how's it doing? >> good. >> good? >> but still 10 or 12 inches of rain. >> i love that area. i can't tell you why, but i love that area. it's been really terrific. >> welcome to "morning joe." there's donald trump in south carolina. the back reference north carolina there -- the back reference -- and here he's walking in conway, south carolina. the back reference, though, of course, willie, is that while he was traveling and was talking to community leaders, through a storm-ravaged region where communities have been destroyed, small businesses have been wiped out, countless homes destroyed and dozens dead, that was donald trump talking about his golf course. he wanted to know from the leaders how lake norman was faring through the storm. >> well, the greens are going to be playing slower today, joe, and that's something you've got to take into consideration in

any disaster relief effort. you know, the putts are not going to move the way you wanted them to putt originally. the president was down there. he was in a couple of states, north carolina and south carolina. we've got around the table msnbc contributor mike barnicle, former aide to the george w. bush white house and state departments, elise jordan, historian, author of "the soul of america," rogers professor of the presidency at vanderbilt university and soon talk oscar-winning actor jon meacham. i'll explain that in a moment. he's in a new film, also is an nbc news and msnbc contributor. >> oh, god. >> and nbc news capitol hill correspondent, host of "kasie dc" on msnbc, kasie hunt. mika has the morning off. joe, back to you. >> so, you say meacham's going to win an academy award? will he have a photographer with him when they hand -- how's that going to work? >> here's the back story on this, and jon i know is glad we're starting off the show with this, this morning. >> i really am. >> "frontrunner" about the gary hart scandal, based off the

book, starring hugh jackman as gary hart, also stars jon meacham. much to my surprise, watching the movie, a 1980s-era meacham with the big frames on his glasses -- >> oh, that's nice. >> holding a session, a seminar, college. >> i wouldn't call it really a starring role. i was known as moderator. and so, and i look a little bit like dwight schrute and george h.w. bush had combined their eyewear. i haven't seen it yet, but i really appreciate willie bringing this up. and i'm sure joe won't remember it going forward. >> the movie's great, and you're the highlight, jon. >> and of course, willie, we were once again proven night last night. the wheels come off the red sox. this is -- you had the curse of the bambino. what we are seeing unfold right now, which our grandchildren will remember, is the red sox

blow a first-place lead late into september. this is, of course, the hanley hex, named after legendary red sox star hanley ramirez, who was shuffled off. and now it's going to be 85, 86, 87 years, willie, that we're going to be cursed playing the yankees. >> you know, i thought you were ridiculous yesterday. today i'm starting to buy into it. >> oh, come on. >> you're only 9 1/2 up with 10 to play. however will you pull this out? >> the red sox will clinch the american league east title before judge kavanaugh is on the supreme court. that will happen. i can guarantee you that. >> all right. >> we'll see. >> let's pick it up there. the lawyer for christine blasey ford, the woman who's accused supreme court nominee brett kavanaugh of sexual assault more than three decades ago, has called the republican plan for monday's senate hearing not a fair or good-faith investigation. in a statement, her attorney, lisa banks, writes, "ford continues to believe that a full non-partisan investigation of this matter is needed, and she's willing to cooperate with the

committee. however, the committee's stated plan to move forward with a hearing that has only two witnesses is not a fair or good-faith investigation. there are multiple witnesses whose names have appeared publicly and should be included in any proceeding. the rush to a hearing is unnecessary and contrary to the committee discovering the truth." a spokesperson for the senate judiciary committee tells "the hill" that chairman chuck grassley is willing to send committee staff to california to speak with ford to hear her story. however, grassley has informed lawyers for ford that if she wishes to testify on monday, ford must provide the committee with prepared testimony by 10:00 tomorrow morning. senator susan collins, a key undecided vote on kavanaugh, voiced her hopes that ford will testify. >> i don't think she can reject having made all of these serious allegations, i don't think that she can reject all those options, because otherwise,

there are these very serious allegations hanging over the head of a nominee who has emphatically denied them, and that's just not a good way for us to end. so, i think she needs to come forward, and i think we need to provide her with any protection that she may ask for for herself and her family. >> that's senator susan collins. senator lindsey graham, another republican, pushed back against ford's calls for an investigation into her allegation against kavanaugh. graham tweeting, "requiring an fbi investigation of a 36-year-old allegation without specific references of time or location before professor ford will appear before the judiciary committee is not about finding the truth but delaying the process till after the midterms." "it is imperative," he goes on

", that the committee move forward and this is taken asap." as ford, you can testify publicly, privately, we can send people to california. it doesn't have to be senators asking the questions. and she and her attorney are saying i'm not going into a kangaroo court, i want an fbi investigation. >> it's interesting that lindsey graham is saying that we must -- it's imperative that we rush this process, it's imperative that we take the vote on monday, when lindsey graham and chuck grassley and the entire republican senate sat on merrick garland's nomination for i think 293 days. i do understand, though, kasie hunt, their concern that there are some democrats who are just trying to stall this, and any democrat, or if anybody who claims that this isn't in the

back of the minds of democrats, it's just not honest brokers. they're lying to themselves, if not lying to all of us. that said, there should be a middle ground. the fbi conducted an investigation during the clarence thomas hearings after the anita hill information came out. it took a couple of days. it's not like they're going to have to go to new zealand to find people. most of these people could be interviewed very quickly. it could be turned around in a couple of days. what is the problem with conducting a two or three-day investigation, making sure that the facts are all before everybody and then her testifying at the end of next week? >> well, some of my sources are suggesting that perhaps, you know, allowing an fbi investigation to go forward would potentially yield additional unsavory information about the nominee. now, of course, you can probably guess where those sources may be leaning. but joe, i think one important thing to remember here is that so far, dr. blasey ford hasn't

actually said that she won't appear on monday. instead, we seem to be sort of one at a time talking about the issues that they have with how this is proceeding while that door remains open. yesterday, you know, we were talking about the investigation. that statement she put out last night focuses on the other witnesses, the other people that may have some information about this. we know that some of those people have seemed to briefly surface on social media. there are certainly a lot of conversations going on behind the scenes as people are trying to work out what else is out there, what other information may be out there. there's a lot of speculation and a lot of rumor that obviously we're not trafficking in as we report out this story, but i do think you're seeing a pretty -- a clearer strategy on the part of dr. ford, and i don't think that everyone has necessarily come to the conclusion that she won't actually appear on monday.

i do think that from a political perspective, that monday deadline has become a line in the sand, because i do think for susan collins, she really went to the mat and others, jeff blake and bob corker, to say to republican leadership, you can't shove this behind closed doors. mitch mcconnell didn't want to keep this door open in the first place. and at 3:00 in the afternoon, he seemed to be saying on the senate floor he wouldn't. by 6:30, having talked to other members of his conference, he had. so, i think even from those people who really want to hear from her, they're not going to let this deadline slide. >> well, you know, and you're right, kasie. and it's disingenuous when democrats act like this was a bunch of good old boys getting behind closed doors saying, hey, we'll invite her and kavanaugh on monday and then we'll trap her, you know, we'll beat up -- i mean, this was -- and it's important to underline -- for susan collins, for bob corker, for jeff flake, this was a

pretty heavy push. their republican colleagues did not want that one-on-one showdown. >> they're terrified. they're terrified of it. >> on monday. >> there's 11 men! >> they were terrified on elise. they were terrified when the discussions first began. they're terrified now. and they are praying that dr. ford decides to stay away because they know and they have said that the optics of these 11 men cross examining dr. ford about what she says was sexual assault is a political nightmare that could actually swing the election this fall. >> well, and dr. ford holds all the cards right now. she has nothing to lose by continuing this waiting game until 9:59 a.m. tomorrow morning and drawing this out and letting her lawyer have the leeway to negotiate the best possible terms for her potential

appearance. so, i still think there is a chance that she could surprise everyone tomorrow morning and say, you know, i will go through with this, i will testify. but i don't think that the back-and-forth overall of this is unsurprising when you look at how quickly this has evolved, and it's been just so badly mishandled by the democrats that they believe that she's a victim, then they have revictimized their victim by their shoddy handling of the entire process and by introducing it at the 11th hour, instead of letting this have the time that it deserves for true fact-finding about what actually happened. >> and elise, i mean, this is the second time now in modern american history that a woman who feels like she's been harassed sexually has gone to the democratic judiciary committee, said i want to give you this information, i want to remain anonymous, and this is the second time that information has gotten out.

and what is so offensive about the way the democrats outed dr. ford this time is they waited until their hearings were over, they waited until they basically put their finger up in the political winds and they knew that kavanaugh was going to pass, and then somebody on the senate judiciary committee, or perhaps out of a democratic congresswoman's office, said well, it looks like he's going to pass, we're going to shove this lady out of the closet and basically identify her. >> well, and it does no favors to her to have this happened so quickly and to not have there be some kind of reasonable process. i guess i was shocked when i read anita hill's op ed and realized, and i shouldn't have been surprised, that there still is no process on the judiciary committee for dealing with allegations of this sort. so, so many years later, there still has been no real

improvement or system for managing this in a way that respects both the accuser and gives due process to the accused. >> jon meacham, i had a conversation yesterday with former senate majority leader george mitchell, and the thing -- there were so many elements to this story, as we all know, as we're discussing today and yesterday and we'll be discussing tomorrow. but the thing that struck senator mitchell was his deep, real genuine disappointment in the fact that the united states senate now, according to his view, is practically a nonfunctioning institution. it's so permanently divided. your thoughts. >> it's fascinating to hear senator mitchell say that. the senate was supposed to be the saucer that cooled the milk, i think was hamilton's phrase. they have six-year terms because they were supposed to be one more step removed from the

passions that the house of representatives would represent. and as you say, it has become now more a part of the problem than the solution. we can spend all day trying to figure out when that happened, at what point things began to fall apart. there are people who talk about bill frist campaigning against tom daschle i think 20 years ago. people talk about ted kennedy's speech on robert bjork. any number of moments that could kind of be the pearl harbor of this. but the constitutional order in many ways depends on the senate being able to be the grown-ups in the room. and i think senator mitchell is clearly on to something. advancing the argument that the senate has become in some ways what the house became in the

