by. see you in a little bit on "morning joe." axios a.m. hits online in a bit. sign up for the newsletter at signup.axios.com. that does it for me. "morning joe," everyone, starts right now. this whole thing about flipping, they call it.

i know all about flipping. >> i spoke indirectly and directly with president poot. >> i know nothing about him. >> for 40 years watching flippers. >> paul manafort has done an amazing job. where's paul? >> paul manafort worked for me for a very short period of time. >> i've seen it many times had many friends involved in this stuff. it's called flipping. >> michael cohen, the man is an honest, honorable lawyer. >> the man is a pathological -- what a great show, and really applicable to 2018 and donald trump. may not be the same kind of flipping than michael cohen's doing, but the president and rudy giuliani have been known to do quite a bit of flipping themselves, which that's why it's so unbelievable that in a recent cbs poll 91% of hard-core

trump supporters believe everything that he says. and they trust donald trump over members of their own family, what they say, or members of the news media. the flip-flopping be damned. well, anyway. good morning. happy friday morning. welcome to "morning joe." it's august the 24th. the red sox are still barely, barely holding on wi. with us, national reporter fmsnc and nbc news, and jonathan, talk about the red sox and susan del percio. pulitzer prize winning columnist and associate editor of the "washington post" and msnbc political analyst eugene robinson.

co-founder and ceo of axios jim vandehei and msnbc contributor barbara mcquade. mika has the morning off. so, john, first of all, got so much to talk about. first of all, john heilemann, hold up the tabloids this morning, because they basically say what i knew they were going to say. which is, you know whoever is in charge of writing headlines for the tabloids, we're like, you know what? i'm going to get in a little late tonight, because we can just -- we can recycle all the anthony weiner headlines and -- and go that direction. >> yesterday was kind of christmas, if you're, if you work on what they like to call "the wood" at the new york tabloids. first one i like. right to the "new york post." see it here. what's in the safe? inquiring minds what to know. reference to reporting we'll talk about today from the associated press that there is a safe in david picker of the

"national enquirer" from that office. yesterday david picker flipped the thing donald trump would like to outlaw. >> what's in the -- by the way, john heilemann, interesting, looks a little like geraldo. >> yeah. the safe. >> the infamous safe since geraldo rivera knocked open capone's book. >> capone's safe. >> yeah, the vault. the other one. the "new york post" is usually the best, but today it's the "new york daily news" for the win. picker in a vice. >> yeah. >> really kind of offered without much comment. other than just to say, well, pecker in a vice. i saw a great tweet from ken olin. remember him, star, creator of the great show "30 something." the people at this table remember "30 something." >> congratulations.

he's still working. >> ""this is us" is a show for the young people. "30 something "was a show for you and me. he tweeted you know you're in trouble when your pecker turns on you. and jonathan, red sox fans. predicted the sweep of the red sox by the yankees. you and i were both sure it was over. that we were going to go on a 30-game skid. they turned things around last couple of days. >> plenty of time, joe, for things to go south, but, yes. yes. three-game losing streak should not set off panic from a team

that won 90 games in the last whatever it is. there are legitimate concerns to worry ab's yes, winning a couple in a row, splitting with the indians and david price actually pitch like the david price they paid for a few years ago makes me feel better going into october and a shot in the one-game wild card we probably have to play. >> i think we'll back in to the one game wild card. hopefully sale will be doing okay by then, but, yeah. quite a day. i still don't understand why we don't have more afternoon games in baseball. i absolutely love that. john, back to you and pass it around the table. we have some polling out. some interesting polling out. then we'll get into the david pecker story and all that's happening around donald trump. it's interesting. in the backdrop of one of the most tumultuous weeks, the most in the trump administration so far, you look at the polling. we showed the polling on, of

course, robert mueller. very good news for the investigation. very bad news for donald trump. >> yep. >> about a month ago we showed some horrid re-elect numbers out of michigan and wisconsin. the very states he would have to win. he's down 29%, 30%, 31%. now look at this. his approval rating in pennsylvania, sitting at 37%. disapproval at 53%. dismal, dismal numbers. especially going into the fall that he is that unpopular with the people of pennsylvania. but you know what? other states. wisconsin, maybe come back, keep it close. pennsylvania. i'm going to say it now. write it down now. put that -- if donald trump runs,ut that in the democrats' territory. that's one state where he's not getting the philly suburbs back. donald trump and the republican party are in for some really tough sledding in pennsylvania.

>> yeah. well, look. two things obviously to say about this that jumped to mind right way. first is that pennsylvania, wisconsin, michigan, the states the president won the election. pennsylvania is probably the state he's most proud of, talks about it a lot. the place that -- all three states 23no one thought he woul win. pennsylvania, republicans' fool's gold. said he could never win and urban vote, philadelphia and pittsburgh, now at 37% pretty close to the trump base? right? discern that 35% is sort of the core, the core, the absolutely unbudgeable. that's got pretty much stripped everything away, but the people who will never leave donald trump except in a cataclysm. bad for him. second thing, not just looking towards 2020. joe, i agree with you. wouldn't be a smart oddsmaker if you said pennsylvania, at this moment, at least, seems no chance for trump to prevail if

he stands for re-election in 2020. think about what that means for republicans in the house in pennsylvania, standing for re-election. we know how much their fortunes are tied to the president and his standing nationally for a pennsylvania republican running in suburban philadelphia or running anyplace in the middle of the state to have the president at 37% is daunting for their re-election prospects. >> bad news, and susan del percio, one issue that was supposed to work for donald trump that was supposed to cross party lines, was tariffs. look at these same set of polls. look at the numbers that have come out with the tariffs. in pennsylvania, only 28% of pennsylvanians believe that donald trump's tariffs will help our economy and protect u.s. jobs. almost twice as many believe it's going to hurt the economy and cost jobs. the same thing with illinois. only 23% of illinois voters believe donald trump's tariff tax helps the economy and will help protect u.s. jobs.

and it's even that way in texas, where in texas, only one-third of texas voters believe that these tariffs are going to help the economy and protect u.s. jobs. i mean, this, susan, which really lies at the core -- we talked about this earlier in this week. lies at the core of what donald trump really does believe. what donald trump doesn't flip-flop on every other week. this belief in protectionism. this belief in tariff taxes. a big loser with american voters. >> it is a big loser and we saw also earlier this week that 30% and only 30% of country thinks that, 30% thinks the country's moving in the right direction. and that is, on top of those numbers, almost anticipating the tariffs and the effects they'll have, but that's going to be horrible for 2018 for those seeking re-election. and you can't emphasize enough that people were willing to give

donald trump a chance. they now see what's happening and now seeing these legal questions come up, it's not just donald trump versus a witch-hunt, per se. we see real tangible things like michael cohen pleading guilty. like paul manafort becoming a convicted felon. those are real tangibles. add that on and it really is starting to look like a horrible year for republicans. >> well a horrible year for republicans. gene, and all of these numbers, this collapse couldn't come at a worse time. again, you've got to add it up, put everything in perspective. right track, wrong track. going in the wrong direction. look at these numbers out of pennsylvania. you look at the tariff numbers. again, go back to the numbers that we saw a couple of weeks ago out of wisconsin and michigan. states that donald trump should have as his core of support, and there he's got re-elects ranging from 29% to 32%.

this is as bad as it gets for donald trump, and, again, his big problem in some states like pennsylvania, he may get some voters back. he will never get college educated women in the philly suburbs back. those are not persuadables anymore, and isn't that the cost of all of the damage, all the scar tissue he's accumulated over the past year and a half? >> yeah. and, you know, i'm sitting here, i'm playing a little tiny, tiny violin for republicans who latched themselves to donald trump, and now are going to, you know, as he -- as he sinks, they're going to sink with him. i mean, and -- and they seem to believe they have no choice. >> right. >> and no out. i think i would be looking for one, if i were they. especially after this week. a tumultuous week in which the

whole investigative process and the whole trump presidency seems to have entered a new phase, and it's not a better phase for trump or for his, for those who stuck with him. so, yeah. it looks bad and keeps looking worse and worse. >> keeps looking worse and worse, and speaking of looking worse and worse, as john heilemann showed us, the tabloids. new york tabloids, yet another one of the president's allies appears to have turned on him. nbc news confirmed david pecker, publisher of the "national enquirer" longtime acquaintance of donald trump granted immunity in the federal investigation into michael cohen. according to court documents, the tabloids parent company american media sought to keep former "playboy" model karen

mcdougal silent about her alleged affair with donald trump paying her money for the rights to her story. we've reported the president's former fixer michael cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations that were connected to that payment, and then he implicated donald trump saying then candidate trump directed and coordinated what most prosecutors would say was an illegal campaign contribution, and it was. by the way, i heard a lot of people talking. i heard donald trump talking about it. that was an illegal campaign contribution to himself. and the fact that it donald trump said, oh, i -- i did it myself. no. it's aimed -- the purpose of it was aimed at keeping an embarrassing story under wraps, right before an election. you can't -- you can't write a check for $10,000 to yourself before the election without reporting it, let alone as much as he did. according to the "wall street journal," pecker's assistance

appeared to have played a vital role in what transpired with cohen earlier this week. then also the new reporting on the power that david pecker may hold over the president. five people familiar with the "national enquirer's" parent company say the company september a safe containing damages stories on the president. you kind of wonder how big that safe was. it had to be a big safe including documents of the hush money payments to women who claimed to have had affairs with the president. saying the safe was a great source of power for the tabloid's ceo and former employees also tell the a.p. the tabloid has been protecting the president more than a decade and negative stories about trump were dead on arrival dating back to his time on "the apprentice" and the a.p. is reporting fearful the documents might be used against american media, david pecker removed them from

the safe in the weeks before trump's inauguration, according to one person directly familiar with the events. not exactly clear whether the documents were destroyed, or simply moved, to a safer location. the a.p. also obtained a march letter to house democrats in which american media general counsel wrote "any suggestion it would seek to extort the president of the united states through the exercise of its ed coral discretion is outrageous, offensive and wholly without merit." jonathan lamere, the associated press obviously breaking this story. again, here's another example of a guy who was an acquaintance or a friend with donald trump, who's now flipped on him. of course, to protect himself, but also showing the transactional nature of every one of donald trump's relationships through the years. >> that's right. great reporting by colleagues at the a.p.

