nobody talks to him. >> telling the truth. >> says nobody tells him anything. good morning, welcome to "morning joe" on this wednesday september 5th along with joe, willie and me we have national affairs analyst for nbc news and msnbc analyst john heilemann and carol lee is with us. so where to begin? >> well, you may -- wa wos yoha your take away? this book -- >> the woodward book. >> i have to say, even though we knew about it for some time, pretty up close for some time, and other people have been concerned about and most of the republicans on the hill that ever dealt with him know all of this stuff. that said, woodward writing a book about it certainly makes everybody pay closer attention to it and pay more attention to it than, say, they would with the fire and fury book.

>> right. yeah. >> so what's your big take away? >> all the anecdotes certainly ring true to the man we know and the man who never evolved or stepped up when he won the presidency. so they're not surprised, but certainly -- it certainly gives flavor to it all. i think the book also reveals there are some patriots hanging in there trying hard to keep this thing together and i guess we owe them a debt of gratitude. you know? i don't know what -- sometimes you really can't imagine what you would do if you're in that position, in the position of secretary mattis, or in the position of gary cohen taking papers away to tree to prevent something from happening. they're basically trying to handle someone who is unhinged and not well, and not thinking in the best interests of our country. >> willie, was there a part for you that stuck out? >> i think to me it was secretary mattis saying we're dealing with somebody with the intelligence of a fifth or sixth grader, talking to the president

with his understand of the world. like mika says, it's not surprising. it's what we hear in private now splashed into the pages of a book. people inside the white house, in fact the people closest with president trump, who believe he is not capable of handling this job and that they are guardrails around the presidency of the united states. of course, the white house vehemently denied this book but bob woodward has talked to almost everyone who works inside of the white house. >> al also this line, this has been going on for a long time. right? mika and i had went to visit him in trump tower back in 2015, i think it was, and everybody was shocked and offended that i had given him campaign advice, and you know what my campaign advice was for him? read. i was like, do you -- >> you did say that. >> and this was in, what? maybe -- october of 2015? >> at trump tower. >> a little awkward. but i go, do you read?

do you ever read? can you read? and i wasn't being sarcastic, and he just had people around him, people around him who also said, during the middle of that campaign, that he had -- i'm sorry -- we've got to just keep saying it niying it na that he had early stages of dementia, that they had to treat him a certain way, they had to act a certain way around him . p that was not me saying early stages of dementia, this was during the campaign and how they worked around his limitations. >> it may not be new or surprising but no less disconcerting of the things said about the president of the united states by people who are his allies. people working alongside him. >> can i ask john quickly a question? >> do you want to hear what we're asking or ask him and then --

>> going to take the latter, i think. >> you know the answer to that. i'm going to start talking about baseball now. >> oh, no. please! >> i don't take these questions well. i am important from alabama and donald trump believes everybody from alabama is stupid, believes everybody from alabama talks with marbles in their mouth. he believes everybody, when the university of alabama, they're dumb and incapable of holding down a government job. the insults to alabama from donald trump, nonstop for a week, insults attacking the great state of alabama. he did it in a politico article. doing it with bob woodward now. he may hate alabama, but in the words of skynyrd, a southern man don't need him around anyhow. now that i've gotten through that, because mika thinks i'm incapable of asking you a question, because i went to the greatest university on the planet. >> this guy, the phrase he uses, mentally retarded. a dumb southerner couldn't even be a one-person country lawyer

down in alabama. >> he has hatred and contempt for my people, and, yes, my people, places that i grew up in and was raised and went to school in, in one of the great state schools in america, alabama. now, let me get to the question. >> uh-huh. >> what was your big takeaway from the book? a certain story? a certain element that struck you? >> i'd say one. after a series of books, the president, when he's on tape with woodward, oh another one of these bad books. he's had a bunch of bad books. "fire and fury" biggest selling so far. woodward's may exceed that, who knows. they all paint a consistent picture. draw a line between "fire and fury" most don't think michael wolfe has the credibility bob woodward has, but pictures in the two books are strikingly consistent, as are books like

the book by omarosa. they paint a consistent picture and knew the book was coming out. had a publication book of next tuesday. if you read anything about how his books work, the "washington post" somehow gets a copy of the book the previous week, and yet yesterday they were caught totally flat foot the and flabbergasted for hours before they mounting any kind of a critical response. to your point about the southern thing. interesting it was one of the few things he picked up on yesterday and directly tweeted about, trying to refute the notion he would ever criticize southerners because he recognizes his political vulnerability there and other things to say about the hedged nature of denials he's citing. the way mattis and kelly phrased their denial. we can go into that later but the last thing i'll say, it's a stunningly devastating picture not just of the president but of all the people around him and all of these people who went to

woodward, many who now left the administration, they're clear bread crumbs to the people like cohen and the others, all of these people come off bad like the president, enabling him. guard rails of democracy, trying to save the world. maybe mattis falls into that. a lot of other guys in a culture of enabling his worst instincts rather than push back against him. a very unflatters picture of everyone in the white house the first 18 months. >> not a way a president should work. you see consistencies with other books and reporting but also with your investigative reporting on this president. his behavior, his ability to contain himself and his temper. you've seen it. >> yeah, and the big takeaway for me was looking at this. it's hard to fathom a president of the united states, the commander in chief, giving orders, saying that he wanted certain policies to be adopted

and the people around him essentially thinking that they know better and running a sort of tag team operation where they would, one of them would warn another one about the president's moving in a certain direction and would all kind of mobilize to keep the president from doing what he wanted to do, and our reporting showed that, you know, we focused largely on the president's national security team, and starting from last summer, a deterioration of that relationship and a constant battle between his national security advisors who wanted him to take measures that they thought were far better than the ones the president was proposing, and president they felt needed to be contained on everything from afghanistan to the korean peninsula. >> looking through our own copy of the book, there's so much to work with. here's how nbc's kristen welker reported on it yesterday. >> reporter: in his explosive new book, bob woodward describes the trump presidency in the midst of a nervous breakdown, excerpts first obtained by the

"washington post" aides calling it crazytown at times paralyzed by the russia investigation and that possible interview with robert mueller. >> i've always wanted to do an interview. >> reporter: woodward describing the president's one time doern john dowd so concerned the president would commit perjury he staged a practice session. that session so rocky, he later told mr. trump, don't testify. it's that or an orange jumpsuit. the book also a remarkable portrait of aides taking extreme measures to block their boss. former economic adviser gary cohen reportedly preventing the president? withdrawing from a trade agreement with south korea by swiping a letter off his desk and after the president told defense secretary james mattis he wanted to assassinate syrian dick cater bashar al assad for a chemical attack, president mat is said on the phone he would do it but then told a senior aide we're not going to do any of that and the book describing

extraordinary insults from the president's staff writing mattis described mr. trump as having the understanding of a fifth or sixth grader and chief of staff john kelly called the president an idiot. kelling calling that b.s. and another pathetic attempt to smear people close to president trump and distract from the administration's many successes. mattis calls the accusations the product of someone's rich imagination. woodward describing a president lobbing his own insults calling jeff sessions retarded and a dumb souther. woodward didn't talk to president trump for the book saying his requests went unanswered publishing this phone call with the president last month. >> who did you ask about speaking to me? >> well, about six people. >> well, they don't tell me. >> reporter: the president responding with an interviewer with "the daily caller" saying it's just another bad book and

woodward had a lot of credibility problems. >> alleges in the white house residence on january 27, the president's then personal attorney john dowd peppered trump with questions about the russia investigation provoking stumbles, predictions and lies until the president eventually lost his cool. dowd said that, don't testify. it's either that or an orange jumpsuit. if it's decision time, you're going to go forward. i can't be with you. i think the president of the united states cannot be seen taking the fifth, trump said. no, no. i'm a good witness. i'll be a real good witness. dowd knew this was self-delusion. you are not a good witness, dowd said again. trump had one overriding problem that dowd knew but could not bring himself to say to the president, you're an, expletive, liar.

they met in office and dowd and sekulow re-enacted the practice session. >> the incredible part, willie. that dowd, who we've always seen at being, you know, an opponent of robert mueller, they sit down and they both talk about the same problem they have as americans. >> yes. >> and dowd said to mueller, i'm not going to sit there and let him look like an idiot, dowd said. the guy's overseas or going to say i told you he was an idiot, a damn dumbbell. what are you dealing with this idiot for? >> wow. >> and then mueller says, john, i understand. >> so there you have -- extraordinary. this is like one of the most extraordinary parts of the book where robert mueller, american, is talking to donald trump's attorney, also -- as an american, and both of these two,

supposed to be on opposite sides, are both saying, we can't embarrass the president of the united states and the face of the world this way because he will look too stupid and it will actually hurt american interests abroad. >> extraordinary on so many levels. first of all hearing bob mueller's voice through the book were e don't hear that often and that you have the president's own attorney not just protecting the president of the united states, president trump in this case but protecting in essenced presidency. and dowd quick shortly thereafter. clearly he didn't think donald trump was going to listen to him in the end and he wasn't the advocate, perhaps, donald trump, that he thinks he can be. remember, he thinks if i sit across from somebody i'll be able to make my case. i'm going to convince them. i'll a salesman. i can make it happen. and dowd is telling him in no uncertain terms, no, sir, you

are not. >> lawyers have an ethical obligation if they know that their client is committing perjury or is going to commit perjury, they have to report that to the court. this is, mika, obviously something that john dowd knew that he was going have to do if donald trump testified. >> in an e-mail to the "washington examiner" dowd work, there was no so-called practice session or mock interview at the special counsel's office. hmm. >> be clear on one thing. mueller there, though, is not at all seeding the notion that he doesn't want trump to come and testify. reads true how mueller would read things. i understand, meaning i understand the nature of your problem. i get it. doesn't mean i'm trying to protect the president or donald trump's presidency, but i understand the nature of your problem as a lawyer that you have here, mr. dowd. nonetheless, i still want the president to come and testify,

because -- >> what also rings true here and i've been saying it for some time, that it's been very clear, and here bob woodward confirms it 1,000 times over, that the president is surrounded by lawyers and always has been surrounded by lawyers who think he's too stupid to sit down man to man, across the table and talk to robert mueller. and you read what dowd has said, what sekulow is saying. they all say one thing to his face, rudy giuliani. you know, rudy giuliani will huff and puff. bottom line is, giuliani believes like everybody else that donald trump is too stupid, or too just mentally scattered or maybe -- just unable to keep up with robert mueller and he'll commit perjury. >> stupid is one possibility. another obviously is -- >> saying with the lawyers. not what i'm thinking. i would always be insulted that

they're thinking just because he went to st. paul's -- >> here we go. >> a fine school, by the way. st. paul's. >> not like some of the better public schools in alabama but still a decent school. >> or andover. but st. paul's is still a really good school. >> yeah, sure. >> and then you've got your princeton. he went to princeton. >> yeah. good school. >> it's almost like his lawyers are thinking a guy from queens can't keep up with robert mueller who then you said went to uva law school. >> no, they don't think. they know. >> they know. they all think he's dumb, think he's stupid, all say he's an idiot. all think he's -- i'd be really insulted if i was the president and people thought that about me. >> i know you would and god knows no one would ever think you were too dumb to go up with some andover school, because you were educated in some of the best schools.