'80s and early '90s. >> and joe, one of the elements involved here that i don't think has been addressed adequately -- you've got to put yourself, at least, if you try to put yourself in judge kavanaugh's shoes, with all of this going around him, with all of the things being uttered about him and dr. ford's assessment of what happened, what is alleged to have happened 36 years ago, wouldn't you, if you were judge kavanaugh, want the fbi to do a background check? wouldn't you want -- >> i would. >> -- someone to step forward and say, no, this did not happen, judge kavanaugh did not participate in this? wouldn't you want that to happen? >> i would say bring in the fbi, bring in the dec, bring in everybody that you can bring in, and investigate it. and that is right now, it is interesting that we don't know

what happened that night. nobody knows what happened that night. what we do know, though, is you have dr. ford and democrats saying let's have the fbi do in this case what the fbi did in the anita hill/clarence thomas case, doing that -- yes, they conducted background checks. this is new information. new information comes up after people have conducted background checks. what if we have this attitude, well, yeah, this guy from somalia's coming to the country six times, and he's had six background checks before, you know, we let him into the country on a visa? but then we find out that there's a rumor that he was hanging around a criminal element that could cause danger to the country. would you say, well, we're not going to look into that. we've already looked at -- we've already investigated him six times. that's it. this is new information. it may be false information, but

if it's false information, then judge kavanaugh, yes, and the republicans, if they really believe that dr. ford is such a liar, then bring the fbi in there. lying under oath to the fbi, that is a crime. i'm not so sure that dr. ford would want to be, first of all, pushed out of the closet by the democrats the way she was, and secondly, spend time in jail for lying to the fbi. and willie, i think as we look at what's happened over the past week or two, for me, it's just, i've gone off twitter, other than predicting the imminent collapse of the red sox and the retweeting a couple of other people. i just want people to know, i am a cassandra when it comes to red sox baseball. but it is so offensive for me, people i know on both sides, where you have people on the

right calling dr. ford a liar, a fabulist, a political hack. we know she's lying. she knows she's lying. people that are fairly respected in their corner of the political world. and then you have people on the left who have basically acted as judge and jury of kavanaugh and basically saying the woman must be believed, he is a rapist. men, shut up, he is a rapist. so, both sides. people who have no idea are condemning dr. ford as a liar, condemning judge kavanaugh as a rapist. we need to do everything we can do to listen to him, but also, if the fbi can ask a couple of questions, get a little additional information, i don't understand why that's a bad thing. we could stop a lot of the hateful speculating on both sides. >> yeah, we live in a time and a political culture where everyone's made up his or her mind already, and they'll follow whatever trail takes them to their conclusion, the one they've already reached.

i agree with you, we've got to find out what happened, one way or another. and frankly, if i were chuck grassley, even -- i understand their concerns about democrats trying to run out the clock past the midterms -- i would want the fbi to determine once and for all. if you believe that judge kavanaugh is innocent, as you said, that he didn't do this, that he wasn't at that kind of party, wouldn't you want to know that definitively? because if they go through with some kind of a hearing on monday, it's not conclusive if dr. ford and democrats think it's a sham. they've pushed through the vote. they've put kavanaugh on the supreme court. for the rest of time, as long as judge kavanaugh and then justice kavanaugh is on the supreme court, there will be an as riz next to his name. >> right. >> and democrats will question everything he ever does, every opinion he ever does, every decision he ever makes, because of what's happening right now in front of us. >> a lifetime appointment. and yes, there will be an asterisk next to his name because republicans wouldn't wait another week to ten days.

we are still in september. >> yeah. >> the red sox haven't been eliminated from the playoffs yet. so, we still have a long way to go. you have seven to ten days. and if you're grassley, you can say, okay, we're recommending the fbi get into this, they investigate it. this isn't the time frame that we wanted. we believe these allegations are not true. we stand by judge kavanaugh. but we're going to give it another week. we're going to ask the president to get the fbi involved. give us three or four days of an investigation. come back with the facts by the end of the week, and we will have a hearing the following monday. we will vote the following wednesday. that puts you into early october. i don't know what the harm is in that, especially, jon meacham, when, i mean, that's october. you've got a month before the election. and doesn't that set republicans like susan collins and

independents like lisa murkowski in a much better position to say we exhausted all means to get to the bottom of this? there was an fbi investigation that came back inconclusive. we had kavanaugh and ford on, and it was interesting, but at the end of the day, it was inconclusive, and i had to vote the way my constituents wanted me to vote, and we did everything we could do. isn't that the best way to go? >> absolutely. and it seems to me that the fbi investigation and the senate actually discharging their constitutional duty to advise and consent, it's very hard to advise and consent when you don't know all the facts, or at least you haven't made a significant good-faith effort to gather those facts. and so, the real question for, particularly for senate republicans, is the choice

they're facing, seems to me, is, is the quest for power, of having this justice on the court forever, more important than an obligation to seek the truth about one of the most complicated and emotional kinds of issues in american life and in human life. and seems to me that you would want to exhaust every possibility to find out the truth. that's what the senate is for, ideally. still ahead on "morning joe," new poll numbers on the u.s. senate race in texas. what they say about chances of pulling an upset over ted cruz. plus, james comey says the mueller probe may be entering the fourth quarter. we'll talk to the intel committee's adam schiff, just ahead. you're watching "morning joe."

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texas democrat beto o'rourke got positive news after trailing senator ted cruz by nine points in the quinnipiac university poll we told you about yesterday. a new reuters/ipso/uva/center for politics poll of the upcoming race gives o'rourke the edge over cruz, 47%-45%, although it's a typical tie. nobody has the edge according to that poll. and it's neck-and-neck in arizona where kyrsten sinema leads martha mcsally with a small margin of error. and dean heller is up three points against jacky rosen, the democratic congressman, in this poll 46%-43%. and incumbent rick scott ahead of bill nelson 46%-45%. and tallahassee's democratic mayor andrew gillum is leading ron desantis 50%-44% there, a

six-point spread. >> that's really the headline in all of these polls coming out. andrew gillum outperforming all expectations, up five, six points over ron desantis. and of course, it doesn't help that donald trump is now attacking ron desantis. that sort of carves away at the base, especially since ron desantis' campaign basically was run on the slogan, "i like trump," so very interesting. elise, the headline from this -- of course, texas bounces back and forth. yesterday we had a texas poll that had beto down nine points. i'm still skeptical that texas is ready to turn blue quite yet. but, obviously, he's in the game. you look at texas, arizona, indiana, florida, missouri -- i could name four or five other states -- the senate could break either way. it actually could be a big night for republicans or it could be an absolute disaster for mitch

mcconnell and a huge night for democrats. >> well, and there are still so many potential looming disasters for republicans, you know. how does this senate confirmation battle end up? are there any new revelations from the mueller investigation? those really tight races that are still polling within the margin of error are pretty much up in the air. and with texas, i had been surprised by how close the race seems to be getting. i still think, like you, that it's impossible where there are just more republican voters. i think in the primary, republicans outnumbered dems by 1.5 million to 1 million voters. so, i just think that the numbers game is going to be very difficult for democrats to overcome in that senate race. but you look at, you know, the race that's happening right now, and beto really is giving ted cruz a run for his money. and one of the smartest gop operatives in texas told me

about six months ago that cruz will likely still win but that it would be a tough race, that beto o'rourke was comparable to an rfk in terms of his political talent, and we're really seeing that play out in this race. >> so, kasie hunt, you talked to senators, congressmen, women, every day. you talk to their staffers and insiders on capitol hill. what's the genuine level of concern about the senate? we know republicans are worried about losing the house. what about the senate? do they really think that could flip? >> i think that there is definitely a sense that what had been a relatively comfortable place to be, because the math. the math is really so drawn in republicans' favor. i mean, this is -- if you think about this, there's three classes of elections. this particular one is the best and has their best set of chances, but they've gotten a lot more nervous in the last couple of weeks. and quite frankly, democrats have gotten a lot more excited. i bumped into a pair of democratic senators who are actually, you know, chatting, you know, between themselves

about this very issue one morning after a series of polls came out. i do think that, you know, if you're kind of tracking -- if you have a mood poll that doesn't necessarily call voters but that gets a read on kind of where each side is, they definitely feel good about it. and i think, you know, the thing about texas, regardless of whether beto o'rourke ultimately does beat ted cruz, is that, don't underestimate how much a suck of resources that is. i mean, it's a huge, incredibly expensive state. you know, democrats had been worried all the way along about florida, because frankly, you know, bill nelson, the candidate and his campaign has just not stacked up to what they were looking for from him, so they've had to prop him up with millions and millions of dollars. all of a sudden, you have a counterweight to that in texas. and when you have the national committee's thinking about how to approach this overall, that's actually a pretty significant factor. >> and how fascinating, two of the largest, most important states, certainly for republicans, texas and florida now both of them toss-ups.

and again, the governors' race looking right now like it's breaking decidedly democratic. that could have huge implications over the next decade, because redistricting will be done by whatever judge, whatever governor is elected in 2018. so, jon, wave elections. when you have eight, ten races like this that are within the margin of error, a wave election, it's called that because it does usually sweep democrats or republicans over the finish line and one or two don't win, usually you get a whole gang of them getting in there. but you look at wave years, 1964, 1974, 1980, 1994. but over the past ten years, ten, twelve years, they've come in 2006, 2008 with barack obama, 2010 with the tea partiers.

they seem to be coming with more regularity, and all the signs, at least to me, point to a big democratic wave this year. if that's the case, there are a lot of these races where republicans should be nervous, unless the dynamics really change in the next four to six weeks. >> the infrastructure of politics has become so fluid. the two years i think about are 1966, right? so, you have 1964 with johnson, with that massive landslide, incredible numbers. 1966, big republican year, including the election of a fellow out in california named reagan. and it was the '66 race that began to convince richard nixon that he could come back in '68. and then, of course, '94, which ended -- we forget this because it's been bouncing back and forth -- 40 years, 40 years of

democratic control of the house of representatives from '54 to '94. and that was a reaction, obviously, to the early clinton years. there's something in the american spirit, and it's mathematical. it's not a gooey point. that shifts from guardrail to guardrail. we've talked about this before. in presidential elections, it's hard to imagine a set of more different people than george h.w. bush to bill clinton, bill clinton to george w. bush. i enter thought we'd see a starker contrast than george w. bush to barack obama until barack obama to donald trump, which means we may get aristotle next time. that would be the way this works. >> you're going to bring him back from the dead, jon? >> you know, he's pagan, but we'll work on it. but i think this is -- i think there's something. and so, we're so polarized, and

yet, there's a kind of fluidity in the middle, i think. and so, it wouldn't surprise me at all to see the democrats win the senate. i think phil brettson is doing incredibly well in tennessee, and a huge house number as a reaction to what just happened. then we'll see what happens two years after that. all right, still ahead, in 2016, e-mails were hacked, social media was inundated with fake news, and russians tried to reach out to trump campaign associates. this morning, "the new york times" is breaking down what we know about russia's plot to subvert an election and what it all means. that's coming up next on "morning joe." from the very beginning ...

