anywhere in the world. i know the press is extremely honest, so i won't offer them any, but if they want, they can take a bottle of wine home. >> that's donald trump two years ago pitching his product during a primary night news conference. yesterday, he attacked one producing competitors in france, a tweet liked by eric trump who happens to seven as president of trump winery. overseeing, quote, everything from wine making and marketing to global distribution and sales. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is wednesday, november 14th. along with joe, willie and me, we have msnbc contributor mike barnacle, washington bureau chief for usa today susan page, white house bureau chief and political analyst for msnbc and nbc news, phillip rucker and national reporter for nbc news carol lee. so a lot to get to this morning, joe. a lot of different stories all going back to somebody who might be melting down just a tiny bit.

>> there is no doubt that the president who has had some rough times in the white house is now facing perhaps his toughest run. the reports coming out of the white house all suggest it's a president who is growing increasingly disinterested in his job, increasingly angry. we've got phil rutger here and we'll be talking about it in a moment. but willie, none of the portraits are flattering, of course, of the president, but also not comforting to americans and people around the world who understand that the president of the united states is one of the key figures in global politics and right now he seems to be checked out. >> yeah. we'll have all this reporting from phillip rutger and nbc news about the state of mind of the president and what's going on in the white house right now. but it supports i think what you've heard and what a lot of us are hearing is that because of the mueller investigation, because of the midterm elections which day by day continue to get

worse for republicans, the president is isolated, perhaps even depressed about what's happening. and don't forget now, we learned yesterday that he is filling out written questions from bob mueller. so he is getting in the thick of the mueller investigation, realizing what is being asked of him there and dealing with the fact that he's going to have a democratic house that's going to be coming for him in january. it all adds up to a very isolated president of the united states upstairs in the west wing. >> well, you know, willie, before we're going to get to that in just one second. something i read on your twitter feet last night and i was reading it while i was reading a book to jack for his good night -- because, you know, we have twitter tickers in all of my children's rooms. >> he does not. >> and yours flashes. >> so i'm reading this book with jack and it starts flashing on your twitter feed. sometimes we have an alarm going off and it wakes the kids up. >> that's amazing.

>> fire drill. >> and last night's fire drill was so you are at a place where one of our favorite places, p.j. clark's, right? >> uh-huh. >> and you're at p.j. clark and nikki haley hears there's some veterans in the building. what does she do? >> p.j. clark's throws a dinner with us for veterans day.. he year we have this big dinner with them. downstairs, nikki haley and her family happened to be eating dinner. someone let's her know there's a group of veterans upstairs. she comes up and spends a bunch of time with these men and women and comes to get to know to group. so we have so much negative going on in politics, but i wanted to let people know oftentimes, in fact, politicians do good things and do the right

thing. >> and i'll tell you what, that means the world for nikki haley. u.n. ambassador, somebody that they know well. for somebody to spend time with them, she could have very easily stayed down there with her family. i'm sure, you know, it's tough to grab family time when you're there, too. so it wasn't an easy thing to do. but great to come up and recognize the extraordinarily difficult thing that those men and women have been doing for this country. so, yeah, that's a real class act. >> let's start with what could be the source of all this concern in the white house. we begin with the democratic wave that still continues to grow. >> boy, every night. >> yeah. >> you know, we got hammered for not congratulating somebody for winning -- >> oh, right, well. >> the morning after. it looks like, yikes, she may end up losing. >> no worries for that.

that will help explain, though, the president's mood and we're going to break it all down in just a moment. in arizona, the democrats flip a republican senate seat in that state marked another major shift for another reason. as the "new york times" notes democrats now hold six sheets in the state's congressional delegation and the republicans five. the the democrats have not had a majority in the arizona delegation since the 1960s. and the current ballot count in california makes it appears as if the republicademocrats will t seats. republican young kim's lead has dwindled to 711 votes over democrat gil cisneros in the race to succeed ed royce.

the cook political reports dave wasserman tweeted, quote, it's only a matter of time before he takes the lead. looking like another republican loss. >> mike barnacle, you look state after state, nevada, arizona, again, two states with quite a few spans hispanics there. and there is no doubt that what the president was considering great strategy to bring out his base, you know, this stupid cara van conspiracy theory which he hasn't talked about since election day which fox news barely touches on, right? it ends up that's devastating there. let's look back. the house, bigger losses for republicans at any time since warrantgate. the senate, they had every structural advantage. they're going to end up picking up maybe two. and then you go to arizona. democrats haven't been in control of -- had a majority

there in the congressional delegation since the 1960s. mike, that is so long ago, that's when you got your first aarp card. >> well before that, joe. well before that. >> oh, my god, joe. >> thank you very much for reminding me of that and reminding people of that. that's very nice of you. >> i get mine in a week. but yeah, go ahead. >> what's really interesting about it is that we were clearly very premature in a lot of the election calls, you know, a week ago. campaigns are really important. all of these are individual victories rather than party victories. they become party victories. but the campaigns that were run by the democrats in these republican districts were all to a campaign very interested in that they focused on local issues, a lot of them, that they didn't vilify trump so much as they vilified what was happening to the country around us and to the services that people expect for congress to provide, that

the congress people to fight for and be happy with the constituents. in both arizona and california, arizona, i think, much more so than california. you can see the color of the state changing. i mean, it's gone from red to a sort of a blend of purple and now in the next cycle, i think it's going be democratic. but california, the numbers in california that just recounted are incredible that they would w have, what,ing going into the next congress, eight members of the delegation would be republican. i think that was the number. only eight in the state as huge as california. that's astounding. >> yeah, it really is. susan page, so many of the democrats that are talking now were saying, hey, we didn't have to talk about donald trump. we didn't have to talk about his racism. our voters saw that every day on tv. so we can talk about health care. we can talk about traffic in the suburbs. we can talk about local issues. so we got our positive messages

out. and donald trump did the rest of the work for us by turning off college educated women and college educated men by delivering this blatantly racist message about hispanics. it really blew up in his face. >> you know, democrats especially in these house races were so disciplined in focussing on health care, you know, a majority of the ads the democrats aired in house races across the country dealtel with the issue of health care, not with the issue of president trump. and i think democrats are looking at this for some signals, some lessons learned for the 2020 presidential race. how do you run against president trump? do you try to focus on hiss provocati provocative rhetoric? so i think that is one of the things that democrats think a lesson they can draw from the

success that they've had. this was a very successful election for democrats, especially in these house races and in some of these governors races, as well. >> so this brings us to the mounting reports about discontent and disruption within the white house. as the los angeles times reports, president trump stung by a rebuke in the midterms and nervous about the mueller investigation is retreating from traditional presidential duties. a source outside the white house who has spoken recently with the president said friday's "wall street journal" report confirming his central role in quietly arranging payoffs for two women, alleging affairs with him seemed to put trump in an even worse mood. "the washington post" dives deep into the past five days of furry with the president's temper boiling over. shortly after the president snapped at a reporter for what he called a stupid question about the russia probe, he reportedly also snapped at

america's closest ally. sources tell the post that aboard air force one, trump lost his cool in his phone call with british prime minister theresa may who called to congrat you auto la -- congratulate him on the midterms. he reportedly berated may. he watched tv with rapt attention as late counting votes resulted in a senate race in arizona and a number of house contests to slip out of republican hands. .after he chose not to attend a memorial for american soldiers due to a lengthy motorcade, trump told aides he thought he looked terrible and blamed his chief of staff's office for not counseling him that skipping the cemetery visit would be a public relations nightmare. willie, it's just confusing that he would need to be told that, but okay.

>> so phil rutger, this is your reporting. it's an incredible piece. >> thank you. >> but just talk about the president's state of mind right now. a lot of people thought his failure to attend that ceremony in france was bad, but even people who support him say i can't believe he didn't go lay a wreath at arlington. just to go do that on veterans day. it spoke to someone who was so isolated and so worried about something that he can't leave the white house at this point. talk about where he is right now in terms of his frame of mind. >> willie, according to our reporting with white house officials and other people close to the president, he remains in a pretty sour mood. he has been for the last five days. he's been very preop occupied wi -- preoccupied with the midterm elections. you see it day after day. he's pushing out baseless claims. he's sort of at a loss for what

to do. he had claimed victory in the midterms. it does not look like the big victory that he thought it would be. meanwhile, while he was in paris, he was bothered by emanu emmanuel macron. he thought macron attacked him personally. he was bothered by theresa may and that testy phone call and he was very bothered by the media coverage. he thought the coverage from his trip in paris was bad because he skipped the cemetery. because of it, he lashed out at the chief of staff's office and most especially the deputy chief of staff, zach swentis who was the one that had to brief him about the travel delays for that cemetery visit. >> and mike barnacle, again, the president, as willie pointed out, not only failed to go to the ceremony in france, he refused to get in his car and drive a couple of minutes to

arlington to do what every president since jfk at least has done on veterans day. and he's spewing conspiracy theories that only the most bizarre followers would believe. well, and marco rubio. did you see his three-point kick tweet, marco rubio, trying to explain, again, a conspiracy theory. somebody needs to explain to him that in america we call that a field goal. but a thee-point kick, i don't -- i don't really get that. british soccer? >> marco is the -- >> why is this guy feeding into the trump conspiracy theories? >> that's a very good question, joe. doubling down on his defense of

nationalism, senator rubio's defense of nationalism, that's a very good question that i do not have the answer to. your point about the failure to cross the bridge, to go to the memorial, the tomb of the unknown, to lay a wreath in front of the tomb of the unknown, that president trump not doing that, staying in the white house, it raises the issue in talking to several people yesterday close to the white house, including one person, a staffer who has left the white house, they view this as perhaps the most deeply troubling moment of the donald trump presidency. right now. we're in the midst of it. and phil rucker, my question to you, is after speaking to that person yesterday, they indicated that part of the problem -- this is according to the former staffer, is that the president at the end of the day really, when you think about it, has no friends. he retreats to the white house residence and he sulks and he's even more isolated than a

president of the united states is. he is truly doubly isolated and feeds on paranoia watching tv. but other than his family -- and i'm wondering if your reporting bears this out at all, he has no friends he can rely on and call and bounce this off of. >> donald trump through the years has always had a large number of sort of associates of people in his orbit who he can call to get information from. that he can ask favors of, to shoot the breeze on the phone. but he's lacked true heart to heart confidants. you're right. there are not particularly sort of close loyal friends that he feels he can confide in with any regularity at a deep emotional level. certainly his family is that. and he has ivanka trump, you know, in washington with him.