it continues to trend. we've seen for a president who talks so much about loyalty. tells people around him he wants his own, eric holder, bobby kennedy in terms of attorney general and upset that jeff sessions betrayed him, in his words, by recusing himself in the russia situation. this is happening nor frequently. whether omarosa, david pecker, people are out to save themselves and realize loyalty with donald trump is a one-way street. he doesn't show much for them and here in a time of true crisis they're not showing much in return. the role of the "national enquirer," in ami, fascinating. positive story after positive story during the early months of the campaign to help him block out of the sun in terms of others running for president in 2015 and into 2016. >> jonathan, we talked about it on the show a good bit. it was pretty remarkable how during the campaign ben carson

goes ahead in republican polls. suddenly you have the "national enquirer" doing a story saying he left a sponge inside the brain of one of his patients, and almost killed them. when michael flynn, in fact, inside the white house. when michael flynn was about to get fired, that week, early that week, the "national enquirer" saying trump rooted out the russian spy in his white house and it's no other than than general flynn. and, of course, trump fires him a couple days later. it was pretty easy to see. and pretty easy, if we saw it, then i'm sure the special counsel has seen it, that whenever david pecker went after somebody, that person would be a target of donald trump's. you're right. it's been incredibly valuable for donald trump. >> and remember, earlier this year the "national enquirer" put out a negative story about michael cohen. soon after the raid into his

office and house. interpreted it is a warning shot from the president. like, be careful. look, the contents of this vault remain a mystery to this point. trump is not the only celebrity apparently who has perhaps damaging stories locked away by the "enquirer" who david pecker has potentially wields influence over them and the reports we've done, great frustration to the reporters would work there, some do very good work and felt like they had the ability, had career-making stories disappear because pecker was trying to protect his friends. >> you know, you talk about career-making stories. fascinating. they actually had a story on john edwards, that had it been picked up and followed, chances are very good that barack obama would have never been president of the united states. john edwards was splitting the vote at the time and nobody followed that story. so edwards stayed in the race

just long enough to split the vote, and again, i'm not saying anything, by the way if you're a barack obama fan. this is not negative against the former president, just the reality. he was splitting the vote, but nobody really followed that "enquirer" story. people said it was trash and of course, it ended up being the truth. barbara mcquade from idle speculation on my part to hard core facts on yours. tell us the impact of david pecker starting to cooperate with robert mueller's investigation? >> well, the cooperation of david pecker could be a significant fact in this investigation, because it gives prosecutors something they really love which is the opportunity to cut out a witness who has a lot of baggage like michael cohen. up until now he's been the only link to president trump's involvement in this. if you can instead get someone like david pecker, more

credibility and can document things with documents in his safe, now you don't, may not even need to call michael cohen as a witness at any trial. instead go to david pecker who is going to have not only testimony but likely documents. i think the other significant fact that comes out of this the shifting stories we're seeing from president trump. some prosecutors identify a red flag known as consciousness of guilt. first, no payment. then, i didn't know about the payment. now it's, well, i knew about the payment but that's not a crime. that shifting story suggests that he feels like he has had something to hide and that also is important evidence. i think this is an important development in the investigation. >> well, barbara, also, the consciousness of guilt i think -- i've heard you talk about that before. heard other prosecutors talk about that before. nowhere does that play more importantly in this russian probe than the meeting at trump tower. they say now, oh, doesn't matter. there's nothing to it. everybody does it. well, no. if everybody did it, if it was

just a matter -- what people do as a matter of course, then, of course, they wouldn't have lied tab from the beginning, said the meeting was about adoption, about something else, said that nobody knew about the meeting. said they didn't know -- i mean, donald trump still lying saying, or rudy giuliani saying, they didn't even know that this lawyer was from russia. isn't that a perfect example of consciousness of guilt? they knew what they were doing, would make them guilty? so they lied about it from the very beginning. >> yes. i think that's significant for two reasons. one, intent is really important in these cases. juries instructed to look at the totality of the circumstances of what a person said and did to determine whether they a corrupt intent in what they're doing and those shifting stories is really important there. i think the other thing that's important is, this makes it all the more important it find out what paul manafort knows, and i city think there's a possibility he could flip, because he was present at that meeting and i think when you're robert mueller, your job is not so much to get president trump as it is

a quest for the truth. what really happened? paul manafort was president at that meeting. if i were robert mueller i would find value in having him cooperate if you could find out what really happened at that meeting. >> barbara, stick around. i want to ask about the jury foreman. decided to go against regular practice and actually talk about it, on the forum, only one juror holding out. you have to ask, who was that one juror? i'm not saying i want to root anybody out, but fascinating only one juror held out on ten counts. fascinating, some might say ridiculous, obviously, the jurors believed -- that jurors believed -- take a step back quickly. a lot of people are talking about how jeff sessions is humiliated. jeff sessions has been shamed by donald trump. jeff sessions this, jeff sessions that. i think one of the most telling things about this entire process, for me, again, somebody

knowing jeff sessions, is the fact that jeff sessions isn't humiliated. rod rosenstein isn't humiliated. in fact, the more they're attacked, it seems the more steel that's in their spine. literally. i mean you see sessions come out yesterday and talk. you see rosenstein just smirk at his critics, and mock and ridicule them for their foolish, foolish theories which have all been proven wrong. ut sit there and go, wow. donald trump has put some people in charge at justice, some republicans in charge at justice, some conservatives in charge at justice who just aren't going to bend to his will. >> yeah. i think they know that history's going to judge them. so they're able to tolerate the short-term judgment of donald trump. step way back, the poll number that republicans fear most is not the ones you guys talked about earlier.

it's that fox poll earlier this week that showed, again, like a 10 or 12-point lead for democrats in the generic poll but shows people super enthusiastic, it's much bigger. the assumption among republicans is now republicans are going to lose the house, means there will be impeachment proceedings. why the pecker stuff matters so much this week. that's only one piece of what democrats will use to bring impeachment proceedings against the president, regardless what they're saying on the campaign trail and listening to nancy pelosi to not talk about it. every knows that's how it will unfold. if they get enough, a big enough majority, subpoena power, bring cohen, manafort all the cast of characters before congress, they'll undoubtedly do it. which then means the other poll number to look at is, does the republican base continue to stand by donald trump? which so far they have. because donald trump will take this to the end. that's what everyone in the white house is saying. he is the one person in

politics, maybe in humanity, who can just do, say and tolerate things that no other person could. so he would take it all the way to the senate and he believes that there are enough republicans who are going to bow to him, because republicans like him so much that they'll be with him to the bitter end. so that's why this week matters. cohen alone is not enough. cohenpecker is dangerous. a much different story. >> jim, stay with us. i want to ask not only about the polls in wisconsin and pennsylvania, the upper midwest states and ask about the brewers and what's happening with them. so -- so john heilemann, we apparently have another trump tweet, but this one about jeff sessions. what can you tell us? >> we do. i'm trying to get the image ow my head jim said about the issue of peckers.

to donald trump on the twitter machine nine minutes ago. the department of justice will not be improperly -- quotes, "jeff, this is great. what everyone wants, to look into all the corruption on the "other side" included deleted e-mails, in caps. comey's lies, leaks, mueller conflicts, mccabe, strzok, page, or r, dot, dot, dot -- six dots. we're all here talking about the president may be watching tv this morning. maybe. >> up late last midnight tweeting and now up early this morning dealing with jeff sessions, who yesterday i'm sure we'll talk about this more. pretty extraordinary after the president trashed him, jeff sessions fired back. then went to the white house for a meeting and then this i incredible spectacle suggesting maybe it's fine to fire

sessions. first time. a scary potential scenario. >> the man tweets from 6:00 in the morning until 1:00 a.m. the following morning. when it comes to the twitter machine, the man is nonstop. >> yes. still ahead on "morning joe." donald trump and rudy giuliani imagining what would follow the potential impeachment of the president. it would be a world of economic ruin, therefore, and open revolt by the american people. we'll show you their apocalyptic warnings coming up. and congressman duncan hunter defends himself against a mountain of allegations surrounding campaign finance crimes. the california republican is throwing his wife under the bus. nice. nice look there, duncan. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

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this wi-fi is fast. i know! i know! i know! i know! when did brian move back in? brian's back? he doesn't get my room. he's only going to be here for like a week. like a month, tops. oh boy. wi-fi fast enough for the whole family is simple, easy, awesome. in many cultures, young men would stay with their families until their 40's. barbara, a lot of messages being sent right now between the

president, attorney general and other people. seems the jury foreman and other members of the jury wanted to send a message to the judge and to robert mueller on those ten counts that manafort was -- they couldn't come to a decision. how unusual is it that the jurors put down that there was only one holdout on the jury form? >> very unusual. the form he put -- the score, 11-1 on all counts where they were deadlocked, unable to reach a verdict not only is unusual, never seen it before. there is a rule of evidence that says that you should never inquire into what's going on in the jury room. the idea, you want to promote candor so the jurors are comfortable talking to each other and saying where they are. they're instructed never to reveal where their vote stands during deliberations. i think that this unusual step demonstrates great frustration on the part of the jury forepersson. he wanted to tell the judge and the world what was going on.

sounds like they worked hard to try to convince this lone juror to vote guilty on the remaining counts, and she refused. so that's how they ended up with this hung jury but he wanted the world to know it was 11-1 and only one holdout. >> and if you're robert mueller, don't you say, you know what? maybe i'm going to go ahead and take another swing at those ten counts, and if not -- if for only the reason to make manafort think he's going to have to go through the motions and start preparing for another trial so he's got to worry about d.c. and then he's got to worry about a retrial in northern virginia along with the sentences hearings and everything else. would that possibly be more leverage to bring him to the table on a deal? >> i do think so. i think sometimes when you get a hung jury there's a tendency by all the parties to maybe learn the lesson too well and take it too seriously, there was weakness in their case. this demonstrates there really wasn't a weakness in the case.

a weakness in one juror nap outou. that outlier you can toss out and know your case is very strong. i don't think mueller will sent the case again. the judge is permitted to sentence paul manafort for all the conduct in this case, not just those counts of conviction under what's known at relevant conduct under the cendasentenci guidelines if the judge find by preponderance of the evidence these additional crimes were committed. i think he already has all the leverage he needs in this case and the district of columbia case which this 11-1 vote count now makes the prosecutors feel more empowered in that case as well. >> it's heilemann. turning back to the other story i'll resist calling peckergate, but the question i have in my mind as we watch this unfold here, it's not just that pecker

is cooperating. right? not just that he's flipped, or turned against donald trump. it's that he's been offered immunity. i want you to talk about how unusual that is about what it takes to get prosecutors to give someone immunity? it's not something they do lightly, it's not a plea deal. it's a free pass on into the future. talk about what kind of value he must be bringing to the table in order to win that kind of, that kind of a blanket claim? >> before prosecutors give immunity to someone they have to as what was that person's culpability in the case and what can they deliver in terms of someone with higher cull pt abilipt -- culpability, and david pecker perceived he had some involvement in a crime perhaps being a co-conspirator along with others. seems prosecutors maze the

assessment he was potentially involved in a crime and can deliver someone who has not already pleaded guilty, committed more egregious contact than he that. whether that's president trump or someone else remains to be seen. they will sit down for many hour, probe the depth of his knowledge and ask him to produce documents that supports what he has to say and identify other witnesses. there often are other witnesses. assistants in the organization who can tell the same story. could be he reveals a additional list of witnesses. >> thank you for your insight. greatly appreciate it. jim, back to you. the polling in the upper midwest states, hasn't been a great deal of focus since 2016. back from 2012, you remember, john heilemann wrote an article talking how barack obama basically blocked out mitt

romney by running all the ads in the big ten tv network, talking about how romney was this pollu pollutecrat, a millionaire allowing people to die without health insurance and he focused on the upper midwest, which was a key region for barack obama locking up mitt romney. obviously key, also, for donald trump in 2016. what's it mean that donald trump's re-elect in wisconsin, minnesota, michigan is in the high 20s to low 30s and now even in pennsylvania appears to be fading? >> i think the common thread there is that you're seeing a little bleeding of maybe 10% to 15% of party that just turned on donald trump. a small segment in the scheme of inner party debates. think what's happening 0 ining

national scale, potentially devastating. here's why. talk about the blue wave. definitely real now. clearly a bunch of momentum and democrats are turning out in record numbers. what worries republicans, you combine that blue wave with basically this undertow of republicans leaving the party and either voting democrat or not vote at all. it doesn't take that many moderate republicans. there aren't that many left, but it doesn't take that many to take that plus democratic enthusiasm to give you a much bigger margin of victory for democrats in november. that's why those numbers matter. it will go up and down, probably not that much, between now and 2020, but it's the short-term consequences republicans fear. almost every republican leader you talk to thinks they're going to lose the house, because of that speck dynamic. >> finally, jim, the cardinals on fire. cardinals and the brewers. how does that end? >> you know, we're, what?