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my people came to me, dan coats came to me and some others, they said they think it's russia. i have president putin. he just said it's not russia. i will say this, i don't see any reason why it would be. i have great confidence in my intelligence people, but i will tell you that president putin

was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today. >> that was president trump after his summit with russian president vladimir putin on whether he believed russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election. a few days later, president trump said he misspoke in helsinki, telling reporters he meant to say he did not see any reason why it wouldn't be russia. joining us now, national security reporter for "the new york times" scott shane. scott co-authored a new piece out this morning entitled "the plot to subvert an election: unraveling the russia story so far." scott, thanks for being with us. and really, it's a lot more than a piece. it's an entire special report. extraordinary timeline from beginning to today. i was struck reading through this, scott, just by how many times russian agents, whether directly or indirectly, working for the government reached out and made contact with trump associates, even more than i think i realized. >> yeah, i think one of the things that we found in looking

back at this saga is the kind of multifaceted nature of it, the fact that it was operating really in three different areas with the famous internet research agency social media operation on facebook and twitter, with the hacking by military intelligence and the leaking of democratic e-mails, and then with these still somewhat murky, you know, outreach to various trump associates. when you add it up over a period of months, you know, there's about a dozen people associated with then candidate trump who were approached by various russians, you know, for various purposes, and some of them certainly appear to be acting on behalf of russian intelligence. >> scott, over the course of all these contacts made by russia to the trump campaign, at any time did any of these trump associates, anyone working for

the trump campaign contact the fbi? >> no, and that is somewhat striking looking back. in working on this piece, i went back and looked at other cases in which a foreign power had reached out to a presidential candidate and said, hey, can we help? and interestingly enough, adlai stevenson, when he was presumed to be a candidate in the '50s, was approached by the russian ambassador with a message from nikita khrushchev saying, hey, we really like your thinking, how can we help your candidacy? and he said that he rejected it, reported it, and later wrote that he found it to be completely improper and dangerous. so, i think that's been sort of the consensus over time. but in the case of the trump candidacy, i think these were people who were relatively inexperienced in the political

world, and perhaps because of that, they weren't put off by this. they often seem quite eager to engage. >> and scott, you say that the russians tried to contact trump or trump associates through e-mails, through facebook, through twitter, through veterans groups, through the nra. what about, let's take those last two, veterans groups and the nra. give us those examples. and did those seem to be attempts by russian intelligence agencies to infiltrate the campaign? >> well, you know, i think it's very difficult to say what exactly was going on in those cases and in some other cases. in the case of the social media attack, these fake american accounts that were created, and in the case of the hacking and leaking of e-mails, we have robert mueller, the special counsel's very detailed

indictments, laying out exactly, you know, by name, which russians did what things. we don't have the equivalent in the case of what appears to be a human intelligence operation. so, you kind of have to guess. you talk to intelligence sources. some folks, some of these people do have sort of documented russian intelligence connections. others just seem to be well-connected russians. and you know, the way russia works, they're often businessmen with very close ties to the kremlin who can operate on behalf of the kremlin at times, but we don't have certainty in any of these cases. >> so, scott, the root of this plot to interfere in the american elections, clearly, it begins at some point with vladimir putin's desire to restore russia to its past glory that he still revels in.

but was it always on the books to do this in an american election year, and all of a sudden, in 2016, did it just occur that, wow, everything went together and they had all of these people who could be so easily co-opted, americans involved in the elections process? or could they have done it four years earlier? you tell me. >> well, i think there are roots in the soviet era. in 1984, the soviets talked about taking measures to try to prevent the re-election of ronald reagan, but they didn't really have the tools. obviously, social media, internet, hacking provided a whole new arsenal to russia as it looked at the 2016 election. and what's interesting is the roots of this decision goes back at least to 2014 when the internet research agency sent a couple of young women to america

to sort of check us out, look at the political currents here and come back to st. petersburg and report on, you know to guide this effort to create these fake american facebook and twitter accounts. but i think what we found was that in the spring of '16, as donald trump emerged as the likely republican nominee, it accelerated on several fronts, and it seems that the russians, perhaps vladimir putin himself, were quite energized by the fact that of the 20 or so major presidential candidates, the only one who had spoken very highly of vladimir putin, who had called for a closer relationship with russia, who didn't seem to be worried about human rights, who called nato obsolete, that was the guy, donald trump, who was emerging as the front-runner. so, not only did they have the opportunity to attack hillary

clinton, who was an old adversary of putin, but they also had an alternative who they really liked. >> scott, elise jordan here. in your investigation, you talk about how moscow looked at the team that was being assembled as a dream team of sorts. and you note that mike flynn was part of that dream team. mike flynn is now scheduled to be sentenced on december 18th, after the midterm elections. can you tell us if you learned anything new about mike flynn and his actions during the course of the election and transition over the course of your reporting? >> well, we called the initial appointees the dream team, because you know, as i was saying, they see donald trump emerge from the pack. he is the most russia-friendly of the candidates. and then as candidate trump begins to appoint his top foreign policy advisers, there

is paul manafort who had done business for years in ukraine, essentially on russia's behalf. there was carter page, who russia had tried to recruit in 2013. and there was mike flynn, whose world view really was that the u.s. and russia should ally against radical islam and who had famously sat at the side of vladimir putin at a gala dinner in moscow not too long before. so, you know, now we're going to -- you know, one of the great mysteries of the mueller investigation has been what did mike flynn have to tell mueller that got him what most, i think, legal experts would call is a pretty good deal? and that remains a mystery. but one assumes that he had plenty of useful information for mueller to get that kind of a deal. >> with all of its characters,

dates and events, the russia story can be confusing, but this helps. scott shane with the special report "the plot to subvert an election" in today's "the new york times." scott, thanks so much. appreciate your time. >> thanks for having me on. coming up, today marks exactly one year since hurricane maria made landfall in puerto rico. we'll talk to the island's governor about where things stand now and whether he thinks the president is committed now to puerto rico's long-term recovery. rto ri'sco long-term recovery the same?

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you know, john, you brought up before tennessee your home state another close race. and so, again, you have texas, arizona, nevada, indiana, missouri, florida, west virginia, tennessee and about three or four other states that are still way too close to call. we could see a massive shift either to the right or to the left based on how, you know, thousands of americans vote.

it sounds an aufwful lot like 26 all over again. >> it's like 2000. seems to me theodore roosevelt said the first duty of an american citizen is to be engaged in politics. no matter where you stand, this is a vital election. and i believe that the american institutions are going to sti survive this stress test but only survive if they provide a check on a president that has reached this dangerous level and sends a message to the senate that you have a constitutional duty that it transcends you keeping your twitter followers and donor class happy. we have to send that message. >> john. >> again, willie, it's also a president who says he no longer has an attorney general because

he disagrees. one constitutional norm shattered after another. if people believe there should be a constitutional check on this president there's one way to do it, get out and vote in november. >> john talks about that senate race in tennessee. phil bredesen was elected with 70% of the vote when he was governor. wouldn't be a huge surprise if he won. john meacham, who are you wearing to the oscars. men's warehouse? >> jay press has a special line. >> that's awesome. >> are they still in business. >> yeah. >> john meacham, star of the front-runner with hugh jackman's name under his. >> let me say to everyone if willie geist is your friends and promises not to break something up, don't believe him. >> my pleasure, john. coming up, the chair of senate judiciary committee gives brett kavanaugh's accuser until tomorrow morning to decide if

she will testify on monday. the ranking member of the house intel committee, congressman adam schiff. "morning joe" is coming right back. it was here.

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the same time i want to give tremendous amounts of time. if she shows up that would be wonderful. if she doesn't show up, that would be unfortunate. fbi has been very involved with respect to justice kavanaugh. they know justice kavanaugh very well. they've investigated him, i guess six times and they've investigated him for this hearing. look, if she shows up, and makes a credible showing, that will be very interesting and we'll have to make a decision. but i can only say this, he's such an outstanding man. very hard for me to imagine that anything happened. >> welcome back to "morning joe". that's the president talking of course about judge kavanaugh and the controversy swirling around him right now. very interesting, willie. people have noted the president has not quite as heated in his rhetoric regarding this matter than others. you see a bit of space between

donald trump and brett kavanaugh, and the president himself said they need to take all the time that's needed to get to the bottom of this. i'm not so sure that it will go past monday but we do find ourselves at a point where most of the republicans on the hill and we'll be hearing about this, i'm sure, from heidi in a minute, but most of the republicans on the hill who want brett kavanaugh to be on the supreme court are terrified of the prospect of a bunch of men on the judiciary committee cross-examining dr. ford. if she does show up, if she does appear on monday, every republican i've spoken with considers that to be very bad news but the decision is up to her. she's still trying to figure out what is best for her, obviously. what is best for her children. what is best for her family security. >> we heard something over the last three days that we don't hear a lot which is message

discipline from the white house. started with continue on on monday saying this woman should not be ignored, this woman must be heard. you heard the president in his own way echo that and not going over a line attacking mother-in-lawly saying she should have the time to say what she wants to say. the question is if she doesn't show up monday to testify despite the fact that republicans have given her conditions to do it privately where they will send people not the senators themselves if she's worried about being grilled by senators, senators from the judiciary committee will go to california. she, again, has said i'm not going walk in what she believes is a kangaroo court, why not take the time for the fbi investigation. let's talk about this with mike barnacle. sees still with us. former aid to george w. bush. elise jordan. heidi przybyla and white house correspondent for pbs news hour. heidi, your thoughts here about

how this is playing out on capitol hill from the judiciary committee led by chuck grassley. susan collins and lisa murkowski might be forced to cast a vote for brett kavanaugh despite this accusation being out there. how does this play out? >> this would be the best possible outcome for republicans amid a series of honestly bad potential outcomes. this is probably the best one that she just doesn't show up. then it gives folks like senator susan collins the opportunity to say hey we gave her three different options for scenarios under which she could show up and share her story, she didn't. thusly we must vote. let's just take a step back here and look at the long term implications of this and take politics out of it. there are only two openings here. either someone is lying, because both of them have been unequivocal about this and what happened or somebody was so drunk they don't remember. and so long term this is the

opportunity now for brett kavanaugh to clear his name because he will, if this does go forward, this next week with a vote, he'll be the second supreme court justice now sitting on the court with a cloud over his name, except there's a big difference here. this comes amid the me too movement. this comes as a time when we're heading in to a mid-term election when you already had women so energized that we're expecting another year of the woman. now if we're not allowed to see who these other potential witnesses are and what they had to say, there's no guarantee that they won't come out after he's confirmed. that will only feed this political hunger that there is out there among women. and also we'll learn more about her after the fact. now there is one member of congress, anna eshoo, the congresswoman who represents dr. ford and already snowstorm is.