but still, he's a bill isolated. he spent money at the white house and has been consuming an extraordinary amount of news developments throughout the midterm elections and dealing with the mounting pressure of the mueller campaign. >> and, willie, let's get to the nbc reporting of this, too. i want to ask you, ask, all of these conspiracy theories that understand why marco is doing it, as much as i don't understand the whole three-point kick. maybe he's from london. he must follow soccer, like me, but even i know you call it a field goal. roger bennet would even know. but even nbc news is reporting this, aren't they? >> yeah. nbc news. carol lee is reporting clashes

with officials and the first lady is driving chief of staff john kelly to leave the white house soon. seven people familiar with the discussion say kelly has been on the wrong side of melania trump over staffing issues and travel requests and some of the disputes have escalated to the president's attention. melania trump raised concerns with her husband earlier this year at the height of the stormy daniels controversiessy that kelly repeatedly denied her request to promote some of her had aides. who white house officials telling that to nbc. saying, quote, i don't need this blank. a furious trump told kelly familiar with the conversation. there have been instances where the east wing staff were not treated as equals to the male dominated decisionmakers in chief kelly's office. promotions were denied and then granted after months of requests. the white house declined to comment on this. carol lee, let's pick up your reporting here. so it looks to some people like the first ladies of the united states is making personnel

decisions. that statement came out of her office yesterday, of the first lady's office condemning a national security adviser. what's going on here? >> yeah, willie, that was a truly remarkable moment. it's not something that we've seen before from the first lady. melania trump clearly feels emboldened to flex some of her authority and she's clearly been unhappy with some of the things she's seen happening in the west wing. but we've seen a president who is untraditional. now you've clearly seen a first lady who does things differently and speaks her mind in a way we haven't seen before. when it comes to john kelly, you know, the first lady in the east wing and by the way, they have a very small sav in ttaff in the wing. and the feeling over there is

that there is -- you know, the first lady wants to do things the way she wants to do them and she doesn't want to be told what to do by the president's chief of staff. she didn't like john kelly fired some people she thought were very loyal to the president. she didn't like that her promotions for her staff took so long. when she travels with the president, she doesn't like her staff is treated as second class. they're not given seats on the plane, they're not -- there aren't hotel rooms for them. there's always some sort of hiccup. and she viscerally felt that this deputy chief of staff, an ally of john bolton and hand picked by him is somebody that was very difficult to work with and really caused a lot of headaches around her africa trip. >> we'll see what happened. we've been hearing about a year

now he's told people i've had enough of this. >> come on. >> the next episode. >> ted cruz, what did he call it? i think it was the shot and the basketball ring. >> politicians -- >> somebody struggles sometimes when they talk about sport, if i may use the term. >> all right. there's -- >> and he's coming to the senate, too. >> yes, he is. >> okay. there's more from the nbc report from carol straight ahead. melania trump goes public with her call to fire a top national security official. we're going to dig into her role within the white house. and what it says about the president's inner circle. but fist, here is bill

karins with a check on the wintry forecast. bill. >> too early for this, mika. we're looking at a december-like forecast in the middle of november. let's get into it. it's already snowing in louisiana this morning and in arkansas. very rare for even december let alone the middle of november. this is just the beginning. winter weather advisories for memphis. st. louis is on a winter storm warning. you'll be plowing tomorrow in areas of st. louis to southern illinois. then it's going to be a sleet and snow mess in the ohio valley and all of this will come up to the northeast. here is the timing of it. the heavy rain today will be in atlanta. airport delays are a good possibility. and then tomorrow morning, we wake up. snowstorm from st. louis through southern illinois. icy mess from cincinnati northwards, columbus to indianapolis. and here it comes in d.c., right around 7:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. a burst of snow, maybe a quick inch or so and then it turns to sleet and then to rain it washes away. not a high impact for d.c. new york will be colder, maybe a

inch, then sleet. keep that in mind tomorrow. and all of interior sections are cold enough to get more snow. here is the snow forecast, guys. we're looking at 2 to 4 inches. higher elevations get 4 to 6 inches. extremely rare. we'll break some records with these early season snowfall totals as we go throughout the day tomorrow. that's mainly a thursday afternoon and evening impact in the northeast. new york city, you will see snow sometime around midafternoon tomorrow. yay. we're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. e watching . we'll be right back. ♪ ♪

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security official. melania trump called for the firing of m ira ricardell. >> why did the first lady's office -- >> the first lady's communication director issued a statement around 2:30 yesterday saying it it is the position of the office of the first lady that she no longer deserves the position of serving in this white house. >> not relevant here, not relevant there. >> at the very same hour, ricardo was literally over the president's shoulder at a white house event. even appearing in photos, the president posted to his twitter account. a white house source says ricardo has clashed with general kelly. asked about her employment status, an anonymous white house official says only ricardell is one of the highest ranking

members of the administration, has been confirmed by the senate and has never met melania trump. >> what is the first lady's office? >> and carol -- >> do we -- sending that out? >> what the what? >> what's going on here? this is nothing to do with her being first lady if it's a first dude, is aen man. you know what? that is not your domain to send out press releases. >> there's a couple of striking things about this story. one, the idea that mira ricardel has never met melania trump, that is stunning in and of itself. she's deputy national security director. and the other aspect of it, carol, is the back story leading up to melania trump's statement yesterday issued by her press person. the back story involving back stabbing out of the national security office by mira ricardel

and her bod, general mattis and several other people that's been going on for quite some team leading up to yesterday. but your reporting on that, please. >> sure. she's one of the individuals that if you ask people in the white house, you know, what they think of her or what her role is, it's hard to find someone who is really an ally of hers, besides for john bolton. and he hand picked her as her deputy and she's clashed with a number of people you mentioned. james mattis, john kelly, john kelly for all of his clashes with the first lady, and you made a diagram to keep it altogether, so he clashed with the first lady. and when mira, who is then getting into a disagreement with the first lady kelly intervenes on behalf of the east wing. so it's all kind of mixed up. and i think the first lady felt like, according to our reporting, that mira ricardel

crossed a line and i think she felt her office was very disrespected in the way her office was treated and particularly this africa trip which was melania's first overseas trip. it was a big deal for her and mira was involved in that and there were a number of things that happened that rubbed the first lady the wrong way. and i think to see a statement like that come out, you know, and as there were news reports that were starting to bubble up and we had some reporting about their disagreement and then she felt like there was a need to put out a statement to push this in the direction that she wanted it to go. it's not clear that mira has been fired yet. that's not something that we are going to be watching. >> carol, wasn't that africa trip the trip that melania trump offended many people in africa with her neocolognal fashion wear? >> there were a number of things

that took place on the trip. it was a trip where she wore an outfit that got a lot of attention and was seen perhaps offensive by some and her office pushed back means. anytime there's a lot of attention on melania trump's clothes, they usually issue a statement saying that the media is being petty about something. >> just like, susan page, when she wore the jacket with the statement on the back and we were told the statement didn't mean anything until a couple of months later in an interview, she actually said it did, that she wanted to send a message to the press while she was going down, supposedly, to focus on children being separated from their parents. it's -- boy, it's a mess in the white house. it seems like the level of chaos has reached new levels. >> to be clear, first ladies have weighed in before on

personnel matters, barbara bush did, nancy reagan did, hillary clinton did. but they take some care to do it secretly or privately or clandestinely. but the idea that you do it with a tweet and while the staffer you're targeting is still on the staff is something we've just never seen before. i mean, i do think that you cross first ladies at your peril. that may be true of crossing spouses generally anywhere, regardless of their role, but it is certainly true if you're dealing with the wife of the president. >> and it's certainly true, especially now with the "wall street journal" report that donald trump obviously very sensitive about that. it's been revealed that he was micromanaging payments to a porn star and a playboy model. that causes a problem. but, yeah, susan brings up a great point, willie. if first lady or in the future of first husband wants to communicate with their spouse,

they communicate with their spouse. they don't send it through the, quote, office of the first lady. office of the first lady is irrelevant to national security measures. it's that one-on-one. and i guess we only draw from this fact that they're sending out press releases that melania trump didn't feel like she wanted to go over and talk to donald trump and say it personally. >> yeah. i think everyone here will remember that the west wing in the clinton administration was frut traited at times with hillary clinton's influence on the president of the united states, but that was all internal. it wasn't in a press release. carol, help me understand. the nub open this is that the seats of plane and seats on the hell.incorporat hel helicopter had too much national security staff and not enough of melania trump's people and that is what led to this statement. and by the way, john bolt job who hand picked ricardel is out

of the country while all this is going on. >> yeah. he's traveling overseas and his main deputy is in the line of fire and could possibly not have a job when he gets back. the issue of the plane, it's almost like there were issues about seats, but it really, if you talk to the people we've talked to, it was just about the way that the first lady felt that mira handled the issue. it was that there was a complete lack had of respect for what she was trying to do, the way the plane was operating, that they had weren't treated very well. there was an issue over seats. the first lady wanted to organize the trip the way she wanted to and she felt like there was intervention on the part of mira and the security council that wasn't welcome. and the east wing felt, as we talked about earlier, that they're generally treated a

little bit differently and maybe not as well as some of the folks in the west wing. >> so phillip rutger, i believe it was machined onday on this s we were covering the events that president missed, commerative events, and i suggested that the pattern of his personality was that he was freaking out waiting by the phone and pacing around and losing his temper because he was feeling cornered. and your reporting is bearing this out. so what happens next? this white house is looking increasingly exposed. they're not able to keep a lot covered up and it appears the president is feeling cornered and we've seen what that looks like. it's not good. >> yeah, mika, he is feeling cornered and under siege and he's lashing out at the people around him. but he's thinking about huge

shake-ups to the staff. we're talking about ricardel, but he's on the verge of firing his homeland security had secretary, nielsen. he told aides during that very tumultuous trip to paris that he had decided to make a move on nielsen, that he decided to fire her. she remains in her job as of this morning, but could be gone any day now. he's obviously looking at replacing john kelly with nick ayers. interestingly on the flight back from paris to washington, on air force one, a number of the president's private aides went into the president's cabin lobbying against nick ayers. it's so much turmoil in the president's office and i think trump is trying to get control of his own operation because in part he's losing control of others aspects of the government. he is no longer going to be able to control the congress because

the house of representatives will be in democratic hands coming after him. >> and you bring up a great point, joe. we were talking last night. i don't think the president completely understood what losing the house meant. >> no. >> i think he thought, well, the senate is bigger and i don't think he -- or more higher level. i don't think he understood that he actually has to hand over his tax returns if compelled, that he has to answer. he has nowhere else to go. i don't think he fully understood that. it's happening now. he's getting it. >> and that's one of the biggest problems of this presidency. >> lack of understanding. >> so he that he does. when it looks like the president is intentionally breaching constitutional norms, i think more often than not, he doesn't understand what constitutional norms are because he hasn't focused on this. >> and as trump, he's never had to. he's always done what he wants. >> daddy gave him $200 million. he lost it all, he went bankrupt and he figured out a way, you

know, to make that money back or to get loans from russia, we don't know. but he never focused on this. so when he's breaching constitutional norms, half the time it's because he he doesn't know what constitutional norms are. you can talk about matesonian democracy. he doesn't understand about the checks and balances. and i understand even in the campaign, he was talking about how he was going to go after the speaker of the house. he doesn't understand the speaker of the house and the house of representatives, they have the checkbook. you can't appropriate a dollar in washington, d.c. without the house. >> yeah. >> the senate can't make money. the house writes the checks. the house has a lot of powers. i think he's only now beginning to understand the full scope of how much his power has been diminished and why he's weaker today than he's ever been in

washington, d.c. >> the first time in his life, he has nowhere else to go. still ahead, we'll talk to a lawmaker who says when he got to the house of representatives two years ago the problems weren't as bad as he expected. they were worse. we're going to hear his idea for salvaging congress. "morning joe" is coming right back. ngress "morning joe" is coming right back green book is the one movie, winning awards across the country. what are you doing? a letta. tell me what you're trying to say. i miss her. dear dolores, sometimes you remind me of a house. you know this is pathetic, right? audiences will be cheering for the dream team of viggo mortensen and mahershala ali. put this down. falling in love with you was the easiest thing, i have ever done. he's so expressive. they're so good, you'll wish the movie would never end.