the other thing they could think, that he's a pathological liar and that he will lie, regardless what his mental state is or intellectual capacity is, the president will commit perjury. the facts are bad, truth is bad. he will avoid the truth or doesn't know what the truth is, you suggested a second ago. not that he's dumb. in the minds of the lawyers, but that he's lost track of reality one way or the other. some of those things, some combination of those things are clearly what his lawyers think. all of this lawyers think it would be a mistake for him to sit in front of bob mueller and his team. >> that is consistent. >> we have to be clear here that it's, all the people around him that are calling him dumb and saying he's, he's like a fifth or a sixth grader in his intelligence is an intaugsult t lot of fifth and sixth graders, but there's no doubt that they think this guy is not man enough to sit across from the table

with robert mueller and does have the mental capabilities to do it. can you imagine being president of the united states. he got elected president of the united states! >> it's ridiculous. stop. >> no, what? >> can't even being host of this show and have people think that about me. >> they think that about me but i can live with t. okay, okay. >> dowd health a session to convince the president of this. pretend i'm bob mueller and we'll have a back and forth and see how those goes. after 30 minutes according to bob woodward's bob, donald trump said, ah, i don't want to dos they. >> saying his ignorant is kindness at this point. >> he's a president. you're not the president. dowd's not the president. he has to be smart. he should testify with mueller. >> yeah. okay. >> just being salty. >> we'd like to see that. carol lee, talk about john kelly who calls it crazytown and certainly in bob woodward's descriptions has his own opinions about the president

that came out, and his denials, because everyone's denying it this morning inside the white house sound a lot like the denials he gave you when you had similar reporting? >> almost identical. he said we reported john kelly referred multiple times to the president as an idiot behind his back essentially thought he was, he knew better than the president and was acting as if he had gotten elected. you know, john kelly issued a statement calling our story b.s., said that he and the president have a very candid relationship, but he's never called him an idiot, and we saw yesterday he issued almost an identical statement saying the same thing. we've also reported on secretary mattis and hi relationship with the president and how that, they've had sort of a falling out and that the president believes that mattis looks down on him. and slow walks a lot of his policies which he does. and i think that the question

now is, the president was not blind to all of this. our reporting shows he was aware what the people around him thought about him. going back to when rex tillerson called him a moron, but that was when it was private. now it's all out there in public. how the president responds, the moves he make, fires anybody, moves to further isolate the people around him who he now knows and the world knows feel this way about him, is snag i think will be really interesting to watch. because clearly a number of the national security team in particular of those folks have been blocking him from making what most foreign policy experts would tell you would be disastrous policy positions. >> sound like they're doing the 25th amendment without actually doing the 25th amendment is what it looks like to me. >> i'd fire all the attorneys. get some that respect you. know what i mean? you're president and your attorneys still think you're too stupid to talk to robert mueller

and not man enough to? >> i think he hears you. >> woodward calls it an administrative ky dcoup d'etat. i think that's how you pronounce it. >> robert mueller and donald trump coming face-to-face, and of all the exchanges yesterday on the hearingsen brett kavanaugh. this one lit up the web. i'm going to you have look at this. it makes me sad. >> willie, can you tell me why brett kavanaugh would not shake the hand of a dad who had to bury his beautiful 15-year-old daughter who got shot through the back in school? >> i think if he knew -- i don't know. >> well, he introduced himself. why would brett kavanaugh not just shake the hand? what's your problem, kavanaugh? what's your problem? >> no. i think his security people -- >> no, no. >> he turned around. he explained to him -- >> ah -- >> about who's daughter he was. kavanaugh figured it out and he

wouldn't shake the hand of a man whose daughter was gunned down by an ar-15 while she was walking down the hall in school. kavanaugh has children. willie, help me with that. >> well -- to believe that he turned his back on him, you have to believe that his heart is so cold that he would walk away from a parent. >> i think it was very loud, i don't. >> i don't know what happened exactly. he was getting up, rushed by someone he didn't know who he was, security stepped in, it's not a good moment, but whatever your political differences are, ideological differences with brett kavanaugh. it's hard for me to believe he would turn his back on someone if he knew exactly who he was. >> john, i go up to you, shake your hand and say, hi. i'm the father of, say who your daughter was who was gunned down and try to shake his hand -- why does he turn his back on him.

he knew who he was when he gla r glared at him and turned and walked away. >> fred gutenberg gave a couple interviews last night on television. it was compelling i thought in explaining the tick tock of it in a way that made it seem like kavanaugh may have been freaked out by theatrics and protests in the room, he felt he was clear saying who he was, the father, and then i'll say one other thing. gutenberg says afterwards he, gutenberg, however you pronounce his name, that he, kavanaugh then sent security out afterwards to accost the father in his chair and come up and say, hey, you know, kavanaugh's security came up. what he said on television last night. security came and gave him a hard time. >> we showed two tweets. one by a white house spokesperson saying that security pulled him away, and

then, of course, you find out from fred himself, and correct, he was introduced by senator feinstein. there was no security involved. he turned and walked away. he knew who he was. >> hmm. >> he glared at him. he turned around and walked away, and then he had his security go out and -- >> and talk to him. >> -- and chastise this man who sent a daughter to school, walking down the hall. she should be trying to figure out right now what colleges she's going to be going to. she was a wonderful, wonderful girl by all accounts. she got gunned down in school and kavanaugh is glaring at him. that's -- i'm sorry. there's really no explanation for that. and it shows a cold, callous heart. >> i think we'll hear more today. >> guess what? we've all been in positions

before. >> yes, we have. >> where we've had hundreds of people around us pushing in. >> i feel terrible, yes, we have. >> i can tell you when somebody extends their hand and identify themselves as somebody who's lost a child or who's lost -- you don't turn around and walk away and glare at them like they're the enemy. >> i hear you. we'll be right back. l be ri. making my dreams a reality

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in a two-hour window so you're up and running in no time. show me decorating shows. this is staying connected with xfinity to make moving... simple. easy. awesome. stay connected while you move with the best wifi experience and two-hour appointment windows. click, call or visit a store today. so we're talking about yesterday's hearing and got a little split here. mika, who general wuinely when public doesn't like people looking at her, doesn't like shaking people's handsants that's not true. >> she snubs people. >> you're reprehensible. she's come down on the side of the judge. >> no, i'm not. i'm saying, we don't know. it was very loud. you can show the video, but you weren't there. and i do know, i don't hear very well because wearing earpieces in this bess fusiness for 20 yen

one side of my head and if people were screaming on one side and somebody else trying to introduce somebody to me on the other and coming at me -- >> first of all. look at the video. he knows who he is. >> does he? >> unless rod rosenstein has changed jobs and is now security, the white house lied saying that was security in don mcgahn. that's a lie. and as you said, john heilemann, showing the malice in -- in snubbing and being rude to the father of 14-year-old jamie guttenberg, who was shot in the back by an ar-15 going to school. that girl would, of course, this year be getting ready to go off to college. what did they do? after -- to prove that this wasn't just -- oh i don't know

who he sand i'm juand i'm just the woods even though he introduced himself to me. >> on television on this network and cnn and one of those interviews, the father, recounted after this incident he went through -- fairly careful detail how he felt as though he don identified himself clearly before security. eventually security gets into the picture. well before that he identified himself. after recess, the session reconvened guttenberg was approached by a security detail who identified him by the wristbands he wears on his right wrist in memory of his daughter. >> memory of jamie. >> came up to him and gave him a hard time, suggesting to him, i can't remember exactly what he said, but suggesting to him kavanaugh felt in some way he's invaded kavanaugh's space and they came up and questioned him what he regarded as a hostile. 20 minutes later. >> to harang him, because he

wouldn't shake the hand of a father who lost his 14-year-old daughter in a school shooting. >> i'll say one thing about the politics of this. we were looking at this video and this is one, a lot of democrats who are resigned to the notion that kavanaugh will be on the supreme court. just as a day yesterday, if you were on the anti- -- >> look at him glaring. glaring at him. >> if you were on the anti-kavanaugh team, yesterday was a good day. not a day that's going to stop brett kavanaugh from being on the supreme court, but the fact that this picture, this debate and these images. >> he owes him an apology. forget the politics of it, willie, talk about the humanity of it. he owes him an apology. >> the following reaction john just described should have been the opposite. once he realized who he was, send somebody out, judge kavanaugh would love to speak to you privately afterward.

he was confused, felt rushed, protesters in the room all day. didn't know who you were and it was loud in the room. the first part, i see, whatever you think about judge kavanaugh, might nob like the way he sees the world but hard to believe a man a father of two girls, his heart could be so black he would walk away from a man who just lost his daughter. the follow-on, he'd love to speak to you spriprivately or sp a time to meet with you. not harass the man in the room. >> are we sure that hasn't happened? >> no. he sent security people out to harang him. >> connected to the politics, a tweet last night, i've managed supreme court nominations before. if i were in charge with the kavanaugh organization, he'd be having breakfast this morning with fred. maybe they will be having breakfast. we don't know. it's 6:30 in the morning. >> it's one thing that congress can't get the guy to do the ring

thi thing and pass reasonable background checks, here he can't even get a judge to shake his hand. he's the one who had to go to his 14-year-old daughter's funeral and go to the grave site and bury his 14-year-old daughter, and go there instead of going to her school events this year -- in what should have been a joyous year, he has to go take flowers to her grave side and brett kavanaugh can't shake the guy's hand, and then 20 minutes later, he sends his security detail out to harass him. yeah, please, please, get on your blog this morning and defend that lack of humanity, because you're pro-life. please, come at me. attack me with your stupid words, because you're pro-life. why don't you just get sucked down into this drain of this

inhumane trump world that we live in right now in politics. why don't you defend kavanaugh? okay? why don't you enable him to be hateful to other people? or perhaps you could say, hey you know what, judge? we support you. you really screwed up yesterday and owe fred an apology. are you that much of a human to do it? i doubt it. because i've read your work before. we'll be right back. how can we say when you book direct at choicehotels.com