i want to read you her quote. she said she's soft spoken, very intelligent, very concerned about her family, measure privacy. but there was no question in my mind that at the end of our meeting that she had endured a lot and that she carried a lot of pain because of what she was subjected to. so, listen, there's no question that the timing of this is terrible and that republicans are fuming over it. but the timing of it does not make her a liar, and, you know, who is to say we won find out more about this after the fact if he's confirmed. >> interesting as you read that only a small handful of people with access to that original letter and somehow dr. ford's name became public. one of the monthly volatile democrats seeking re-election says she will vote no or kavanaugh's nomination. nevada's democratic senator also

announced her opposition yesterday. with the mid-terms less than seven weeks away "the washington post" reports republicans fear the push to confirm kavanaugh will come at a political cost. one senior republican involved with the national campaign planning for the house tells the "post" several top republican leaders told colleagues they hope she fails to show up for the hearing helping the gop avoid a risky televised drama and make it easier for a vote next week. you have a lot of republicans hoping they can call dr. ford's bluff and saying we're giving you this opportunity and you didn't show up. now we're going ahead with the vote. >> dr. dr. ford's bluff. saying we did everything we could. if she's concerned about a kangaroo court, it seems to me that having investigators fly out to california is not the best way to prevent that.

the best way, mike barnacle to prevent a kangaroo court with republican senators who are scared just as "the washington post" has said and as i've heard and i'm sure you've heard as well from republicans who fear that an overreach on their part actually damages the party a great deal a month before elections, before the mid-terms, the best way to do that is to have televised hearings and be in a situation where republican senators will have to show her a great deal of deference and respect. if they don't, then republicans will pay for it at the ballot box. this case, light is the best disinfectant, isn't it? >> joe, for sure. you know when you pump the brakes and stop praddling back and forth about the politics you come to one inescapable

conclusion. 11 men are doing a real disservice to history, to the court, to dr. ford, and to judge kavanaugh, a disservice to all of them in that in their experiod die show us way of trying to force this vote quickly. we're not talking about a two year appointment to the federal trade commission here. we're talking about a permanent life long seat on the united states supreme court. it's going to alter our lives for generations, potentially. and with dr. ford, what's happened to her since she came forward is another indication of why so many women balk or he had tate before reporting anything like this. judge kavanaugh the idea he'll be under a cloud if indeed he is confirmed for the rest of his judicial career is uncalled for and it could all be taken care of if the 11 majority members of the senate judiciary committee, the republicans came to the

common sense conclusion, yes, let's take a little more time. let's have the fbi come back in for an extended background check, let's do everything we can to clear up the clouds that hang over the nomination to the united states supreme court. >> but, of course, that doesn't appear to be what's going to happen. this is now in the hands of dr. ford already she decides to testify on monday or not and most political analysts believes if she chooses to testify that's very bad news for the majority party in the senate. >> well, the republicans have an incentive to want to clear brett kavanaugh's name not only because he's going to be on the supreme court for a lifetime appointment but also because their party has become connected with sexual assault and the mistreatment of women. you have to think about the president himself stands accused by several women of sexual abuse.

you have the hollywood access tape where he's referring to women's body parts in the a derofwaer to way. a and then now you have brett kavanaugh maybe he's innocent, maybe he's guilty. at some point maybe the fbi will figure it out. the point is that the republicans have a messaging problem, an image problem. as we look at the future of the party more and more women will be voting, more and more women are gal vannized to take it to the polls and republicans need to get it together wondering whether or not they can hold on to younger women and suburban women. claire mccaskill voting no is not a big surprise. she also voted no on neil

gorsuch. so i think what you have is really the other democrats, joe manchin and others who really have to take a hard look and wonder whether they can vote for this supreme court nominee. >> the timing for republicans are so bad. we keep talking about how bad the situation is. even before this controversy came up last week, you had people like steve bannon saying republicans can kiss good-bye any hopes of ever having college educated white women vote forge them again. republicans were already bleeding support in the polls from suburban women and from women in all demographic groups. this coming a month, month and a half before a critic jl mid-term election, the timing just couldn't be worse. >> that's use think republicans would want a definitive answer,

more clear answer from the fbi about what happened or didn't happen that night. but republicans, as you know, joe, believe this is a political game being played by democrats trying to push it towards election day. dianne feinstein and others had this letter in july. they could have acted earlier but wanted to push it up. they believe they are being pulled into a trap right now. let's turn to president trump's littest dig at his attorney general jeff sessions. the president telling the hill tv quote, i don't have an attorney general. and calling sessions mixed up and confusioned during his confirmation process. president trump spoke about his frustration as he had left the white house yesterday. >> i'm disappointed in the attorney general for numerous reasons, but we have an attorney general. i'm disappointed in the attorney general for many reasons and you understand. >> you're going to fire him? your going to fire jeff sessions? >> we are looking at lots of different things. i have a great cabinet. we have the greatest economy ever in the history of our

country. so we're very happy with the way things are running generally speaking. >> but "the washington post" reports even trump's allies have grown frustrated with his attacks on the attorney general. a information white house official telling the paper quote, it is a complete disgrace the way trump is acting like a schoolyard bully against sessions. for his part attorney general sessions appeared at a law enforcement conference in illinois yesterday where he praised the president's leadership. joe, as we've said many times this goes back to torj sin of jeff sessions recusing himself and not protecting the president in the russia investigation in the way president trump believes he should be protected by his attorney general. >> jeff sessions recusing himself and the president being told by other lawyers around him jeff sessions had no other decision. no other alternative than to recuse himself. and yet, of course, donald trump believes that all loyalty must flow directly to him. we saw that with ron desantis,

that he loved desantis as long as desantis was singing bedtime stories to his children about donald trump dressing them in onesies and teaching them about building walls. the second desantis speaks the truth about all the people that died in puerto rico, he suddenly turns on him. he's done that with jeff sessions, a man that donald trump told anyone who would listen to him throughout the entire campaign that jeff sessions was the smartest man in washington. he was the smartest senator in washington, d.c., donald trump saying jeff sessions could have any job he wanted if he wanted to be secretary of state, he would make him secretary of state. if he wanted to be secretary of defense he would make him secretary of defense. if he wanted to be attorney general, he would make him attorney general, because he believed jeff sessions was so smart, jared believed the same thing. both of them saying one of the smartest guys in washington, d.c. he then does what any lawyer in

his position would be required to do, and suddenly he's a dumb southerner from alabama who talks like he has marbles in his mouth. amazing how things change. >> as if we needed another reminder. we get constant reminders that president trump has little knowledge of institutions of government, how they work and are supposed to work. look, the department of justice, elise, the attorney general of the united states is not the president's lawyer. clearly mr. trump does not understand that concept of the department of justice and if he were to fire jeff sessions, i mean the tumult that would occur. first of all, could a nominee be approved by the united states senate. they would be outraged that one of their own, formerly jeff sessions has been cashiered and what would enyou see aft syou y.

>> lindsey graham might have a different opinion. given his recent groveling to donald trump as consistently as he possibly can. with jeff sessions, donald trump seems intent on signalling his own weakness. because by this public flogging that he can't stop it shows that he's not in control. he does not have authority over his own nominees. and he doesn't have the kind of influence. so by his consistent bemoaning of jeff sessions and how sessions has crossed him, he just is looking very weak. >> but, you know, heidi, jeff sessions does have some loyalty on capitol hill. there are senators who like sessions who don't like fact that donald trump keeps attacking him. and it's one thing that donald trump just doesn't understand, that he came into town ignorant

of and remains ignorant of. he's operating in a madisonian democracy filled with checks and balances. sure he can fire jeff sessions because jeff sessions did what he was required to do. if he does that good luck getting a senate whether it's this senate or possibly a democratic senate a couple of months confirming your next attorney general. checks and balances are concepts that this guy, a new york real estate huckster still doesn't understand. >> you're absolutely right, joe. we saw from the beginning. i mean these threats have been going on for a year now. i take you back to last summer when they first started and senator grassley said he wouldn't even schedule time to look at another nominee. but that said there has been a shift under way in the past year where you have now senator grassley not repeating those comments. you have democrats like senator

durbin who i spoke to a week or two ago. i was flabbergasted he seemed almost fattalistalistic after t election trump would fire session. so what then? what then is there will be an epic fight on the hill for the confirmation. senator durbin told me that by no means they will ever consider anyone who has the slightest whiff of association with the president or loyalty to this president. then you have from most someone on a temporary basis like rod rosenstein and we all have seen how the president has also taken his knives out for rod rosenstein. so even though this looks like this maybe in the cards that everyone on capitol hill is now expecting to it happen at some point it will absolutely precipitate a massive battle on capitol hill that may not end up well for the president. >> what did you read into the

president's comments about jeff sessions that he no longer has an attorney general. is this a case where trump watches paul manafort flip on him and he realizes how serious the russia investigation is and he lashes out what was the original sin that jeff sessions should have protected him somehow from all of this. >> he sees there's a cloud on his white house and takes that cloud and goes directly to jeff sessions and blames him for all his problems for mike mulvanul , for all these things, james comey writing books and telling people about his loyalty issues. there's this idea that donald trump needs to look at someone every day and say this is the reason why this is happening to me and jeff sessions is that person. you hear a president who is deeply frustrated. he thought when he got this job he could control the people around him and pick and choose

his attorney general. in this case his attorney general he simply does not want any more. he wants to fire him. he hopes he can possibly maybe push him into resigning because a lot of times the president is talking at jeff sessions through the media. this president continues to gives interviews where he is bashing jeff sessions is not surprising. when i write yesterday's interview with the hill i started in some ways rushing how to cover the story. we heard him say this over and over again. we have all these other things going on including brett kavanaugh. we have to stay focused on that. you're seeing a president who is isolated in the fact that he can't fire jeff sessions. >> jeff sessions was the first united states senator to support president trump's campaign back in the summer of 2015. thank you very much. always good to see you. still ahead, is the president crossing a red line with the fbi when it comes to declassifying information. congressman adam schiff says that's how officials have

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>> i'm not. i'm not, because if he's honest and he is, i think he's going -- as long as he tells the truth it's 100%. paul manafort was with me for a short period of time. he did a good job. i was, you know, very happy with the job he did. i'll tell enthusiast, i believe that he will tell the truth. and if he tells the truth, no problem. >> that was president trump's answer yesterday when asked if he's concerned about what his former campaign chairman will tell investigators. a couple of other developments with key figures in the russia probe, a december 18th sentencing date now has been set for former national security adviser michael flynn who you'll remember pleaded guilty to lying to fbi and has agreed to cooperate. also president trump commented on his ex-foreign policy advisers who have been caught up

in the russia probe including george papadopoulos who was sentenced to two weeks to prison for lying to federal investigators. president trump told the hill tv how about papadopoulos who i didn't know other than i sat for 15 minutes at table where they have a picture of this. i didn't even talk to the guy. i didn't know who he was. one thing about carter page he never went around saying he knew me. he never went around saying the president is my best friend. they put him on some committee. some person put him on a committee. that was not a good committee for me. okay. here again is what president trump said to "the washington post" editorial board about these same people in 2016. >> we heard you might be announcing your foreign policy advisory team soon. >> if you want me to give you some of the names. >> i would be delighted. >> carter peace, ph.d.. george papadopoulos.