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a members of the house armed services and retired united states marine republican congressman mike gallagher of wisconsin has a new piece in "the atlantic" in which he describes how the problems in congress are much worse than he expected after being elected in 2016. thank you for being with us this morning. one line you wrote, if you are among the 8700 people concerned about what is going on in congress, i have an important message for you. it's much worse than you think. you've been there for just over a year and a half. what about it is worse than you thought it was going to be? >> good morning. it's good to be with you. i think when i first ran, i arrogantly assumed that it was a

function of the people. that everyone who ran for congress or who was in congress was either not qualified or too ambitious. but that's always been a problem since the beginning of our republic. instead, i actually think the bigger problem is the process, the way in which power within the institution, starting in the 70s and accelerating in the 90s. so this has been a bipartisan evolution or failure in the institution has gone from the committees and the members and has been highly concentrated until the top. and as a result, every two years, you have people running saying, you know, we're going to restore regular order, we're going to reinvigorate the committee process. so your average member, far from being too drunk on power, actually has very little power and very little ability to influence legislative outcomes. >> and you've talked a lot, congressman, about sort of the calls phiing of powe calcifying of power. one of the drums you've been

beating is term limits. you say six terms is enough for anybody in the house and two terms is enough for the senate, so each person serves no more than 12 years. >> i'm proud of the fact that it's a bipartisan group. we all met with president trump. he supported it. right now, the challenge is getting a vote on the house floor so that's very difficult. what's interesting about term limits is i think one of the best arguments against it is that it might inadvertently increase the power of the staff. which is why in my piece, i talk about the ability to stream line the committee structure and give more resources to congress. this is a key point that i think is counterintuitive for conservatives. which is to say if you're concerned about the growth of the federal government, reducing the size of the legislative branch won't do anything to restrain that. we have to increase congress's resources in order to get an understanding and a hold on what the executive branch is doing. i think joe earlier in the

previous segment alluded to the fact that the house has the power of the purse. well, not exactly because we put most of the purse on auto pilot. over 70% of the federal budget. and we've shifted the power of the purse and ear marks doing away with that gave the power of the purse to a lot of unelected bureaucrats in the executive branch. >> congressman, what about the idea of basically of working a four or at least a five-day workweek for congress. in your atlantic piece, the other aspect of given the frustrations of many members of congress, including yourself, could you ever imagine what it must be like the to be a member of the minority in the house? >> well, i got my first taste of that as of yesterday. i expected to be in the minority. as you allude to, that's sort of the first thing i talk about in my piece. a simple change to the calendar. i know this sounds silly, but i think your average american would be shocked to learn how the schedule actually works in washington, d.c. where we sort of parachute in on a monday

night or a tuesday night and we immediately go back home on a thursday. so as a result -- and your time here is very hectic. most of it is dominated by fund-raising. so there's not enough time to conduct oversight, for people in your party to develop legislative ideas. this is something that people started to talk about, i guess in the 90s it started to become common practice for people not to move here and as a result the lack of act money and bipartisanship increased. as for being in the minority, we'll see how it goes. >> congressman, susan page is in washington with a question for you. >> congressman, democrats who are about to take over the house have made a lot of plans to what to do including oversight and investigations in the white house. and i wondered, have republicans in the house developed with a plan on how you're going to respond to that? is there going to be a unified

response when these investigations and subpoenas, we begin to see those start? >> we had a vigorous debate about that last night. and i do think republicans need to do some soul searching and get feedback from our constituents and voters and figure out what we did well, what we did not so well, what we completely failed the a. there was a lot of talk last night about what are the areas we could have an effect on. i personally believe, or at least i hope my optimistic scenario for a divided government is that we continue to work together to rebuild the military. i would love to have a debate, some sort of collaboration on infrastructure, making an infrastructure investment. and i think even in some really contentious areas, like health care, there's room to sort of carve out one area and work in a bipartisan fashion. i have a bill with the democrat from colorado on price transparency. so i hope that's the direction we go in. but i would say regardless of what the policy strategy is for either party, i guess the point i'm trying to make in my piece isn't how we fix the process and get the institution working again and get some institutional lists in the sense of people that are willing to defend the

constitutional equities of article one. neither party is going to be successful. >> congressman, i couldn't agree with you more. i wanted to ask you, though, you talked about strengthening the military. are you concerned about a mility readiness, with troops being sent down to the border for what is in effect a political stunt? should those troops be allowed to be home, back at their bases in america, with their sons and daughters, their moms and dads, their families? >> well, i certainly would rather see those troops in places like poland or the korean peninsula. that's primarily the best use of our troops is in a deterrent capacity, forward engaged in order to shape conflict before it spirals into all out warfare. i am more broadly concerned about the readiness crisis you alluded to. we have made a down payment over the last two years on the armed services committee in terms of lessening it. i was concerned about reports that the budget we get this year

will call for a cut to all government agencies including the military. that would undo the progress we made in the last two years. i know we spend a lot of money on our military, i know there are people that are concerned about that, but it's a smart investment and a cheap investment compared with disinvesting in our military, creating a per missive environment and finding ourselves in a conflict scenario or being dragged into war on unfavorable terms. >> congressman, you spent seven years in the united states marine corps, did a couple tours in iraq, you spent your veterans day welcoming home honor flights of world war ii and korean veterans. good for you for doing that. i'm wondering what you think about the president not laying a wreath at arlington cemetery to honor some of the men and women that fell next to you in iraq. >> i'm not sure of why he didn't do that. i was listening to the earlier segment and i don't follow the us weekly -- >> he could have driven over the bridge to arlington and laid a wreath as all presidents before

him have done. what's your reaction to that? >> i think he did do a variety of veterans day ceremonies honoring our troops. i think the troops respect the fact that we do have a white house investing in the military for the first time in a lock time. as a veteran i appreciate that. i appreciate the effort to get tough on china and reorient our entire strategy. the best thing we can do is find out what can we do to make our patch of grass better than how we found it. you mentioned the honor flight, this is a beautiful thing, we have democrats, republicans, independents, people of all stripes coming together to honor our veterans' service and sacrifice and i think that's a great thing. >> that's a great program. congressman mike gallagher, thank you very much and thanks for all you have given this country. >> thank you. coming up on "morning joe," jeff flake says somebody needs to challenge donald trump for the republican nomination in 2020. we will ask him if he is that somebody. senator flake joins us for a

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susan, as historically bad as last tuesday night was for republicans, save a few reasons to be happy, ohio has gone really bright red in most of those races, nate cohen brought up miami dade outperformed for republicans, also rural america, but that aside, what's the impact of arizona appearing to turn a darker shade of purple, and also georgia? i mean, georgia we've been hearing it for some time, georgia is competitive. what's that impact on the 2020 landscape? >> you know, arizona now will have a democratic senator, a democratic majority in their congressional delegation, this competitive race not yet settled in georgia for governor. these are signs that states that we used to think of as being red

are clearly purple. they are the new swing states in our landscape and that has big implications for how you go about putting together a coalition of states to win a national election like in 2020. maybe ohio becomes less important, georgia, arizona become more important. >> interesting. susan page, threw very much. coming up, reports that more white house firings could be on the way, but who is calling the shots? and some of the words used to describe the president's mood as of late, brooding, angry, resentf resentful, sulking, in a cocoon of bitterness, we will discuss what reportedly is making the president so upset. "morning joe" is coming right back. et ps "morning joe" is coming right back i wanna keep doing what i love,

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confessore, pulitzer prize winning author doris kearns goodwin, and white house correspondent for pbs news hour yamiche alcindor. we want to start with the mounter reports about discontent and disruption within the white house and the "los angeles times" reports, president trump stung by a rebuke in the midterms and nervous about the mueller investigation is retreating from traditional presidential duties. a source outside the white house who has spoken recently with the president said friday's "wall street journal" report confirming his central role in quietly arranging payoffs for two women alleging affairs with him seem to put trump in an even worse mood. the "washington post" dives deep into the past five days of fury, with the president's temper boiling over, shortly after the president snapped at a reporter for what he called a stupid question about the russia probe, he reportedly also snapped at

america's closest ally. sources tell the post that aboard air force one trump again lost his cool during a phone call with british prime minister theresa may, who called to congratulate him on the midterms. trump reportedly berated may on iran, trade and brexit among other topics. on his flight to paris and throughout the weekend trump was preoccupied by political developments, he watched tv with wrapped attention as late counting votes resulted in the senate race in arizona and a number of house contests to slip out of republican hands. and after he chose not to attend a memorial for american soldiers due to a lengthy motorcade, trump told aides he thought he looked terrible and blamed his chief of staff's office for not counseling him that skipping the cemetery visit would be a public relations nightmare. >> but then he comes, willie,

back to the united states, doesn't take a two minute drive to arlington to do what every president has done since jfk, and, by the way, with all due respect to the congressman, this isn't an us weekly moment. it is one of the most sacred things a president does, veterans day and memorial day. one of the most sacred things that a president does. i remember in 1993 -- or '94, bill clinton was concerned that he was going to be booed, that they were going to turn their back to him, that they were going to have contempt for him, but president bill clinton showed up and put the troops ahead of himself. i'm just -- i'm just wondering, willie, we do this every day and we've done it every day for a very long time. does this white house emotional meltdown seem different than the others or is this just one in the latest of, you know, 12, 13 times we've told this story?