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joining us now -- >> did you know nick was in the pocket of the gun lobby? anyway, nick compisory. >> remember when you saw mika in the airport and she just turned and glared at you and walked away? >> no, i don't. >> listen. it happens. >> oh, god. now stop, right now. we're not going to talk about this anymore. >> anyway, hi, mike. >> hi. how are you? >> good. what -- what smart things have you uncovered over the past 24

hours? >> on friday mueller responded to the president's lawyer. the latest counteroffer in the longstanding now eight-month long back and forth between the special counsel's office and the president's lawyers about an interview. negotiations that actually started under john dowd and are at the heart of some of these last chapters in woodward's new book. the biggest thing here is that the president's team took away from it sort of a positive sign that mueller will take responses to russia questions in writing. that there's no interviews scheduled for now and that the special counsel's office understands -- maybe doesn't agree with the president's lawyers about their perspective on whether there's executive privilege on the questions of obstruction, but for now all they are really asking for is the answers on russia in writing. >> so, mike, nick confessore

here. tell us, how important -- >> that was really -- >> how important -- >> really? >> god. he's in the gun lobby and -- >> oh, stop. >> anyway, mike, how important is this interview -- >> hey, listen, i just got a text from your editor. they want you back in the office right now. >> wow. at 6:30. pretty early. >> the news never stops. >> after that comment. >> back to the news of the day, mike. >> go, nick. >> let's talk about how important this interview actually is to mueller's investigation. we see now this jousting for eight months. we see the president caught between his desire to seem ready and tough and the worries that he can't handle the interview. how much does mueller need the president's answers to complete his investigation as far as what we know right now? >> at the heart of the entire thing is whether donald trump had criminal intent when he took these measures in office, like

firing comey and trying to get sessions to exert his control over the investigation. that is the central issue. what we don't know is how mueller is really looking at trump in the entire thing. the president's lawyer dowd had said earlier this year that the president was not a target, but at the same time rudy giuliani has said he will not be indicted. how is the justice department really looking at trump? because they really are looking at his conduct in the entire thing. he is really the central player in whether justice was obstructed. so are they going to give him the benefit of doubt on that issue? because they usually do not interview the targets? or say, okay. we don't need to talk to you because he essentially is in that position or do everything they can to treat him sort of like a witness and get to the bottom of what he really thought and what his real motivations were. that's a question that mueller has to make. whatever it is, if mueller doesn't does that and has to

subpoena trump for a grand jury it will set off a month's-long fight in court and that will drag this on in respect is some thought why drag it on? you probably won't get that much good stuff from the president. he probably will not give you the answers that will probably satisfy mueller. why not sort of take some things in writing and move along. >> one of the themes of the woodward book, ongoing back and forth between john dowd, the president's attorney and bob mueller. talking a good bit. dowd said to mueller on march 5th of last year i'm not going to sit there and let him, talking about the president, look like an idiot during an interview. talking how to make the interview work. a subpoena may be in order. not trying to threaten you, john dowd, considering all the possibilities in a way to get the president in this investigation. dowd, of course, quit. he left the white house. so is the trump white house still talking in such a direct way according to your reporting

with bob mueller and the president's office? >> a tension here. the president's team still does not want him to do the interview. new lawyers, giuliani at the head. the thing is, the president still wants to do it. he thinks he can go in, as you said earlier and explain himself. that is a real tension, because end of the day, if that's what he wants to do, then the lawyers ith veri either have to help him do that or quit. my sense, if he's insistent on that they will try and do something to arrange and interview. the problem is, this has gone on for a very, very long time. these are really protracted negotiations. if you're mueller at what point do you say this is a waste of time. why are we doing this? >> and carol lee, new reporting on christopher wray becoming the latest to draw the president's ire. what can you tell us? >> mika, we were doing reporting on the president and his mood lately in the past week or so.

and turns out that he hasn't gone after the fbi director publicly in the same way we've seen, say, him go after jeff sessions or rod rosenstein and we learned that he's now zeroing in on christopher wray and it's for a number of reasons. he is frustrated with the lack of documents, the battle between congressional republicans and the fbi over documents. he gets riled up watching fox news where people, commentators are going after director wray. the interesting thing about this is that this is trump's guy. he was -- he named him after he fired james comey and unlike jeff sessions, who he feels betrayed him very early on, christopher wray came in a year ago and kind of maintained a relatively low profile. we're expecting now, wondering now is, does the president then take this into a public sphere over the weekend calling a bunch of his confidants complaining about wray but yet to really go after him publicly in the way

we've seen him go after jeff sessions and rod rosenstein. >> carol lee, michael schmidt, thank you for your reporting. >> thank you, michael. next time you go through the airport, i'll make sure mika makes eye contact two seconds, shakes on hand and moves on. >> i'm not defending kavanaugh. it look eed horrible. it's one of those stories i just want to hear everybody's side of it. it sounds and looks horrible. i feel terrible about it. no. but i'm already -- >> can you just apologize to mike! >> it's not -- >> she's going to call security on him next! >> oh, my lord. michael schmidt. >> meet for breakfast. >> leave him alone. >> thank you for your great reporting. and talk about what happened on capitol hill that didn't involve brett kavanaugh and a ha handshake. kasie hunt joins us with the sound of bickering senators. "morning joe" will be right back. back

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kavanaugh was right. when you're talking about roe v. wade, it's okay to promise the nation it will never be overturned. it's okay to pick a democratic staff member of this committee, but it's not okay to pick somebody who has been a lifelong republican. people see through this. you had a chance, and you lost. if you want to pick judges, from your way of thinking, then you better win an election. >> our actually if you win an election, you better understand that we're not going to even talk to the person if his name is merrick garland and he's appointed by a democrat because we're not going to even -- not only are we not going to give you a hearing, no, we're not going to give you a hearing. we're not going to even talk to him. >> absolutely not. >> we're not going to give him the courtesy of even coming into

our offices and speaking to a learned justice because we're scared. we're scared we may like him and he may not have horns on his head, so we're just going to shut it down. >> because they might have liked him actually. >> the hypocrisy -- >> it's beyond. >> you hear grassley go -- and mike pence, i believe we should go back to a world of -- what does he say? what does he say? >> oh, come on. >> what did he say? what did pence say? >> civility. >> civility. judge kavanaugh deserves the vote of every republican and democrat. wait. i just want to know is there a ray gun from mars that shot down and zapped the memory of mike pence. >> in fact there is. >> i saw that movie when i was young. >> it was a tim burton movie.

>> you can read that. we can introduce our guests. >> well, it's kasie. >> kasie, brett is taking hypocrisy, please, join the "morning joe" tribe, and let's just talk about the nerve -- you're a reporter. hold on. i'm going to you in a second. the nerve of these people. >> the nerve of these people. well -- >> wow. >> let's talk for a second about the real rules. >> here is the actual thing that lindsey graham was talking about many to go back to one of the things about this hearing, he is talking about roe v. wade in that discussion. you had him on the sunday shows this past weekend saying, well, roe v. wade is settled law. settled law is only settled law until it becomes unsettled. now yesterday he was on the television saying we won this election. if you listen to that whole speech he gave right there it was we won the election. elections have consequences. one of the consequences will be the overturning of roe v. wade. that's what he was talking

about. i'm not interpolating. that is direct wla that speech was about. kasie will back me up. >> hypocrisy, go. >> the reality here is that there is not any single issue that is driving kind of the divisions inside the senate more than these questions around merrick garland. the anger runs so deep. democrats felt like president obama picked somebody who was middle of the road, who was acceptable. the tradition for supreme court justices in this country was that they were usually if they were considered qualified embraced by members of both parties. and senator graham also pointed out that he voted for justices kagan and sotomayor when they came up. republicans have essentially decided that getting their justices on the supreme court is so much more important than all of these other traditions and norms that they're willing to blow through all of them.

>> nick confessore, the response from democrats to senator graham's speech is, yes, we did win an election in 2012 and you put up merrick garland. you wouldn't even have a hearing with them. there are so many theatrics here. the 42,000 pages of documents dumped the night before the hearings on labor day. democrats well within their rights, hey, let's take a couple days and get through these so we can process what we've seen here. but the fact of the matter is, everyone in that room knows how he or she is going to vote before is this hearing even starts. >> look, it would save a lot of time if we could just recognize outloud what the real rules are here now. first rule is that senator mcconnell has established that you can only fill a supreme court vacancy if your party controls the senate. that's the rule now. that's the rule. >> that's the rule, yeah. >> the second rule is that the court is an extension of the parties, it is partisan and each party is trying to put people on the court who are proxies for their world view and poxsitions.

there are studies that show it's not balls and strikes. >> you're talking about on the court? >> yeah. >> they agree with each other 90, 95% of the time, don't they? 5% of the heated issues. >> on tough cases you'll see very predictable votes almost all the time. >> kasie hunt stay with us. still ahead, we'll talk to ben sass and senator hirono. >> you said nice things about ben sass yesterday. >> i always admired him. >> he said really nice things you always admired him. can you believe this, willie, his approval rating in nebraska down five points since yesterday. >> stop. come on. >> a snap poll. does mika's kind words make you more or less likely to vote for ben sass? 80% said less likely.

plus, an administration where top cabinet officials defy the commander in chief for what they believe is the good of the country. much more on the latest revelations from bob woodward's new bomb shell book. "morning joe" is coming right back. ♪ jimmy's gotten used to his whole room smelling like sweaty odors.

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happening. we had the omarosa, the unhinged, fire and fury. >> yep. >> and of course the no vvel "crazy rich caucasians" today, "the washington post" released some of bob woodward's expose of the trumped a min stri ed a mia "fear," an emotion trump feels after he sees a book. what is it? >> you keep doing your e-mail. i know we're live. i have to talk to willie about something. >> to, you don't. >> i'm in trouble. >> you know who i love, as far as late night, you know, carson, of course, was god. i still can't believe we got to watch him every night. he is the best. but then it's dave. i love dave, right? >> right. >> i'm not going to lie, unlike all of his guests on the showtime, you see the beard and it's creeping you out. what's inside of there? you want him to cut it off. right? so now colbert is growing a

beard. are they all going to be like old zeze top? what's going on with these guys? >> i don't like it. >> i don't know about that beard right now. i think he's coming out of labor day weekend, maybe didn't have a chance to shave for the tuesday show. let's give him a buffer day. >> he cannot go full letterman. >> with us, top of the hour, mike barnacle is here. >> it's bothersome. >> i love the guy. >> he's santa claus. >> dave once asked me about a year ago dave said to me, boy, you look great. what do you do to look so great? you look really good. i look right at him and i said, i shave. >> yes, yes. just do it, please. political writer for the new york times, nick confessore, elise jordan. >> can i ask elise something. >> uh-oh. >> let me ask you, are you insulted that donald trump keeps

calling southerners stupid? or is it just my friends from alabama that he keeps calling stupid? because he keeps -- i know he believes it, but he keeps calling my friends from alabama stupid. he calls -- he insults my school as a second rate school. it's a constant attack on the great state of alabama, roll tide, number one. >> joe, it's not easy for me to defend alabama, but i have to. i'm forced to out of solidarity. i'm so sick of these dumb southerner comments and attacking our accents which i think are quite beautiful. >> i wonder what all the people in the south who voted for him seriously think when they hear them? do they dismiss them because they come from the press you don't believe them. >> he holds the south in contempt. he especially holds alabama in contempt which is really strange. ram a jama, give 'em hell

alabama. >> host of "kasie d.c." on msnbc, kasie hunt. white house bureau chief at "the washington post" and political analyst for msnbc and nbc news, philip rucker and joshua johnson, the host of public radio series 1a distributed nationally by npr. good to have you on. >> mike, you've known bob woodward for a little while. what's your take away on the book? >> take it to the bank. if you edit woodard's stuff, some would say bob is plotting. that's a compliment because he is fully versed in everything he brings to the table, fully sourced out. i mean, take it to the bank. take it to the bank. >> elise, what about you? i know you're from the south. maybe the president will listen

to you any way. >> i'm kind of slow, but thank you for still respecting my opinion. according to donald trump. but i was impressed by the call, the transcript of the call that bob woodward had with donald trump, how much information just in that one call where donald trump thought that he could woo bob woodward into shelving a book and started out by praising him and slid huddenly he knew i going to be a bad book and it was over. no one on the staff thought it was a good idea to sit down with bob woodward. >> philip rucker, you are looking at the book as well. and getting a sense of not only just the emotion involved with everybody using very colorful language to describe this president's lack of -- >> that's a nice way to put it. >> -- ability to function and understand history, i'm surprised that they're actually handling him with guardrails. there's reports of stealing

papers from piles on his desk to try to avoid literally things from happening. this is not how a presidency should run. there are dangers to this type of thing happening. and yet it seems like everybody around the president is staying in there to try and save the country from him. >> that's right, mika. it's a really chilling portrait in wood ward's book. you're right. there are colorful descriptions to describe the president, idiot, moron, fifth and sixth grader and all sorts of examples of aides coming into the oval office to snatch papers from his desk to keep him from signing things such as a letter that would have destroyed the trade agreement between the united states and south korea. or another letter that would have ended nafta, pulled the u.s. out of nafta. gary kohn went into the oval office to take those papers from the desk hoping the president wouldn't notice they were missing and in fact he didn't notice they were missing. other examples, too, rash

decisions he makes on foreign policy that have huge implications. for example, there's a phone call after the 2017 chemical gas attacks in syria where he told jim mattis, the defense secretary that he wanted to assassinate assad and kill him and kill his people and mattis, said we'll get right on that. hangs up the phone and then tells a senior aide, no, no, no, we're not going to do any of that. that's ridiculous. we'll be much more measured. there are attempts by those serving the president from doing what he wants to do because they view it as so dangerous to the country. >> bob woodward released the audio last month after the book was completed in which he informed the president of his efforts through multiple aides to secure an interview with him. >> sorry we missed the opportunity to talk for the book. >> well, i just spoke with kellyanne. she asked me if i got a call. i never got a call. i never got a message.