he's an i'll energy consultant. excellent guy. >> so, he's an excellent guy. >> excellent guy. >> only the best. this president, he only hires the best people, willie. i think you should know this by now. think about this. he says he doesn't know papadopoulos, but there you have him saying he's one of my top two, one of my top two foreign policy guys along with carter page. he says that paul manafort was hardly around. paul manafort was his campaign manager, at his most critical time. he told me personally, trump told me personally he had to hire manafort because manafort would get him the delegates he needed to get over the top and become the republican nominee. manafort was running his campaign longer than steve bannon or kellyanne conway.

so, manafort was the guy in the center of the campaign as donald trump moved towards republican nomination. but he's saying he doesn't have an attorney general with jeff sessions, a guy that he once said was the smartest guy in all of washington. and now he's saying he hardly knew manafort, didn't even know papadopoulos. it's, again, alternate facts and, you know, what's interesting, those about the attorney general situation. donald trump actually wanted rudy giuliani to be attorney general. consider being attorney general because giuliani was pushing hard for secretary of state and that just wasn't going to happen. and so trump said what about attorney general? giuliani didn't want to be attorney general. said it was just too tough.

too much. too much stuff going on there. think about how history would be different today if rudy giuliani, who we've seen is capable of twisting facts and sucking up to the president more than any of us would ever imagined a couple of years ago, think how history would have changed if rudy giuliani had said, yes, i will be your honor attorney general. chances are very good he would have together, they would have been able to kill this investigation, and americans wouldn't know half of what we know now about russians trying to interfere in our democracy. >> and president trump wishes he picked rudy giuliani as he's made pretty clear because he would not have recused himself. joining us now the ranking member of the house intelligence committee congressman adam schiff. let's talk about the president delaughing the documents in this russia investigation. i think it stunned a lot of

people in the intel community. they couldn't find a good precedent for it. does the department of national intelligence have any recourse here. any way for them to protect classified information or do they have to carry out the president's order. >> they have to carry out the president's order. ultimately, though, the remedy they have is initially push back and say these parts we simply can't release, we made commitments to our sources that will protect them in addition to any sources that are available here. we have to worry about our sources not cooperating in the future. >> do they have the power to do that? we hear time and time again the president can declassify anything he wants to declassify. do the intel agencies have the authority to say to the president, no, mr. president, this can't be declassified because we made these commitments to our source this would compromise our m thoethod.

do they have that authority >> they don't ultimately. they should go back to the president and say look this is why we can't do this. if you need somebody so do this i'll resign you have to find somebody else. that's the only power they have. that can be very powerful. if you have high ranking people in the government who do resign and resign out of conscience it becomes that much more difficult for the president to insist on successors and they pay that much greater political price in the country. so that can be a powerful restraint, and i think we've seen that restraint operate before when the president said to doug ma began fire robert mueller and he side i will resign before i do it. ultimately if the president if assists key do it. this same president says he's doing it for transparency but yet to release his tax returns. the remedy is to say, mr. president, this is where we draw

the line and they made it clear to me, doj as well as the intel community that some of these materials are an absolute red line for them and in fact with respect to some of these materials they said they didn't want those of us in the gang of eight to share it even with people outside the gang of eight let alone the public. >> congressman, one thing that struck me yesterday about president trump's interview with the hill, when he talked about how he was going to declassify or release these documents is that he admitted he hadn't reviewed the documents himself and that really he was doing it because commentators he admires on television had recommended that these documents be declassified. i think sometimes we lose sight of just how extraordinary and how abnormal it is for a sitting president to interfere in an ongoing investigation, that directly implicates his political fate in which he's a

stakeholder. what -- how -- this seems like blatant obstruction of justice. >> i think it's certainly evidence of obstruction of justice. you have a president ordering this stuff declassified that he hasn't read. you have the chair of the intelligence committee egging him on to do this when he hasn't read the fisa application. what you have is you've got not only i think the fuchs pundits and confidants telling him to do this but you may very well having his legal defense team saying mr. president this would be very dwruls discovery for you. you can order the government to give your own defense the documents it wants. i have to say i have mixed feelings about the president not having read this. let's say that ultimately the intelligence community says no we won't release this information. if the president reads it and share with it his defense team then they have the opportunity still to basically order their

own discovery and this is a pending investigation, as you point out post-watergate we had a very firm policy that the white house doesn't intervene in specific cases, it sets general policy and here this is not only a specific case it's a specific case that may implicate the president himself. >> heidi przybyla. >> hi, congressman. it's heidi. cbs news is reporting that a grouch house democrats is urging leader nancy pelosi to change the rules such that if democrats win the new leader, the new speaker would need to be elected by 218 votes instead of the current rule which is just a simple majority. what would be your position on that? would you support that? >> my position s-honestly, i think it's a huge mistake to be fighting over the leadership and the rules at a time when we haven't won the mid-terms. the mid-terms are still almost seven weeks away and all of our focus ought to be on that.

if we're successful there will be plenty of time to work out what the caucus rules ought to be, but i wish every member of our caucus would be out on the campaign trail, if they are not in a tough race themselves out there helping others and not stirring up a conflict within the house at the moment. >> congressman, before we let you go, i know this action is taking place in senate. should dr. ford testify on monday as she's been invited. >> i hope that she does because i'm afraid that what the republicans on the judiciary committee really want is they want her to go away. they don't want the country to hear from her. they certainly don't want the country to hear from her live and on television. she's absolutely right, the fbi should do a thorough vetting of these allegations. the senate shouldn't simply rely on hearing two conflicting accounts and decide well, we're okay with not knowing. we're okay with the fact we might be putting a, someone who

committed attempted rape on the supreme court of the united states. they should get to the bottom of this. it wouldn't take that long to do. this is the same crowd that waited a year to fill the last vacancy during the obama administration on the supreme court so why this rush and i think they realize they have a very imperfect candidate, in fact they may have a candidate who has committed attempted rape. >> you're suggesting both fbi investigation and her testimony on monday. >> yes. >> congress mapp adam schiff of california. good to see you. still ahead, today is one year since hurricane maria made landfall in puerto rico. the governor is marking the anniversary with a special request for president trump, statehood. the governor joins us next to make that case on "morning joe". . - [announcer] the typical vacuum head can struggle

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it's been an incredible tough situation, but we fought and we are winning that one big. we stand with puerto rico. and we are helping them to rebuild better and stronger than ever before. >> president trump has had a throat say about puerto rico over the past year bouncing

between criticizing the island's infrastructure management and praising his own response to hurricane maria. last week he went further calling into question the death toll from the storm which according to george washington university study stands at nearly 3,000. we'll speak with puerto rico's governor in just a moment. but first let's bring in the dean of the milkin school of public health at george washington university dr. lynn goldman. she's co-author of the study that led to the revision of the official death toll from hurricane maria. i want to read again for our audience president trump's tweet of last week. he wrote when trump visited the island territory last october officials told him in a briefing 16 people had died from maria. he's quoting "the washington post". this was long after the hurricane took place. after many months it went to 64 people. then like magic 3,000 killed

peop people. then they hired george washington. this wasn't done with previous hurricanes because other jurisdictions know how many other people killed. 50 times last original number. no way twries president. he blamed democrats for the death toll. let me just specific a little bit and let you answer directly the president's tweet. but the term excess deaths. 2975 excess deaths. what does that term mean exactly >> what that really means is that compared to a normal year when there was no hurricane we would have expected that 2975 people would lost their lives between september of 2017 and february of 2018 would not have died. and so that we can, therefore, attribute those deaths to hurricane maria either directly or indirectly. >> what do you say to the president questioning that methodology and calling it magic? >> there's no real magic to it at all. we're able to look at the

officially certified deaths that come from the government of puerto rico. we're able to understand the net number of people on the island at any given time through migration, 8% of the people on puerto rico left the island between september 2017 and february 2018. we had to factor that in. we can look over past years, the patterns of death by season, by year, and use mathematical mo l modemode modeling to make sure we're not caught by random calculation. there's science we can apply to come with the estimate. is it exactly 2975? it's very close to that, within a fairly small margin of error. it's a statistical excess. >> door goldman, if you could, first of all, how long did your study, your research study take

to put together? that's one question. the second question is could you please explain to people who are legitimately confused how this number exploded to the number you came up with. how easy it is to find people's death, to catalog deaths of people who died as a result of being deprived of normal health services during the course of the hurricane? >> so that is one of the major factors is that, you know, when you have a breakdown of not only normal health services, but also transportation systems, power grid going down, then there are many things that can happen to people that can lead to death that otherwise wouldn't have happened. for example, some of the stories that we heard where people were unable to power oxygen machines that were at home, were unable to obtain emergency assistance within a timely fashion because of roads being down, their loved

ones died at home or die on the way to hospital whereas perhaps in a normal year those people would not have lost their lives. but it took a few months to do the work. we had to make sure they had assembled the records. we needed to go through the airline data to understand about how many people were coming in and out of puerto rico every day. and we took a lot of care with the statistical analysis to make sure that we could develop a number for the government of puerto rico that would be close to reality as possible. >> dr. lynn goldman dean of milkin institute of public health at george washington university and the co-author of report that found 2975 excess deaths in the wake of hurricane maria. we really appreciate you walking us through those numbers. thank you. we'll be right back with the governor of puerto rico to talk more about this when "morning

joe" comes right back. "morning joe" comes right back.