>> i think you have the intensity as mika sort of laid out there of all these things coming at him at once, the midterm elections looking much worse than they even did on election night now, eight or nine days after the fact, you have that "wall street journal" piece that goes into great detail with deep reporting about how the trump campaign arranged for payoffs to women in the days leading up to election day, and i will add to the mix this morning our nbc reporting from ken delaney and hallie jackson that the president and his legal team as we speak with going through answers to the written questions submitted by the special counsel's office. that means the president is now confronted by what bob mueller has on him, confronted by the questions to which bob mueller wants answers and as a lot of experts have pointed out the written answers are a prelude to an interview. so president trump puts all this together and you can see why he may be feeling isolated and embattled in that white house this morning. >> you know, doris, we've talked about this earlier in the show today, this president is a rookie when it comes to

politics. he doesn't understand constitutional norms. half the things he does that seems so baffling to us and heart wrenching to us as people who have grown up reading about, studyi studying, loving this country and its rich history, he just -- he doesn't understand so much of that and i think we should apply that to midterms. bill clinton got knocked down in 1994 in his midterms, but he had experience in arkansas of that happening. he lost a race in 1980, reelection for governor. this is the first time this has happened to donald trump and i don't think he knows just how bad things are going to get for him, and i wonder if he's starting to have that realization and if he is, you know, how much trouble could we be facing as a country? >> you know, i think you're just right, joe. two things are at issue right now, one is when he ran for president he said he would have

the very best temperament of anyone who would ever run for president because he always won. he never lost. so this is a real loss. he can't blame the loss on other people. he tried to blame it on the people who didn't ask him to come and campaign for him. it was they were the losers, not him, but still there's numbers, there is a loss, and he can't deal with t he is not used to it. he has had loss in his life, he lost his brother, he has had bankruptcies, but he will keep saying i have never lost anything, i've always won, which means he has never processed it. that's one thing. i think that's why this is a difficult time for him. the other thing is the great phrase that harry truman uses, the bucks stops here, you don't pass the buck when you're president. what has he done all week, he has passed the buck instead of accepting the responsibility. if you accept it at least you can begin to grow from it, but, no, the reason as you say he didn't go to the cemetery in europe was because his staff forgot to tell him how bad a pr thing it would be.

he flames the forest service for the fires rather than empathy. he blames the press for the results of the elections. he blames the losers for losing and not him. it's that inability to say when you are in a poker game you say i don't want to deal, i'm passing the buck, which means you're giving it to someone else. the president is responsible and until the president accepts responsibility for losses, for mistakes and for judgments, he can't grow in office. so we're stuck. i think we are in a different chilling week as a result of that loss that he absolutely experienced and doesn't know how to process it. >> and, by the way, one of those so-called losers that he talked about, mia love who showed him no love, don't look now, but she's in a tough recount and she may actually win that race. that will be uncomfortable when she comes back to washington, if she does. nick confessore, are we in a different place? i wonder. we've leader these stories probably a dozen times before over the past couple years. i'm just wondering do you sense as somebody that follows it every day, do you sense that we are in a different place now? >> absolutely, know.

this is why, for two years this country has been in a groundhog day with president trump, the same thing every day, these flare-ups, these fights internally, but something is different now. it is a moment of accountability for the president. he came into office on a fluke of politics, he was a black swan, and he always believed he was above the rules of politics as a result the polls didn't matter, but, in fact, they do. he personally cost his party the house for a president who craves to be popular it is a profound rejection. he created some new swing states for democrats. he caused himself some of his own states from 2016. he is facing an uphill battle for 2020. if he runs for reelection. it is a profound change from what we have seen before and gravity has come back and he has suffered for the way he has been a president for the last two years, joe. >> now, let's add this to the mix, from nbc news reporting, that reporting describes how clashes with officials and the first lady are driving chief of

staff john kelly to leave the white house soon. seven people familiar with the discussions say kelly has been on the wrong side of melania trump over staffing issues and travel requests and some of the disputes have escalated to the president. melania trump raised concerns with her husband earlier this year at the height of the stormy daniels controversy that kelly had repeatedly denied her request to promote some of her aides. that's according to two white house officials. quote, i don't need this blank, a furious president trump told kelly according to one person familiar with the conversation. another white house official said there have been instances where the east wing staff were not treated as equals to the male dominated decision-makers in chief kelly's office, promotions were denied then finally granted after months of requests. promotions ultimately were cleared and announced in june and the white house declined to comment. we are also following unpress denlted clash between the first lady and a senior national security official as her office called for the firing of deputy

national security advisviser mi ricardel. they issued a statement around 2:30 in the afternoon said of ricardel, quote, it is the position of the office of the first lady that she no longer deserves the honor of serving in this twhaus. talking about ricardel. at the same hour ricardel was at the president's side, over his shoulder as you can see here during an event at the white house. even appearing in photos that the president posted to his twitter account. a white house source says ricardel has also clashed with general kelly. asked about her employment status an anonymous official said ricardel has been confirmed by the senate and has never met melania trump. so put those two stories together coming out of the first lady's office. what's going on and what are the tension points here? what are the corners of power in the white house that are fighting right now? >> i think the main tension point is that both first lady

melania trump but also president trump himself they don't want to feel as though they're being controlled by anyone else and they want to be able to be the person that's sending the messages, making the big decisions in the white house. we call president trump, president trump, but we could call him chief of staff trump or press secretary trump because he fills all those different roles. you're seeing now that melania trump is also in some ways doing the same thing, saying i know who deserves to be promoted, i don't need to a chief of staff to tell me who needs to be promoted. it's interesting that the president is in this mood where he's brooding and really going on these tweet storms. when he didn't come out for veterans day and didn't make that trip to arlington cemetery as a reporter to closely covers president trump i thought maybe he is really in a bad mood. there is this idea that he doesn't like the fact that he's getting bad press and coming back from europe thinking this was going to be a strong trip for him and he doesn't want to be dealing with reporters shouting questions to him about honoring veterans on veterans day and as a result he doesn't

want to show his face. i think private citizens can understand that, sometimes people take a mental day off for health reasons, but of course this is the president of the united states so that's a little bit different. >> doris, in listening to the conversation for the past ten minutes and in listening to the reporting prior -- earlier today from phil rucker of the "washington post" and carol lee of nbc news, it is clear that we have reached a moment of great chaos in the white house, in the west wing. it is more and more clear each and every day the reality coming forward that some of us have felt was there for a long time that donald trump is a man alone and he is a man of no history, with no grasp of the details of the presidency or what it means to be president. just the brief trip, the less than two mile trip from the white house from the oval across memorial bridge to the tomb of the unknown on veterans day, that trip by motor would have

taken him past the world war ii memorial, past the vietnam wall, across the bridge to the tomb of the unknown where the duty, the obligation of a president of the united states for years has been to lay a simple wreath in memory of all those lost in prior wars. when you look at it from your perspective having written about presidents and having written recently about leadership, what do you see? >> i mean, i think you see a man who not only is not fulfilling the obligation of the presidency, but the honor of the presidency. what an honor it is to go to arlington cemetery and be part of that whole group of people who have sacrificed their lives for our nation and to be able to give them what they deserve, which is your honor that day. what strikes me, too, mike, is that one of the most important responsibilities of a president is to build a team, a team that works together for a common purpose, for the greater good. he has not built a team. there is no team there.

there's a bunch of individual floating individuals who come in and out, who get publicly humiliat humiliated, he says he's going to fire them before he fires them, melania is in on saying she doesn't deserve the honor of the white house. the way they talk about the people on their team there is no way they can co here. when lincoln was upset with his vie valls in his cabinet saying things against each other that leaked to the press, he wrote them a memo, he said it would pain me so much to think of i hear you saying things against each other. we are a family. we are working together as a team. there's never been a team here. i don't think he has ever had the experience of building a team. joe, as you know from building a team, the sensitivity to the needs of that team, not humiliating them in public, firing them in private, giving them space if they want to leave to leave with some sort of dignity, none of that is happening. i think i agree with mike, i think something more chilling is happening since this loss which he can't take away from, he absolutely lost the house of representatives, something is happening not just to his mood,

but to his sense of self, because he says i am a person who wins always, i have to win. when you don't win then who are you? it's a pretty chilling moment right now. >> yeah, and, doris, great point. it has so much to do with the culture of the office and the culture starts with the president. i was always fascinated as you walked around the halls of weather it was raburn or cannon or longworth, every office you walked into was a case study in culture and you could see -- you could see in certain offices you would walk in you could see back biting and fighting and chaos, in others there was just a rule, you didn't talk badly about other people on your team, and those were the offices that were effective. donald trump, mika, his entire life he's set up a culture where he's the top dog and then he

likes having pit bulls fighting at his feet, keeping everybody off balance. it's a great way to manage an office if you are insecure and you are only focused on yourself and not others. it is a terrible way to manage an office if you want what's best for your company or for your congressional office or for your country. and that's where we are. you know, mika, as mike was talking about donald trump not only missing the ceremony in france, but refusing to just drive across the bridge to lay a wreath on veterans day, i was also reminded of the other part of the story, the sons and the daughters. >> yeah. >> the fathers and the mothers who have served this country so well and, my gosh, on one troop rotation after another the likes of which we haven't seen since vietnam, they deserve a rest, they deserve to go home and be

hugged by their daughters, to be hugged by their sons, to see their moms and dads on thanksgiving, going into the christmas holidays, for hanukkah, and yet they are at the border. >> yeah. >> they are at the border as political props. you know, the president won't even visitity boarder >> later today secretary of defense james mattis is going to go to the texas/mexico border to visit some 7,000 u.s. military personnel deployed there, as you said, joe, to deal with that caravan of latin american refugees. remember the caravan? it was such a hot topic for donald trump and for fox news before the midterms, right up to the midterms they were talking about the caravan. >> every day. >> everyone was so scared. >> every day, mika, they were talk being it every day. >> made it sounds like we were about to get invaded. >> i get notes from friends going, what are we going to do about the caravan?

my friends aren't sending me those e-mails or texts anymore because they know they were made fools of and lied to. >> all of this has gone oddly quiet on the caravan since last tuesday even as the caravan appears to be shifted towards california. the administration refused to say how much this political ploy is costing american taxpayers. how much is this costing? so our respected defense secretary, a true american patriot, is going to send his day today looking at those troops in the eye and telling them they're doing a great job? what exactly are they doing? trump refuses to go, so i guess, thank goodness, our fighting men and women have a leader like mattis to commend them, but their job, his job, is to protect the united states from foreign military threats, and instead donald trump has them hanging out at the border as a sham, waiting for a group that

might never show up. one of mattis' predecessors, chuck hagel, a sharp critic of the president called this all a political stunt that abuses our troops. is there no one in this administration who will publicly blast this political stunt that puts an additional strain on military readiness? our military men and women deserve the truth, they deserve at least this much as they are ripped from their families during the holiday for no reason at all. at what point, joe -- i know there's chain of command and maybe this is the issue with generals, but when does he step out and say this is wrong? is anybody in the administration going to say this policy is a sham? >> well, they already have, if you look at the reporting from the l.a. times, the "washington post" -- >> but nobody is putting their name and face on it. >> officials in the trump administration are saying they saw this as a good political

stunt during the campaign, but there's no need to continue it now. well, that's fine, bring the troops home. nick confessore, james mattis, my god, at fallujah, in iraq, his entire life he has served this country so ably, so proudly. i wonder in general mattis has the power, perhaps as his last act, of bringing those troops home and not just being used as political props so they can go home and sit with their sons and daughters, mothers and fathers at thanksgiving dinner. >> well, joe, he hasn't got the power to ask the president, but it's important for everyone to understand that every time an american troop is deployed there is a cost. it costs in readiness, in personnel, for their loved ones, they stop training, they move equipment, they make child care plans and it's worth it in the service of our country and

that's why it's there, that's why they do it, but to do it for a political stunt is a tremendous waste of resources and readiness and human capital and their time. it's a good moment format 'tis to remind the president of what it costs to send our people to the border. >> and, joe, all of us have our own selfish objectives on holidays and on every single day as americans, we all are selfish about ourselves, but we really ought to think about the deployment of these troops and the logistics of the deployments. these troops are coming from multiple posts around the country, ft. hood, ft. sill, ft. carson, colorado, ft. bragg, camp pendleton, from all across the country, marines and army troops spread across the border as a scam, as a political prank. and this among people who have been multibly deployed as you just referenced, multiple times to either iraq or afghanistan, happy thanksgiving.