who did you ask about speaking to me? >> well, about six people. >> well, they don't tell me. >> senator -- i talked to kellyanne about it two and a half months ago. she came for lunch. >> well, it's too bad. i'm just hearing act it. i did hear from lindsey but i'm just hearing act it. we'll have a very inaccurate book and it's too bad. i don't blame you entirely. accurate is that nobody has ever done a better job than i'm doing as president. >> oh, okay. so willie, can i ask you, which lie was less convincing, his lie to omarosa that he didn't know she was fired. >> and escorted out. >> and escorted out. or his lie to bob woodward that he had no idea that the book was being written. >> they're both pretty bad, but this one woodward describes two and a half hour lunch he had with kellyane conway where he

put in the request. she gets on the phone, gets on the phone and then trump holds her the phone and handle this and talks bob down a little bit. yeah, your request was denied never made it to the president's desk. that are among the things in this book, that's trivial. when you have people like jim mattis and other high-ranking people quoted as saying this president is erratic, saying that he has the understanding and the intelligence of a fifth or sixth grader, it's things we've heard privately from people around the president, but to see them put together and splashed into a book is pretty extraordinary. >> kasie, everybody in the white house -- we've said this for a long time, knows this, of course, people in the white house act shocked, shocked, shocked that we would have suggested such a thing for a year and a half. let's take it a step further. everybody on capitol hill knows this. that's the maddening thing. you talk to republicans, only 50 republican senators, by the way, right now. one or two could make a huge

difference. you talk to republican senators off the record, they all say the same thing off the record that we're reading in bob woodward's book. so the question is why don't one or two of them say this guy is just not fit? >> one or two of them have basically said that. bob corker called it an adult day care, but bob corker also decided he wasn't going to run and then was worried about being able to win his primary in tn tp. jeff flake said i can't win a republican primary if i attack the president of the united states. and that's the thing. it's like at what point do the american people read what bob woodward has laid out and say, no, no, no, actually like we might be entertained by this guy, we might be angry at the system and want to blow it all up, but this is just too much for us to bear. until that happens, i don't think you'll see republicans change. you hear a little bit of details he gets into with jim mattis where mattis is trying to manage

these impulses and gary taking the papers off the desk. that's what people like paul ryan are talking about when they say you have no idea how many crises i have averted by having private conversations with the president. you have no idea. and obviously we rake them across the coals any way and have gotten a lot of criticism for not doing enough, but clearly, clearly there is more going on than any of us understand and while i'm completely unsurprised by this portrait, it's also, as phil said, pretty chilling. >> so, nick, it just seems to me that republicans who may have some conflicts with voters in their districts or in their home states versus their opinions of this president that at some point you see where this is going to end. history will catch up with this president. and isn't there a way to cut through and speak the truth to the base in a way where you can prevail and not necessarily support a liar?

>> forget the base. the base is lost. the base is baked. they are donald trump's base. forget them. the question is, is there a broader part of the country that will read this and really come to grips with the danger it presents. >> right. >> we could almost laugh about it. it sounds like a christopher guest documentary on that tape. you couldn't script it any worse than that. >> yeah. >> but on the other hand, it also makes me think about the criticism we've heard of current people in the white house current cabinet secretaries for staying. and now i think we have a better understanding of what might cause people to stay in this white house, to stay in their posts, to think of some real crises that may have been averted by people essentially doing -- and this is ironic -- a soft coup within the white house. forget the deep state, it's his own staff and secretaries exercising the 25th amendment. >> i understand that they're trying to do what's best.

>> but something i found interesting is that -- >> he's not fit. >> you look at national security and you see there are these stories of mattis intervening and economic and trade policy you have gary kohn. who is doing that with domestic policy? who is doing that with the child separation? who was doing that with puerto rico? no one seemed to be intervening in those areas where it was so desperate. >> there was some sort of setup belief or narrative that that was supposed to be ivanka. >> right. we haven't seen that unfortunately. joshua, if the president already thought because of the special counsel investigation that the walls were closing in around them, can you imagine where his state of mind is this morning as he thinks now that the person perhaps in the next room or the next office is off talking to bob woodward and really denigrating him, insulting his intelligence, some calling him ignorant, erratic, has an inability to learn and some calling him dangerous. these are the people that work alongside him. what do you think is happening

in the white house this morning? >> well, that's a good question, far be it for me to try to guess the state of mind anyone let alone the president. you're right. we know the president as his time of ceo really valued loyalty. this is a very different kind of workplace. the white house doesn't belong to him. he is literally a government worker living in public housing, and the constraints of that are tough to deal with for someone who is simply used to being in the private sector. i do think, though, that this is kind of in some ways the epott owe sis of something that's been happening for a while. we knew that donald trump was an outsider to government. had no government experience but this one job. so adapting to what that's been like, to be the person who is in charge but who does not have total control has been tough for him. i think it's more important what this book will mean politically beyond today. i mean, i think mr. confessorry is right, the base is baked in. it is true that by and large the president didn't win the popular vote, doesn't poll above 50%, so

it's a matter of who will read this book and have the book matter to them enough to vote differently this november or in 2020, but in terms of the president being shaken by the lack of loyalty or people talking about him behind his back, that's been going on for some time. and that regard i don't think this book really breaks new ground. it clarifies what we've known about what's going on in the white house, what's more interesting to me is what this will mean. whether people will read this book and act or whether they will read this book and go, yeah, we know. >> exactly. exactly. >> joshua, it's great having you on. this is the first time you're here. >> welcome. >> we can't invite you back if you refer to nick as mr. confessorry. >> way too respectful. >> too much respect. >> i appreciate it. >> i'm sorry. that's just the way i was raised. i'm real sorry. >> just call nick -- >> joe calls me jackass.

>> call him what his mother calls him, the freak. so mike, i spent a lot of time with dr. brzezinski. we talked about a lot of things. and he was always, always very straight forward, whatever the topic was, always just extraordinary honor to be able to talk to him behind closed doors. and we shared so much, but you know, he never once, never once said anything but great things about jimmy carter behind closed doors. he wouldn't even entertain a question that called in to question anything that jimmy carter did. the loyalty was extraordinary. when he passed away, i actually thought of all the accolades that he received. his loyalty i thought was an incredible trait. all these years later when it

would have served him well to sort of nod and wink, wouldn't do it. bush 41, his staff members still, you know. ronald reagan, 40 years later, 45 years after he got elected or 40, maybe 35 years after he got elected. still, nothing but loyalty. talk to peggy, on and off the record, talk to craig shirley on and off the record. talk to people who knew and loved reagan, they still do. they're still loyal to him. barack obama, i feel bad when i'm talking to some of barack obama's staff members because i was so hard on him on so many issues. kind of like, eh. because they're so loyal to him. >> george w. bush. >> george w. bush. they tear up, still tear up, when they talked about george w. bush behind closed doors. and yet donald trump has more to worry about than the disloyalty

shown by staffers to bob woodward. think about the loyalty to country they have shown in talking to robert mueller. loyalty goes both ways. that's what people getting into politics need to understand in this age of trump. they think you -- no, you don't act like trump. that's always a bad ending. but think about the contrast between past presidents and this president when it comes to loyalty. >> joe, you know this and sadly a lot of people know this, they don't speak to it everyday, but they know it and it is this -- that if you're looking for an anecdote or looking for the flavor of what is happening in the white house, how truly dangerous it is, you talk to any member of the white house staff, they will give up the president. and i assume, from what you hear anecdotally, that the people who is most critical of the white

house staff, is mr. trump himself. he will talk badly about the white house staff to almost anyone. phil rucker, i don't know what will entail for the members of the white house staff, but given the denials of bob woodward's quotes in the book from general kelly and general mattis, i don't know what that does to the mix of staff work today. are there going to be staff members today who say, oh boy, this is -- we're going to be okay now. these two generals stood up. will they say they had to do that? >> i think the latter definitely. the staff were a bit paralyzed yesterday to try to figure out how to deal with this book. i don't know if the white house has its hands on a copy of the book yet. they didn't as of yesterday afternoon. it took several hours to get that denial from sarah sanders, but they're not litigating very many specific details in the reporting, and there's a feeling inside that the president is really upset about this, verging

on paranoia, he's very bothered by what's been said about him to woodward. you have to be a smart person to look at these statements and think, well, yeah, the president probably asked mattis and kelly to issue those denials. but other people quoted in the book have not issued such denials and the denial from kelly, for example, doesn't address all the other instances where he's in the book or other things that he's quoted as saying or thinking about the president including saying that working at the white house is like being at crazy town. he doesn't deny that. clearly we know that these staffers talk poorly about the president behind his back. that's been true for some time, but it is so startling to see it all in one narrative tied together with that power. >> and joshua, again, looking at sort of what many people would think would be a warped view of the presidency and whether you're working for donald trump or the president of the united states and the country, there's the moment when gary cone went

into resign after charlottesville and donald trump called him a traitor. you traitor. again, fascinating moment that, again, gary is doing this because of his belief that donald trump gave aid and comfort to neo-nazis and it was unworkable after that and donald trump's only response was tratder. >> yeah. it's worth remembering that we do not owe the president or any government official our loyalty. they're elected. they owe us their loyalty. that's the way the system is designed. i think about the revelations in bob woodward's reveal are the disconnect between donald trump's understanding of how federal government works and his practical working of it. then again this is still the person who his base elected.