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you know, willie so interesting lynn goldman came on and, kouvgs the president on, o the president attacking the study that she led from george walk university talking about thousands of people dying as a result of the storm. it is always really important for republicans to remember if they want to look at this study and think that it's biased, that two of the president's most art a ardent supporters in puerto rico as anybody not on the eeld, flori-- island, florida governor rick scott and senator ron desantis, both republicans, both hyper supporters in the defense of donald trump over the years both saying thousands of people died and the gw study was far closer

to what the reality is than donald trump suggesting it was a dozen people or so. >> dr. goldman works in public health. she does statistics. you have to ask the president, what interest would she have to inflate her numbers. the governor from san juan joins us. governor, it's always good to see you. let me ask you. we just had dr. goldman on from george washington university, walking through the numbers, how she ariefbled. do you accept the george washington number as the number of people who died in hurricane maria in puerto rico? >> well, good morning, thank you for the opportunity. yes, i accept the whole process as one that is scientifically robust, independent and accurate. it is important to state that this is an excess death estimate. but the way it was done, you know the process that it was taken, the information that it

gathered, i think it is very well done and you know, willie, i am a scientist. that's my formal training. so when we commissioned this study to be independent, i also wanted to see what the process was. they took us through the process. i think it was very well done. and i'd be willing to go over that scientific process with the president or anybody in his staff so that, you know, we can arrive at the same conclusions. >> governor, as you know all too well today is the one-year anniversary of hurricane maria, making landfall in puerto rico. a nightmare for that beautiful island and the year that's followed has been very, very difficult. give us a status report few could one year later, how is the island doing? >> well, you know the recovery has been long, it's been tough. but at the same time, there is opportunity for rebuilding puerto rico, unlike ever before. we still have some hiccups.

i think we have major bureaucratic hurdles, particularly on the fema side of things. we've asked for an extension on the emergency work cost sharing. that's on the desk of the president we are hopeful that that will be given to puerto rico, as was given to louisiana and katrina. so, we have make ways, but certainly, there are still a lot of work to be done, particularly on housing. we have over 60,000 homes that still don't have rooves, that have blue tarps. our energy grid is still vulnerable. we aim to change that into a modern energy grid, it has prierk gridstimicro-grids. at the same time, i hope right now with our great relationship with hud at the federal level, we're going to be able to get the resources down here on the ground quickly and start fixing

homes for people that have been devastating. allowing people to have home titles and ownership, relocating those in dangerous places. >> that is kind of the status report right now. today is a day of solace and remembrance of those that we lost. >> right. so, governor jeff scarborough here, if you are looking back over the past year, writing an after action report a year later, trying to make sure that the mistakes of the last year are not repeated after the next hurricane that strikes your island or another island, or any other american city or territory, what do you see over the past year that federal, state, local relief agencies failed at the most and what caused the most excess deaths? what was avoidable and must be avoidable next time this happens? >> well, i this i there's plenty

of responsibility to go around. obviously, as governor, i take my share of that responsibility. i take it very seriously. i want to identify what was done wrong and what i did wrong, so that we don't repeat it toward the future. there are certain things, you know, that i think that the baseline concern here, joe, that, you know, we never prepared historically, either in puerto rico or the occupation for an event of this magnitude. so now going forward, we really have to assume that we're going to be hit with catastrophic events such as this that leave us really with no communications, no energy, little access to roads and so forth. i think that the public health emergency, you know, response, needs to be up significantly. that's why we economicsed this study with george walk. that's why i have a 920 commission to evaluate changes, changes such as having a census

for those patients on dialysis to we can intervene prior to a storm or having a census in the whole islands for homes for the elderly, which we did not have prior to the storm. i think we need resources ready to executed. we need to make puerto rico a multi--port destination. we have the opportunity to do so. in case an airport pulls down, we can continue to receive help and have continuity. so many things to be done and responsibility to share. >> governor, are you a strong proponent of statehood for puerto rico. make your case, please. >> i think the case has essentially been made to the world in the after math of maria. regardless of your position on the recovery, there have been some good things and bad the thing of the matter is we have been treated like second class citizens. the only reason it was different in texas and puerto rico is

puerto rico is a colonial territory of the united states. so until we, request you are one of those people that feels compelled every time you see the images, every time you see something that happens in puerto rico, you ask yourself, why are they treated different ly? we need colonialism. they have chosen statehood twice. it's a matter of human rights, democratic rights that we are asking to move the ball on the next. right now the showcase is there. my decision to all decision-makers is to establish their position. do you want the united states to be a standard bearer of democracy while visiting colonial territories in the 21st century? how can you go to cuba or venezuela and preach democracy when you have over 3 million american citizens disenfranchised. are we going to allow from the

modern age to have two types of citizenships in the united states and are we content with giving people different treatment in this moment where there is clearly a sense of change? so it is my view, joe, for all stake holders right at this time in the one-year anniversary, it's time for decision-makers to put up or shut up and state if they will welcome puerto rico as a 51st state, if they will do what's in their power to make it happen or if they will reject the right side of history. >> all right. we'll see if congress is listening this morning, governor, in a way that it hasn't in years passed. thank you so much, give our best to your beautiful long island. >> please do. >> please do. >> thank you. >> still ahead the senate judiciary committee wants to know by tomorrow morning if brett kavanaugh's accuser will testify monday. her lawyer says there is no need to rush. also ahead, is texas senator ted cruz up or down in his battle

with democrat beto o'rourke,? two polls, two completely different picture of the race. we'll have new numbers when "morning joe" comes right back. "morning joe" comes right back my mom's pain from moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis was intense. i wondered if she could do the stuff she does for us which is kinda, a lot. and if that pain could mean something worse. joint pain could mean joint damage. enbrel helps relieve joint pain, and helps stop further damage enbrel may lower your ability to fight infections. serious, sometimes fatal events including infections,

tuberculosis, lymphoma other cancers, nervous system and blood disorders and allergic reactions have occurred. tell your doctor if you've been someplace where fungal infections are common. or if you're prone to infections, have cuts or sores, have had hepatitis b, have been treated for heart failure or if you have persistent fever, bruising, bleeding or paleness. don't start enbrel if you have an infection like the flu. since enbrel, my mom's back to being my mom. visit enbrel.com... and use the joint damage simulator to see how joint damage could progress. ask about enbrel. enbrel. fda approved for over 18 years. good morning, welcome back to "morning joe." with us msnbc contributor mike barnacle, white house and state departments elise jordan, historian author of "soul of america" john meachham and the

host of "kcdc casey hunt. the latest developments surrounding supreme court nominee brett kavanaugh. christine blasey-ford accused kavanaugh of a sexual assault more than three decades ago called the senate hearing not a fair or good faith investigation. in a statement, her attorney lisa banks writes, ford continues to believe that a nul non-partisan investigation of this matter is needed and she is willing to cooperate with the in the. however, the committee stated plan to move forward with a hearing that has only two witnesses is not a fair or good faith investigation. there are multiple witnesses whose names have appeared publicly and should be included in any proceeding. the rush to a hearing is unnecessary and contrary to the committee discovering the truth. a spokesperson for the senate judiciary committee tells the hill chairman chuck grassley is willing to send committee staff to california to speak with ford to hear her story. however, grassley informed

lawyers before if she wishes to testify on monday, ford must provide the committee with prepared testimony by 10:00 tomorrow morning. senator susan collins, a key undecided vote on kavanaugh voiced her hopes that ford will testify. >> i don't think she can reject, having had mate all of these serious allegations, i don't think she can reject all those options, because otherwise there are these very serious allegations hanging over the head of a nominee who are has emphatically denied them and that's just not a good way for us to end. so i think she needs to come forward and i think we need to provide her with any protection that she may ask for, for

herself and her family. >> that's senator susan col linls. senator lindsey graham, another republican pushed back against ford's calls for an investigation into her allegation against kavanaugh tweeting, requiring an fbi investigation of a 36-year-old allegation without specific references or time or location, before professor ford will appear before the judiciary committee is not about finding the truth, but delaying the process until after the mid-terms. it is imperative they move forward on the kavanaugh nomination and a committee vote be taken asap. we're at a stalemate here. republicans say we're bending over backwards, ms. ford, you can testify publicly, privately. we'll send people to california. it doesn't have to be senators asking the questions. she and her attorneys are saying, i don't want to go into a kangaroo court. i want an fbi investigation. >> it's interesting that lindsey graham is saying that we must, it's imperative we rush this

process. it's imperative we take the vote on monday with lindsey graham and chuck grassley, the entire republican senate sat on merritt garland's nomination for i think 293 days. i do understand, casecy hunt, there are concerns that democrats are trying to stall this, any democrat. anybody that claims this isn't a back of the minds, democrats are just, it's just not honest brokers they're lying to themselves, if not lying to all of us. that said, there should be a d middle ground the fbi conducted an fbi investigation under the clarence thomas hearings. it took a couple of days. it's not like they have to go to new zealand to find people. most of these people could be interviewed very quickly. it could be turned around in a couple of days.

what is a problem with conducting a two or three-day investigation? making sure that the facts are all before everybody and her testifying the end of next week? >> some of my sources are perhaps allowing an fbi investigation to go forward would unyield unsavory information about the nominee. okay, you can probably guess where those sources may be leaning. joe, i think one important thing to remember here is so far dr. blasi forward hasn't said she won't appear on monday. instead we seem to be sort of one at a time talking about the issues about how this is proceeding, while that door remains opened. yesterday, we were talking about the investigation at that statement she put out last night focuses on the other witnesses, the other people that may have some information about this. we know some of those people have seemed to briefly surface on social media. there are certainly a lot of

conversations going on behind the scenes as people are trying to work out what else is out there, what other information may be out there. there is a lot of speculation and a lot of rumor that obviously we're not trafficing in, as we report out this story. but i do think you are seeing a pretty, a clearer strategy on the part of dr. ford and i don't think that everyone has necessarily come to the conclusion that she won't actually appear on pond. i do think that from a political perspective, that monday deadline has become a lean in the sand. i do think for susan collins, you know, she when to the the mat, others, jeff flake, bob corker, to say to republican leadership, you can't shove this behind closed doors. mitch mcconnell didn't want to keep this door opened in the first place. at 3:00 in the afternoon he seemed to be saying he wouldn't. by 6:30, he had after talking oother members of his

conference. i think from those people that want to hear from her, they're not going to let this deadline slide. >> you are right. it's disingenuous when democrats act leak it was a bunch of good old bays saying, 45i, we'll invite her and kavanaugh on monday. then we'll trap her. then we'll beat up. it was, it's important to underline for susan collins, for bob corker, for jeff flake this was a pretty heavy push. they had their republican colleagues did not want that one-on-one showdown. >> they're terrified. they're terrified of it. there's 11 men. >> they were terrified on, elise, they were terrified when the discussions first began. they're terrified now. and they are praying that dr. ford decides to stay away because they know and they have said that the optics of these 11

men cross examining dr. ford about what she says was sexual assault is a political nightmare that could actually swing the election this fall. >> well, and dr. ford holds all the cards right now. she has nothing to lose by continuing this waiting game until 9:59 a.m. tomorrow morning and drawing this out, letting her lawyer have the leeway to negotiate the best possible terms for her potential appearance. so i still think there is a chance she could surprise everyone tomorrow morning and say you know i will go through with this. i will testify, but i don't think that the back and forth overall this is unsurprising when you look at how quickly this has evolved. it's been so badly mishandled by the democrats that think believe she is a victim, then shea have revictimized their victim by the shoddy handling of the smyre

process and re-introducing it at the 11th hour instead of letting this have the time for it deserve about true fact finding about what actually happened. >> elise. this is the second team now in modern american history that a woman who phil feels like she has been harassed sexually, who has gone to the democratic judiciary committee said i want to give you this information. inwant to remain anonymous and this is the second time that information has gotten out. and what is so offensive about the way the democrats outed dr. ford this time is, they waited until their hearings were over. they waited until they basically put their finger up in the political winds and they knew that kavanaugh was going to pass and then somebody on the senate judiciary committee or programs out of a democratic congress woman's office said, well, it looks like he's going to pass, we're going to shove this lady

