wasn't on the ballot. >> i'm not on the ballot, but in a certain way i'm on the ballot so please go out and vote. go out and vote. >> well, we learned a lot from the president over the weekend, that republicans had a great victory in the midterms. fantastic. speaking of fantastic, he says saudi arabia is spectacular. >> by the way, the same weekend the cia said that, yes, they've heard it all and it's very clear that mbs did, in fact, order the killing. >> that raking leaves prevents forest fires, you know, smoky the bear never told me that. but it's good that we know that now from the president. and that america dragged its feet in killing bin laden. that the president is too busy to visit u.s. troops at war and on too many phone calls to lay a wreath at arlington. he downplayed climate change and brushed off the cia. he reduced a military leader

into a political hack and claimed not to know that the acting ag had criticized the russia probe before being elevated to that position. that's just some of what happened over the weekend. welcome to "morning joe." it is monday, november 19th. with us we have national affairs analyst for nbc news and msnbc and co-host and the executive producer of show time's the circus, john heilemann. >> good morning. >> associate editor of commentary magazine noah rothman, former treasury official and "morning joe" economic analyst steve rattner is here and washington anchor for bbc world news america katty kay. what a weekend of trumpisms and -- >> he took the trumpisms and some would say, no the me, but some would say he took crazy to 11 if we want to borrow parlance

from spinal tap. ten is loud, ten is crazy. he turned it up to 11 on the dial. there's so much to go through here. a lot of disturbing things, a lot of things just showing a guy even more out of touch than usual, if that's even possible. why don't we start, mika, which talking about -- we will go through all of this. >> okay. >> a lot of news to cover. but first about donald trump denying that the republicans who had their worst loss since watergate -- >> right. >> -- actually lost at all. >> well, democrats extended their gains in the house over the weekend as more races were called in their favor. >> wait. you mean even more races, mika? >> oh, yeah. >> democratic? >> it's a wave. >> oh, my gosh. >> the latest count is 37 seats added to their caucus with three still undecided. that number goes along with significant gains in state governments all over the country. democrats won the national

popular vote in the house by at least 7.7 percentage points. >> that's a lot. >> according to the cook political reports running tabulation they estimate the number could go as high as 9 points. >> you know, also, democrats picked up more governor seats than either party since 1994, almost a quarter century. oh, my gosh, i forgot, they also -- republicans lost over 330 state legislative seats. >> it was a resounding rebuke. >> far worse than -- i mean, this is historic as far as just how badly trump republicans did and no doubt it's got to sting. >> yeah, it's a large -- >> i'm sure he's looking inside saying, do you know what -- >> how much did i lose? >> i destroyed the careers of 37, 38 members of congress, i destroyed the careers of seven republican governors, i destroyed the careers of over

300 republicans in state legislative races. i must look inward and examine myself, donald trump, and figure out how i could do better two years from now. is that what he did? >> no, in an interview with fox news president trump insisted that the election was a far greater victory for republicans. >> what? this is a shock. >> i won the senate and that's historic, too, because if you look at presidents in the white house, it's almost never happened where you won a seat. we won -- we now have 53 as opposed to 51 and we have 53 great senators in the u.s. senate. we won. that's a tremendous victory. nobody talks about that. that's a far greater victory than it is for the other side. >> nobody -- nobody ever talks about that. john heilemann, i mean, republicans pick up seats in the senate, that never happens ever. >> historic. >> oh, wait, yeah, george w. bush did it. but, again, to put it -- oh,

there you go. put it in proper perspective, nobody almost ever does it. two presidents ago did it. >> right. >> this was a complete shellacking by trump republicans and also if you want to even look at the senate, my god, they had a historic advantage, probably should have picked up five, six, seven seats, but while donald trump saying this, chris wallace isn't believing it. really no republicans on capitol hill at this point are believing it ever. they know that this was a devastating loss for trump republicanism. so why does he just keep saying it? why does he just keep lying? >> three possibilities, one, delusional. two, pathological liar. three, political dingbat. >> okay. hold on. >> no, i'd say four, in a corner, angry, deflecting and freaking out about congress having control over everything that they're going to have to