>> happy thanksgiving. mika, again, the white house itself is now admitting that this was just red meat for the president to throw out every night at his political rallies. the president is not talking about it anymore. the election has been lost. this political ploy backfired badly. bring our troops home. >> he is undermining our own military. doris kearns goodwin, thank you. her latest book is "leadership in turbulent times." still ahead on "morning joe," two senators, two parties, one mission. republican jeff flake and democrat chris coons are pushing their proposal to protect the special counsel. can they get enough of their colleagues to sign on? we will ask them next on "morning joe." sign on? we will ask them next on "morning joe." give isotoner gloves

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i am a techie dad.n. i believe the best technology should feel effortless. like magic. at comcast, it's my job to develop, apps and tools that simplify your experience. my name is mike, i'm in product development at comcast. we're working to make things simple, easy and awesome. it's amazing -- mr. whitaker claimed that russia it's amazing.ia mr. whitaker claimed that russia didn't interfere with our elections, contrary to the conclusion of 17 intelligence

agencies. when someone ignores the facts and just says these things, you know they are an ideologue. we are demanding that mr. whitaker recuse himself from the russia investigation. >> do you think mr. whitaker needs to recuse himself from the russian investigation? >> i would say if this is -- there may be reasons, but if the reason you're asking me is because as a private citizen he gave his opinion on certain things then the answer is no. >> why? >> the answer is no because he was a private citizen. what's that got to do with his official duties? see, but it really doesn't matter because right now he's going to go to the ethics people and ask if he's got to be recused. so that's going to answer itself. >> that is the chairman of the senate judiciary committee and before that the top senate democrat on whether the acting attorney general should recuse

himself from the mueller probe. joining us now from capitol hill members of the judiciary and foreign relations committees, republican senator jeff flake of arizona and democratic senator chris coons of delaware. thank you both gentlemen for being on the show this morning. we're going to get to the issue of protecting the special counsel in just a moment, but i want to begin where we left off in the last segment. if you were talking to a soldier at the border, face-to-face, and the soldier asked you why am i here and is this mission a sham? what exactly would you say to that soldier eye to eye? senator flake, i will start with you. >> well, i think it's unfortunate that we have soldiers there and frankly in arizona they are stationed in tucson about 90 miles from the border. so they are not forward deployed actually on the border. so i think you can't call it anything but a stunt here and it's unfortunate that they are

going to be away from family during the holidays coming up and we just don't know what really for. we don't know where the caravan if it makes it north is going to come. i think it could be handled by civilians that we have there in terms of border patrol and others. so i don't know what i could tell the mothm other than we shouldn't be doing this. congress wasn't involved in this, it was an executive decision. >> senator coons? >> mika, i have someone on my staff who served in this exact mission when our national guard unit got deployed to the border a number of years ago. when they are forward deployed at the border it's difficult duty and in this particular instance given as senator flake said that they are sitting 90 miles from the border and given that active duty military troops really aren't needed to block some caravan that we have got months of advanced notice of, the border guard is fully

capable of handling them, i would have to look them in the eye and say thank you for your service and i regret that our president is using you as a political stunt. >> i want to ask about a different topic and that is the mueller investigation, the dynamics of which seems to have changed after the midterm elections with the democrats taking over the house. what is your view of protecting bob mueller right now? again, even since the midterm elections the majority leader mitch mcconnell has said it's not necessary, we have asked for many months now what gives him the confidence to say that donald trump wouldn't find a way to fire bob mueller and to stop that investigation. what are you all prepared to do about it? >> well, we don't often pass bipartisan legislation in the senate judiciary committee but we did in april of this year. we passed legislation to protect bob mueller, protect the special counsel by a vote of 14 list-7. that included the vote of the republican chairman of the committee. that has been waiting senate floor action now for eight

months and the leader said at that time in april, well, you know, nobody is being fired, there's no danger for the special counsel. that is no longer the case now obviously, the firing of the attorney general ought to spur us to action. today we plan to go to the senate floor and ask for unanimous consent to bring the bill up and pass it. just one of our senate colleagues can object and we expect that one might, but we can bring it up again and again. >> you know, frankly, the very day that president trump forced the resignation of jeff sessions as attorney general he also, again, denounced mueller's investigation as a hoax and tweeted that he could fire mueller at any time. why that's not enough of a warning for the majority leader for our colleagues, i don't know, but the statements that matt whitaker the acting attorney general made on cnn when he was a commentator give me grave concern. i think we ought to take responsible bipartisan action here to prevent what would

otherwise be a constitutional crisis. we can take this up and pass it easily today by unanimous consent. >> senator flake, the president has fired his fbi director and james comey, fired his attorney general in jeff sessions, as senator coons just said put in an acting ag who has been publicly against the special counsel's investigation. what does leader mcconnell say when you confront him? when you say what gives you the confidence, senator mcconnell, to say that the president will 23409 find a way to get rid of bob mueller? what's the argument against what you're proposing? >> in the past he has said that the president has said that he's not fieg g.ing to fire the special counsel. >> and he just takes him at his word? >> well, i guess so. i think that that's all we have now, he has fired the attorney general, he fired the cia director. i think the pattern here is clear and he keeps making statements about this russia issue being a hoax and this being a witch-hunt. i think we ought to take him at his word and actually pass this.

as senator coons said, we have the votes to do it. i think every democrat will vote for it and a lot of republicans as well. so we just need to bring it to the floor. we can bring it today, we can bring it again and again, and i think we plan to do so until we get it passed. >> senator flake, about the only one wish that president trump has been granted recently is the fact that you are not going to return to the united states senate. what's your reaction now to the fact that you're going to be replaced in the senate by a democrat and what do you have to say to president trump about that? >> well, first i congratulate kyrsten sinema on a good race, well run and won. in arizona republicans have about a 200,000 person registration advantage still statewide, so nominally we are a red state. we are just no longer a trump state. we were once briefly, i guess, during the election, but it's clear that somebody who runs as

a trump candidate statewide will not win in arizona. arizona, as you've mentioned this morning, is now -- our delegation is six democrats, five republicans for the first time in a long, long time. i interned for dennis deconsini the last democrat to be elected in arizona and that was a long time ago, but arizona is -- we have republican, it is a conservative state, it's just not this kind of republican state. >> boy, just think, have you ever dreamt about the fact probably that a non-trump republican candidate named flake, they would have called you landslide flake. >> you know, i -- it's difficult enough for a trump skeptic to get through a republican primary let alone a trump critic. if i would have run the kind of race i've run in the past, unless i was willing to condone the president's behavior and

endorse his policies, there is just no way you can get through a republican primary and i simply wasn't willing to do that. >> yamiche has a very for you. >> senators, your professional and personal lives is a great story of bipartisanship but now we are going to have a house controlled by democrats and a senate controlled by republicans. senator flake, do you think that there's any chance that republicans are going to be able to work with democrats to get something done, in funding the government? senator coons, do you think democrats should be willing to work with president trump because some people were worried that they will hand him a victory if they do a big bill on something like infrastructure or trade? >> we can't spend our time worrying about the next election, we have to focus on solving the problems that face the many team. what i heard up and down the state of delaware in recent weeks is that folks want us to work together. one of the reasons i'm grateful for the service of senator flake is the things we've been able to work together on overseas and here at home. i think if we show that we are

willing to step forward and put on the table strong real bills to address infrastructure, to address apprenticeships and jobs in the building trades, to deal with the cost of healthcare and challenge the president to work with us in a bipartisan way, and solve people's real problems, that will end up having a positive effect in the next election, but that shouldn't be the reason to do it. folks in our country have elected a republican senate and a democratic house and they want us to work together. that's what we ought to get busy doing. >> the issues are far too big to be solved by one party. divided government is usually the best government. >> it works, yeah. >> that's what's worked traditionally. so i hope it can now. >> senator flake, this last question is for you. if the bill today does not get a vote, is it possible that you can find a senator in your party to join you in bringing senate business to a halt if the bill is not voted on? >> well, we've been having those discussions with some.

with regard to nominees, there are still many sitting before the judiciary committee where it takes only one person to stop things there. all these things are obviously on the table. >> let me mention one other thing, jeff and i have just done on a bipartisan basis, president trump directly challenged and criticized the chairman of the fed in the run up to the election, we have both been to zimm bab what a number of times, that's more the kind of thing you expect to see in a country ruled by a dictator than in a free and open society like ours. the president shouldn't be interfering with the fed and we sent a joint letter to the president urging him to stop that bad behavior. >> senators jeff flake and chris coons, thank you both. still ahead, amazon has picked long island city as one of the sites for its second headquarters. we're going to talk to mayor bill de blasio about that decision and what it means for new york ahead on "morning joe." it's time for sleep number's veterans day sale

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monica lewinsky is opening up about her trying times in the spotlight during bill clinton's administration. in the new a & e documentary

called "the clinton affair" lewinsky details the emotions that she went through during her hours long fbi interview about her affair with the then president. >> there was a point for me somewhere in this sort of first several hours where i would be hysterically crying and then i would just shut down, and in the shutdown period i remember looking out the window and thinking that the only way to fix this was to kill myself, was to jump out the window. i just -- i felt terrible. i was scared and i just -- i was mortified and afraid of what this was going to do to my family and i still was in love with bill at the time so i

just -- i felt really responsible. >> lewinsky also penned a piece in "vanity fair" ahead of the upcoming series where she addresses bill clinton's reluctance to say i'm sorry to her nearly 20 years later. she writes, quote, if you want to know what power looks like, watch a man safely, even smugly, do interviews for decades without ever worrying whether he will be asked the questions he doesn't want to answer. i'm less disappointed by him and more disappointed for him. he would be a better man for it and we, in turn, a better society. the clinton affair is a three-part series that will air on a & e beginning on sunday night. up next, bob mueller's former intelligence briefer is out with a new book entitled "how to get rid of a president." the former cia and state department officer joins us next with some historical examples.