three and a half games out. the brewers, they do it the right way. able to do it not just buying big ball clubs but have an amazing offensive lineup. pitching is not that great and cubs are pretty darn good, but a fun team to watch and good as a brewer fan who's not had a lot of good teams over the last 30 years to watch. >> all right. jim vandehei with axios. see jim tonight on sarah palin's baseball review. only reviews teams from middle america. jim, thank you so much. still ahead, a lawyer for spiro agnew has a bit of advice for donald trump saying the president should consider resigning. spiro agnew's lawyer joins us next on "morning joe." ♪

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for all the inspiration all the laughter kevin heart if you change one letter in 'cancer' it becomes 'dancer', what!? all the stars tom hanks keep this movement going strong. every network every star kevin bacon dream big with us. one night to save lives get ready to see it all tune in live, september 7th 8/7 central i don't know how you can impeach somebody who's done a great job. if i ever got impeached i think the market would crash, everybody would be very poor, because without this thinking, you would see -- you would see numbers that you wouldn't believe. >> so giuliani, is it inevitable that president trump will be impeached? >> hardly. i think it's inevitable that he won't.

there's no reason. he didn't collude with the russians, didn't obstruct justice. every cohen said has been disproved. only for political reasons and the american people would revolt against that. >> okay. we got to stop right here. introduce my guest in a second. john heilemann, isn't it rich. >> hmm. >> isn't it rich. >> uh-huh. >> that you had republicans screaming at the top of their lungs when, i think it was elizabeth warren and then barack obama saying, you didn't make your business successful. the government made your business successful. you had nothing to do with it and republicans, wait a second. wait a -- why does the president of the united states dare believe that he has impact over how our business is run? now donald trump saying if not for me, america would be poor and destitute. if not for me your businesses would fail. it's not your hard work. it's not that you wake up at

3:00 in the morning and work until 10:00 at night. it's not that you've been working hard for 35 year. it's not that you stayed in school and got advanced degrees, or it's not that you wake up and take two, three jobs so your kids can go to community colleges, and then go on to other colleges, possibly, and have a better life than you. it's all because of me that this economy is doing well. why, that's elizabeth warren thinking, by republican standards. isn't it? >> it's another way -- sort of like donald trump's version of i alone can fix. another incarnation of that. i alone can fix it. the famous obama line, you didn't build that, is what you're referring to. and look. trump fundamentally -- every decent real conservative republican believes we have a giant, private economy, that the government can affect on the margins. the policy moves the needle a little bit. you can create good economic conditions, get government out of the way. speaking here if you were a real conservative. get government out of the way.

deregulate. that sets the stage for a good stock market. set the stage for growth and productivity but the government doesn't control the economy let alone the president personally. apparently donald trump again in this instance proving he's not anybody a conservative republican or what the world has understood for the last 40 years. >> and take a step back and go, is there a more defining image of the trump era than his personal attorney giving an interview saying the president shouldn't be impeached while dressed had ed to toe in trump golf swag sitting in a golf cart what appears to be just off the ninth green of a golf course in scotland? also where we are right now. >> yeah. it is where we are right now. again, 30 years -- in 30 years of giving speeches, whether talking to liberal groups or conservative groups or bipartisan groups, i never once said, i never once suggested, i never once believed that any

president was responsible for our economy's success or failure. at the end of the day, it's small business owners, it's people that get up early in the morning, work hard all day, sometimes holding two, three jobs. i've never -- again, never heard anybody remotely conservative say, if not for me, the american economy would be collapsing. of course, i know that a lot of donald trumpists don't want to hear this, trumpists don't want to hear this but we're in the middle of a seven-year recovery. so if you're going to credit presidents, barack obama, he may have started this. if you believe that -- i don't. i actually believe that american workers, american small business owners, they're the ones that make our economy great, but i'm conservative. so i can see why the president

wouldn't agree. when we come back, we've got spiro agnew's former lawyer. we've got bret stephens and we've got gene robinson telling you why donald trump might be sounding a bit like a mob boss, when we return.

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columnist brett stevens, his recent column entitled "donald trump's high crimes and misdeamnor." and the principal lawyer for vice president spiro agnew. he wrote a piece in "time" magazine entitled, "i was a lawyer for spiro agnew. president trump should consider resigning." why should donald trump consider resigning? >> because it's only going to get worse. we already have everybody, you know, the rats are leaving the

ship. he's lost gates, papadopoulos, cohen, flynn, now pecker. he'll probably lose others from the trump organization. and we don't know a quarter of what's in the pocket of the prosecutor. and if he has any interest at all in not only saving his skin but the skin of his child, his children, his son-in-law, his grandchildren, his daughter, this is a time when he's got to seriously think about it. now, is he capable of that, of serious thinking? frankly, i doubt it. if he's going to be advised by people like clown giuliani and people who don't know that truth is truth, then he's not going to

get anywhere. the national interest is what drove the agnew resignation. >> so, did you push, aesthetic, i'm just curious, the joe scarborough seven second delay? that's okay. i embarrassed myself several years ago. let's go to brett stevens. you talked about donald trump's high crimes and misdeamnors. yesterday noah was on yesterday and he laid it bare. i think he's exactly right. we have the president of the united states talking like a mob boss, and saying that the federal government should ban people who actually cooperate with federal prosecutors to undermine their own wrongdoing, that that should be banned. if that's not open obstruction

of justice coming from the chief law enforcement officer in america, i don't know what is. >> it's somewhat ironic coming from a president who advocated torture when he entered the office and had to be dissuaded by general jim mattis that torturing is okay but flipping suspects is something of the justice department of legal officers for decades if not longer should somehow be illegal. noah was exactly right. what we're hearing, what we're watching, done resemble any president of the united states we've seen except, i mean, perhaps a handful of exceptions. it comes from whether it's the mafia or organized crime or to some extent in his demands for loyalty from jeff sessions, it reminds me of the dictators he

so admires. i think president trump wants cabinet secretaries walking around him in the way that kim jong-un note takers do in those pictures when he's giving field guidance and these guys have their little notebooks open. that's what he looks for in an attorney general. he doesn't want loyalty, he was cravenness. that's not how the system works. >> actually donald trump said that after he came back from north korea. he wanted people working for him that acted the way that kim jong-un's minions worked for them. they have to come to their knees before addressing them. gene, we have this wonderful moment on the show yesterday where elizabeth was being interviewed by mika. mika asked about donald trump saying that flipping should be illegal, and he really did. everybody that was watching said my god this sounds like it's straight out of "goodfellows."

elizabeth said this sounds like, wait i work for the "new york times" i better not answer. noah said it immediately after, he sound like a mob boss. which is, of course, you lay out. somebody talking about dirt jay rats, flipping and we should make flipping illegal. he really did sound like he was out of "goodfellows" or "godfather." >> not just that interview too, which was incredible. i mean it sounded like a mob boss in sort of a gangster b movie. this is not dialogue out of the "godfather," but it was shocking, actually to hear any public official talking like that, but to hear the president of the united states talking like that, it's like we're in some different and awful dimension of reality.

it was awful. and then the other thing, you know, was this sort of naked appeal to manafort, begging him not to flip. on the part of both president trump and rudy giuliani, who president trump basically saying great respect for manafort, because they know, he's had these crushing legal bills from the first trial. he's now looking at potentially a retrial, which would be another mountain of legal bills. he's looking at the upcoming trial in d.c. and his attorney said at the end of the trial this week that manafort is looking at his options. well that seems to have really scared the beejeebers out of trump and giuliani and he had giuliani go out make a proffer

to manafort. i advised the president not to pardon manafort at least until after the investigation is over. basically bribing manafort to keep his mouth shut. it's incredible. >> john heileman, manafort is broke. who is paying all of his legal bills? >> whose paying them? >> yeah. i mean the guy is broke. he's been broke. do you know -- the legal bills of a federal trial, a jury trial in federal court and then he has one coming up in d.c. who is paying these legal bills, do we know? >> i do not know the answer to that but apparently martin does. he's suggesting to me, passing me a note he thinks donald trump is paying the bills. what do you know about? >> i don't know anything. i don't have any facts. but i know that he, that trump

went out and giuliani made a very direct plea, don't speak. we'll pardon you in the end. we'll pardon you in the end. then he says not going to do it until after the second trial and who knows whether or not there's going to be another trial in west virginia on those other counts. so i don't know how anybody could afford that. we're talking about tens of millions of dollars of legal fees, and, you know what? if and when he gets the pardon, he's just -- manafort is just trading camp fed for sing-sing on the hudson. that pardon does nothing him to. nothing noifor him in new york state and new york state has this guy by the whatevers. he has these tax counts. >> thank you, martin. >> okay.

>> i'm restraining myself. >> yeah. for saying whatever. shows real discipline as we get five minutes into this show. so let me bring in carol right now. let's follow up on what martin was saying about giuliani floating out the possibility of a pardon. what can you tell us about rudy giuliani and paul manafort and sort of the messages being sent from scotland golf courses? >> identify been talking to rudy fairly frequently while he's away, and yesterday i asked him a lot of questions about some of the president's statements, including that one about flipping should be illegal. remember, rudy giuliani, the president's lawyer, is the former u.s. attorney in the southern district of new york, so he would be inned in that subject. but on pardons what he said to me was that the president had sought some advice and the president's lawyers had given the president some advice

several weeks ago about whether or not he should pardon certain people that were linked to the russia probe including manafort. at first giuliani thought that that conversation took place three to five weeks ago, later he called back to correct and clarify and say that actually he thinks now the conversation took place in june. and either way, essentially it was the president and his advisors discussing pardons for manafort and others and basically his lawyer is saying you got to hold off, it's bad for public optics. this case is not like a normal case, rudy said. it's one that will not be tried before a jury in court. it will be tried, essentially, in the justice department, the congress and the american jury and you've got to wait until after all this investigation is over. >> gene robinson, the fact that donald trump is even discussing pardons right now, obviously

he's worried about pardons. he's obsessed with pardons. but it sounds like giuliani, in this case, as well as a lot of republicans on capitol hill, and of course they will all take credit afterwards, but a lot of reporting that i've gotten and i'm sure you've gotten is donald trump is getting a lot of messages from capitol hill don't pardon. don't touch rod rosenstein. don't go after jeff sessions. certainly not before the mid-terms. it seems that one of the reasons donald trump is not moving is he's getting a lot -- he's getting a lot of feedback quietly from republicans across washington that he better not step over that red line. >> yeah. i think he's getting feedback. that doesn't mean he won't do it. >> right. >> one reason i say that is i'm not convinced that anybody outside of perhaps outside of

trump's most intimate circle, not giuliani, not anybody on capitol hill, not anybody, knows the full extent of what folks like paul manafort and his accountant for the trump organization, and others in that inner circle might have to say to prosecutors, what they might know. i don't think his lawyers know, you know, what's in that black box of trump's prior and perhaps current dealings, and he's clearly freaked out about the idea of not just the special counsel, but now new york city and new york state prosecutors rooting around in there, rooting

around in the trump foundation. so i think the sort of craof accuracy -- crazyiness we saw yesterday will increase as the threat of exposure of whatever gets greater. >> you're right, gene, the lawyers don't know what's inside that, inside that safe. what a nightmare it is for any attorney having a client that doesn't tell them the whole story. i know on a very small level had cases before when i practiced where clients wouldn't tell you the whole story and you would always say we don't want to get into court and then have me fining something out for the first time in court, but those are the worst kind of clients and certainly it's not much of a stretch to consider donald trump probably the worst type of client on that front and many