out of the closet and basically identify her. >> well, and it does no favors to her to have this happen so quickly and to not have there be some kind of reasonable process. i gas i was shocked when i read anita hill's op-ed and realized. i shouldn't have been surprised. there still is no process on the judiciary committee for dealing with allegations of this sort. so so many years later, there still has been no real improvement or system for managing this? a way that respects both the accuser and gives due process to the accused. >> john meachham, i had a conversation yesterday with former senate majority leader george mitchell and the thing, there were so many elements to this story as we all know, we were discussing today and yesterday and we'll be discussing tomorrow. but the thing that struck senator mitchell was his deep

real genuine disappointment in the fact that the united states senate now according to his view is exactically a non-functioning institution. it's so permanently divided. your thoughts. >> it's fascinating to hear senator mitchell say that. the senate was supposed to be the sauceer that cool the milk, i think was hamilton's phrase. they have six-year terms, because they were supposed to be one more step removed from the passions that the house of representatives would represent. and as you say, it has become now more part of the problem than the solution. we can spend all day trying to figure out when that happened, at what point things beban the to fall apart? there are people who talk about bill frisk campaigning against tom daschle. i think 20 years ago people talk about ted kennedy's speech on

robert bourque. any number of moments that could be kind of the pearl harbor of this. but the constitutional order in many ways depends on the senate being able to be the grownups in the room. and i think senator mitchell is clearly on to something. advancing the argument that the senate has become in some ways what the house became in the ''80s and early '90s. >> so we still have a long way to go. you have seven, you know, seven-to-ten days. if you are grassley, can you say, okay, we're recommending the fbi get into this. they investigate it. this isn't a time frame that we wanted. we believe these allegations are not true. we stand by judge kavanaugh, but we're going to give it another week. we're going to ask the president to get the fbi involved. give us three or four days of an

investigation him come back with the facts by the end of the week. we will have a hearing the following monday. we will vote the following wednesday. that puts you into early october. i don't know what the harm is in there, especially, johnmeacham, when that's october. you have a month before the election, doesn't that set republicans like susan collins and independents like lisa murkowski in a much better position to say we exhausted all means to get to the bottom of this? there was an fbi investigation. they came back inconclusive. we had kavanaugh and ford on. it was interesting. but at the end of the day, it was unconclusive. i had to vote to weigh my constituents wanted me to vote. we did everything we could do. isn't that the best way to go?

>> absolutely. it seems to me the fbi investigation and the senate actually discharging their constitutional duty to advise and consent, it's very hard to advise and content when you don't know all the facts or at least you haven't made a significant good faith effort to gather those facts. so the real question for particularly for senate republicans is, the choice they're facing seems to me is the quest for power of having this justice on the court josh never more important than an obligation to seek the truth about one of the most complicated and emotional kind of issues in american life and human life? it seems to me that you would want to exhaust every possibility to find out the truth. that's what the senate is for. ideally. >> still ahead on "morning joe," just a few days ago, mitch

mcconnell compared the battle for the u.s. senate to a knife fight in an alley. he cited elections like in arizona and nevada. we got brand-new poll numbers in both of those races straight ahead, first, bill kearns has a look at the forecast. >> good morning to you. we have rain concerns and severe weather concerns, we are finally getting rid of this summer heat wave we had. you will get a clash of severe weather window. that battle is taking place over southern minnesota and wisconsin. overnight we had flash flooding. it's an ugly day from south dakota over here to milwaukee. this is round one. we will clear it out in the mid-le of the day, we will get a new line of thunderstorms, watch out minnesota to lacrosse, to rochester, that enhanced 6 million people. tomorrow as that cold front pushes into the great lakes and the northeast. we will have wind damage threats from cleveland, to columbus, to

buffalo through northern portions of new england. how about 95 in absolute? what a hot summer it's been, 93 in atlanta. you are on pace for your warmest september we've ever recorded. as far as the weekend forecast goes, we will see heavy rain in oklahoma and north texas on friday. >> that will move into arkansas on saturday, maybe flash flooding, high school football games and college football games, that could be difficult. a little rain, sunday the front of the hangs up. the reward weekend will be in areas of the mid-west the northern plains, great lakes. it will be a fantastic sunday after a humid and wet september. you will get your first fall weekend. i know those apples, the peak of the apple picking season. sa they three times fast in the great lakes and the northeast. we will leave you with a nice

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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. texas democrat beto o'rourke got a little positive news after trailing senator ted cruz by nine points in that quinnipiac poll we told you about yesterday. a new policy poll in the upcoming senate race actually gives o'rourke the edge over cruz 47-45, it's a statistical tie. nobody has the edge according to that poll. poll found a neck and neck race in arizona where democrat kyrsteh sinema against mcsally. y

. >> you know, that's really the headline in all of these polls coming out, andrew gillum out performing all expectation, up, five, six points over ron desantis. it doesn't help that donald trump is attacking ron se san tis. >> that cavs away at the base, especially since ron desantis' campaign was run on the slogan i like trump. very interesting. elise the headline from this, of course, texas bounces back and forth. we had a texas poll that had beto down nine points. i'm skeptical that texas is ready to turn blew quite yet.

obviously, he's in the game, you look at indiana, missouri, florida the senate could break either way. it could be a big night for republicans or an absolute disaster for mitch mcconnell and a huge night for democrats. >> there are so still is many potential disaster for republicans. how does the battle end up? are there any new revelations from the mueller investigation? and those tight races polling within the margin of error are up in the air. with texas i have been surprised how close the race is getting. i think like you, it's possible there are more republican vote,. i think in the primary republicans out numbered democrats by 1.5ple to 1 million voters. so i think the numbers game will

be difficult for democrats to overcome in that senate race. but you look at the race that's happening right now 57d beto is giving ted cruz a run for his money. one of the smartest gop operatives in texas told me about six months ago cruz would likely still win, but it would be a tough race beto o'rourke wack comparable to an rfk in terms of his talent. we are seeing that play out in this race. >> you talk to senators, congressmen, staffers and insiders on capitol hill. what itself the general level of concern about the senate. we know republicans are concerned about losing the house. what about the senate? do that i think that can palestinian? >> i think there is definitely a sense of what had been a relatively comfortable place to be because of the math the math is so drawn in republican's favor.

three class of elections, this particular one is the best chances, but they've got an lot more nervous in the last few weeks and quite frankly democrats have gotten a bunch more excited. they were chatting between themselves about this very issue. one morning after a series of polls came out. i do think that if you are kind of tracking. if you have a mood poll that doesn't necessarily call voters, gets a read on which side, they definitely feel good about it. i think the thing about texas. regardless of whether beto o'rourke ultimately does beat ted cruz, don't underestimate how much of a suck of resources that is. it's a huge, incredibly expensive state. democrats have been worried all the way along about florida. frankly, bill nelson as a candidate and his campaign is not stacked up to what they were looking for from him. so they've had to prop him up with millions and millions of dollars. all of a sudden you have a counterweight to that in texas

and when you have the national committees thinking about how to approach this overall, that's actually a significant factor. >> coming up on "morning joe," the "new york times" looks to unravel two years in the russia probe, what we know so far and what is still left unanswered. "morning i don't" is cojoe" is back.

. president trump after his summit with russian president vladimir putin on whether he believed he meddled in the 2016 election. a few days later, mr. trump says he outspoke helsinki, he said he didn't see any reason why it wouldn't be russia. a national reporter scott shane. he co-you a hard to piece the plot to subvert an election, unraveling the russia story so far. thank you for being with us, it's more than a piece, it's an extraordinary time line. i was struck leading through this, scott, by how many times russian agents, whether directly or indirectly working for the government reached out and paid

contact with trump associates more than i realized. >> yeah, i think one of the things we found in looking back at this saga is that the kind of multi-faceted nature of it. the fact that it was operating really in three different areas with the famous internet agency social media operation on facebook and twitter, with the hacking by military intelligence and the leaking of democratic e-mails and then with these still somewhat murky you know outreach to various trump associates. when you add it up over a period of months, you know, there is about a dozen people associated with then candidate trump who were approached by various russians, you know, for various purposes and some of them certainly appear to be acting on

behalf of russia intelligence. >> scott, over the course of all of these contacts made by russia to the trump campaign, at any time did any of these trump associates working for the trump campaign contact the fbi in. >> no and that is somewhat striking looking back. you know, in working on this piece, i went back and looked at other cases in which a foreign power had reached out to a presidential candidate and said, hey, can we help? interesting enough,ed a l aid a stephenson in the 1950s was approached by the ambassador with a message from nikita crush krushev, how can we help your candidacy? he rejected it, reported it and later wrote he found it to be completely improper and dangerous. so i think that has been sort of

the consensus over time, but in the case of the trump candidacy, i think these were people worn relatively inexperienced in the political world and perhaps because because of that, they weren't put off by this, they often seemed quite eager to engage. >> scott, you said the russians tried to contact trump or trump associates through e-mails through facebook, ticket, veteran's groups, through the nra, what about let's say veteran's groups and the nra, give us those examples, do those seem to be attempts by russian agencies to infiltrate the campaign? >> well, you know, i think it's very difficult to say what exactly was going on in those cases and some other cases. in the case of the social media attack, these fake american

accounts that were created. in the case of the hacking and leaking of e-mails, we have robert mueller the special counsel's very detailed indictments laying out exactly you know by name which russians, you know, did what things. we don't have the equivalent in the case of what appears to be a human intelligence operation. so you kind of have to guess, you talk to intelligence sources, some folks, some of these people do have sort of documents russian intelligence connections. others just seem to be well connected russians, you know the way russia works, they're often businessmen with very close ties to the kremlin, who can operate on behalf of the kremlin at times, but we don't have certainty in any of these cases. >> scott, thank you so much. we appreciate your time. coming up on "morning joe," we go live to the white house on

where the president stand on brett kavanaugh's nomination. we'll be right back. brett kavann we'll be right back.

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this morning republicans are trying to push forward with brett kavenaugh's supreme court nomination. white house correspondent kristen welker will give us the latest. >> reporter: this morning will she or won't she? that's the critical question after christine blasey-ford says she wants the fbi to vepg as a first step before she testifies in front of the senate judiciary committee monday. president trump urging her to speak publicly. >> i want to see her what she has to say. >> reporter: does the president believe her? >> i can only say this he is such an outstanding man, very hard for me to imagine that anything happened.