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welcome back to "morning joe." joining us now author david priess, his new book is entitled "how to get rid of a president: history's if i had to removing unpopular, unable or unfit chief executives." and suggests congress has the means to strip the president of his power without impeachment. david was in charge of briefing then fbi director robert mueller with the daily intelligence report and david joins us now. david, thanks for being with us. congrats on the book. >> thank you. >> it's a blunt title. you're talking about political means here. >> absolutely. >> i want to ask you first about bob mueller. >> right. >> you across two president sees, under clinton and the george w. bush administrations served in the cia and you would brief every morning bob mueller as fbi director. what should the american public know, what should our viewers know about the man who quietly and secretly for quite a while now has been looking into the

interference of russia into the 2016 presidential election? >> you mentioned quietly and that actually matters because he is a guy who goes about his business, he does his job, he is not looking for flash, he is not looking for publicity. i is a you that when i was briefing him because there were many mornings when i was briefing him on amazing counterintelligence information that we had that we were helping him make decisions about and helping the president make decisions about. he could have gone to the press later in the day and found a way to make the bureau look good at a time when people were calling for the bureau to be disbanded. he never did that once. in the briefings what i witnessed was a man who could think strategically and tactically statement which was unnerving having to answer questions in the same sentence sometimes about the details of a very specific report and then the implications of it and how it tied into something we did weeks earlier. that kind of thinking will serve him well in this investigation because it's the most complicated investigation that i have ever witnessed. >> it would be impossible for him not to hear some of the noise that's going on in the country in politics when the

president of the united states fires his fbi director, when the president fires his attorney general and installs an acting ag who has been clearly and very publicly against his investigation in the special counsel office. what do you suspect his reaction is to all what do you suspect his reaction is? >> i think he looks up and nods. some of that is relevant to the investigation. the firing of the fbi director and attorney general can feed into an obstruction of justice case. he has to do his job by paying attention to those things. he has access to better information than that and tax information and the financial crimes enforcement networks information about money movements and access to a lot of intelligence. >> during the time you were briefing robert mueller -- in those briefings, did you ever

get a sense of bob mueller's political ideology? >> not once. it was the job that needed to be done. that's what he focussed on. honestly, it happened the same with the attorney general t. didn't affect the intelligence briefing. >> this book has a hot title. it comes in an interesting time. there is talk on the left of impeaching donald trump. he cannot be -- between now and his reelection, what measures of accountability short of impeachment can there be on a president who is out of control? >> an impeachment vote can happen. the house can impeach and not get a conviction. since the bill clinton case, that has been seen as a political failure. impeachment was meant to be a

slap across the face. you can go well short of impeachment. one way is undermining the president legislatively and in other democrats controlling the house this may happen. it has happened where some powers were taken away from them. in some cases it happens in ways we have seen where actual underlings. there are ways of reining in a president that falls short. >> you talk about president andrew johnson. how did congress proceed in that way to undermine his power? >> they did just about everything they could. things were different then because he came in office as a democratic vice president to a republican president, abraham lincoln. and there was a dramatic

republican majority in the congress opposed to him. they were willing to do everything. they were vetoing about everything they threw over. they were also doing things like passing legislation that ended up being ruled unconstitutional to restrict the president's power to do things like get rid of cabinet officials. there is echoing history about a thing that a president does to try to protect interests. >> you talked about the idea of an echo in history. how is president trump's temperament and what we have seen about him in terms of his behavior compared to other presidents? and is that a window with how he might deal with a hostile house. >> his very personality is one that isn't always according to a

schedule. but there are some precedents. you had somebody like andrew johnson who was not the most pleasant personality when it came to interacting with people who opposed him. when that happens you gain an ability to know there will be chaos. you have the predictability of unpredictability. even then you had people reacting to presidents by running around trying to respond to what they did rather than being proactive. what most successful efforts to remove a president, what they did is they found ways to be proactive and get ahead of the president. that is something we will have to see if it happens after january. >> the new book is how to get rid of a president. david, thanks for being here and congrats on the book. the first lady calls for the firing of a top national security official. is she also trying to hasten the

exit of the chief of staff, john kelly? plus a report that described president trump as a buoyant before the mid terms claims the president has tweeted into a cocoon of bitterness. we will have more next on "morning joe." more next on "morning joe." ♪ ♪ the new capital one savor card. earn 4% cash back on dining and 4% on entertainment. now when you go out, you cash in. what's in your wallet? now when you go out, you cash in. you'll make my morning, buty the price ruin my day.ou? complicated relationship with milk?

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the east coast. i own it 100%. you can check that we make the finest wine, as good of wine as anywhere in the world. i know the press is extremely honest so i won't offer them any. >> that is donald trump two years ago pitching his product during a primary night news conference. last night he attacked wine producer competitors in france, a tweet liked by eric trump who happens to serve as president of trump winery overseeing everything from wine making and marketing to global distribution and sales. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is wednesday, november 14. we have msnbc contributor mike barnacle, washington bureau chief, susan paige. philip rucker and national political reporter for nbc news,

carol lee. a lot to get to this morning. a lot of different stories going back to somebody who might be melting down just a tiny bit. >> there is no doubt that the president who has had some rough times in the white house is now facing perhaps his toughest run. the reports coming out of the white house all suggest it's a president who is growing increasingly disinterested in his job, increasingly angry. we have philip rucker here. none of the portraits are flattering, of course, of the president, but also not comforting to americans and people around the world who understand that the president of the united states is one of the key figures and global politics. right now he seems to be checked out. >> we will have all of this reporting about the state of mind of the president and what is going on in the white house.

it supports what you have heard and what a lot of us are hearing is that because of the mueller investigation and the mid term elections which day by day continue to get worse for republicans, the president is isolated and perhaps depressed about what is happening. don't forget, we learned yesterday he is filling out written questions from bob mueller. he is getting into the thick of the mueller investigation realizing what is being asked of him there and dealing with the fact that he will have a democratic house coming for him in january. it adds up to an isolated president of the united states upstairs in the west wing. >> let's start with what could be the source of this concern. we begin with the democratic wave that still continues to grow. >> every night. we get hammered for not congratulating somebody for winning. >> right. >> it looks like may end up

losing. >> that will help explain the president's mood. we will break it all down in just a moment. in arizona the democrats flip the republican senate seat in that state marked a major shift for another reason. as the "new york times" notes, democrats hold six seats in the congressional delegation and the republicans five. the democrats have not had a majority in the arizona delegation since the 1960s. and the current ballot count in california makes it appear as if republicans will be left with only eight seats in that state's 55-member federal delegation next year. as democrat katie porter took the lead from republican congress woman mimi walters as republican young kim's lead has dwindled to 711 votes over democrat gil cisneros.

the cook political stated wassermann quoted it is only a matter of time before he takes the lead. >> you look state after state, nevada, arizona two states with quite a few hispanics there. there is no doubt that what the president was considering great strategy to bring out his base with his stupid caravan conspiracy theory which he hasn't talked about since election day, it ends up that is devastating there. let's look back. the house, bigger losses for republicans. the senate made every structural advantage. you will end up picking up maybe two. and then you go to arizona. democrats haven't been in

control, haven't had a majority there in the congressional delegation since the 1960s. they haven't had -- that's so long ago. that's when you got your first aarp card. that was a long time. >> thank you for reminding me of that. >> i get mine in a week. >> what is interesting about it is that we were clearly very premature in election calls. campaigns are really important. all of these are individual victories. the campaigns that were run by the democrats in these republican districts were all to a campaign very interested in that they focus on a lot of issues that they didn't vilify trump so much as they vilified what was happening to the

country around us and to the services that people expect for congress to provide. in arizona and california, arizona much more so than california, you can see the color of the state changing. it's gone from red to sort of a blend of purple and now in the next cycle i think it will be democratic. the numbers in california that were counted are incredible. you would have going into the next congress eight members of the delegation would be republican. i think that was the number. only eight in a state as huge as california. that is astounding. >> it really is. so many democrats that are talking now are saying we didn't have to talk about donald trump. we didn't have to talk about his racism. our voters saw that every day on tv. we can talk about health care. we can talk about traffic in the suburbs. we can talk about local issues.

we get our positive messages out. donald trump did the rest of the work for us by turning off college-educated women and college-educated men by delivering this blatantly racist message about hispanics. >> democrats especially in these house races were so disciplined in focussing on health care. a majority of the ads raaired dealt with the issue of health care. democrats are looking at this as lessons learned for the 2020 presidential race. do you try to focus on his provocative rhetoric or the issues that really affect people when they are sitting home around the kitchen table talking about sending their kids to

college? i think that is one of the things that democrats think is a lesson to draw from the success that they have had. this was a very successful clae election for democrats in the house races. >> this brings us to the mounting reports about discontent and disruption within the white house. as the los angeles times reports, president trump stung by a rebuke in the mid terms and nervous about the mueller investigation is retreating from traditional presidential duties. a source outside the white house who has spoken recently with the president said friday's wall street journal report confirming his central role in quietly arranging payoffs seem to put trump in an even worse mood. the "washington post" dives deep with the president's temper boiling over. shortly after the president snapped at a reporter for what he called a stupid question

about the russia probe, he reportedly also snapped at america's closest ally. sources tell the post that aboard air force one trump lost his cool during his phone call with british prime minister teresa may who called to congratulate him on the mid terms. trump reportedly beraided may on iran, brexit and other topics. on his flight to paris trump was preoccupied by political developments. he watched tv with wrapped attention as late counting votes resulted in a senate race in arizona and a number of house contests to slip out of republican hands. after he chose not to attend a memorial for american soldiers due to a lengthy motorcade trump told aides he thought he looked terrible and blamed his chief of staff's office for not counseling him that skipping the visit would be a public relations nightmare.

it is confusing that he would need to be told that, but okay. >> phil rucker, this is your reporting which is an incredible piece. talk about the president's state of mind right now. a lot of people thought his failure to attend that ceremony in france was bad. even people who support him say i can't believe he didn't go lay a wreath at arlington. it spoke to someone who is so isolated and worried about something that he can't leave the white house at this point. talk about where he is right now in terms of his frame of mind. >> reporter: according to our reporting with white house officials and other people outside who are close to the president, he remains in a pretty sour mood. he has been very pre-occupied with the mid term developments. you have seen it in his public comments on twitter when he has been alleging voter fraud day after day that there is no evidence of. these are baseless claims.

he is sort of at a loss for what to do. he claimed victory in the mid terms. meanwhile, while he was in paris he was bothered by the french president. he thought macron attacked him personally with his rebuke of nationalism. he was bothered by teresa may and by the media coverage. he thought he looked terrible on the trip. he thought the coverage was bad because he skipped the cemetery. because of it, he lashed out at the chief of staff's office and most especially the deputy chief of staff who was the one who had to brief him about the travel delays for the cemetery visit. an update on the deadly wildfires churning through california. mayor bill de blasio on his progressive politics and amazon's big move to new york city. you are watching "morning joe."