others. let's bring in peter baker right now. peter, "new york times" peter baker. peter, what a week it's been. what are your thoughts as we start to head into the weekend now with david pecker w-the "national enquirer" flipping and all the manafort news. do we need to adjust anything there? >> look, you know the problem is we keep asking this question, was the last time -- blank, blank. we can't find any precedence. you might find a precedent for a campaign chief, that would be john mitchell. maybe a president who tried to cover up sexual indiscretions, bill clinton. you add all these things together and some of this all just in one week. it's mind-boggling. it's head spinning. we're trying to get our heads around this because we're looking for context. we're looking for a historical

box to put this in. there really isn't one. there isn't a context. this is all new when you add it all together in the context we're seeing. the president, as you say, who is decrying the practice of flipping, not just decrying flipping but saying i got a lot of friends who were in criminal trouble and pressured to flip. how many presidents go out there and tell how many friends they had facing criminal charges. how many times you have a president attack again his attorney general saying he doesn't have control of the department. by which he means he doesn't have control of the threats to me through these investigations. this is just one week. so, you know, the trump presidency has been basically everything that people predicted it would be. it's been a wild ride and we're not even anywhere close to where it could still end up. >> yeah. not to be too pat and quoting winston churchill, it's not the beginning of the end but after this week i think it's safe to say certainly the end of the

beginning. and we were talking about jeff sessions. well the president and the attorney general had a meeting at the white house on criminal justice reform where neither of the two men talked about any of the barbs that they have been trading in the media earlier in the day. it started with the president's answer on whether he should fire sessions for letting the russian probe move forward. this is what the president said. >> as i've said, i wanted to stay uninvolved, but when everybody sees what's going on in the justice department, i always put justice now with quotes, it's a very, very sad day. jeff sessions recused himself which he shouldn't have done. or he should have told me. even my enemies say jeff sessions should have told you that he was going to rescue himself and then you wouldn't have put him in. he took the job and then he said i'm going to recuse myself. i said what kind of a man is this? by the way, he was on the campaign. you know, the only reason i gave

him the job i legality loyalty. he was an original supporter. >> yeah. i just got to say this again. i say this to my friends who support donald trump. if you're going to repeat things that donald trump says, please don't repeat that. because he loves to say he should have told me he needed to be recused. well his testimony before the senate that brought up all the russian contacts, and made him part of that entire process came after donald trump had already appointed him, nominated him as attorney general. so, i wish he could have told me? he couldn't have told you, donald unless he had a delorean from 1985 that could take him back to future. there's donald trump with the alternate facts. look at the timeline. no bay since history.

a few hours after that on fox news the attorney general issued a statement and it said this. i took control of the department of justice the day i was sworn in, which is why we have had unprecedented success at effectuating the president's agenda, one that protects the safety and security and rights of the american people, reduces violent crime, enforces our jim integration laws, promotes, economic growth and advances religious liberty. i demand the highest standards and where they are not met, i take action. however, notation has more talented more dedicated group of law enforcement investigators and prosecutors than the united states. i am proud to serve with them

and proud of the work we have done in successfully advancing the rule of law. then the president tweeted this. domg doj will not be improperly influenced by political considerations. jeff, this is great what everyone wants to look into all of the krumgs on the other side including deleted emails, comey lies and leaks, mueller conflicts, mccabe, strzok, on and on. so instead of being worried about the russian investigation, what happened in '16 and what might happen again this year. it is interesting, though, that jeff sessions when it comes to issues, he's everything that donald trump and donald trump supporters would want. he's tougher on immigration. tougher on crime. tougher on so many of these issues than 99% of republicans

in the united states senate. seems to me donald trump's only problem with sessions is he won't kill the russian investigation. >> well, right. by the way, you know, peter strzok was fired, andrew mccabe is no longer there. that's what's so stunning is that sessions has actually largely done the president's bidding, especially under mutual hobby horses when it comes to separating families at the border and denigrating immigrants from s-hole countries. but what i find so staggering is the statement sort of, i think, eluding us in plain view. the president of the united states just admitted in public that the only reason that he appointed jeff sessions wasn't talent, wasn't that he was the best man for the job, wasn't that he had a lifetime experience in law enforcement, wasn't that he was going to promote the president's agenda,

it's this guy was loyal to me. he was the first republican senator who actually went out and endorsed me back in 2015 or 2016 when my candidacy was still not a sure thing. so that was the sole admitted consideration -- >> right. >> -- for appointing our top law enforcement official. ate staggering admission that in the age of trump we no longer even stop to think about how that transgresses every norm in american history. >> i think part of the reason we don't -- look, totally worth pointing out, he's been hinting at this for a while now. that the reason as he's been in this constant war of word with sessions is that he's been disappointed because in his view eric holder was loyal to trump and sessions i appointed him to be loyal to me. it's clear, we now know throughout all his statements that donald trump regard the justice department as the legal part of a subdivision of a

corporation that he's running not as an independent entity. that's now evident. i will say and i want to play this tape, joe and i want you to watch this and comment about it after we listen to it. the thing that changed yesterday, trump put a very fine point on what his problems are with jeff sessions. sessions did something we haven't seen very often which is to fight back and issue this public statement. but the question of what happens now with sessions, will trump actually fire him or not, the thing that we've thought that has been constraining trump for a long time the united states senate including republicans there would not tolerate trump firing sessions. yesterday, though, there was a little bit of a crack in that as various republican senators, including some we talk about a lot on this program started to suggest maybe it would be okay for trump to fire sessions, including the chairman of the judiciary committee, senator

grassley and also senator lindsey graham. let's listen to this southern and talk about it on the other side. >> the president is entitled to an attorney general he has faith in, somebody that's qualified for the job, and i think that there will come a time sooner rather than later where it will be time to have a new face and a fresh voice at the department of justice. clearly, attorney general sieges doesn't have the confidence of the president. and all i can say is that i have a lot of respect for the attorney general, but that's an important office in the country, and after the election i think it will be some serious discussions about a new attorney general. >> so, joe, there's senator lindsey graham pretty much giving donald trump the green light to fire jeff sessions. i have two questions for you. there's the microquestion of how significant that is. then the macro question, what

the hell has happened to lindsey graham? >> first of all, microquestion -- i'll take them both. what's going on there. this is a lot like tycobb telling donald trump this whole mueller investigation will be over by thanksgiving 2017. be over by the end of the year. be over by martin luther king weekend. it's going to be over by valentine's day. keep the president calm. because telling donald trump that he can get rid of the attorney general, jeff sessions, after the election is like saying you can try out for right field for the boston red sox after the election and maybe mookie betts will decide he wants you to play right field for the red sox. it's not going to happen. republicans may hold on. but they will hold on by the

barest of margins in the united states senate and no attorney general that donald trump wants to replace jeff sessions, so basically he would have rod rosenstein running the entire justice department. does he want that? i don't think so. he sure as hell don't want anybody that this new senate would ever allow to go in and act as attorney general for donald trump. so, i think they are just pushing it down the line. and phil, as far as lindsey graham goes, you know he's in south carolina. he stood up to constituents. i got to give him a lot of credit that said, in this investigation, and even there he stood with the president on the golf course. but he's attacking, like he's in a sail boat and tack hard right when he needs to. but it's usually, when it comes to mueller he's been fairly consistent, let the investigation run its course.

>> that's exactly right. it's sort of an out of left field for graham yesterday to make the assertion that he did, and i think it's odd too because there was this fox poll this week that the president's constant rhetoric how the investigation is unwarranted is actually, trump's position is softening. the public is more supportive of the mueller investigation than it used to be. so for lindsey graham to say let's give him the space on jeff sessions. quite frankly i don't know what the answer to that question is. i think you're right. if there's an election, that the democrats do well, which is expected and if after that point donald trump decides he's going to fire jeff sessions it's anyone's guess who that person is. we did see after he fired comey, the replacement with christopher wray and christopher wray has done a good job on pushing back on donald trump. it's just odd for graham to give him that space at this moment. >> if it is, in fact, the

beginning of the end for this administration as joe put it earlier, maybe perhaps -- >> now, susan i said end of the beginning. >> excuse me. sorry. now we look at jeff sessions looking at history and maybe this is his opportunity to be on the right side and be there to defend the mueller investigation, because i think he's going to stay firm. yesterday he stood up for the department of justice. and he went push back against donald trump. i think this is a signal to rod rosenstein and others, keep at your work. but then i wonder, peter baker, you earlier said how there's nothing to compare this to. so how do we judge what jeff sessions really may be doing? >> yeah, it's a great question. look, jeff sessions has, in fact, as was pointed out earlier, you know, the department has taken action when it comes to andrew mccabe, peter strzok and so forth.

not that they haven't looked at both sides, he said politics should not be the driving force behind this investigation. i think that, you know, i think sessions has played a really interesting role here. i mean he's been the one guy standing in the way of what donald trump wants to do in the justice department, which s-in fact, turn it into his own, you know, his own right-hand arm of his presidency. jeff sessions is a former judge, a prosecutor, a senator. he understands the institution. he was critical of it deeply when it was run by eric holder but that doesn't mean he's going to be a functionary of the president in a political way. that's what he's saying here. and he has done it quietly without, you know, making a big show of his defiance of the president but his defiance has been clear. it's been strong. it has been consistent throughout the last 16, 18 months. >> you know what's missing here

is a book on leadership lessons from vladimir putin or maybe leadership lessons from mob boss in the past. because if you're going demand the kind of loyalty that trump demands, you have to give him. that's where trump's leadership on his own terms consistently breaks down. the loyalty is a one way street, which is by the way, why we're seeing all this flipping taking place, because michael cohen senses he didn't that have loyalty of the man to whom he gave so much loyalty, david pecker probably felt the same way, jeff sessions is feeling that way too. i think that will ultimately be the undoing of this president. when you see people who have been so servile as jeff sessions has been, being publicly mistreated as he's being mistreated they too are likely to walk away from the president because there's nothing in it for them. they are going serve and serve, they are going to have their

reputations come out in ruins, and they aren't even going to have the affections of the man to whom they gave everything. >> i think jeff sessions knows exactly what he's doing and people ask does he have no self-respect. how can he be abused like this by the president over and over again, why doesn't he resign. and i think there are two reasons. one, the agenda that he's carrying out is not just trump's agenda it's his agenda. it's an abhorrent agenda on immigration rights and voting reits. but he's getting to do stuff that he wants to do. second, he's absolutely totally aware that he's, in effect, protects the mueller investigation. a new attorney general would not be recused on that investigation. would be able to essentially shut it down. and i think he's staying there at least in part so that doesn't

happen. i wanted to ask my colleague carol, anything to my theory? do you think that sessions is that aware of his, of that role that he's playing? >> absolutely he is, gene. you know, it's funny listening to this conversation about jeff sessions, about him holding the barn door closed and keeping essentially in a quiet way the president from doing something that could damage him even more than he already has about trying to shut down this probe, the ultimate obstruction. it's interesting how many other people are serving that role in this administration of holding the barn door closed. while reporting on pardons, rudy giuliani, jay sekulow have been advising the president you can't do this right now, you have to wait until after the investigation. somebody like mueller as rudy

described to me yesterday could view this as obstruction just to try to pardon someone now. don mccabe holding the barn door close, saying this is serious, we can't threaten jeff sessions with his termination, we cannot be threatening directly rod rosenstein. he's trying to school the jets over there in the west wing, and there's so many people playing that role. it's interesting to me, also john kelly who we're now hearing has been just trying to calm the president down on a regular basis and sort of slow the rant and keep the rant from turning into action. >> yeah. we shall see if they are successful with that or not. tough job. carol, thank you for being with us. bret stevens and eugene robinson. peter baker, thank you for taking a break from your tour of the old set of that 1960s gothic

soap opera "dark shadows." does anybody remember "dark shadows"? >> sure. >> even the introof "dark shadows" scared the hell out of me. >> peter baker was freaking me out especially that weird space time continuum thing where he was moving around in the upper left, lower right. i don't know what's going on with those book cases behind you. maybe they are not real too. >> he saved himself. that was a great save. thank you, peter. we really do appreciate it. so coming up we'll be talking to a member of the judiciary committee senator chris coombs. he met in private with the president, the president's supreme court nominee brett kavanaugh. "morning joe" is coming right back to talk about that. how do you win at business?