>> reporter: while standing by his nominee, mr. trump is hinting his support may not be iron clad. >> if she shows up and makes a credible showing, that will be very interesting. we'll have to make a decision. >> reporter: overnight, pleas fo blasey-ford's attorney saying she is unable go home receiving ongoing threats and arguing the rush to a hearing is unnecessary, and contrary to the committee discovering the truth. one of blasey-ford's long-time friends says she has no reason to doubt her. >> she's not someone who makes things up. this was just a tremendously difficult decision for her, both because of the nature of her experience and how private she's kept that for so many years. >> reporter: kavanaugh has denied the sexual assault allegation for more than three decades ago. for his part the president signaling he has no plans to order an fbi investigation, each though he's the only one who can

do it, since it's ultimately a background check for his nominee. >> it would seem the fbi doesn't do that. they have investigated. >> reporter: what if you asked them to. there they've investigated about six times before, it seems they don't do that. >> reporter: judiciary chairman grassley to obtain staff, in california, her home state, also insisting there is no need to reopen the fbi investigation or delay the hearing. writing a letter to blasey-fo blasey-ford's attorneys urging her to testify either publicly or privately on monday. >> we are on focus right now doing everything we can to make dr. ford comfortable with coming before our committee. >> reporter: and, joe, there is precident for the fbi stepping into a supreme court nomination process late in the game. it's a pretty well known example. you will remember in 1991 george h.w. bush ordered an

investigation into anita hill's allegations into now justice clarence thomas. it's important to point out blasey-ford has not declined the off for monday. it is setting up a high stakes standoff for another day, joe. >> that's a big point to bring up. you had in your pack annual the president saying the fbi doesn't do it, doesn't conduct that investigation. as you said they did back with clarence thomas. but what's going on? help us try to figure out what exactly is going on with the president who always punches back hard when he's challenged. i wrote down a couple things the president's urging her to come forward and testify and also that quote that you put in the package, we'll have to make a decision after her testimony. what's going on behind the scenes? why does the president seem to be a little less invested in

this fight than almost every oths fight that you and i cover? >> reporter: a couple points there, joe, his tone this week, he has been more restrained. i think it's safe to say than we have seen him in almost any other fight. i think there are a couple issues at play here. one, he doesn't want to overplay his hand in case there are more accusers that come forward. it was striking as you point out to leave the door opened, look, if she does come forward and testify, if she has compelling testimony, we'll have to see what happens next. so indicating his support not necessarily iron clad, but still standing pretty firmly behind judge brett kavanaugh at the same time, saying that he is a machine of high integrity, and for the first time, irnts important to weigh in on whether he actually believes blasey-ford. he didn't smear her at the same time he did say, yes, it would be hard for me to believe that this actually happened.

remember, he is not only facing this fight right now, trying to get judge kavanaugh confirmed, but also, of course the mid-terms, joe. i think that's at play as well. there is obviously a big gap when it comes to female voters. he knows that voters are listening very closely right now. so he's choosing his words very carefully. but he has been incredibly restrained. >> you are right. a gender gap that turned to as may have gulp. nbc news' kristen welker, thanks so much. we presentist. as we heard in kristen's report, ab sent of a potential crime the senate, they can't ask the fbi to investigate any allegations against brett kavanaugh. only the white house can do that. but senator orrin hatch tweet thad the fbi couldn't get involved at all. he wrote this the february fib does not do investigations like this parodying the president. the responsibility falls to us. however, let's go to the weigh

back machine. to 1991, senate judiciary committee hearing hatch welcomed the fbi's investigation of anita hill's allegations then against clarence thomas. >> i have to say chairman biden, and the ranking member thurmon, within they heard about this, they immediated ordered an fbi investigation, which was a very right thing to do, appropriate thing to do. they did what every other chairman and ranking member have done in the past. >> and this fbi investigation, the right thing to do. all right. well, actually, senator hatch was mistaken in that clip when he said that then committee chairman joe biden ordered the investigation. in fact, joe biden just passed that information on to bush 41 and then white house counsel c

biden grey was the one that ordered the investigation. according to reports, they returned their findings to the senators in three days f. mike, and elise, i just -- i -- i am sad. no, you know what, the thing is -- i have -- we have all talked about, you and i have talked about how we don't like it but elise talked about it earlier, how we don't like how the democrats handled this at all. also said i hate the fact that people are either calling dr. ford a liar and a nabulists are calling dr. kavanaugh an attempted rapist. all that said, why don't the republicans do the smart thing and say you know what, they did it back in 1991, let's have the

president order up an investigation, they can come back in three or four days. you will get this heaped us. we will have brett kavanaugh voted on with an after tsterisk to his name. >> senator grassley and hatch both of whom on the committee whenp anita hill was fighting clarence thomas and they triggered the fbi into another background check, they were both on the committee. they have learned absolutely nothing across all of this time. your answer is right if front of you for these senators. pittsburgh up the phone, you call the white house. don mcgahn triggers the fbi to extend another background check. as you pointed out, it would take two or three days. >> you know, elise, you don't have to have the wisdom of solomon to understand the person begging for an fbi investigation versus the person who is trying

to avoid an fbi investigation, actually, well, may believe that she has the facts on her side. why are the -- again you and i criticize the democrats. just so we're not accused of being former republican hacks. so i ask you the question, what are the republicans so afraid of? why doesn't an orrin latch of 20 on follow the advice of orrin hatch from 1991? >> well, brett kavanaugh has strongly pro claim that he is not guilty of this and he denied it. and so you wonder with the white house that it's not even about brett kavanaugh anymore. it's much bigger than that. this is brutal partisan warfare and it's all completely clouded by the man, himself, who sits in the oval office, donald trump, who has been accused by over a

dozen women of sexual assault and other harassment charges. and so, with, by enabling a man like donald trump to receive the republican nomination, by supporting him, no republican man from here on out gets the benefit of the doubt, as long as donald trump is in office and perhaps for far longer, simply because of what they have enabled and we're going to see that play out with women voters in the mid-terms. all right, coming up next, president trump says his visit to the 9/11 memorial in shampgs vict shanksville made a lasting impression on him, at least when it comes to his proposed border wall. the president connected 9/11 and the border wall next on "morning joe."

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ask your gastroenterologist about entyvio®. entyvio®. relief and remission within reach. we distributeus, i'm the owner environmentally-friendly packaging for restaurants. and we've grown substantially. so i switched to the spark cash card from capital one. i earn unlimited 2% cash back on everything i buy. and last year, i earned $36,000 in cash back. that's right, $36,000. which i used to offer health insurance to my employees. my unlimited 2% cash back is more than just a perk, it's our healthcare. can i say it? what's in your wallet? with large debris and stuck-on dust, so shark invented duoclean, replacing the front wall

with a rotating soft brush. while deep cleaning carpets, two brush rolls pick up large particles with ease, make quick work of stuck-on dust, giving hard floors a polished look, and fearlessly devour piles. shark duoclean technology, designed to do more on carpets and floors, available in corded and cord-free vacuums, and only available from shark. so a 9/11 memorial is evidently helping shape the president's thinking on his border wall. america's commander in chief told the hill tv in that interview on tuesday, quote, so we're building the wall. i could build it. you know what i do best is build. i could build the whole thing in a year, but there was a picture that was sort of great. i wish i had it. i had a picture of where i was this weekend. they built this gorgeous wall where the plane went down in

pennsylvania. shanksville. and i was there. i made the speech. and it's sort of beautiful what they did. they have a series of walls. i'm saying it's like perfect. so we are pushing very hard. as you know, we've gotten a proved in the house but cannot get the senate approved. there are many things the senate can't approve. okay. well, that's interesting. so that's the president on the wall. and 9/11 memorials in case you were wondering how the two were connected. so we traditionally talked about american politics in terms of party but increasingly, we're using words like tribe. and even culture. and we use those words to describe how voters align themselves in elections. not just in the age of trump. it's been happening this entire century. there are parallels. the new book "rule makers, rule

breakers, how tight and loose cultures wire the world." the author, michelle gelfand. and also with us zenab salbi. the author of the book "freedom is an inside job." michelle, i think your concept's absolutely fascinating about loose cultures being willing to experiment sometimes to excess and tighter cultures being a bit more cautious in who they vote for. >> often we think about divides in terms of rather superficial characteristics like red versus blue. i was setting out to find is there a deeper cultural code that help us to understand our differences. i've spent a lot of time studying cultures. and found there is this template that divides our cultures. and it really has to do with an

adherence to social norms. all cultures have rules for behavior. wear wearing clothes here. drive on the right side of the street. we don't get into elevators and start pushing all the buttons and face backwards. we're constantly following norms. some groups have stronger norms. i call them tight cultures. some groups are more permissive. they're rule breakers. the book talks about why this difference evolved. for good evolutionary reasons. and what consequences it has for human groups including from politics to parenting. and many other topics. >> i've always been fascinated, and it really seems to fit tightly in what your theory is. what happened between 1998 and 1992 in american politics. 1988, we had an american war hero.

george h. bush bush. a prototypical world war ii vet. 1992, the soviet union collapses. by that time, americans are l k like, hey, you know what, we can take a chance on a guy who's being called a draft dodger, a pot smoker. and suddenly bill clinton's acceptable in 1992. he would have never been acceptable ten years earlier. >> yes, that's right. i mean, in many ways, when we have threat, we want strong rulers to help us survive. it's something i found in many different studies. nations that have a lot of disasters, they tend to get tight. they want strong rulers. it's really functional to have strong rulers. whereas we have more safety. we can afford to be more permissive. what we see today is really very remarkable. because trump and other leaders around the world are actually tapping into this cultural reflex. they're threatening people. they're activating all sorts of

threats. because this tightens people. this makes people want strong rules and strong leaders. we see this all around the world. we see it in hungary, in italy. our data shows when we measured perceptions of threat before the election, the people that felt very threatened by isis, by korea, disasters and everything, they wanted tighter rules and they wanted trump to help provide those. >> michelle, i love reading your book actually. and how is that relevant for corporations or families? you're talking politics in here, but is that applicable to families and cultures and organizations? >> so social norms are everywhere. any time year organizing, we have to decide how strict or permissive are we going to be. organizations are a great example. some evolved to be tight. they're in very stressful, unsafe contexts like airline industries. others are evolved to be loose because they have more safety. when they come together, they really collide. they don't recognize the people,

the practices of these organizations are very different. we've shown this recently in a study of 4,000 mergers and acquisitions. >> so this is a fascinating discussion. we're -- of course we're coming up on 9:00. we're going to continue the discussion though and continue it online. you'll be able to see it there. also, we'll be playing portions of it on future shows. so i want to thank you for now for being with us. stick around. more questions straight ahead. but right now, straight ahead for you, stick around, at 9:00, stephanie ruhle is going to tkek us through another busy hectic day of news, stephanie.

hi there, everyone, i'm stephanie ruhle with a whole lot to cover this morning starting with will she or won't she. the back and forth over whether or not dr. christine ford will testify. with a deadline for a decision one day away. as republicans insist it's monday or never. >> i'm not worried about anything other than just focusing for the next few days on encouraging her to come. >> the allegations are made. you can't put the genie back in the bottle. >> i just don't understand why the hearing shouldn't go forth. >> one year later. think about it. puerto rico still struggling to recover from the devastation of hurricane maria on the anniversary of the storm making landfall. renewed calls for help for this island. >> and you're still