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welcome back to "morning joe." there is an unprecedented clash between the first lady and a national security official as she called for the firing of mira ricardial. >> the communications director issued a statement saying of ricardel, it is the position of the office of the first ahead that she no longer deserves the honor of serving in the white house. >> it is the position of "morning joe" that mike barnacle should be an astronaut. not relevant here nor there. >> at the same hour ricardel was literally over the president's

shoulder at a white house event and appearing in photos the president posted to his twitter account. asked about her employment status, an anonymous white house official said only ricardel has been confirmed by the senate and has never met melania trump. >> is it nothing to do with her being first lady? that's not your domains. don't send out press releases. >> it was a couple of striking things about this story. one, the idea that ricardel has never met the first lady, that is kind of stunning in and of

itself. the other aspect of it is the back story leading up to melania trump's statement yesterday issued by her press person. the back story involving back stabbing out of the national security office by ricardel and john bolton that has been going on leading up to i suspect yesterday. >> she is one of the individuals that if you ask people in the white house what they think of her or what her role is, it is hard to find somebody who is really an ally of hers. he hand picked her as his deputy. she has clashed with a number of people. john kelly for all of his clashes with the first lady and you need a diagram. he is clashing with the first lady and then when mira was getting into a disagreement with

the first lady, kelly intervenes. it's all kind of mixed up. i think the first lady felt like according to our reporting that mira ricardel had really crossed a line. i think she felt that her office was very disrespected in the way that her staff was treated and in the way that this africa trip which was melania trump's first trip. there were a number of things that happened that really rubbed the first lady the wrong way. i think to see a statement like that come out. there were news reports that were starting to bubble up and reporting about their disagreement and then she clearly felt like there was a need to put out a statement to try to push this in the direction that she wanted to go. according to our reporting, it

is not clear that mira has been fired yet. that is something we are going to be watching. >> wasn't that africa trip the trip that melania trump offended people with her neocolonial fashion ware? >> there were a number of things that took place. she wore an outfit that got a lot of attention and was seen perhaps offensive by some. her office pushed back saying it was not her intent. anytime there is attention on melania trump's clothes they usually issue a statement saying the media is being petty about something. coming up, the mayor of new york city is standing by. democratic bill de blasio joins the conversation next on "morning joe." sio joins the conversation next on "morning joe."

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newly elected congress woman kicked off her time on capitol hill by taking part in a

demonstration at the office of her democratic colleague house minority leader nancy pelosi. ocasio-cortez stopped by and greeted the demonstrators who were calling for democrats to take more action on climate change. the congress woman-elect said she wanted to show leader pelosi that we are here to back her up and pushing for 100% renewable energy. leader pelosi issued a statement on the protest in which she said we are inspired by the energy and activism of many young activists and advocates leading the way on the climate crisis. i have recommended to my house democratic colleagues that we reinstate the select committee to address the climate crisis. ocasio-cortez also spent the day slamming amazon's plans to open a second headquarters in queens.

joining us now the mayor of new york city, democrat bill de blasio. good to have you back on the show this morning. mr. mayor, explain the tax breaks that amazon is getting. and do they offset the benefits? ocasio-cortez and others are worried it is too much of a give. >> 25,000 new jobs coming to new york city. it could go as high as 40,000. we are going to see in new york city alone over $13 billion in tax revenue coming to our city so that we can do things to help all new yorkers. this has been i think an extraordinary moment for new york city. a lot of big things are happening in new york city right now. we are the safest big city in the country. we have almost 4.5 million jobs. we have a strong social fabric, a sense of fairness that we are

creating in the city and an incredible and diverse workforce. that is what attracted amazon. amazon wanted a whole host of different types of subsidies and concessions. we wouldn't give it to them. what we got in the end was a nine to one ratio of the amount of revenue we will give back for any kind of incentives that they got. and for this city that is a five borough city. we want to see people in every neighborhood have opportunity. we want to see people in public housing have chances for jobs, students who go to public universities with a chance for jobs. this is a boon to have amazon come in and the way it will help our whole technology community grow. i think it is an extraordinary opportunity for new york city. >> you have called this the single biggest economic development deal in the history of new york city. what is new york giving amazon? what are the tax incentives and breaks and gives to make this

deal happen? >> there is a series of automatic incentives that are available to any company that comes into the state. there is a series of incentives that are available to companies that build in the outer boroughs. those are all automatic. they wanted additional concessions. we weren't willing to do that. other states offered vast incentive packages. they still end up coming to new york city. we said this is what you got. we are going to ask you to do things. we will tell you we need to build public space to anyone in the community and build space for school and training programs for people in public housing. the largest public housing in america is right here. amazon understood if you are going to come to new york city you have to live with our values. and in the end what we are going to see is not only a vast number of jobs, it's by far the biggest

number of new jobs this city has ever seen. but you are also going to see an opportunity to create a pathway for a lot of folks who have wanted to get into the technology community, a lot of every day new yorkers coming up through public schools will have a chance -- this is not only going to help build one company but the entire technology community of new york city. i understand the folks who have a concern and a critique, i get very upset when i see something that i think is a give away to a corporation like the republican tax legislation last year. what this is, we draw a hard bargain. we are getting a lot more tax revenue back. we are getting a number of jobs that is almost unimaginable for a single transaction. those jobs need to go to every day new yorkers. those jobs need to go to public housing residents. as a progressive, i think that is what we are here to do,

create economic opportunity for a lot of folks. >> part of the concern is about the job. amazon said the average salary would be $150,000 for the new jobs which sounds incredible. a lot of people worry that excludes people like the people you talk about who live in new york city public housing in the area. how does someone, a working class person in queens aspire to the $150,000 job? why aren't they being locked out of the process? >> i talked to a lot of people in the technology community. they say when you look at the jobs that are available, some are at the $150,000 level. a lot are 50,000, 60,000 and above. those jobs can go to young folk whose have just gotten an associate's degree from one of our city university colleges. those jobs can go to folks with a four-year degree. we have an opportunity here to make sure that the doors are open for the technology community. on the west coast there has been

a huge critique that a tech community has been profoundly narrow. it has not been diverse. this is a city where we have extraordinary viderodiverse wor. i think amazon coming here will spark the growth of our technology community. i think it will send a message that you can have that diverse workforce and give an opportunity and thrive while doing it. >> the head of new york city's employment and training coalition says the $15 million promise by amazon to go into some of the new york city public housing is a drop in the bucket. they believe it is something that is symbolic to help close the deal. what do you tell the working class and poverty line folks about this project and why they will be a part of it and won't be locked out? >> 25,000, up to 40,000 jobs to begin with. that will create a lot of other

jobs in the surrounding area. we always know this. you bring that economic presence into a community other businesses build up to support it. a technology community, 350,000 jobs in the whole city will grow more. this will be a consolidating moment. for queens this sends a signal that queens is an ever more important economic center. that will benefit new yorkers of all back grounds. there is no question. when i tell you we will get $13.5 billion in tax revenue, we will use that to create opportunity. we will use that to create affordable housing. we will use that to create job training programs that reach hundreds of thousands of new yorkers. so i think the important thing to recognize here is a smart government says we are here to bargain for the people. we need to get a lot back for the people. there is no question that that is what we are going to achieve here. new york city is moving in the right direction. we have said we will be the

fairest big city in america and make sure there is opportunity for all. if we didn't have them, we would be missing an opportunity to really reach a lot of people. >> i know nick has a couple of questions. one more for me about the subway. seven train is brutal. it's crowded. that's a larger problem with mta and upstate and everything else about funding the subway. what do you say if you are adding all of these people to the area on already strainal subway system, how is it going to handle that? why won't it be a further mess? >> there are improvements being made. it is a mess. there are improvements made. we need a full funding plan for the subway system. we get a chance to do that in albany this spring. i have added my administration ferry service which is tremendously important. this amazon campus is right on the waterfront. it will give people an entirely different opportunity. ferry service is growing rapidly in new york city. it is working.

there are other things we need to do. long island railroad is nearby. there is a place to add a stop on long island railroad. we can add shuttle buses in the community. there are things we can do to improve transportation. >> has amazon offered to pay for any of that in terms of subway repairs and upgrades? >> this was a very specific deal. we understood there was going to be a lot of investment by us, the public sector in that community. long island city has been growing intensely. what we wanted from amazon was a clear commitment on jobs. we wanted a clear commitment on a variety of things we would do for the community, job training, a variety of things. what we are clear about is we are going to get so much tax revenue back. we can apply that and a lot of these specific property taxes amazon will be paying will go to the rest of the community. >> earmarked for subway improvements or transportation?