ask him for and he will finally have to give in a way this will be the only time in his life ever -- >> thank you so much. >> -- ever that he has been accountable and he cannot believe -- >> okay. >> -- he cannot believe -- >> mika -- >> -- that he has nowhere to go. >> mika, you're confusing our contestants at home. there is five. >> what's five? >> all of the above. john heilemann, if you can, you have the actual key, the answer key. please let our viewers playing at home know what the answer is. >> i think mika's answer is really not a fourth option as much as an explanatory framework for the previous three. >> exactly. >> mika, as is often the case mika is trying to elevate the conversation and provide a why, which is important, but i would say, four, therefore, if mika's thing was not four, yours, joe, four, all of the above, i think that you got the answer, as often is the case, you are the one who got it. all of the above. you know, i've stopped trying to

disentangle them. you know, yes, desperate, scared, frightened, realizing, i think, for the first time after -- you know, this is not a new observation. we for a couple years you looked to trump's behavior and said he doesn't seem to think what will happen to him if he loses one or both houses of congress in the midterms. >> right. >> he did a lot of irrational things over the course of the two years. we noted it at the time. it does feel as though, as it has for all of us only we all got there a little quicker, the scale of the defeat for the party, the depth of it, the breadth of it and the implications of it have finally sunk in and the more they sink in for him the more he goes into delusional dingbatery. >> delusional dingbatery. chuck schumer said he's really hurting. democrats won seven senate seats in states that trump won in 2016. yes, that does have to sting. noah rothman, i was thinking over the weekend about something that i think because -- and, by

the way, here we go. here is the senate elections, democrats defended 26, only lost four. republicans defended nine, lost two. if you look at it democrats actually had a better winning percentage if you're looking at such things. noah rothman, i was just thinking about it this weekend that, again, we have all said it around this table for two years now, but a lot of people in the media that didn't see trump coming the first time were saying, oh, my god, he is going to get away with it again, he always gets away with it. a lot of liberal bloggers -- it's almost like he had magic pixie dust and we kept saying you can't win with 40% of the country supporting you, that means 60% of the country is against you. you can't win if you have low presidential approval ratings in the 40s. history shows where this is going to end up. i do wonder, john heilemann

said -- he talked about political dingbatery and i think edmund burke first wrote that in reflections, but this political dingbatery i think is natural for a guy that didn't plan on winning the presidency, didn't expect on winning the presidency and really never bothered to figure out the basics of politics 101, that you win by getting 51% of the vote, you lose when you are like in the low to mid 40s. >> yeah, the president's electoral college victory was pretty remarkable. his popular vote victory was not. he won 46% of the vote. if he does not improve on that, he's going to have a tough time of it in 2020. most republicans who have gone on to win a second time improved on their vote totals in their second term election and donald trump is staring down the barrel of the prospect of not doing that, especially if he doubles down on his base retention strategy. as you noted there is a conventional wisdom deficit that

lags what we see actually on the ground. so after 2016 we were enthralled to the magic of donald trump's ability to craft a coalition nobody thought could be crafted in the modern era. so we spent the two consecutive years after that election studying rural areas, trump voting areas, conventionally democratic places that had swung towards the gop to the detriment, i think, of understanding the actual electorate. we run the same risk now that that magic has been depleted, the magic is gone and we are focused on this electorate which is suburban, upwardly mobile, educated and leaning towards democrats in conventionally republican areas like orange county, california. we could overcorrect for 2016, focus too much on those areas and undervalue the extent to which donald trump's incumbency and the power that he has as an incumbent and the economy do benefit him for 2020. democrats would run the risk of being too complacent by performing 2016 in reverse and

focusing on their own rising electorate. >> you're right there, that democrats and independents and republicans who are opposed to donald trump need to understand he could win again, though, boy, that pathway has narrowed so much. for donald trump to win again he's going to have to win wisconsin. right now i just don't see a way forward there. he's got to win michigan. i don't see a way forward there, either. he's got to win pennsylvania. my gosh, i don't think the suburbs of philadelphia are going to make the same mistake twice. they know this guy. they jumped off a cliff in faith, a lot of them said, wait a second, we think we want backup on that cliff again. noah is right, mika, there is a pathway forward for donald trump, but, my gosh, it's getting smaller and smaller, more narrow by the day. >> and with everything that comes -- each thing that comes out of his mouth, you just -- you have to wonder. i mean, i think he loses people

along the way and internationally becomes just a joke. >> you're talking now our new segment, sweeping forests. >> no, leaf raking with katty kay. >> oh, okay. it's actually quite serious, the deadly camp fire in california is 65% contained, we've been watching this horror unfold before our eyes as officials worked feverishly to locate the nearly 1,000 people who are still unaccounted for. authorities said on sunday night that it has killed 77 people and destroyed more than 10,000 homes so far. that number is going to go up. president trump toured the towns hardest hit by fires, including paradise, a city that for the most part has been wiped out. while he vows to help the state, experts and elected officials say he doesn't really understand what's causing the fire as he continues to blame poor forest management.