remember, part of the appeal of donald trump to his base is that he was an outsider. that he did not know the system. that he did not operate the way that washington typically operates because the washington that his base is used to has left them behind, at least in their mind in terms of all of the large that america has received over the years. it's an interesting study in getting what you pay for. that's why i am again interested in what this will mean, if anything, to people who read the book, support the reporting, believe in bob woodward's unimpeachability and whether that makes for a tangible change in the electric in 2018 and 2020. we already know that people are either concerned or upset even within his base about donald trump's actions, but concern is one thing. votes have power. and if the book doesn't motivate voters to do something different, that says something else about america that might be more troubling, might be more concerning, but we just have to

wait and see. >> go ahead. >> can i just say really quickly that's the difference between a presidential election where you have donald trump versus hillary clinton, donald trump versus elizabeth warren, donald trump versus bernie sanders. >> clear lines. >> clear lines. and an off-year election. do i really want to get up and go out and vote for a guy who i just don't like, a guy i wouldn't invite to my house. >> right. >> a guy who wears me out. do i really want to do that and have to vote for some rotarian who i don't believe in who is running against a tough woman who wants to do this, that and the other. it's not a linear choice. it's not a binary choice in off year elections. that's why a lot of people say home and why books like this would have more of impact in off year elections than in presidential elections. >> and i think there may be a section of people who say i

support him, trump, but i want to check on him. i'm voting for that. kasie hunt the other political angle here is democrats, do they see the bob woodward revelations as an opportunity? and also, how this all impacts the way they handle the kavanaugh hearings? >> sure. look, i think to a certain extent that's little bit of a sense of relief among both republicans and democrats that actually these people who are working for the president get that we are all living in crazy town despite what they may say in public that there are some potential checks. i think that the big question may be what happens when you're talking about, joe, you mentioned donald trump versus elizabeth warren. he may face -- it's likely he will face a primary of some sort when we get to 2020. a lot of these people will have to make a decision. is there going to be anybody that will stand by this

president? i think a lot does hinge on the outcome of the midterm elections because if it does become clear that there is a widespread broad based backlash against this group of people that are representing donald trump's base and will be with him to the end, maybe you will see republicans start to turn the tide and maybe you'll see more people joining the democratic party. steve schmidt, joe, can't live in this republican party anymore. >> huh, that would be fantastic. thank you, kasie, by the way. >> i'm independent, by the way. >> come on, go big or go home. bob woodward will be -- >> marxist? >> it's a good idea, kasie. >> bob woodward will be our guest here next wednesday on "morning joe." still ahead on "morning joe," two of the senators questioning brett kavanaugh will talk to republican ben sasse. but first democrat mazie hirono

joins the conversation. you're watching "morning joe." we will be right back. "mning jo" we will be right back. whoa. this looks worse than i thought.

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in many cultures, young men would stay with their families until their 40's. forward, mr. chairman. >> i extend a very -- >> what is the rush? what are we trying to hide by not having the documents out front? >> democrats tried repeatedly yesterday to postpone brett kavanaugh's confirmation hearing. opening statements were delayed by more than an hour by those attempts and protesters inside the hearing room. joining us now a member of the

judiciary committee, democratic senator mazie hirono of hawaii. thank you for being with us this morning, senator. >> good morning. >> describe what was an orchestrated strategy at the top of the hearing by democrats. >> it was really important for us to point out that there are massive numbers of documents that we have not even received, and this is not normal to not have those disclosed to us. so, yes, there was a -- some moments where we pointsed that out. this hearing is very much about how important this nomination is and this person to be on the supreme court, who will be making so many decisions, fifth vote, on so many issues that will impact all of our lives. choice for women, gun control, presidential powers. so, this is really an important hearing for all of us. >> despite your protests, senator, the hearings march on. they'll open their second day in just a couple hours as you know. >> yes. >> do you view this nominee

illegitimate because of the way the proceedings have been carried out? >> i don't think it gets us very far to talk about ill legitimacy because as far as i was concerned, president obama's nomination of merrick garland, that should have gone through. but we are where we are. and i personally and i know that my colleagues are going to do our very best to point out the patterns of the decisions that judge kavanaugh has already written and the fact that he is someone who is very much against women's right to choose. he is very pro the nra. they are already spending millions to identify him as the fifth vote on the supreme court necessary to protect their interests. and right now very important to the president that he is the one person who wrote about protecting the president, a sitting president, from any kind of criminal or civil proceedings while he's there. and i think that was the telling

reason that president trump nominated him. >> so as you know well, senator, republicans all vote for judge kavanaugh, they have the votes to confirm him. what resource -- >> yes. >> do you have and do you believe there's any way to stop this nomination at this point? >> we're certainly going to do our best. maybe people like susan collins who really cares about choice. to me it does not matter that judge kavanaugh reassured her he would not be overturning roe v. wade. that is not how all of the limitations that will limit a woman's right to choose will come about. there are states that have been passing hundreds of laws. so i hope that susan collins will rethink her position. but in the meantime, just as the federalist society and the heritage foundation have spent decades putting these very ultraconservative id logically driven judges into the pipeline, we need to stay the course to have judges who truly can be independent and fair. >> nick? >> senator, big fight obviously over these documents that came

late on the morning of the hearing and a fight in general over access to his record. i want to ask you, is there any conceivable thing that you could learn in the unreleased documents that would cause you to vote for judge kavanaugh? >> i said at the very beginning that he would have to convince me to be the fair-minded justice i would want. that's a pretty high bar for judge kavanaugh because i have reviewed his decisions over the last month or so. and so it's a pretty high bar. on the other hand, i think we are entitled to these documents. what do they have to hide? that is our question. what do they have to hide? and in fact, i asked judge kavanaugh that yesterday. i said, don't you think you owe it to the american people to disclose your documents? >> and so, senator, i've always believed that a president who gets elected has the right to

nominate to the supreme court and have appointed to the supreme court the judge of their choice, that elections do have consequences and in this area unless the nominee so so deeply flawed that the senate should, in fact, go along with the president's choice. that obviously changed through the years. and most dramatically with merrick garland. can americans ever look forward to the time again where republicans and democrats alike can work together to approve a nominee who clearly has the judicial temperament, judicial knowledge to sit on the supreme court? >> or at least a fair process. >> there is always that hope. i hope that that happens, but right now the supreme court has become very politicized and the roberts' court is very much in line with corporate interests

over individual rights. so there are these patterns that are definitely there in the roberts' court and certainly patterns to judge kavanaugh and his decisions. >> wow. senator mazie hirono, thank you very much. >> thank you. next hour, we'll speak with another member of the judiciary committee, republican senator ben sasse. >> the numbers continue coming in this morning since mika said -- you heard -- >> i admire him. it's not the end of the world. >> she tweeted last night, down five overall. >> right off a cliff. >> you're being ridiculous. >> the republican numbers have collapsed. this morning he's putting together his resignation to speak. he'll deliver it here on "morning joe" because mika keeps saying nice thing. >> you're terrible. still ahead, brett kavanaugh isn't the only one -- >> no, i would say i love ben sasse, too, because ben sasse is awesome. he's awesome. but they would literally come into his officer and put a bag over his head and handcuff him and drag him out if both of us

came out publicly and talked about how much we admired ben sasse. >> we always have, both of us. >> i know we have. having some problems. brett kavanaugh isn't the only one facing questions on capitol hill today. twitter ceo jack dorsey will be dri grilled about what his company is doing about meddling -- >> i don't get this guy. >> that's a good way to put it. i don't know if that's bad or good. >> he likes -- he wants to defend. >> alex jones. >> i mean, come on. no names. there's some people you don't give a platform to. you just don't do it. >> facebook gives him a platform but then -- >> no platform. >> you're our teenage whiz kid with the tech thing. did you see the candidate out in california, i think it's elizabeth hang who -- >> this is fascinating story. >> extraordinary, a republican -- >> we have to do this. we have to book her. >> her parents survived -- she

showed pictures of atrocity in cambodia and facebook banned the ad or something bizarre. >> it's the basic problem these platforms v they want to regulate the content in the easiest way possible to out mau mate it. you have to have a human being realize it's context yule. to do that you have to spend tense of millions of dollars. >> they're struggling. >> it would reck the business model if they have to do it by hand. that's a central dilemma these companies have. >> alex, i just sent you this candidate and this video and we should book her and do this story. >> i don't know how she's doing. elizabeth hang. >> h-a-n-g. >> i've heard a little bit about it. >> i'm going to show you the video right now and tell you what this is about.

congressman adam kinzinger will give us a preview of the hearing next on "morning joe." he's standing by. hope he doesn't walk away. we'll be right back. >> don't go away. ight back. >> don't go away first word you think of when you see some of the lowest options fees in the market and no platform fees? is it happy? good. then it's time for power e*trade. the platform, price and service that gives you the edge you need. e*trade. the original place to invest online. hey allergy muddlers: are you one sneeze away from being voted out of the carpool? try zyrtec® zyrtec® starts working hard at hour one and works twice as hard when you take it again the next day.

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twitter ceo jack dorsey is scheduled to testify before the house committee on energy and commerce this afternoon. joining us now is a member of the committee republican senator adam kinzinger. >> adam, you, colbert, are you guys both going to grow -- >> you, too? >> are you going to have the letterman beard? >> you need to shave. >> i looked like i don't have enough gray hair on my head, i might grow some out of my face, too. may as well. >> you could just brush your hair. >> shave. >> no, i like that look. hey, man. >> spikey hair like i just rolled out of bed actually i fixed it up look. >> so obviously some problems with twitter. i was just talking about a california candidate on facebook who had her ad yanked because she showed accurate pictures of what happened in cambodia.

>> historical footage. >> what are you going to ask jack dorsey this morning? >> so, first off, elizabeth is awesome. i know her. she used to work on the committee i'm on on foreign affairs. that is unfortunate that that her ad was taken down where she's like, look, my family came from cambodia. you heard of killing fields? here is the big battle with what we're dealing with the twitter, facebook issue and your guest prior to going to break said it which is you have to have like 20,000 people that are going to go through all this content if you're going to have every issue basically decided with a human. the reality is there's millions and millions of facebook posts or twitter tweets that go out every basically minute. and so you have to automate that. that's where the issue is. one of the things i'll be most interested in this, you'll have people that probably ask questions way out there on both sides here. what i'm interested is how in

the future do we prevent things like russian interference and russian influence in our election? how do we get to a point where we know that people can have free speech but at the same time we're not giving a platform for intelligence agencies like vladimir putin's guys to come in here and influence and divide our country. it will be a tough thing. we'll deal with this for years and lit constantly change. that's what we need to get to the bottom of this. >> i wish we had someone who really looked into this. go ahead. >> past years we've seen these niche issues take over, diamond and silk is my favorite one. this is the senate intel committee. i wonder if -- i'm sorry, i'm just curious if in today's hearings we're going to see more focus on certain issues, i believe dorsy is speaking at a different committee. are we going to see more focus on the russia issues or is this grab bag of law headache makers

shots. >> the first thing we'll see when sheryl sandberg and dorsy go up, russia issues. after that, we'll probably see twitter ask questions about and dorsy ask questions about the bias on this platform. of course they're going to point to specific incidents. this is what gets the public excited. this is what people get upset over and the specific incidents give the most graf tas to the moment and that's what the hearings are about. >> these decisions about what's appropriate content on their sites. where do you think that line should be and who makes that decision? >> i'm uncomfortable with the government, whether it's with people when they talk about it with radio and the fairness doctrine and all these other issues with government coming in and determining what opinion should be on what station, what channel, what time. so i think as a private company, look, they have a right to do certain things. now, however, once you become as big as twitter or once you become as big as facebook, i

believe there's a broader obligation that you at least have to be accountable to. and so while jack was -- i respect the fact that he admitted that most of his people are left leaning, what we want to know is do you have algorithms whether you're support left leaning over right leaning? i don't know if that's the case. conservatives only tweet and read people that are conservative and vice versa for liberals and really there's no inner meshing of folks. there's a lot we have to learn. some people will show boat on both sides of the aisle i'm sure. this is a real opportunity to get some answers and begin a much longer discussion that we have to have, i think. >> congressman, you have a new op ed out that says the worst is yet to come in syria. what is the strategy? what needs to be the strategy going forward? what are you advocating right now? >> well, there's been no strategy since this whole thing started. i remember being in israel in 2011 and our guides like, hey, yeah, there's a little fight over here in syria.