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people that worked for hillary clinton. look at the crimes that clinton did. >> so let me get this straight. while cohen and manafort are facing serious prison sentences everyone in hillary clinton's orbit is getting off scott free. >> it's selective prosecution because there's people like this in hillary's orbit. >> it's president trump's and defenders making the case it's really hillary clinton's people who should be prosecuted. it continues. it's crazy. rudy giuliani yesterday said quote, wake up. there's the indictment clinton is not above the law. but as eric ericcson wrote, a conservative, of course, unlike so many people who are trumpists these days, quote, you can say but hillary all you want but the reality is donald trump would have been indicted over this cohen stuff if he were not president of the united states. with us now let's bring in a

member of the foreign relations committee and also judiciary committee senator chris coombs. i won't waste time talking about the but hillary questions, i want to talk about brett kavanaugh. there's some democrats that have been saying i'm not going to even talk to brett kavanaugh because he's an illegitimate nominee, because the man who put him up for the supreme court is under investigation. is that really any sort of standard to run this process by? >> well, joe, i don't think we should be moving ahead with the confirmation hearings until we got access to all the information about judge kavanaugh. he played a critical role -- >> that's different, though. right. that's different what i'm saying. that's legitimate. >> it is. >> if you want to say -- how am i supposed to make a decision if you're going to selectively give me documents. i need to see everything

regarding clinton impeachment. i need to see everything that he did for the bush administration. that's one thing. but it's another thing to say i'm not even going to talk to him because donald trump is under investigation, which has been the argument made by a couple of democrats over the past several days. is that legitimate? >> well, joe, one of the main things i focused on with judge kavanaugh yesterday was the very sharp concerns raised by paul manafort's conviction on eight felony counts and michael cohen's pleading to eight felony counts and the questions that raises about judge kavanaugh tease record, his printed record, his spoken record on presidential accountability. i do think these two things connect because judge kavanaugh has one of the strongest records of any circuit court judge in publicly saying that he questions whether or not we can hold the president accountable through things like a special

counsel investigation. so, i spent time yesterday pressing him on what he has said and written in the past, questioning the validity of u.s. v nixon, a landmark case in which the supreme court unanimously compelled president anything, on to give you evidence in response to a criminal subpoena. now judge kavanaugh, as you know, worked for judge starr on the starr investigation into the clinton administration and after that made a number of public statements and wrote in different law journal articles things that really gave me pause. there's other reasons why folks might have concerns about judge kavanaugh. his views on access to health care, his views on whether or not pre-existing conditions will be protect. but i focused on presidential accountability and that's the way i think these two issues connect. >> they certainly connect that way. again, it's important for our viewers to understand that the senator is correct but kavanaugh made many of these statements about presidential authority

that concern me, concern a lot of americans, but they were made before donald trump was president. so, i mean he believes it has nothing to do with donald trump. but still causes real concerns. again, i'll ask it to you simply. shouldn't democrats, all democrats sit down and talk to brett kavanaugh if they want to be more fair than how republicans were to merrick garland? >> yes, i think a key part of doing our job as members of the judiciary committee is to go ahead and interview the nominee and go ahead and bring the strongest arguments we can to help the american people see what concerns we have about judge kavanaugh. it doesn't mean we aren't angry and upset about the timing and process about the way that judge merrick garland was mistreated, but, frankly, the hearings are going to begin on september 4th and i concluded if i'm ready to

do my job i needed to sit down with judge kavanaugh yesterday no matter how much i object to moving forward at this time without all the documents we should have. >> senator, earlier in the show we were talking, we noteed a number of republican senators yesterday for the first time suggested it would be okay if president trump removed his attorney general jeff sessions. you have spoken out in the past about what a concern that would be to you. let me ask enthusiast, how troubled are you by yesterday' statements and are you talking to republican colleagues urging them not to do this. what sort of consequences could we see here? >> i am. as you know well, i worked hard with senator tillis, senator graham, senator booker, the four of us to move forward a piece of legislation that would protect special counsel mueller and his investigation from interference by the president. i'm grateful for the partnership that those senators have shown in making sure that this special counsel and future special counsels are more strongly protected from presidential

interference. i am concerned about the number of statements made by my colleagues yesterday that suggest they would be okay with attorney general jeff sessions being replaced. eugene robinson earlier in your show made the point correctly part of what's going on here is saying to the president look we can deal with this after the election. the reality is it would be very hard for the trump administration to confirm someone who is so closely shares their agenda which i strongly oppose on a range much issues, like voting rights, like immigration. jeff sessions as attorney general is blocking criminal justice bipartisan criminal justice reform. he has an agenda on a range of things that puts him at the far-right end of the republican caucus. and i think the president is ill-advised to think by getting rid of jeff sessions he would improve his legal prospects in the next year or so. >> senator, i'm curious, based on your conversation with

kavanaugh yesterday was there a situation in which he was appointed to the court and a subpoena issued by the mueller investigators to the president, what's your sense where kavanaugh would fall on that decision should it go to the supreme court which we assume it would. >> that's exactly what i'm most concerned about. he was very forthcoming. he spoke to tissue fairly directly. and he tried to put his comments about a key case morrison versus olson and u.s. v nixon. he tried to put that in a different context. it was a different time, different place. i'll spend in the weekend reading in to his decisions. one of the things that troubled me most is the ways in which judge kavanaugh has repeatedly cited a scalia dissent even this year when the d.c. circuit on which he serves has renewed their citation of morrison as good law and kavanaugh continues to oppose that and resist that

in way that would strengthen his idea of the executive meaning the president can't be held fully accountable and the president can fire special counsel. i know i'm getting technical on the legal issues. at the end of the day what matters here is the president above through and able to evade accountability. i'm concerned a lot by judge kavanaugh's record in this area. >> certainly a lot of writing out there. a lot of things he's said that causes concerns for a lot of people whether they are liberal, moderate or conservative. senator chris coombs thank you so much for being with us. we appreciate it as always. we want to get a bit of news from overseas. australian prime minister michael turnbull has been ousted. nbc news international correspondent cal perry. cal, my gosh, turnbull was never a tight fit for the liberal

party. right of center party. this morning there's talk about differences in coal, view on coal. differences on climate bills. differences on immigration. what exactly tipped it over? what was the tipping point to have turnbull pushed out of the liberal party leadership? >> it may have been the immigration issue. this is almost like covering today in troubled democracies. this was a political coup. malcolm turnbull was politically assassinated behind closed doors. his party decided that he should no longer be the leader of this conservative party. he was always a bit uncomfortable in that role because he was a bit of a moderate. what we'll see now is scott morrison. he's the new leader of this party. he's going to be prime minister. he has almost no support. 8% support. here's what he ran on. shades of america here.

ran on immigration. tougher immigration. ran on the slogan bring parliament back together. that sounds oddly like make america great again. to reinvest in the coal sector. we see not only a swing to the right but we see a bureaucracy unable to handle modern politics. this will be the seventh prime minister in just ten years. so a country that really does seem to be stumbling and stuttering a little bit when it comes to their political future. before i toss it back to you joe, i want to filibuster a little bit here from london because i rarely get a chance on sport. i want to preview a little bit of what you've done recently. you went out to stanford to cover one of the greatest sports rivalries. take a look. >> how can you describe it to yanks? football, not soccer what football means. imagine 10,000 super bowl fans mixed into one, one fia cup.

>> you have chelsea and liverpool. this is a match that matters. >> liverpool would love to say they are football. >> down side. >> lovely. >> it's a way of life. >> sunday this place will be a caldron of noise, excitement and energy. >> the stage has been set. both chelsea and liverpool are steeped in a century of tradition. but the victors are the ones who write history. >> joe, i'm here for all that i can get of that. this was like a gift from you to oirl fans every where. our season in battle was over like in early may so i thank you for that. >> i didn't know you were going to do that. thank you. i have a followup question,

because what you described happening in australia sounds vaguely familiar. in fact, it's happening in your own country. when i was in that very studio last summer, and it hasn't changed in a year. people in the london bureau told me, brits told me hey you got problems with one guy. we have problems with a system that's just not functioning and it doesn't look like it's going to be fixed for some time. that sounds exactly like what's happening in australia, the turn over for prime ministers has been coming at us fast for some time in australia. >> it's crippling. i think what you have in the system in australia, it's more similar to the system here in uk, people vote for a political party and that political party decides who is in most in fashion, who is most likely to rally support in that party. but it's failed and it's falling down. the next prime minister of australia will have an approval

rating somewhere around 8%. so you have a country that really is faltering, that is stumbling. i'm an american that gets paid in british pound but pay in american dollars. with brexit i've taken a hammering. you have an inability for the government to get up, get organized and move forward. what you have is a lot of debate, a lot of elections that add up to more confusion. all of this goes back to donald trump. it was malcolm turnbull who said one of his most unpleasant phone calls was with president trump. ask theresa may. you see a picture of the world not swinging to the right but being led to the right by the united states. >> cal, thank you so much. i'll come over to london sometime soon and we can go out and watch some proper football. >> let's do that. you got it. i'm here for that. >> thanks so much.

john heileman, we often hear americans being wistful, sometimes it would be great to have a parliamentary system. there's a new book talking about the genius of madisonian democracy and sort of the give and take between madison and hamilton. but he wrote something that was fascinating and that is that our government would never be paralyzed by a single vote the way british government has been paralyzed by a single referendum to get out of brexit. we have so many checks and balances here because of madison. >> yeah. >> that one vote would lead to court challenges, would lead to this, would lead to that. we have -- as cal says, it's unthinkable that the united states of america would be paralyzed the way britain is in their parliamentary system

because of a single referendum vote and he's exactly right. it's an eye opener. you look now, australia has a leader because of the system that has an 8% approval rating. >> look, you think about there's -- we in this age of trump we look at what's going on here and a lot of people in america are concerned about the future of the country and think we're suffering from this unique form of dysfunction. no doubt this is a very terrifying time for a lot of people and dysfunction. there's dysfunction across western democracies in europe. this is not just a united states problem. it's a global problem. in the end you still look at our system and say especially at the end of this week where the independent judiciary, where we saw the manafort case, where we saw the courts still functioning, still working on overdrive, still providing guardrails and still churning out what looks like justice, you think you know, we got a lot of problems with our system but

it's still maybe the one that you choose over any other one in the world. >> and you look at the institutions that have held themselves up. we talked about the attorney general. you look at the deputy attorney general. you look at the courts. you look at the jurors. a jury of paul manafort's peers. a lot of checks and balances. yes, there's a lot to be discouraged by. my gosh a lot of people stood up in these difficult times and proven that our system stills works. coming up next, how a conspiracy document about former obama administration officials made its way into the trump white house. we'll talk to one of the reporters behind the new piece on "morning joe". our new episode of this is football as cal mentioned featurie ining chelsea versus l poll airs this weekend ones in sports network. how can we say when you book direct at choicehotels.com