listen. >> i was watching the firemen the other day and they were raking areas. they were raking areas where the fire was right over there and they're raking trees, little trees like this -- not trees, little bushes that you could see are totally dry. weeds. and we're raking them. they are on fire. that should have been all raked out. >> what about the argument -- >> you wouldn't have the fires. >> what about the argument it's climate change, that it's drier, it's hotter and that that's contributing to it. >> maybe it contributes a little bit. the big problem we have is management. >> i think we are all on the same path. we do have to do management, maintenance and we will be working also with environmental groups. they've really -- i think everybody has seen the light, but i'm committed to make sure that we get all of this cleaned out and protected. take care of the floors. you know, the floors of the forests, very important. you look at other countries where they do it differently and it's a whole different story.

i was with the president of finland and he said, we have -- much different. we are a forest nation. he called it a forest nation and they spent a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things and they don't have any problem. >> raking. >> the president of finland says he briefed the president recently on his country's forest management, but did not recall mentioning about raking. i'm not sure what he was trying to get at, katty kay, but this just adds to the list of reasons why our allies and other countries around the world just look at america differently today. >> yeah, so the social meme things going around finland are groups of people getting out over the weekend and humorously raking as trolling donald trump. the idea that the world is not laughing at america at the moment, but on that one they are because it patently wasn't the case that that was what was happening. we will look back and see that

one of the great tragedies of this political moment of division is the extent to which climate change has become a victim of that partisanship. if you are on the side of donald trump and his supporters, you will go to the ends of earth to say that climate change is not responsible for what is happening out in california or other parts of the world at the moment, and if you are a believer in climate change and science, you will try to address that. but the president is an incredibly powerful position, to lead the world right now on what is probably the most pressing issue of our time and faced -- in the face of incontrovertible scientific evidence that climate change is contributing and it is what gavin newsom has said, the governor elect, what jerry brown is saying, what dozens of scientists including inside the administration are saying is that climate change is behind these things, the president still says, well, not really, tiny bit, hasn't changed his

view on climate change. let's get back to raking leaves. anything other than let's address the issue of climate change. >> sorry. you would think we would be done. >> i just must say, again, raking leaves, this is -- i think i saw this in a south park episode a couple years ago. or if not we need to see it, because, again, it's such a laughable explanation for why we're having these tragic forest fires. i mean -- >> it's quite a do tttering answer. >> when president trump was also asked about criticism that he is facing including from retired admiral william mccraven. now, you will remember william mccraven as a former navy s.e.a.l. who oversaw the 2011 operation that killed osama bin laden. last year mccraven said that donald trump's attacks on the news media represented the greatest threat to american

democracy that he has ever seen. >> thank you. >> during that fox news sunday interview donald trump decided to hit back suggesting that mccraven and the navy s.e.a.l.s had failed. that they had screwed up. that the navy s.e.a.l.s were insufficient to the task inn front of them and they should have found osama bin laden much sooner. >> bill mccraven, retired admiral, navy s.e.a.l., 37 years, former head of u.s. special operations -- >> hillary clinton fan. >> -- special operations -- >> excuse me, hillary clinton fan. >> who led the operations, command of the operations that took down saddam hussein and killed osama bin laden says that your sentiment is the greatest threat to democracy in his lifetime. >> he is a hillary clinton backer and an obama backer and, frankly -- >> he was a navy s.e.a.l. >> wouldn't it have been nice if we got osama bin laden a lot

sooner than that? wouldn't it have been nice? think of this, living in pakistan, beautifully in pakistan in what i guess they considered a nice mansion, i don't know, i've seen nicer -- >> you know, it's -- steve rattner, first of all, he's lying. this shouldn't shock anybody. maybe die hard trump fans don't want to know the truth, but they can check their google machine or if they don't have a google machine they can go next door or perhaps they can go to a community center and find a google machine there, unless they want to keep bathing in lies. because right now donald trump is lying about one of america's great heroes that helped kill osama bin laden. admiral mccraven said that he never supported hillary clinton. he never supported barack obama. i did not back hillary clinton or anyone else. i'm a fan of president obama and president george w. bush, both of whom i worked for. i admire all presidents, regardless of their political party, who uphold the dignity of the office and use that office