it may turn into a civil war. well, here we are. this is the going to be the shame of our generation, half a million dead syrians, 50,000 of which are children. so i think right now the only answer is really a negotiated solution, but that's going to come from the united states and from our allies. i think taking a strong position that says, idlib, this last holdout of free syrian rebels can not be a massacre. i would like to see a no fly zone and so much stronger action at that level. realistical realistically, if we can come to a negotiated solution where maybe syria looks different in the final outcome, but russia slornt a place in syria nor iran and the people should decide the future of the country. >> one of the big criticisms after mark zuckerberg's appearance before congress is that it looked like a lot of people questioning who just discovered the internet that morning. >> yes. >> there are people, though, in this committee like congress manikin sinker and he has the

stubble to prove it and much younger and in touch with what's happening online. you talked to congressional aides of people who will question jack dorsey. what should we expect here? >> the very fact they called me is they're aware that was a problem last time and looking for more information. two big questions they had mainly is there any competition out there? that's why they were ringing us and asked us, any other social media options for people if they want to go somewhere else? and the second was, really around just understanding how these business models work. why do people stay on them? why don't people leave? has there been a lot of learning between now and then, not really. it looks like they're making the effort. >> congressman adam kinzinger, thank you very much. ian meyers, thank you as well. still ahead, senator ben sasse breaks with the president on trade. we'll ask the nebraska republican about that and much more just ahead on "morning joe." ing joe.

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the way. ours was truly a people power, grassroots campaign. launched just 195 days ago that dared to do what massachusetts democrats aren't supposed to do. >> progressive democrats clinched another victory. presley upset kapuano last night. capuano who had never faced a serious challenge since being elected in 1998 with big leagues but presley carried john f. kennedy's old congressional district to lead capuano to

concede the race. with no republican on the november ballot in the race, presley will likely become the first african-american woman to represent massachusetts in congress. john heilemann what's happening here? >> it's a single event. you're seeing a couple of different things happen. one the democratic party -- the face of the democratic party is largely driven by women, nonwhite voters. starting to see that demographic change and the party being reflected in its representative which is not largely a white male party. in this particular state two candidates with not a stark ideological difference. we're seeing a shift and abrupt rounding of the democratic party. it's happening across the country and the party will look

a lot more like its base than the republican party, which is how a lot of those representatives have looked for generations. >> she beat him by 18 points, a ten term congressman. and he's no moderate eritrea. going back to his vote against the iraq war 15 years ago, 16 years ago, this guy has been left. he's represented his district and she found some room left of him to win the election. >> i'm not sure it's really about liberal versus less liberal or more liberal. it's generational representation. there's a growing number of people in these districts who just want to be seen in their office holders. it's not really a clash of ideologies. sometimes partly is. this is really a demand by women, people of color and young voters to take their place in the ranks of leadership. it's not personal with some of these guys being beaten. >> all right. still ahead we'll dig into reporting that bob mueller will

accept some written answers from the president in the russian probe. plus the president is complaining about libel laws this morning. after the fallout from bob woodward's new book. in 2013 on trump tweeted only the obama white house can get away with attacking bob woodward. and we'll talk about president's attacks on jeff sessions southern roots. >> i'm a simple country lawyer. i do know this, chuck todd, i love this country. i'm just a dumb country lawyer. maybe i'm just dumb country lawyer. i'm but a simple country lawyer. dumb country lawyer. mika can do this. >> where did you go to school? >> i went to university of alabama. t to university of alabama. you're turning onto the street when you barely clip a passing car.

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talk for the book. >> well, i just spoke with kellyann and she asked me if i got a call. who did you ask about speaking to me? >> about six people, you know. >> you don't tell me. >> that's a well oiled machine. nobody talks to him. just nobody tells him anything. >> oh, my gosh. >> good morning. welcome to "morning joe" on this wednesday, september 5th along with joe, willie and me. we have national affairs analyst for nbc news and msnbc, john heilemann. >> hello. >> national political reporter for nbc news, carol lee is with us. so where to begin. >> well, what was your takeaway? this book -- >> the woodward book? >> i have to say, even though we knew about it, pretty up close for a long time. >> yeah. >> and other people have been concerned about it, and i think

most of the republicans on the hill dealt with this know all this stuff. that said, woodward writing a book about it makes it, certainly makes everybody pay closer attention to it and pay more attention to it than say they would with the fire and fury books. what's your takeaway? >> the anecdotes ring true the man we know or the man who didn't evolve or step up when he won the presidency. not surprisingly. certainly gives flavor to it all. i think the book also reveals there's some patriots who are hanging in there trying very hard to keep this thing together. i guess we owe them a debt of gratitude. i don't know what -- times you can't imagine what you would do if you were in that position, in the position of secretary mattis or gary cohn taking papers away to try to prevent something happening. they are trying to handle someone who is unhinged, and not

well, and not thinking in the best interest of our country. >> willie, was there a part for you that stuck out? >> i think for me secretary mattis saying we're dealing with somebody with the intelligence of a fifth or sixth grader, talking about the president. but this isn't terribly surprising to a lot of us. it's what we hear in private now splashed into the pages of a book. that there are people inside the white house, in fact the people closest with president trump, who believe he's not capable of handling this job and that they are just guardrails around the presidency of the united states. of course, the white house has come out and denied every word of this. bob woodward has talked to almost everyone who works inside the white house. >> also, along that line, this has been going on for a long time. you know, mika and i went to visit him in trump tower back in 2015, i think it was, and

everybody was shocked and offended that i had given him campaign advice and you know what my campaign advice was for him? read. i said do you -- this was in like maybe october of 2015. it was a little awkward. do you read? do you ever read? can you read? and i wasn't being sarcastic. and he just said people around him -- people around him who also said during the middle of that campaign that he had -- i'm sorry, we got to keep saying it -- he had early stages of dementia, that they had to treat him a certain way -- >> be kind to him. >> they had to act a certain way around him. it's not me saying he had early stages of dementia. this is what they were saying during the campaign. talking about how they had to work around all of his limitations. >> well it may not be new or

surprising but it's no less disconcerting. what he said about the president of the united states by people who are his allies, people working alongside him. >> can i ask john a question. >> do you want to hear what you're asking or back into it? >> john, i read -- >> i'll take the latter. >> you know the answer. i'm going to start talking about baseball now. i am, in part, from alabama and donald trump believes that everybody from alabama is stupid, he believes everybody from alabama talks with marbles in their mouth. he believes everybody who went to the university of alabama is dumb and incapable of holding down a job. the insults on alabama from donald trump has been nonstop for a week, insults attacking the great state of alabama. he did it in a politico article. he's doing it with bob woodward. he may hate alabama, but a southern man doesn't need him

around. now that i got through that because mika thinks i'm incapable of asking you a question because i went to the greatest university on the planet -- >> this guy, i believe the phrase he uses is mentally retarded. >> that's horrible. >> this dumb southerner he couldn't be a one person country lawyer down in alabama. >> he has hatred and contempt for my people, and, yes, my people, places that i grew up in. and was raised and i went to school in and one of the great state schools in america, alabama. now, let me get to the question. what was your big takeaway from the book? there was a certain story, a certain element that struck you? >> i would say one, after a series of books, he says oh, it's going to be another one of these bad books. he's had a bunch of bad books.

but they all paint a consistent picture. you draw a through line from "fire and fury," most people don't think michael wolf has the credibility that bob woodward has, but the pick yours in the two books are strikingly consistent as are books like the book by omarosa. all these books paint a consistent picture. second thing is they knew this book was coming out. it had a publication date of next tuesday. if you read anything about how bob woodward's books work "the washington post" gets a copy of the book the previous week. yesterday they were caught flap foot and flabbergasted for hours before they mounted any kind of critical response. to your point, one of the few things he picked up yesterday and directly tweeted about was trying to refute the notion that he would ever criticize southerners. he recognizes his political vulnerability there.

the way kelly and mattis phrase his denial. the last thing i'll say is just a stunningly devastating picture not just of the president, but of all the people around him. and all these people who went to woodward, many of whom who have left the administration, clear breadcrumbs like gary cohn and rex tillerson, all these people come off as badly as the president knew and in the way they enabled him. some acting like guardrails of democracy, trying to save the world. maybe jim mattis falls in that category. a bunch of these other guys looked like they were in a culture of enabling the president rather than pushing against him. a very unflattering picture of everybody in the white house. >> not how a presidency should function. carol lee you see consistencies with other books and other reporting but also with your investigating reporting on this

president. his behavior. his ability to contain himself and his temper. you've seen. it the big takeaway for me was it's hard to fathom a president of the united states, the commander-in-chief giving orders saying that he wanted certain policies to be adopted and the people around him essentially thinking that they know better and running a sort of tag team operation where they would, one of them would warn another one about the president moving in a certain direction and they would all mobilize to keep the president from doing what he wanted to do and our reporting showed that, you know, we focused largely on the president's national security team and starting from last summer there was that deterioration of that relationship and a constant battle between his national security advisors who wanted him to take measures they thought were far better than what the president was proposing and a president who they felt needed to be contained on everything from afghanistan to the korean peninsula. >> well looking through our own

copy of the book, there's so much to work with. here's how nbc's kristen welker reported on it yesterday. >> reporter: in his explosive new book bob woodward describes the trump presidency in the midst of a nervous breakdown, excerpts first obtained by the "the washington post" quote aides calling it crazy town, at times paralyzed by the russia investigation. and that possible interview with robert mueller. >> i've always wanted to do an interview. >> reporter: woodward describing the president's one time lady attorney so convinced the president would commit perjury he staged a practice session. he then said don't testify. it's either that or an orange jump suit. it's a portrait of aides taking extreme measure to block their boss. gary cohn getting the president not to withdraw from a trade agreement with south korea.