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so president obama president obama's formerer aides are analyzed like members in an insurgent network in a memo that reportedly circulated inside the trump white house in early 2017. that's according to "new yorker" magazine whicher reports on it in a document entitled the echo chambers that accuses oh back ma officials of a conspiracy. the aides are said to be, quote, coordinating the daily weekly battle rhythm known as the war room. the memo calls obama adviser ben rhodes likely the brain behind this operation and biden aide cohen cull as an likely ops chief. rosencall told the new yorker there was no echo chamber, network, ops chief or virtual war room. with us now, a staff writer for the new yorker, adam idit who

could authored the article. already with us white house correspondent for pbs news hour yamish altendoor. tell us about this continued obsession with the obama team from the trump white house. it got, it sounds like, conspiracy theories being passed around early in the trump administration. >> yeah. i think we can empathize to a degree. we had an election. you know, and people thought that when they came in with the new administration, they were going to be able to institute their policies. and they saw a wave of leaks and they saw a wave of criticism that made it hard for them to do what they thought they were going to be able to do. and so that fueled fever dreams, it fueled conspiracy theories on all sides about who was behind the leaks and who was orchestrating this. and a group of people seized on

the idea that there was this echo chamber that was being run by ben rhodes who was obama's deputy national security adviser and collin cull who was working for the vice president because they were very active on twitter in particular. and these people thought that these folks were organizing, working with holdovers who were inside the administration and had stayed over during the transition to try to undermine the new administration. and this memo is really a window into the psychology of people who were working in that very divided white house at that time. >> you know, yamish, this obsession with barack obama from donald trump has been going on for years now. and, in fact, around this same time, the memo was circulating around, that's when donald trump made perhaps one of his most infamous tweets early on a saturday morning. and i remember the panic it caused inside the white house suggesting that barack obama was crawling around inside of trump

towers tapping his phones during the campaign. and he sort of circled back to that this past week, didn't he? >> i think that he absolutely circled back to that this week. this is a president that has been openly talked about conspiracy theories. the fact that he had that interview with fox news where he used air quote toes talk about the department of justice, this is someone that has been questioning whether or not the united states and the people who work for him are, in fact, part of his deep state conspiracy theory. i was out in west virginia this week. there were so many people, voters, supporters of president trump who believe that there is some sort of calculated effort to undermine his presidency. and there's this idea that people are really feeding into this. this isn't just kind of a memo that might be circulating that people are questioning. the question i have, though, is how is this impacting the career staff's ability to work? how do people deal with this if you have people that think that they are part of a deep state?

>> yeah. no, i think that, you know, you have a -- you know, obviously, during that period in 2017, there was a lot of pleasure to get rid of these people. and a lot of them in the summer of 2017 sort of moved out and they were sent back to the agencies where they had originated. outside they left the nsc. so you had this cycle. there's no question that it impacted them. they felt like they were unfairly targeted for just doing their jobs because they served in the obama administration and in some cases in the bush administration and even before that. they were associate with the policies of their predecessors and you had a team come into the white house that wanted to disassociate in this president from all of those policies. and so naturally, you know, they looked like they were out of place and were naturally suspected. and so, you know, the effort to get rid of them kind of culminated in the summer of '17 and you had a battle between

kind of the globalists who were inside the nsc and the nationalists led by steve bannon and you had casual thetities bay on both sides where steve bannon was later pushed out and later h.r. mcmaster was pushed out. >> so setting aside the idea that there are mastermind whose brought us obamacare which was not terribly popular over the course of president obama's presidency, is there any sense of was this a reflection of donald trump's insistence on there being a conspiracy out to get him? or was this, in fact, the work of the way, that people came to him and said, hey, we suspect this is a thing that's happening and perhaps that helped trigger his own sense that there was a conspiracy that was out to get him? >> i'm not really sure, actually, what the originator is. i think a lot of -- a lot of trump's advisers or those that were looking to get his attention and to be his advisers

told him that they suspected that this was what was going on wind t behind the scenes. so they fueled his sense of encirclement which he already felt. so this played into his conspiracy theories which he propagated on his twitter account about trump tower being tapped. so i think it was kind of this circle where everyone was feeding into these theories and, again, you can sort of, again, understand a little bit about why they got to this place. if you go back in time to that period of 2017, you had an incredible number of leaks that were coming out. and if you were the people who were harmed by those leaks, i think it is very naturally to feel defensive and to try to look for ways to figure out what is happening and to try to combat the problem. >> yep. certainly is. thank you so much, adam.

we really appreciate it. and we'll be reading your story in the new yorker. yamish, at the end of the week, right now it seems like jeff sessions is center stage. where does that conflict go-between the president and his attorney general? >> i think this conflict is only going to escalate. before jeff sessions came out with that statement, everyone was saying all around washington, what is jeff sessions going to do? is he going to try to stay quiet and just keep his job and keep his head down, which is what he's really been doing for most of the time he's been attorney general. but yesterday when he said he wasn't going to be influenced by political things and he wasn't essentially going to be bullied by this president, that tells me that jeff sessions is start to go feel as though he has to push back publicly. he has to speak out and talk about his reputation. that means that that is going to make donald trump even more angry. president trump feels as though he can't fire jeff sessions because of all sorts of reasons, chief among them that senators say they have his back. but i

think if donald trump continues to be angry at jeff sessions, we could start to be on jeff sessions watch. yesterday i was calling sources to try to figure out if jeff sessions going to be in his job today. we'll be following that closely. thanks so much, yamish. al, we appreciate you being here. phillip bump, thank you, as well. and still ahead, the two people who prosecutors say helped keep the president and his affairs secret during the election have now turned on him. first, his former fixer. now his favorite tabloid. "morning joe" will be back in one minute. and your current treatment hasn't worked well enough it may be time for a change. ask your doctor about entyvio®, the only biologic developed and approved just for uc and crohn's. entyvio® works at the site of inflammation in the gi tract, and is clinically proven to help many

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>> paul manafort has worked for me a very long period of time. >> i've seen it many times. >> michael cohen, the man is an honest honor ble lawyer. the man is a pathological manipulator, liar, and it almost ought to be illegal. >> i love this. >> what a great show. >> it may be be the same kind of flipping that michael cohen is doing, but the president and rudy giuliani have been known to do quite a bit of flipping themselves. it's really -- that's why it's so unbelievable that in a recent cbs poll, 91% of hard core trump supporters believe everything he says.

anyway, good morning. happy friday morning. we also have white house reporter for the associated press jonathan lamiere and republican strategist and msnbc political analyst susan del percio. associate editor of "the washington post" and msnbc political analyst eugene robinson, co-founder and ceo of axias jim vandehye and an msnbc contributor barbara mcquade. mika has the morning off. so, john, first of all, we've got so much to talk about. first of all, john heilman, hold up the tabloids this morning because they basically say what i knew they were going to say,

which is you know whoever is in charge of writing headlines for the tabloids, we're like, you know what? i'm going to get in a little bit late tonight because we can recycle all the anthony weiner headlines and -- >> yesterday was kind of christmas if you're a -- if you work on what they like to call the wood at the new york tabloids. this is the new york post. you'll see out here, what is in the safe. inquiring minds want to know. this is after the suggestion there is a safe in david pecker's office. he has flipped, the thing that donald trump would like to outlaw. so what's in the safe? >> john heilman, i think it's interesting. he looks a little bit like heraldo. this may be the most infamous

safe since whrivera knocked out safe. >> today it's the new york daily news for the win. pecker in a vise. really offered without much comment, other than just to say, well, "pecker in a vise." >> we have some interesting polling out. then we're going to get into all that's happening around donald trump. and it's interesting, in the backdrop of one of the tumultuous weeks in the trump administration so far, you look at the polling. we showed the poll ing on, of course, robert mueller. very good news for the investigation, very bad news for donald trump. about a month ago, we showed some horrible re-elect numbers out of the states we would have to win. he's down 20, 29%, 30%.

his approvalal rating in pennsylvania, 37%. disapproval at 53%. dismal, dismal numbers, especially going into the fall that he is that unpopular. pennsylvania, write it down now. put that in the democrats territory because that's one state where he's not getting the philly suburbs back. donald trump and the republican party are in for some stuff sledding in pennsylvania. >> there are two things to say about this that jump to mind right away. the first is that pennsylvania, wisconsin, michigan, these are the states where the president won the election. pennsylvania is probably the state that he's the most proud of, talks about it a lot.

all three of those states, no one thought he would win. people said trump could never win there. and the urban vote in philadelphia and fits fits. now he's at 37. that's pretty close to the trump base if we all discern that 35 is to the core, the absolutely unbudgeable, that's stripped everyone away except for the people that will never leave president trump. that's bad for him. the second thing is not just looking towards 2020. if you were saying pennsylvania at this moment, at least, teams like there's any chance for trump to prevail there if he stands for re-election in 2020. but think about what that means for republicans in the house in pennsylvania who are standing for re-election. we know how much their fortunes are tied to the president and his standing internationally for a pennsylvania republicaning any place in the middle of the

state to have the president 37 is really, really daunting for their re-election prospects. >> bad news and susan delpercio, one issue that was supposed to work for donald trump that was supposed to cross party lines was tariffs. but you look at these same set of polls and look at the numbers that have come out with the tariffs. in pennsylvania, only 28% of pennsylvanians believe that donald trump's tariffs will help our economy and protect u.s. jobs. only 23% of illinois voters belief donald trump's tariff tax will help the economy. and in texas, only a third of texas voters believe that these tariffs are going to help the economy and protect u.s. jobs.

this, susan, lies at the core of what donald trump doesn't flip-flop on every week. this belief in protectionism, this belief in tariff taxes, a big loser with american voters. >> it is a big loser. and we saw also earlier this week that 30% and only 30% of the country thinks that -- 30% thinks the country is moving in the right direction. and that is, on top of those numbers, they're anticipating the tariffs and the effects that they'll have. but that will be horrible for 2018 for those seeking re-election. and you can't emphasize enough that people were willing to give donald trump a chance. they now see what is happening. and now seeing these legal questions come up. it's not just donald trump versus a witch-hunt, per se. we see real tangible things like michael cohen pleading guilty, like paul manafort becoming a

convicted felon. those are real tangible. so you add that on and it really is start to go look like a horrible year for the republicans. >> well, a horrible year for the republicans, gene, and all these numbers. this collapse couldn't come at a worse time. again, you've got to add it. you have to put everything in perspective. right track, wrong track, going in the wrong direction. you look at these numbers out of pennsylvania. you look at the tariff numbers. and, again, you go back to the numbers that we saw a couple of weeks ago out of wisconsin and michigan states donald trump should have a core of support. and there he's got re-elects ranging from 29% to 32%. this is as bad as it gets for donald trump. his big problem in some states like pennsylvania, he may get some voters back. he will never get college educated women in the philly suburbs back. those are not persuadables any

more. isn't that the cost of all the damage, all the scar tissue he's accumulated over the past year and a half? >> yeah. i'm sitting here, i'm playing a really, really tiny violin for the republicans who latched themselves to donald trump. and and now as he sinks, they're going to sink with him. >> right. >> and they seem to believe they have no choice. and no out. i think i would be looking for one if i were they, especially after this week, a thumultuous week in which the whole investigative process and the whole trump presidency seems to have entered a new phase. and it's not a better phase for trump or for his -- for those who stuck with him.

so, yeah, it looks bad and keeps looking worse and worse. >> still ahead on "morning joe," if flipping.were illegal, another one of donald trump's long time associates would be breaking the law. we're going to be digging deeper into david pecker's decision to cooperate with the feds. but first here is bill karins with a check on the forecast. >> for so many millions on the eastern seaboard, it's the weekend you've been waiting for. but unfortunately for our friends in hawaii, this is a nightmarish scenario with this slow moving hurricane. and the steep terrain, it's just the flooding problems were getting epic, especially on the big island. on hilo, i have two reporting stations now over 31 inches of rain. they will be approaching three feet of rain by the end of the day. there are numerous roads washed out. there have been some land slides and it's very difficult getting around the eastern side of the big island, especially near

hilo. it's still a major hurricane, but will probably be downgraded to a category 2 today. we'll get some enhancement in the mountains. the forecast path takes us due northwards towards oahu. notice how much weaker it gets. but this is the story. there's about 1.4 million people in the hawaiian islands. that's the population. you're all under a flash flood watch. isolated totals from 30 to 40 inches. we told you, we have one spot to 31. so far, it's been concentrated on the big island. tonight, tomorrow, through sunday morning, oahu, honolulu and muy will be the areas getting the heaviest rain. we'll have to wait and see how big your flooding gets. we have showers and rain from st. louis to chicago. it's about as good as it gets in the northeast. the weekend outlook will feature some really nice weather on the eastern seaboard, just a lot hot in the middle of the country. mid 90s. new york city, low humidity,