to bring the nation together in challenging times. that's admiral william mccraven and yet, you know, steve, this whole nonsense that donald trump is some big supporter of the troops, we found out this weekend that he said he was too busy making phone calls to go across a bridge to arlington and lay a wreath like every president has done since jfk. he of course didn't -- didn't want to get rained on so he didn't go to one of the most sacred ceremonies and one of the great battles in u.s. marine history. he's never been really to a war zone. hasn't even visited the troops on the border. he has put american troops on the border to keep them away from their families during the holidays for a political stunt. i don't know. this guy doesn't sound a whole lot like a supporter, big supporter of the military to me. >> no, look, first of all, admiral mccraven is one of the

great military heroes of our time, he joined the navy the day after he got out of the university of texas, he rose up to be the commander of seal team 6, he rose up to be the commander of all the joint special operations forces and it is not, by the way, his -- was not his job to find osama bin laden, the cia's job, they did it, and then the seal team went in as soon as they were found. he also, as you know, gave one of the great commencement speeches of all time at the university of texas which he turned into a book called "make your bed." he is really a true american hero that donald trump has just trashed for absolutely no reason. secondly, he also lied about another thing in that interview when he said he went to arlington on the last armistice day. he did not go to arlington on the last armistice day, he did go on veteran day. barack obama went every single armistice day, barack obama went to arlington. so, yes, for all the reasons you say donald trump can say he is a great supporter of the military, but to act like this toward one

of our great heroes, to act like this toward the fallen dead is not being a supporter of the military or a great president. >> well, and, john mile hand, why don't we play that game what if barack obama had done it? what if barack obama had attacked a navy s.e.a.l.? what if barack obama had never gone to a war zone in what if barack obama had sent troops to the border over the holidays as a political stunt. we could go on and on and on. it's really, again, dromp is treating men and women in uniform in these instances at least in a very shabby manner. >> yeah, it's one of the most -- i mean, there is this whole litany of things we have teed up to talk about this in block and i thought maybe at the beginning you would ask what was the most shocking and disgusting of them. i guess as i've surveyed them there have been things we've talked about just in the last few minutes where he has been

stupider or done things that are more ridiculous, but the way he has talked about mccraven since this first became a controversy is really one of the most -- is easily the most appalling and yes of course if barack obama did any of those things there would have been calls for and i would imagine moves for his impeachment among republicans almost instantly. of course they do not do the same for donald trump. i just do -- i think one of the most interesting pieces of polling that i've seen in this period right after the election or right leading into the election was the notion that trump's support among uniformed officers, among people who are currently serving in the military is finally starting to crack a little bit. if you pile up all these things including the deployment to the southern border and the way in which he now talks about mccraven, i do think there is a chance for all of his talk about this and for all of the support he has had from the military in 2016 that trump is actually going to be on thin ice with the military vote as we head into 2020 and that will be a good -- one of many barometers as to just how bad -- i mean, i'm not

foretelling the future, but just the level of risk that he's putting himself in with hard core constituencies that are finally starting to say, do you know what, this guy is not with us. >> you know, there's also a fundamental misunderstanding, though, about the president's role. again, he's inexperienced at this, he didn't even expect to be elected president of the united states, perhaps this plays into his misunderstanding, his ignorance of history, but the president this weekend said the reason why he never has gone to a war zone is because he opposed the wars. since he opposes the wars he doesn't feel the need to go to the war zone to visit the young men and women who are sent there regardless of whether they support the wars or not. of course, we all know barack obama opposed iraq and had real concerns with afghanistan, but, guess what, barack obama visited

iraq, visited afghanistan. that's what commander in chiefs do, but not donald trump. >> yeah, i saw that sentiment expressed in the "new york times." i wasn't sure whether that was the president's aides thinking that was a good explanation for why he hasn't made a visit toit front lines -- not the front lines, but to see troops in iraq, afghanistan, and, as you say, on the border. that he wasn't fully on board with the mission that they were conducting and i can't think of a sentiment that's more deleterious to morale in those conflicts than the idea that the commander in chief doesn't back them. it's a dereliction of his responsibility, it's a craven thing to say, doesn't make any sense frankly because the president can do whatever he wants to do, he can pull these troops back if he was so inclined. he has not been inclined because it would be strategically disastrous and he has been thankful convinced of the strategic foolishness of pursuing a policy that he campaigned on. but there is the past three