and james mattis was told by the president that he wanted to assassinate bashar al assad. he told the president he would do it. but then told a senior aide we won't do any of that. the book describing extraordinary insult from the president's staff. woodward writing mattis has described mr. trump has having the understanding of a fifth or sixth grader and john kelly has called the president an idiot an account first reported by nbc news. kelly calling that accusation b.s. and another attempt to smear people close to president trump and distract from the administration's many successes. mattis calling the occasions the product of someone's rich imagination. woodward describing the president lobbing his own insults. calling jeff sessions a traitor, mentally retard and a dumb southerner. woodward didn't talk to president trump about the book saying his requests went

unanswered. >> who did you ask about speaking to me? >> about six people. >> don't tell me. >> reporter: the president responding in an interview with the daily caller saying it's just another bad book and woodward had a lot of credibility problems. >> the president's personal attorney peppered donald trump about the russian investigation provoking contradictions and lies until the president lost his cool. he said don't testify. it's either that or an orange jump suit. if it's decision time you go forward i can't be with you. the president of the united states can't be seen taking the fifth. no, i'll be a good witness. he knew this was self-delusion. you are not a good witness dowd

said again. trump had one overriding problem that dowd knew but couldn't say to the president, you're an [ expletive ] liar. they met in the president's office with special counsel and his deputy where dowd and sekulow re-enacted the president's january practice session. >> this is the incredible part that dowd who is an opponent of robert mueller, they sit down and both talk about the same problem they have as americans. and dowd said to mueller, i'm not going to sit there and let him look like an idiot, dowd said. the guys overseas will say i told you he was an idiot. i told you he was a damn dumbbell. what your dealing with this idiot for? then mueller says, john, i understand. so there you have it.

it's extraordinary. this is like one of the most extraordinary parts of the book where robert mueller, american, is talk to donald trump's attorn attorn attorney, also as an american and both of these two who are supposed to be on opposite sides are both saying we can't embarrass the president of the united states and the face of the world in this way because he'll look too stupid and hurt american interests abroad. >> it's extraordinary on so many levels. first of all we're hearing bob mueller's voice through bob woodward's book. and the president's own attorney not just protecting this president, president trump but protecting effectively the presidency and protecting effectively the country from embarrassment by having the president testify in this way. remember, dowd did quit shortly thereafter. so clearly he didn't think that donald trump was going to listen him to in the end and he wasn't

the advocate, perhaps donald trump that he thinks key be. remember he thinks if i sit across somebody i can make my case, i'll convince them, i'm a salesman, i can make this happen. dowd is telling him in no uncertain terms no, sir, you're not. >> another angle involving the donald trump legal team. there's new reporting on whether the special counsel is giving the president's attorneys a little breathing room. that's next. but first, here's bill karins -- >> you get in an elevator with him, he pushes -- >> stop. bill karins is adorable. >> tell us about the weather down south where donald trump blaefs everybody is stupid. >> everybody is worried about gordon. they are worried about what happened last night. dolphin island took it on the chin. power went out. had a storm surge.

winds were about 60 mile-per-hour. by their standards not a huge storm but still had their attention. now it's in the middle of mississippi. still have problems from mobile to pensacola. flash flood warnings continue for pensacola and pensacola beach and up towards jackson. gordon has weakened down a tropical depression. heavy rain threat will continue for the next day or two. we've had a ton of water out of arkansas. the heat won't end in areas of the northeast. 30 million people under heat advisories from detroit, philadelphia included. relief will come behind this cold front but that doesn't come until friday so today it will feel like a steam bath, almost like the middle of summer. 100 in d.c., 102 in philadelphia. so just as hot as it's been yesterday and just as hot as

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>> welcome back to "morning joe". joining us the now political writer for the "new york times" and msnbc political analyst nick confessore and michael schmidt. >> what smart things have you uncovered over the past 24 hours? >> on friday, mueller responded to the president's lawyer, the latest counter offer in the long standing now eight month long back and forth between the special counsel's office and the president's lawyers. negotiations started under john

dowd and at the heart of some of these last chapters in woodward's new book. the biggest thing here is that the president's team took away from it sort of a positive sign that mueller will take responses to russia questions in writing. and that there's no interview scheduled for now and that the special counsel's office understands -- maybe doesn't agree with the president's lawyers about their perspective on whether, you know, there's executive privilege on the questions of obstruction but that for now, all they were really asking for is the answers on russia in writing. >> so, mike, let's talk about how important this interview actually is to mueller's investigation. so we see now this jousting for eight months. we see the president caught between his desire to seem ready and tough and the worries that he can't handle the interview. how much does mueller need the president's answers to complete

his investigation, as far as what we know right now? >> well, at the heart of the entire thing is whether donald trump had criminal intent when he took these measures in office, like firing comey and trying to get sessions to exert his control over the investigation. that is the central issue. what we don't know is how mueller is really looking at trump and the entire thing. the president's lawyer dowd had said earlier this year the president was not a target, but at the same time rudy giuliani has said that he'll not be indicted. how is the justice department really looking at trump, because they really are looking at his conduct in the entire thing. he's really the central player in whether justice was obstructed. so are they going to give him the benefit of the doubt on that issue because they usually do not interview the targets. okay, we don't need to talk to you because he essentially is in that position, or are they going to do everything they can to treat him sort of like a witness

and get to the bottom of what he really thought and what his real motivations were? that's a question that mueller has to make. whatever it is, if mueller does that and he has to subpoena trump to testify before a grand jury it will set off a month long fight in court and that will drag this on. and there's some thought that why drag it on, you probably won't get that much good stuff from the president, he probably will not give the answers that will probably satisfy mueller so why not just sort of take some things in writing and move along. >> coming up the second day of confirmation hearings for brett kavanaugh kicks off in about an hour. our chief legal expert brings us a preview straight ahead on "morning joe". >> also your favorite republican senator. >> ben sasse. i'll be joining us on "morning joe". i'll be joining us on "morning joe"

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welcome back to "morning joe". mike barnacle, john heilemann and elise jordan are back on set. joining us from capitol hill we have member of the senate judiciary committee republican senator ben sasse of nebraska.

>> did i forget my kavanaugh tattoo? >> mika has been saying nice things about you on twitter. >> that can't be true. >> if you looked at snapshots overnight your ratings are plummeting in nebraska. she said nice things this morning and a couple of newspapers are suggesting that you resign now because you'll not survive any republican primary with the support of people like mika and myself. >> mika, stop trying to help. >> you don't know how many people say that to me. >> seriously. >> that was personal. >> you want to give him your daughter's number? >> stop. >> so, let me ask you something because, you know, donald trump has been attacking alabama, and he's been saying that we're dumb. saying our schools second class.

but, you know, senator, i don't ever remember the crimson tide cancelling a game because of a shower. >> wow. joe, you went there, didn't you? you did that. >> nebraska cancelling football games because of a rain shower? >> there's a lot that's wrong right now but i'm claiming bi iri -- dibs on the next segment. i've been happily sleeping next to a university of alabama alum who talks like she has marbles in her mouth most of the time for two plus decades right now and i'm proud on this. >> do you call her a total idiot like trump calls sessions? >> usually she's calling me a a total idiot. >> you guys ever go down to

tuscaloosa? >> we've only been to one game because usually there's a nebraska game on those same weeks. she's going down this fall. you boys are taking a bye week. >> wait. women submit to your husbands? is this what this is about? >> no, she's been converted. she's been converted to the true ideological football. >> that's a damn lie and you know it. all right. so we'll go ahead and talk about kavanaugh. i'll ask you the same question that we asked the senator from hawaii which is, can we ever look forward to a time after merritt garland and after the republicans killed the filibuster for the supreme court, after harry reid killed the filibuster for federal judges in general can we ever look forward to a time when a president can appoint somebody who is qualified to sit on the supreme court and we can get 80 or 90 votes, not because it

feels good but because that's the way it's supposed to be. advise and consents. >> what we need is we need to distinguish between basic civics and jurisprudence what the purpose of the supreme court is there, fist there and policy fighting. we should fight policy. reasonable people should argue about that. we shouldn't have protests about the supreme court. frankly we shouldn't be having so much protests in front of the supreme court, which we've had now for 30 years because it's become a substitute political body because the congress doesn't do its politics right. so we transfer so much power to the executive branch and to the judiciary because the congress is impotent. >> senator sasse, it's willie geist i want to talk about your willingness to criticize the president. a couple of days when the president questioned the justice department over a couple of

indictments, you came out and said this is not a banana republic. the justice department effectively not there to protect the president of the united states. we haven't seen a lot of that over the last couple of years aside from senators who may be leaving town in a couple of months and that's direct criticism of the president of the united states. we've heard publicly and privately from republicans who say it's just not good politics at this point to cross president trump because he's popular in my district or he's popular in my state. what's your view of that? >> yeah. i didn't run for office for short term popularity. i ran for office because i'm worried about the long term health of our country. a lot of times people say and twitter is swallowing so much of our news. people say that's just talk. why you want talk and why you want debate is because those norms are what keep us from violence. the things that the president said on sunday attacking the justice department and asking for politicized justice is dangerous stuff because in our country we believe justice is blind. i came here because i want to

drain the swamp. i don't care whether the congressman who is doing insider trading or embezzling campaign funds or indicted for this or that i don't care whether they wear a blue or red jersey. if you want swamp draining you don't want two tiers of justice. i want people who work at the justice department to believe in the rule of law. >> why is it so difficult for your republican colleagues to do what you do almost every time you see a norm being violated or a line being crossed and that is to criticize the president? >> i'm not really sure why a lot of people around here make a lot of their decisions but i think most people in both parties right now, their main long term interest in washington is their own incumbency. that's not what i'm interested in. i'm worried about the future of cyber, work, collapse of social capital. most of the stuff i care about isn't right versus left, it's past versus future.

i'm the second or third most conservative person in the senate and i don't hide any of that. most of what i care about isn't stuff that we're debating in the congress. so i'm not really that interested in incumbency. i'm worried about the country my kids will grow up in 10 to 15 years from now. so if it's big and important and what the president did on sunday was big and true and introduce i'll speak about that. that's why i ran for office. >> let's talk about republican versus democratic stuff. obviously, sort of the ghost of merritt garland's nomination is hanging over brett kavanaugh's hearing fairly or unfairly, depending on what tribe members writing. first of all, do you think that's fair? second of all, did republicans make a mistake not giving merritt garland a chance to talk in their offices and to talk in

front of the judiciary committee and at least get an up or down vote? >> so, i think here we get to a place where it becomes hatfields and mccoys quickly. this works better if we have an hour and a bunch of beer. can you go back to the prior send to the prior send. where we are right now there's a tradition going back to world war ii that people are not confirmed to the skourtd in a presidential election year. that's just been the tradition. that really comes most fundamentally even though it's a tradition going back to 1945 it comes most directly from the mid to late 1980s when every supreme court nomination since has been politicized going back to the bork hearings in 1987 we have a situation where you can predict the craziness what was going to happen here yesterday. the lunacy the way we do protests because people think these are made for tv events to scream in a tribal way. we should do more of what kavanaugh said yesterday which

noting as his opening statement said, he noted something really important which is that the supreme court has no aisle. there's not a right or left side of the court. there aren't caucus rooms where you meet as the red team justice and the blue team justice. kavanaugh talked about a team of nine. we need to get back to a case where our kids and basic american civics understand why you put on a robe in the morning when you're a judge. it's a modest role. it's not to be pro coal or pro environment or pro republican or pro democrat it's pro rule of law. it's a unique role to be a judge and we need a team of nine where we don't see them as republican or democratic justice. >> senator, listening to you and you clearly expressed you're worried about the long term future of the country and short term future of the country. change is sweeping this country right now. it's obvious in the headlines that we read each and ever driveway. yesterday in massachusetts and