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simple, easy, awesome. in many cultures, young men would stay with their families until their 40's. another one of the presidents's allies appears to have turned on him. david pecker, a long time acquaintance of donald trump has been granted immunity in the federal investigation into michael cohen. according to court documents, the tabloid's parent company, american media, sought to keep former playbuy model karen mcdougal sigh lend about her affair with donald trump. as we've reported, the president's former fixer, michael cohen, pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations connected to that payment. and then he implicated donald trump saying that then candidate donald trump connected and

coordinated what most prosecutors would say was an illegal campaign contribution. and it was. by the way, i heard a lot of people talking, i heard donald trump talking about it. that was an illegal campaign contribution to himself. and the fact that donald trump said, oh, i did it myself, no, it's aimed -- the purpose of it was aimed at keeping an embarrassing story under wraps right before an election. you can't -- i mean, you can't write a check for $10,000 to yourself before the election withouter reporting it, let alone as much as he did. pecker's assistance appears to have played a vital role with regard to what transpired with cohen earlier this week. five people who are familiar with the "national enquirer"er's parent company, american media, tells the ap that the company kept a safe containing damaging

stories on the president. you just kind of wonder how big that safe was. it had to be a big safe. including documents of the hush money payments to women who claimed to have had affairs with the president. they said the safe was a great source of power for the tabloid's ceo and former employees tell the ap that the tabloid has been protecting the president for more than a decade and that negative stories about trump were, quote, dead on arrival, dating back to his time on the apprentice. the ap is also reporting that fearful the documents might be used against american media, pecker and the company's chief content officer removed them from the safe in the weeks before trump's inauguration, according to one person who is directly familiar with the events. it's not exactly clear whether the documents were destroyed or simply moved to a safer location. the ap object stained a march letter to house democrats in which american media's general

counsel wrote quote any suggestion that it would seek to executor the president of the united states through the exercise of its editorial discretion is unmerited. >> john, here is another example of a guy who was an acquaintance, a friends of donald trump who now flipped on him. it's a transactional nature of every one donald trump's relationships. >> he's upset that jeff sessions betrayed him, in his words, by recusing himself in the russia organization. this is happening more .more

frequently, whether it's omarosa or michael cohen or david pecker where people are out to safe themselves. they realize loyalty is a one-way street and he doesn't show much loyalty for him and they are not going to show much in return. and the role in the "national enquirer" at ami is a fascinating one at donald trump's rise. it was positive story after positive story during the early months of the campaign to help him sort of block out the sun in terms of the other candidates running for president in 2015 and then into 2016. >> jonathan, we talked about it on this show a good bit. it was pretty remarkable how during the campaign ben carson goes ahead in republican polls, suddenly you have the "national enquirer" doing a story saying he left a sponge inside the brain of one of his patients and almost killed them. when michael flynn, in fact, inside the white house, when michael flynn was about to get

fired, that week, early that week you had the "national enquirer" saying trump has rooted out the russian spy in his white house and it's none other than general flynn. and, of course, trump fires him a couple days later. it was pretty easy to see and pretty easy if we saw it, then i'm sure the special counsel has seen it, that whenever david pecker went after somebody, that person would be a target of donald trump's. you're right. it's been incredibly valuable for donald trump. >> and let's remember, earlier this year, the "national enquirer" put out a negative story about michael cohen, soon after the raid into his office and such with many people around cohen, i know, interpreted ates a warning shot from the president, like be careful. and, look, the contents of this vault remain a mystery to this point. trump is not the only celebrity, apparently, who has, perhaps, damaging stories that have been locked away by the enquirer who

david pecker has potentially to wield influence over them and potentially in terms of the reporting that we have done a sense of great frustration to the reporters who work at ami some of whom do very good work and who felt like they've had career making stories disappear because pecker was trying to protect his friends. coming up on "morning joe," paul man naer fort doesn't have leading defenders, but he's got the president and a single juror who strangely refused to convict on all charges. but, of course, those eight. we're going to get the legal and political implications coming up next on "morning joe." if you have moderate to severe

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this wi-fi is fast. i know! i know! i know! i know! when did brian move back in? brian's back? he doesn't get my room. he's only going to be here for like a week. like a month, tops. oh boy. wi-fi fast enough for the whole family is simple, easy, awesome. in many cultures, young men would stay with their families until their 40's. barbara, a lot of messages being sent right now between the president, the attorney general and other people. it seems that the jury foreman and other members of the jury wanted to send a message to the judge and others on those ten counts they couldn't come to a decision. how unusual is it that the

jurors put down that there was only one hold out on the jury form? >> it's very unusual. the form he put, you know, the score, 11-1 on all of the counts where they were deadlocked and unable to reach a verdict. not only is it unusual. i've never seen it before. there is a rule of evidence that says you should never inquire into what's going on in the jury room. the idea is you want to promote candor so that jurors are comfortable talking to each other and saying where they are. and they're instructed never to reveal where their vote stands during their deliberations. i think this unusual step demonstrates great frustration on the part of the jury foreperson. he wanted to tell the judge and the world what was going on. it sounds like they worked hard to try to convince this lone juror to vote guilty on the remaining counts and she refused. so that's how they ended up with this hung jury. but he wanted the world to know that it was 11-1 and only one holdout. >> and if you're robert mueller, don't you know, you know what?

maybe i'm going to take another swing at those ten counts and if not -- if for only the reason to make manafort think that he's going to have to go through the motions and start preparing for another trial so he has to worry about d.c., and he has to worry about a retrial in northern virginia along with the senate seeing hearings and everything else. would that possibly be more leverage to bring him to the table on a deal? >> i do think so. i think sometimes when you get a hung jury, there's a tendency by all the parties to maybe learn the lesson too well and take it too seriously, that there was some weakness in their case. this demonstrates that there really wasn't a weakness in the case. there was a weakness in one juror. so that outlier, you can toss out and now know that your case is very strong. i don't know that robert mueller will choose to bring this case again. i think he already has all the leverage he needs from this case because the judge is permitted to sentence paul manafort for all of the conduct in this case,

not just those counts of conviction under what's known as relevant conduct under the sentencing guidelines as long as the judge finds by a preponderance of the evidence lower standard beyond a reasonable doubt. i think he has all the leverage he needs in this case, plus there's the district of columbia case that i think this vote count will make the prosecutors more empowered in that case, as well. >> hey, barb, i want to turn back to a story we're talking about here that i'm going to resist calling pecker gate, but the question i have in my mind as we're watching this unfold here, it's not just that pecker is cooperating. it's not just that he's flipped and he's turned against donald trump. it's that he's been offered immune ty. and i want you to talk about how unusual that is, about what it takes to get prosecutors to give someone immunity. it's not something they do lightly. it's not a plea deal. it's a free pass on into the

future. talk about how -- what kind of value he must be bringing to the table in order to win that kind of a blanket claim. >> before prosecutors give immunity to someone, they have to assess what was that person's culpability in the case and what can they deliver in terms of someone with higher culpability in the case. so they've made that assessment. they recognize that there's some need for immunity for david pecker and david pecker perceives he has some involvement in a crime. it seems prosecutors have made the assessment that david pecker was potentially involved in a crime. whether that's president trump or someone else remains to be seen, but they will sit down with him for many hours, probe the depth of his knowledge and ask him to produce any documents that would tend to support what he has to say and to identify any other witnesses.

and there often are other witnesses. just assistance in the organization who can also tell the same story, the people who prepared the paperwork. so it could be that he reveals a series of additional witnesses. >> barbara mcquade, thank you so much for your insights, as always. we greatly appreciate it. coming up on "morning joe" -- >> when i went to iraq in 2003, the first time i gave her power of attorney and she handled my finances throughout my entire military career and that continued on when i got into congress. i'm gone for five days a week, i'm home for two. and she was the campaign manager. so whatever she did on that, that will be looked at, too, i'm sure. but i didn't do it. >> that sound, that's congressman duncan hunter throwing his wife under the bus. that's his defense against allegations of stealing campaign cash. we're going to be talking about that and other challenges for republicans which might impact the upcoming midterms when "morning joe" returns. ♪

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i've got to ask you about some of the specifics of these. some of them xam from complaints from your own treasurer and i think your chief of staff, as well. did you call your wife and say that you wanted to buy a pair of hawaii shorts but you didn't have money and she said you should buy the shorts at the pro shop so you could use that purchase as golf balls for wounded warriors? is that what happened? >> i don't remember that, but i would never do that. i have never used any campaign money to buy myself for anything and sluff it off for anybody else. when i went to iraq in 2003 the first time, i gave her power of attorney and she handled my finances throughout my entire military career and that continued on when i got into congress. i'm gone five days a week, i'm home for two. and she was the campaign manager. so whatever she did on that,

that will be looked at, too, i'm sure. but i didn't do it. >> whatever my wife did, that will be looked at, too, i'm sure. we're quoting soap operas. we talked about dark shadows earlier in the 60s. that's straight out of the 80s. general hospital, victor newman, you're all class. that was congressman duncan hunter showing all class. he's pleading not guilty to allegations of wire fraud, falsifying campaign fraud violations blaming his wife. a 60-count indictment allegations hunter and his wife used $250,000 to finance a trip to italy, golf outing webs theat, theater tickets and much more. i remember from my own experience to let you know how bizarre and you who over the line this is, i remember in

1998, flying across a country, campaigning for the republican candidates with lindsey graham and steve largent and some others, we were out in washington state. the trip extended several days. and i went into a store because i was out of clothes, out of clean clothes and i bought a shirt. and i used it from my campaign funds. i immediately wrote a letter to the campaign, said i was going to reendorse the campaign, but was freaked out at the prospect of even buying a shirt for a campaign event that could be used for personal use. immediately paid it back. and, again, here you have people going on italian vacations and thinking nothing of it and duncan hunter blaming his wife. let's bring in some other people to talk about that. >> hey, joe. >> yeah? >> just so i understand that story,.were you once an office

holder? when you were acting in politics at one point? >> i don't like to talk about it, okay? but sometimes -- >> this is news to me, but go ahead, please. >> no, but -- no, i just don't want to talk about it. but there are sometimes that i do have to bring it.up just to put things in proper context. but now that you have opened the door, there i was and i was staring down newt gingrich. and i said newt -- >> yeah, sorry. >> never mind. we'll get to that later. let's bring in people who have real news, staff writer for "the atlantic," natasha bertrand. she's an nbc news and msnbc contributor. washington correspondent for the economist john fassman and senior writer at politico jake sherman. john higheilman is back. he never leaves. susan delpercio is with us, as

well. jake, let me start with you. we have an interesting situation here. duncan hunter throwing his wife under the bus. can you follow up, since you cover the hill, can you explain just how out of the ordinary this quarter of a million dollars for personal usage, for other members of congress? they just don't do this. >> well, joe, i would say that shirt would have been permissible under campaign finance law, so you didn't actually have to pay that back but it's good to know that you were careful and crossed the ts and dotted the is. but it's funny, about three or four years ago, i noticed duncan hunter was spending a lot of money on strange things, thousands of dollars to his kids' school, he bought digital mobile apps with campaign money and i went to his office and i let they talk me out of writing that story. so we saw this at politico a long time ago and we're not proud of it because we got talked out of writing the story. but it's incredibly strange. it's incredibly out of bounds.