presidents consecutively, george w. bush, barack obama and now donald trump campaigned on the notion that the united states is overextended abroad and should retrench and the boys should come home. that sentiment on the campaign trail works, but behind the resolute desk it makes a lot less sense. we have been of the that these three presidents have been con convinced of the foolishness of their campaign rhetoric, but at some point that's not going to work. a headstrong president like this could be convinced of the rekt tud of his decision to pull troops back from the positions they are in, forward deployment. that would be politically disastrous and strategically inane and we are not out of the woods yet with this president. he is telegraphing something he wants to do in the near future. >> just a little analysis. this president has had 668 days in office, 210 of them have been at trump properties, 159 of them have been spent golfing. no days in a war zone, not one

visiting troops. so the president -- >> how many days golfing? >> 159. >> it's very interesting. donald trump said not only publicly also told us privately -- >> never leave the white house. >> he said i'm never going to leave the white house. barack obama goes out golfing all the time. what a joke. i can't believe. i will never golf. i won't have time to golf. i will be working at the white house all the time. so how many days? >> i've got 159 here. >> 159 days. >> behaving like a shame to america and to the office of presidency. this weekend, though, it seems to be heightened, some might argue that he is just freaked out about indictments coming possibly to his son. >> some might argue that, mika. some might argue that. what's ahead on "morning joe"? still ahead on "morning joe," nancy pelosi's last battle. "the new york times" magazine profiles the likely speaker in waiting who is locked between a rampaging president and members

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she may need some votes. i will perform a wonderful service for her. i like her. can you believe it? i like nancy pelosi. i mean, she's tough and she's smart, but she deserves to be smoker and now they're playing games with her, just like they will be playing with me with it's called presidential harassment. >> that was president trump offering to help nancy pelosi in the speakership. joining us now author and writer for "the new york times" magazine robert draper. he is out this morning with a new piece on nancy pelosi's fight to be the next house speaker entitled "nancy pelosi's last battle." very good to have you on, robert. is the challenge from within the party or from the president himself or both, which which is the greater challenge? >> well, i mean, the greater challenge is outside of the party with president trump. i mean, first of all, mika, she's not -- she doesn't want or need votes from the republicans.

she certainly can't count on them. no one has ever accused nancy pelosi of political dingbatery -- was that the phrase -- any more than they have accused her of spending 159 days on a golf course. she understands that she is in a state of diminished power and will have to make some concessions within her caucus, but once she does so she is going to emerge i think in all likelihood as once again speaker of the house and the principal counterweight against president trump. what you are alluding to also is that she faces some challenges within, not only in terms of getting voted speaker, but also people within her party who want to see the next two years as a fight club, endless investigations, calling for impeachment against trump and pelosi told me she doesn't think that's the right approach right now. >> robert, one of the things that i don't understand in the post-election reckoning that nancy pelosi is supposedly facing is some facts that you have brought out and others have brought out.

i mean, the republicans spent $65 million in ad campaigns attacking nancy pelosi. they had a banner hanging on rnc headquarters saying fire pelosi for a year. they have been attacking her nonstop for well over a decade and despite the fact that this was a focus each in very conservative districts like dave brats, pelosi prevailed. democrats had their largest win since watergate. i mean, there are members going into congress that weren't even alive, democrats that even alive the last time democrats had this good of a midterm election. so i'm just confused, why do they think it's time to get rid of her now? >> well, also that's tantamount to having the republicans decide who the democratic leader would be, which is confusing in and of itself. you're right, joe, it would seem to be the case that this has been the all too familiar playbook for the republicans to

vilify nancy pelosi and to make her the evil twin of whatever democrat is running in a particular district. it doesn't seem to have worked this time. even leaving aside the issue of whether or not it's worked, it's become clear that pelosi can take a punch. if you're going to have somebody go into a boxing ring with the likes of donald trump, pelosi has made it clear that, you know, she can take a few swings. in the meantime, no democratic challenger has stepped forward to run against pelosi, begging the question do they have what it takes? >> hi, steve rattner in new york. as it happens i have seen her a couple times since the election at various events and things and i think the effort that she is putting in, her energy, her strength, her willingness to talk to every member and try to corral all of these people is really quite extraordinary, especially for someone who is 78 years old. it's been amazingly impressive to me to watch her. that said there is this group of