democratic primary, mike capuano yesterday lost to a young city councilwoman. one of her themes is change can't wait. as voters look at you and every other candidate on the ballot, i'm wondering about the issue of term limits. do you believe in term limit? >> heck, yeah. it's the first piece of legislation i introduced the first year i was here. i introduced a congressional amendment. promptly got called to the principal's office two hours later because it was viewed as a criticism of the incumbent. but if i could fire everybody including myself i would do it in a heart beat. we need change. all that's happening right now in american politics and this is a decade and a half in the coming, the president injects a new kind of chaos directly into the veins of america, this isn't 2016 to the present stuff. we've been heading here for a

couple of decades. all that happens every election is you figure out how you can mobilize more intensity to be against. we scream against whoever the party is in power. nobody around here really has a long term vision for the country we're entering and the reality is our kirksds i'm a former college president so i think about the world from the perspective of 18-year-old or 22-year-old kids heading out into the world. they will change jobs three times in the next decade. not life long employment. there's interesting studies about what digital disruption will do in creating a freelance economy. we need too rethink the social compact for age 35 and 40 and 45 and 50 if your industries will cease to exist. none of these parties are talking about this. they are talking about how they can scream at the other people as being bigger devils. >> we have somebody else from

the deep south that talks probably like your wife. >> major marbles. >> exactly. >> i never called her that. i'm not going to start. >> marbles in the mouth. as donald trump would say. elise jordan from what part of mississippi? >> holly springs, mississippi. >> i apologize for talking slow and funny. senator sasse, this is actually kind of a complicated question, because i honestly don't know the answer to it, but you were talking about how congress ceded all their power. you talked about how congress isn't debating issues that are actually affecting the future of americans such as social capital and digital and cyber and a host of other things. what can to be done as someone who is in the senate to actually help the senate work on issues that affect americans instead of

this politicalization of everything they touch. >> one basic thing we should do is have a budget and appropriation process that's real not fake. there was a rework of the law that governs the budgeting process in 1974 and it works for about four years. in the 40 years since then congress has only passed at least a budget that spends 30% of the public's money on a regular order budget four times in the last 39 years. so with the fiscal year that ends september 30th one thing we can do is have a real budgeting process that tells the truth about entitlements. that's where our money is going. the public thinks it's a wasteful bill here or inefficient thing there or food stamps program or military. it's ream long term entitlements chiefly around retirement. that's something that should come from congress. i'll tell the truth. really we won't fix this stuff without presidential leadership to help focus the country's

vision and the country's attention on what those challenges are. so i think the next two or three presidential elections are really going to be critical to having the public understand why the congress doesn't do its job and right now what happens is almost every bill that's passed here is, you know, a thousand pages long and three or five hundred undefined terms. it's supposedly regulations but law writing inside the executive branch. only the president can help the american people understand that and we don't do our campaigns about anything big, it's about screaming. it's why we have to do better. >> thank you for being with us. ben from the state that hasn't won a national championship incidents -- whoa, whoa, i'm not ready to leave yet. i'm ready to object. >> in the mid-'90s we went 62-3

over five years. we should talk about football again. >> i think also during that time period people were still listening to the bee gees on eight track. >> just you, joe. >> still am, senator. i still am. i tell you what -- >> wasn't andy gibb one of the bee gees. >> that's the brother. >> mika has this andy gibb fixation. i'm concerned about it. you know what -- >> the brother of the brother -- >> we had a conversation a couple of weeks ago. they told us you had to leave. we talked about our musical guilty pleasures. mika said andy gibb. willie said dave matthews band as if that's a guilty pleasure. >> there are haters. >> loving spoonful. >> john sebastian, loving spoonful not a guilty pleasure.

like the car pen terrifies. >> twisted sister. my 7-year-old and i went snake hunting last weekend and listened to "we aren't going to take it" 63 straight times. >> that's like joey forcing them to play biscuit. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. great seeing you. >> andy gibb was bee gee. >> so somebody -- >> robin gibb, maurice gibb, barry gibb they were the bee gees. andy was a slow artist who then died of a drug overdose. >> we were talking about guilty pleasures. >> i thought avenues bee gee. >> a lot of hits, though, andy gibb. >> as did the bee gees. >> up next -- >> he just said his guilty

pleasure. >> he went full hair band. >> >> schneider a great video. >> we'll get an analysis on today's supreme court hearings ahead. plus we'll dig into the other legal issues swirling around the president from the latest in the mueller probe and the president's new teeth about libel laws after the fallout from bob woodward's new book. keep it right here on "morning joe". t right here on "morning joe"

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joining us now, chief legal correspondent and host of "the beat" on msnbc ari melber and dr. jeffrey sax. ari, sitting there in the room, what are you looking for today? if yesterday was protests, what's today about? >> today is the real party and

the real showdown. we heard energy from the democrats making arguments but rarely does procedure stop a nominee who has majority party support so today we'll see i think a pounding of judge kavanaugh on choice and abortion and executive power and the mueller probe and the criminality that's become such an issue in an administration with more people endieted and convicted at this early stage than any president in history. that radical fact gets coverage and we forget how significant that is. when you have a person who could be a tiebreaking vote on questions like can you indict a sitting president or subpoena and force the testimony of a sitting president. i think we see a pounding on that but judge kavanaugh does present well, very sharp and been around the block. so i'm not looking to expect any great errors from him but, again, we do these things under

oath. you never what will happen until it happens. >> democrat of hawaii was on the show an hour ago and i asked her if she thought there was a way to flip a couple of republicans and prevent the nomination of judge kavanaugh. she was skeptical but do democrats really believe they can stop this nomination? if not, what's the end game in that chamber? >> well, i think the realistic democrats are very concerned a this is going to be a party line vote and you don't need to be a political expert to know in this climate you lose. the questions to appeal outside of the room behind me and maybe get people around the country tuning in to supreme court hearings, we live in a time of people cynical of all sorts of things. but no. this is one of the few things that probably happens in this town only every few years where we do know the public pays attention, we do know if a candidate for office here the supreme court, nominee, says

things under oath to give the public a different view of how they might rule, bork being the classic example, and on privacy, choice and roe v. wade what some of the pro-choice republican senators would say if i can call them that is we don't believe he'll overturn roe. that could change everything. >> so, ari, we have to go but just really quick, the president tweeted in the past hour. i guess he really wants some libel issues will be looked at. don't know why washington politicians don't change libel laws. you know? i mean, isn't he the one who would be in sflubl. >> i know why, mika. it's state laws. that tweet beyond being a potential abuse of the president's role in trying to bully the free press given the

federal first amendment also shows a stunning lack of knowledge and total ignorance of how libel laws work. he would need all 50 states for pro-trump libel laws. >> okay, ari. >> thanks for being with us. >> thank you. >> jeffrey, you're going to china tomorrow. obviously 40 years ago coming up in a few weeks, the opening of american and china relations. something that mika almost -- >> hey. >> single handedly undid by -- >> no. >> dumping caviar in a crotch at the state dinner at their house. >> stop. >> but we have survived. what is the state of the relations 40 years later in light of of what's happened over the past year and a half? >> well, china had the most successful economic growth in human history. so in 40 years, a country of 1.4 billion people, 4 times the size of the united states, basically surged. they became the world's largest

economy. they're now technological rivals. they're technological competitors. they're extremely sophisticated. this is leading in our security establishment to incredible anxiety. there is no way to stop that. they're just being successful but it is really the reason for this trade war and the accusations and all the rest. i don't give too much credit to that. i think we just have an example of a country very capable that is catching up. and that's a reality for us. >> just to follow up on that, it seems like even people who generally disapprove of the president's approach to china think that the trade war is bad idea, the notion of currency manipulation is one thing that it seems like there's a consensus that china has engaged in currency manipulation over time and the united states and the west should try to do something about that. is that a fair criticism or no? >> i don't think it has any

accuracy at all, actually. it's a common tactic of the u.s. we use that tactic against japan 25 years ago when japanese manufacturers were threatening u.s. manufacturers. we said you're manipulating the currency and pushed politically for japan to keep the yen way overvalued and it really hurt them. and they're using the same playbook now, using the words. but if you look statistically there's nothing that china's doing that is unfair, untoward. in fact, the currency is being kept probably a bit too strong right now because of fear of the u.s. claims against it and it should probably weaken. when you face trade threats like the u.s. is making your currency tends to weaken. they're trying to stop that, to keep decent relations but the fact is they're not manipulating and the whole idea that we have a war with china, trade war with

china, is out of the imagination of people who think that it's the right of the u.s. to keep anyone else down. and i think that that doesn't work in modern history and that's really what we are up against. we have a president that is not knowledgeable. very erratic. and doesn't believe in rules. that's the most basic point so every day it's a new adventure and this conflict with china that's brewing is dangerous. wrong headed and unprincipled in my view. >> big picture you've really focused on development and developmental goals. how would you rate this administration when it comes to their development agenda? >> this administration has no agenda. it had one legislative agenda which was the tax cut. it has an agenda of the president every day doing whatever comes to his mind. there is no long-term agenda at

all. how much infrastructure are we building? how much fast rail? how much modernization? how much 21st century technology? what's driving the u.s. policymakers crazy about china is that china announced ten industries that are the 21st century industries, electric vehicles, advanced aviation, advanced semiconductors, they're working on those. we have nothing like that in this country. we do not have a forward view and i thought it was interesting. senator sass saying we have no vision. not going to get it obviously out of trump. he has no capacity for that. but we have no planning capacity in washington to think about the 21st century. what should we be doing as a country? and the senator is exactly right about that. >> all right. >> jeffrey sax, thank you so much. >> final thoughts, willie? >> well, i'm just go off what dr. sax was saying and ben sass was saying is there's so many

big probables in the world and so many things to get taken up swallowed up by the minute to minute, hour to hour, day-to-day news cycle and the drama of the trump presidency and good to know there's people who are actually thinking about these things and working on them. >> mika? >> i think, you know, "the washington post" book and your comments, dr. sax, just now remind us of the gravity and the danger of this presidency. we will be okay. i think we saw that during john mccain's funeral. we see where sort of the sentiment is overall. this is a dangerous time. >> really quickly. >> i missed getting out to say hootie and the blowfish -- >> thank you. i like this. >> that is a good one. hootie. >> i just given where trump started with the outrage of woodward, i can't imagine the next 12 hours. it is going to be an ugly day of lashing out i think on twitter.

>> all right. and tomorrow our guests will include former secretary of state john kerry, former cia director john brennan. that does it for us this morning. brian williams picks up msnbc's special coverage of the brett kavanaugh confirmation hearings right now. >> mika and joe et al, thank you all. we'll begin on capitol hill and as john heilemann was saying, the backdrop of the white house and the on going daily reaction is interesting to gauge. there's the hearing room. the first day of questioning for judge kavanaugh as he attempts to seek to be placed to nominate -- being nominated for the vacancy of justice kennedy. i am joined here in the studio by stephanie ruehl. this is her hour and contributing to the coverage of this and we want to start with phil rucker covering the white house for "the washington pos