but the campaign finance system, the system by which members of congress spend campaign money is really broken. because members of congress police themselves. the fec, federal election commission, does nothing to enforce its rules. but i've never -- and i look at campaign finance filings every day. i've never seen the kind of money that duncan hunter spent. it's well outside the bounds. he's not at this point saying what happened or giving any excuse besides throwing his wife under the bus. but at the end of the day, he's the member of congress. he has the last say on these things. and if he spent $14,000 on vacations to italy, that is well outside the bounds of anything i've ever seen. and then, by the way, try to get a meeting with the navy in italy to cover it up. so i don't understand how he's going to talk this one away. >> and when the navy wouldn't take that meeting, he had some unkind words for them. >> choice words. >> so this has been a -- yeah, choice words. this has been a heck of a week for the president. you've got the first two

congressmen who endorsed him now under indictment. natasha, the other big story out of this week, probably at the end of the day, maybe even bigger than cohen, had to do with a trial that you covered so closely and that was paul man na ford. what was your take away about the manafort trial? what does it mean moving forward? >> well, i think that paul manafort did not necessarily expect that a jury was willing to convict him. his blind competence going into this entire thing. really, it was totally unexpected and, of course, it's also interesting that the jury was willing to convict him, or 11 out of the 12 jurors were willing to convict him on all 18 counts and it was one lone juror who reduced that to eight counts. but i think that now paul manafort is going to be, you know, thinking about whether or not he wants tok into this next trial in washington, especially knowing that the jury is willing

to convict him on things related to his work for ukraine. whether or not he strikes a deal with prosecutors, of course, still remain toes be seen because the president now is apparently tangling a pardon for him for after the mueller investigation ends. and every former, you know, federal prosecutor i've spoken to has said that could be a huge incentive for man if a fort to go into this next trial expecting a presidential pardon. when i asked whether or not he would accept such a pardon, of course, his spokesman declined to comment cite ago court gag order. but it really raises questions about why he decided to go to trial in the first place knowing that the evidence against him was so strong. >> so is that the end game for manafort? because nothing else really makes sense, does it, natasha? >> it really doesn't. no one expected him to go to trial. if he does choose to go to the washington, d.c. trial, then that, of course, is going to -- it's going to cause a lot of speculation about whether or not

he's expecting this pardon because, of course, you had millions of dollars in lawyers fees and he is virtually broke, as we saw from the trial in the last couple weeks is that he -- when he did not have any money over the course of 2015, 2016, he was committing bank fraud trying to get loans that he, of course, wouldn't have been able to get otherwise. so it's going to raise a lot of questions if he does decide to go through with it. the only reasonable explanation that legal experts have given me is that he is expecting a pardon. >> yeah, nothing else seems to make sense and, of course, a lot of people would believe if the president pardoned paul manafort, lindsay graham, in fact, said what has paul manafort even done to deserve a pardon? once again, it would make the president, his critics believe that he's above the law. and the latest opinion piece in the economist asks the question is he above the law? and it reads in part this. amid the frenzy, something important changed this week. for the first time, president donald trump faces a formal accusation that he personally

broke the law to further his candidacy. the question now is whether, and how far, mr. manafort and mr. cohen will turn against their former boss in return for leentsy. as the slow drip of republic revelations and convictions continues, americans will have to confront a simple question: is mr. trump above the law? the constitutional problem that america is heading towards is that the justice department protocol is not to prosecute sitting presidents and it tats from another age when a president could be expected to resign with a mo did i cum of honor before any charges were drawn up as nixon did. that norm no longer applies. so, john, fascinating economist piece. gerald ford famously said no man was above the law. no president was above the law. and you have a lot of trump

supporters saying, well, the president can't be indicted. but, again, that's from another time. that's from another place. and any one of my law professors twisted that into knots saying a president can't be indicted by saying, oh, really? so if the president shoots somebody on fifth avenue, they walk? it just doesn't seem to match the reality in front of us, does it? >> saying the president can't be indicted leaves aside the more important question of whether the president should suffer political consequences for breaking the law. i mean, the conflict between the president and the courts and the process for punishing a president is a political process. and i think what we are not seeing now, unfortunately, is more republicans, especially those like lindsey graham who are banging on about character and integrity during the clinton years, but more republicans saying it's kind of a big deal that the president's personal lawyer backed by credible evidence just accused him of breaking the law to further his own presidential candidacy. and i think it's those political consequences that we're missing

now. >> and it also seems, john, that we had a pr campaign by the president and his legal team going on. we had the truth and in the truth, but a conviction is a conviction. a guilty plea is a guilty plea. these become facts that as i think we all will see will help with public opinion when it comes to mueller and also hurting the president. so as we look forward, i think that it's also upon republicans best interests not to get caught too much behind this curve, that it's a political end. >> yes. >> to start questioning the president. >> yes. and don't forget, so far we have, what, his former campaign chair, his deputy campaign manager, his personal lawyer, his former national security adviser and a foreign policy adviser who all have let guilty to -- >> but other than that, no one close to the president is involved. >> exactly. >> and, john, all this talk this week, oh, it's only campaign finance problems, it's jay walking, tell that to john

edwards, tell that to some members of congress from previous eras that spent time in jail. >> i think you're continue to go play into donald trump's hands if you describe this as a campaign finance violation as if it's a technical thing. someone gave more than the legal limit. this is in the last month of a campaign where the president conspired allegedly to keep a story from becoming public that was basically perpetrating a fraud on the american people in the final days of an election when that story coming out could have materially impacted the course of the american democratic process. so that's the way we should talk about it, not as a campaign finance violation. but i want to ask jake sherman the question of at this moment what is your sense on capitol hill? i thought it was striking yesterday that we had seen a blue and red wall for the last year standing around jeff

sessions saying basically sometimes publicly often privately saying to donald trump, do not fire jeff sessions. we will not confirm anybody else. you won't get anybody else through. all of a sudden you've got lindsey graham. you've got chuck grassley. you've got even some others sort of saying well, you know, it might be okay. the president needs to have an attorney general he has confidence in. it's time for new blood in the justice department. i thought that was rather shocking. >> yes, listen, the argument they were making was both substantive and schedule, right? republicans were saying we don't have time to get another attorney general in. we have all these judicial nominees. we have things we have on our calendar. it was also part substantive which was this could look like something really bad for you in this investigation. i think what they're basically saying now is it's okay if you're tired of your attorney general and want to change him.

let's just not do it in this political context. let's kick it until after the election. listen, from where all available evidence indicates that the climate is going to get worse for republicans after the midterm elections. that's what almost everybody i talked to believes. so kicking it until after the election is a mostly political argument. and we've seen time and time again that republicans are willing to say that they will -- they shouldn't fire sessions. they should protect mueller. but they've not done anything legislatively on that. i think it's basically a political argument. let's not inject this into the campaign. we understand you're sick of the guy. you have the right to choose your advisers. just do it after the election. it's a political argument i think. >> you know, natasha, talking about the climate getting worse, yes, right now, we're talking about robert mueller. we're talking about russian investigations. we're talking about a lot of crimes that can be pardoned by the president. but peel back that onion and

you've got states that are starting to go after donald trump. and his associates. including the manhattan d.a. this week going after the trump organization, looking into whether they're going to file charges there. that actually brings up actually a more serious set of potential charges that can't be pardoned away, right? >> right. that actually creates legal exposure. additional legal exposure for trump's children in a way we haven't necessarily seen before. so, you know, ivanka, don jr., eric trump, they were all very, very involved in the trump organization, and of course we now have the new york attorney general who issued a subpoena to michael cohen to tell that investigation everything he knows about the trump investigation. now, speaking to michael cohen's lawyer, he was, you know, he was saying that michael is willing to tell the new york attorney general everything he knows about the trump foundation. and that includes everything he

knows about allen wiselburg, the treasurer. and michael cohen is going to be a key witness in the investigation against the trump foundation and of course he also knows a lot about the trump organization. so we're about to -- it's about to get ramped up i think. >> about to get very interesting. all right, natasha bettrtrend, jake sherman, thank you. "the wall street journal" editorial board is out this morning with a new op-ed entitled the forbidden "i" word. stating democrats want to hide their only agenda item for 2019, impeachment. with us now, danny o'connor. >> good morning. >> they're still awaiting official results but republican

troy bolderson extended his slim lead. they'll face each other again in november's election for the two-year term. this special election really, it was preseason, even if there'd been a winner announced immediately. in a race this close you all would have been squaring off again in november. do you talk about impeachment on the campaign trail or do you stay away from the i-word? >> no, i talk about issues that matter to working families like access to health care. like access to economic opportunity. you know, there's a choice in our election between someone who is going to do whatever he's told to do by washington, d.c. insiders which includes cutting social security and medicare, and someone like me, who wants to fight for people who work really hard every day. honestly, that issue just doesn't come up that much. it's bread and butter, kitchen table issues. >> john. >> i'm curious about the pelosi

question. you know, we had nancy pelosi yesterday. she's pushing back on people who said her leadership position was in jeopardy. she all but dared doubters about her future. and any house democrat sitting across the table at trump. she told the ap, quote, i have a following in the country that's unsurpassed by anybody unless they're running for president. she went on to say the trump and republicans are eager to see her go and she said, quote, i'm just not going to let them do that. my question for you is what do you think of where the speaker currently is and whether you can envision a world in which nancy pelosi is not the speaker of -- the potential speaker of the house? >> one thing that's consistent for me is when i'm out knocking on door, folks don't bring up insider baseball in washington, they don't bring up the leadership fight. they know washington isn't working right now and it hasn't been working for some time. we've had a consistent message

from day one about what. because, you know, when families get up early and they work really hard and they do everything right, they need to know they're going to have someone who's going to have their back and that's why i want to go to washington. when i'm out there talking to people, you know, tonight is the first friday of high school football. we'll be out at the games. i don't think anybody will bring that up to me because it's just not on the mind of the voters in my district. >> it is on the mind of some of your potential colleagues going forward, so would you support nancy pelosi for being speaker of the house should the democrats take control? >> no, i would not. you know, that's a hypothetical scenario too, but i would not vote for nancy pelosi. i've said from day one we really do need new leadership in washington, d.c. because things just aren't working now. we can't go back to where we were before. we need to look forward not just to the next few years but the next few decades of where we're going to go as a country. >> all right.

democratic ohio congressional candidate danny o'connor, thank you so much. as we go to break, george conway, george conway, who's of course the husband of white house counselor kellyanne conway tweeted a response to the president's recent call for jeff sessions -- the investigation regarding white house critics. a few minutes ago, conway posted this, quote, what everyone should want and the country needs is a president capable of comprehending what it means to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. strong words from an intellectually conservative, intellectually honest conservative, which george conway has proven himself to be. "morning joe" is coming right back.

the impact of that of course is that so many of these people are now doing deals with robert mueller, not willing to risk their personal safety for a man who would show no loyalty back to them. thanks so much for joining us this week and thank you for your patience. and stick around because chris jansing continues with the news right now. chris. >> thanks so much, joe, hi there, i'm chris jansing, in for stef new ruehl. this morning, new potential legal trouble for the trump family. the manhattan district attorney's office now considering filing criminal charges against the trump organization. >> with investigators closing in on his family, on his businesses, on his campaign, and his administration officials, it is the best thing the president can do. >> a bombshell revelation. the ceo of the company tha