i will call them the young turks for lack of a better word, there is 20 who have committed to vote against her and as you say they don't have a candidate, but the question is how does this play out? she does really have to get virtually all of her caucus, she can only afford to lose a small number to get through this process. how do you see this finally playing out? >> steve, i think right now she can only afford to lose about 14 votes or something and it is said that as you say they are around 18 or so dissidents of the young and the restless or however you want to term them. pelosi is clearly in this state of diminished power, in a state of diminished leverage is having to make concessions here and there. we have seen this over the last few days, she met with the progressive caucus, clearly if not outright promised them for seats on appropriations committee, energy and commerce and other significant committees, nodded in that direction because, sure enough, outcomes pa mill la via poll saying, okay, i'm going to support her. she has met with the blue dog

coalition, the same thing, she met with marcie keptur, an old nemesis of her in the 1980s as she kept her support as well. she's peeling people off one by one. i anticipate as we get closer to the vote whenever that's going to be, sometime between november 28 and mid-december pelosi will be able to have the sufficient votes, the 218 that are needed. all right. the new piece is "nancy pelosi's last battle." robert draper, thank you very much for being on the show this morning. still to come, a court filing last week inadvertently revealed that the justice department has filed charges under seal against wikileaks founder julian assange. we will hear exclusively from his attorney ahead on "morning joe." ♪

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so, john, we've talked about it before, an overwhelming victory for house republicans, an overwhelming victory for the democratic party. across the board if you look at it. the question is why would democrats right now be ringing their hands about whether nancy

pelosi should be their speaker, at least for the next two years. your thoughts on that, first of all, and second will i from everything you're hearing does it seem like nancy pelosi will be given the gavel at the end of this entire messy voting process? >> yeah, i mean, look, pelosi faces the same problem she always faces in some sense, right, she is a classic perspiration not inspiration leader for the party. it's hard for people to get enthused about her because no one is really -- she's not an inspiring figure, she works really hard adds steve rattner said, obviously a great tactical mind, a great fundraiser, she's also become a demon figure for a lot of people on the right. there was all this energy heading into this election among the dissident factions, whether you are a moderate in the seth molden mode or on the less alexandria owe tass joe cortez democrat and then you are faced with the sudden unexpected reality of the blue behave and you see these dissidents they

are all flailing around, they don't have a candidate to get behind so, again, to cite another person, robert draper, i think they are going to be eventually easily -- not easily but with some effort they will be picked off as she's going about systematically doing because they don't have much of an argument against her nor do they have a candidate to get behind. that explains the why and also leads to the inevitable conclusion that she will be the speaker in 2019-2020. >> democrats haven't been in the majority very much over the past 30 years or so, 25 years or so. they do need to understand, mika, when it comes to running the house of representatives one of the most difficult jobs in washington, d.c., inspiration, ideology, it's overrated. this comes down to competence and i've been around a few speakers that were heavy on ideology, heavy on inspiration. >> right. >> and, my goodness, it was a mess. >> a u.s. district court filing

in the eastern district of virginia reveals that prosecutors appear to have prepared an indictment against wikileaks founder julian assange. prosecutors inadvertently revealed the charges in a recently unsealed court filing unrelated assange. while it's not immediately clear what allegations could be connected to the filing, the development could significantly advance the investigation into russian interference in the 2016 election and have significant implication for those who publish government secrets. joining us now for more nbc news foreign correspondent keir simmons. keir, this weekend you sat down for an exclusive interview with assange's lawyer, jennifer robinson. what did you learn? >> yeah, you know, mika, the question really this week is whether that court indictment will be unsealed, whether we will learn more about the accusations against julian assange.

one of the crucial questions, is he charged with publishing or is he charged with colluding or assisting in illegal activity? could it be cable-gate where you will remember chelsea manning was jailed and claimed that nobody else helped her. is he charged with assisting edward snowden to escape to russia, charged with publishing u.s. techniques or is he charged with that 2016 dnc e-mail case. we just -- we don't know. if it is the latter, though, you might expect the mueller team to have reached out to julian assange's team. in fact, jennifer robinson tells me they have had no contact. take a listen. >> has julian assange been asked to give evidence to the mueller inquiry? >> there has been no communication whatsoever from the mueller inquiry. >> nothing? >> nothing. >> what does that tell you? >> well, from our point of view there is no reason for wikileaks to be investigated at all. this is a media organization who like many other media organizations received