>> money that they are paying in taxes, half of that earmarked specifically to the surrounding community. >> as you know, i covered city hall. i have seen these promises come. i have seen the deals get struck. i saw it with the amd factory where taxpayers poured a billion dollars and did not get it back. what happens is promises are made, ribbons are cut, politicians get credit. when the jobs don't come through the rules are changed quietly, the people who made the deal are out of power and there is no accountability. in this case the city council is being cut out of the process. what can you do and who will be responsible for making sure that amazon holds up this bargain in five and ten years when you are out of office? >> so we struck a binding agreement. if they don't stick to the agreement, it is all off.

that's a part of it. i agree with your critique that there were a lot of loose economic development plans. when our administration came in, we said we are no longer going to do any direct corporate incentives. the things i talked about here are preexisting that anyone can tap into. amazon wanted direct support. we said not doing that. legalally binding. if they do not fulfill requirements all incentives can be pulled back. clawback provisions. we can recapture money from them. so i think your critique is great. i think mayors and governors have to play hard and make it clear that if you don't keep your commitments you are not going to be able to do things. in new york city we passed a law that said if a developer wants to develop we have to give them a permit. they have to deliver affordable

housing. it is time to get tough. when you have a deal this good and a number of jobs that we have never seen a jobs deal for 25,000 to 40,000 jobs. if you look at any other precedent you are talking about a few thousand jobs. this is an entirely different scale. the folks who came up in new york city get an opportunity through amazon, community students get an opportunity through amazon. if amazon blinks, with all due respect to them, and tries not to keep their end of the deal, we have real tools to enforce on them. >> give us your take on what democrats learned in these mid term elections? did they learn to go way progressive and continue leaning way left? or was it a more convoluted lesson given the slow trickle of wins? >> i think it is three things.

don't talk about donald trump. he does plenty of talking on his own. he is his own worse sales men. we saw over 6 million more votes for democrats for congress nationwide. hillary clinton won with 3 million more. don't talk about donald trump. talk about health care. talk about basic economic reality, college debt. talk about the fact that people need new and better jobs in areas like renewable energy. that is what americans want to hear about and democrats really have a huge opportunity, a clear progressive economic vision, make clear we are never the party of the elites. we don't want corporate money for the dnc. we want to repeal that tax break that corporations and the wealthy got and give that money back to middle class and working class americans. and be blunt about institutional racism. be blunt about pay inequity for women. all of those ideas go together. there has been some that say you have to choose one or the other.

we have seen a lot of democrats talk about all of the above and not talk about donald trump. those folks did or came close. we have a clear template for what we need to do. >> thank you very much for being on the show this morning. up next, he is mad as hell and not going to take it anymore, our conversation with brian kranston who is returning to broadway in "network" a play based on the classic 1976 film. keep it here on "morning joe." keep it here on "morning joe."

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i want all of you to get up out of your chairs. i want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it and stick your head out and yell i'm as mad as hell and i'm not going to take this anymore. >> it's the iconic line from the iconic film "network".

peter finch won an academy award for that role. now 42 years later brian kransden is playing it on broadway. we spoke with him yesterday and asked him about adopting the classic movie for the stage. >> "network" was written in the mid '70s. it is amazing how it translates to the world that we live in now. about just the massive consumption, about people not reading anymore. they are just reading headlines and therefore thinking that they are informed. so it's really -- you guys will love it. it really translates wonderfully to the stage. >> so peter finch obviously was the iconic. everybody has an impression of him screaming at the top of his lungs. >> i don't know what to do about the inflation and the russians

and the crime in the speech. all i know is first you have to get mad. >> how do you come at a character so identified with one guy and bring it back to life here 40 years later? >> only guys who are of a certain age remember that movie. in 1975, there is a whole swath of people who have never seen the movie. i would come at it fresh. i don't want to do an impression of what peter finch did. i had seen the movie before. it left an impression. three years ago i watched it again knowing i was going to do it on broadway. and i just wanted to be honest just to say what are the conditions present for a man to -- has he lost himself or did he have an epiphany in life? that is up for the audience to decide whether or not howard beal has gone mad or if he is truly a gifted person.

>> what is your sense of the live audience and making movies and shooting "breaking bad." every night you are to bring it. >> every other tuesday i bring it and add matinee. >> when was your first shot on live television? >> butterflies working and you are going here is my chance. that is kind of what it is every night getting in front of an audience. you have to really do your homework. and know what you want to do and take some deep breath and go out and just do it. there is no net. if you stumble, you stumble. make a correction on the fly. it's part of the excitement. they have always said that

theater is an actor's medium. once the curtain goes up, it is you. just go. >> you are ready to get a shot at it the next night. if the show didn't go well we'll see you at 6:00 a.m. is there anything new about the show? do you stick to the original pretty well or update it for the new audience? >> what is really new is the staging. he is a brilliant director from holland. it is totally immersive in the multimedia aspect and bringing the audience into the play. on stage with us are 22 diners, a premium ticket and they are on stage with us eating and drinking while the play is going on. >> people come to see the show, but they are seated on stage. >> what could go wrong? civilians drinking alcohol. >> do they chime in at all?

>> occasionally they chime in. they are given a tutorial to behave. this is a play going on. don't talk to the actors. there are no cell phones. >> why are they there? >> why not? i'll throw that back at you. why aren't they there? i don't know. that's the way it is. >> did you have to rehearse the iconic line in the mirror? >> no. in doing the work. >> i'm as mad as hell and i'm not going to take this anymore -- i figure out what are the parameters that i could be feeling and then i let it go. i don't know. some nights it is angrier. some nights i'm weeping uncontrollably. it's not a pretty picture. i just let it happen. >> the network screen play written over 40 years ago and it

still resonates today. i wonder whether it speaks to an underlying paranoia present in the culture. >> i think so. when you think about it he says i'm mad at hell. he is saying yell that you are angry and you will purge yourself of some anxiety. people are angry right now. the political climate is so tense that this play has a tendency to let it out and audiences every single night are screaming i'm mad as hell and i'm not going to take it anymore. i think in some small way it may help them just release and take the pressure off just a touch. >> how does howard beal speak to

somebody in 2018 in a way that he may not have in 1975? >> the themes are similar and familiar. first of all, we are addicted to our televisions. they are smaller now. we see it walking up and down the street, people are absolutely glued in. it's not good. you want to be able to have a conversation. people are saying i talk to them all the time on text or facebook or something. so it's about allowing yourself to be human and embracing the imperfection of that. we discuss fake news and the media and the packaging of news and how we deliver that and manipulate the audience with propaganda. >> i want to ask you about something you confirmed the other day. there is a "breaking bad" movie

coming up. will walter white be in the "breaking bad" movie? >> i don't know for sure if there is. i heard the rumor, too. i heard it is happening. and then i said i guess it's ha. and then -- bryan cranston said it's happening. i haven't seen or read a script. i kind of jumped going, oh, really? but walter white is dead. >> well, right, that was my question. >> it's going to be a great movie. there he is. >> dream sequence. >> pennies in my eyes. >> so we don't quite know yet if there's a "breaking bad" movie. >> it hasn't been confirmed to me yet. >> seems like they would want to confirm it to you. >> i don't see how they can make a "breaking bad" movie with walter white, unless it's totally in the past. i'm confused. >> you are confused. >> willie, i'm confused. >> i feel like you know and

you're holding out. >> i'm going to bring this anxiety with me on stage tonight. >> you can see that anxiety and network at new york's belasco theater. bryan cranston, always great to see you. i just got my cashback match, is this for real? yep. we match all the cash back new cardmembers earn at the end of their first year, automatically. whoo! i got my money! hard to contain yourself, isn't it? uh huh! let it go! whoo! get a dollar-for-dollar match at the end of your first year. only from discover.

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what started with one job spread all around. because each job in energy creates many more in this town. crews are on the scene of fast-moving new fires in southern california. the sierra fire was reported in

the city of fontana in san bernardino county. it burned through about 20 acres in 15 minutes, and is threatening homes in that city. meanwhile the death toll in northern california grew from six to 48. it grew by six after butte county officials found more remains in scorched homes in the city of paradise. the sheriff has now requested the national guards help in searching the area for more bodies. at last check more than 200 people were unaccounted for. let's bring in bill karins for the latest on conditions facing the firefighters. >> the numbers are staggering, i was looking at the specifics released last night. 7,600 homes have been burned to the ground. that's how many people are homeless, that don't have any of their possessions anymore. obviously the fatalities is the number that's mind blowing, but 7,600 people without their houses anymore, that's a crazy stat, unimaginable. so what we're dealing with

today, it's still windy, we still have a chance for fire spread, rapid spreading in areas of southern california. that's where the winds will be a little bit on the high side as we go throughout the afternoon. we made it through yesterday again where the winds weren't too bad. this afternoon, a little gust outside of the san diego mountains up to 6 miles per hour. but the big question, when will we get rain? next week, our american computer model, saying wednesday to friday, mika, we could get significant rain in california, fingersed crossed, prayers, whatever it takes, we need it. >> whatever it takes. bill, thank you. i want to look at the broader health impacts of these fires. joining us, dr. david kampf -- should california residents around these fire areas be concerned about the air quality? >> no, that's the main ongoing problem right now, the air quality is terrible. it's measured as hazardous by the epa, three very strong

recommendations made. one, stay inside, turn your air conditioner on, put it on recycle. if you have to go outside, don't exert yourself. and go to the hardware store or the local fire department and pick up a face mask. the n-95, the type that wraps around your mouth and goes up and down is very important. it's rather like back in 9/11 when you have some experience in your own health protection back then. >> yes. something didn't feel right to me when i was down there, i covered my mouth with a rag for the entire time and it turned out people did become extremely ill. and you would say several miles outside the fire zone to be concerned? >> oh, at least. with the winds now it's many, many miles. so if you're not sure, stay inside. if you have to go outside, have your face mask. and really, don't go outside and exercise and do vigorous work either. it's really bad for the lung. the big particulates are what get into the lung, go deep and cause disease and damage. >> i want to stay on the topic in the final moments we have of

lung health. what's the impact of the stopping of the selling of the fruit-flavored e cigarettes, i see these kids, they love these things, and i don't understand why they're not considered the same as cigarettes. dangerous. >> they're not tobacco, but they are nicotine. the problem is, last year, there was a 75% increase in youth using electronic cigarettes. these are drug delivery systems for nicotine. the goal is to have adults stop using combustible tobacco. the problem is, we have these young kids who are enamored and become addicted to nicotine. >> can't they put something else in there as well. kids use them different ways, they could use them anywhere. they don't have any smell, they don't have any smoke. they become almost like a binky they're walking around with. where's the medical community on this? >> the medical community is against kids, youth, using

electronic cigarettes as a means to deliver nicotine. it's the nicotine that's addictive, and it's the nicotine that's the problem. >> all right. so one more issue on lung health while we're at it. utah, voted for medical marijuana, which is actually quite astounding for that state politically. it's an interesting thing. what do you think the health impact of that vote will be? and as we're looking at this, going across the nation, in some cases, being totally legalized. >> well, it's huge. and florida has a similar law. you cannot smoke medical marijuana legally. but it's now in over 30 states available for use for a whole host of diseases. neurodiseases like als, ms, dementia, alzheimer's. there's a whole host of reasons medical marijuana makes sense, but it's a little bit up in the air at times. >> dr. dave campbell, great to

have you on. we'll be following the situation out in california with more fires breaking out and more bodies being discovered. the results of these fires are staggering. and it looks like that's where our next broadcast will be starting right there with stephanie ruhle who picks up the coverage right now. >> thanks so much, mika. good morning, everyone, i'm stephanie ruhle, and mika's right, we have got to talk about one thing, california. because it is burning six more people found dead in what is now the deadliest fire in the state's history. >> to me like an apocalypse that god's on vacation and he's not taking care of us. >> and the wild, wild west wing. last week it was sessions. now reports that three more members of the administration could be on their way out. and a surprising person might be behind all of it. plus, we've got to cover the tech boom, outrage in new york as the depth o