information and publishes is in the public interest. that is not in any way activity which is criminal and shouldn't be in any way culled up in this investigation. >> have you heard from any kind of prosecuting authority? >> we have been reaching out to the american authorities for many years, we have always been open to speaking to them, but our u.s. counsel has not had any communication at all from prosecutors, at least no information. so the information that was released by mistake over the past few days is the first confirmation that we have had of a secret indictment, of the secret charges that we were concerned about. >> you've seen him recently. how is he as far as you are able to tell us? >> he's been in very difficult circumstances for more than six years since he has been inside that embassy, no ability to go outside, no ability to exercise outside, with he can't get him the health treatment that he requires. his health is deteriorating and we're concerned about the permanent impact that being in there for such a long period of time in isolation and in effect solitary confinement for the last six months under the

restrictions ecuador has placed on him. so he is in a difficult situation. >> are you negotiating in any sense for julian assange to leave the ecuadorian embassy? >> at this point without assurances, the shurnss we've been seeking since 2010 to protect had i'm against this very are is k that we now know is absolutely real and is in place, without that assurance how can he leave the embassy? >> so, again, guys, i think the shushl point here now honestly is that we don't know what the alleged charges are and at what point does it frankly become an abusive bruce of process that we are not being told and therefore we can't have a public conversation about whether or not those charges are justified. >> so, keir, where would julian assange go? did you hear from his attorney, if given safe passage, any idea what his destination would be? >> well, he's very unlikely to be given safe passage because if you remember he ran from bail,

the bail was over allegations -- sexual allegations in relation -- in the country of sweden. so the british were saying they wanted to end is him back to sweden or that was the possibility. the point is here, joe, though, that his legal team have always said that their big concern has been that he would be expedited to america where potentially the jail sentence would be far -- far longer and i guess in a sense you could say that they have been proven right about that. that clearly is a risk for him. again, though, if he leaves that embassy, he is going to be arrested simply for jumping bail and then you can -- it looks as if the u.s. would step in to say, we want him to be expedi e dated hire. >> i want to turn to senior reporter at vanity fair and nbc news contributor emily jane fox to get of sense of where we stand with michael cohen.

we haven't talked about that in weeks. what's going on with him? jared and ivanka and also the rumors about don jr. have you been hearing anything, emily, in your reporting about these angles and might they explain the president's behavior? >> sure. i think that a large amount of the anxiety that we see coming out of the white house right now has to do with concern over the fate of his eldest son. i think from all of my reporting this is something that is weighing heavily on him. i will say that from people who have known the president well, who know the family well, it's not necessarily concern for the fate of his child because he's concerned about the fate of his child. he's concerned that if don jr. is indicted that it could perhaps have implications on him. this is not someone who is a parent who is deeply affected by what will happen to his child, but instead by what could potentially happen to him. i think all the time about that "new york times" story about the taxes that the trump family had paid, and it explained the

depths to which fred trump went through to protect donald trump, to bail his son out every time he made mistakes. you think of donald trump's own parenting style and the depths he you think of donald trump's own parenting style. to his detriment to put them at legal risk. such a shift in generation of parenting. i think the fact that his son is facing legal peril something that's hard to face for any parent. >> what specifically is -- worried about what? >> don junior. for don junior. related to the trump's anxiety over donald junior. michael cohen is something different. mike koll cohen is deuce to be

sentenced next month, in just a few weeks. you he's spent tens and tens of hours talking to investigators since he pleaded guilty in august. he knows a great deal about the foundation and the family and president trump. these two things coupled together are causing a great deal of anxiety. >> all right, emily jane fox, great to have you on. thank you very much. still ahead -- the washington post bob costa joins us with his new reporting about how the president has already set the stage to divide the political map even more ahead of 2020. yikes. "morning joe" is coming right back. it's time for ultimate sleep number week on the

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almost two weeks since election day and republicans can now claim victory in the florida senate and governor recounts. in the race for senate,

democratic incumbent bill nelson conceded defeat yesterday after a second recount left him trailing republican governor rick scott by 10,000 votes. in the race for governor andrew gillum has conceded for a second time to ron desantis. he called for unity, tweeting this was a hard-fought campaign. now it's time to bring florida together. also coming up, the president mocks the architect of the raid that killed osama bin laden, escalating a war of words with an american hero and looking more foolish about his own needs. when it comes to the assassination of jamal khashoggi, gives the saudi crown prince the benefit of the doubt over u.s. intelligence officials. sound familiar?

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that welcome back to "morning joe." . it's monday, november 19th. still with us, we have national affairs analyst for msnbc john heilman and noah and economic analyst steve ratner, and katie kay. joining the conversation, capitol hill correspondent kacey hunt is with us. and msnbc political analyst robert costa. good to have you all on board this morning. nbc news has learned the cia has concluded that saudi arabian crown prince ordered the killing

of washington post columnist jamal khashoggi. the saudi kingdom continues to claim that mbs had no knowledge of the operation despite several of his top aides being involved. the kingdom's explanation for the killing has changed at least six times since october 2nd. originally maintaining that khashoggi left the consulate on his own to now claiming a 15-member team killed him using a drug while trying to either persuade or force him back to saudi arabia. the new york times reports that the cia had been hesitant to definitively point fingers but made the assessment based on intercepts of the crown prince's calls from the days before the killing and akigs to calls from that 15-member team to a sean your aide of mbs immediately

after. president trump addressed the situation over the weekend. >> we haven't been briefed yet. the cia is going to be speaking to me today. we haven't been briefed yet. as of this moment, we were told that he did not play a role, and we'll have to find out what they have to say. >> will you confirm eventually whether the crown prince was responsible for this. >> we're going to take a look at that. saudi is a great ally. they are -- they have been a truly spectacular ally in terms of jobs and economic development. and i also, take that, you know, i'm a president i have to take a lot of things into consideration. our cia director who's terrific and very knowledgeable and has been studying this very closely and we'll be having a very full report over the next two days. . >> the cia assessed that mbs is

behind it. >> they haven't assessed anything. it's very early. >> contrary to the president's comments the washington post reports that trump has already been shown evidence that the crown prince's alleged involvement in the killing but he's remained skeptical. >> a month ago, you said you had spoken with saudi crown prince and he had told you directly that he had no knowledge of this. >> that's right. that's right. and still does that. >> we know some of the people closest to him, question, did mbs lie to you, sir? >> i don't -- i don't know. you know, who can really know? but i can say this, he has many people now that say he had no

knowledge. >> what if the crown prince, speaking to you, the president of the united states lied to you. >> he told me he had nothing to you. >> what if he's lying? >> will anybody really know? >> well, yes, actually we do know. sort of very clintonian of you what conservatives at least used to accuse bill clinton of engaging in. what the meaning of is. splitting the truth a thousand different ways. katie kay, we have once again donald trump believing an autocrat in a foreign country, like vladimir putin, instead of his own intelligence agencies and here we have him believing mbs instead of his cia director,

all because he claims that saudi arabia is, a, quote, spectacular ally. spectacular allies don't carve up and bring a bone saw to a meeting with a washington post columnist. >> you could sense the president's frustration during the course of that interview. partly the president can't understand why everyone is making a fuss about this. this is frustrating him. this is so reminiscent about how he has spoken about vladimir putin. he told me five in times he didn't do it and his ability to believe these strong autocrats over the heads of western intelligence agencies. the other thing that was fascinating about that exchange with chris wallace, when chris is pushing him, but what if he

lied to you? it's almost as if it doesn't bother trump. you'd think another president might say, of course, if he lied to me i would take that very seriously and the president's response here is, well, maybe we'll never know. almost, like, okay, so he lied, that's part of the deal, that's what happens. his reaction to this whole affair, a resident of the united states, when the saudis have changed their stories so many times and have given no ground to believe them on this. why we would believe mbs since the story has changed many times? >> well, and also, you can't help but wonder whether it's because he's made so much money personally from the saudis in the past and there's no doubt that if he decides to do what i

think and be a one-term president and cash in to the tune of billion of dollars, it's causing fis season -- fissures. lindsey graham said he would never deal with the saudis again, give these reports. never deal with mbs again. i think even the most steadfast trumpian apoll gist and allies on the hill would have a real hard time continuing to work with this murderer and not think twice about it? >> i think that's right, joe. i think the challenge is that, you know, they don't necessarily have a lot of powerful tools at their disposal to do anything about it. lindsey graham sounded like the old lindsey graham in his comments about this particular topic and i do think that lindsey graham very much feels as though taking on the mantle

that he and john mccain carried across the world for many years together. is very important to him, having lost his friend. the reality, though, is that the others -- who else on capitol hill would we ask about this? >> bob corker, the outgoing chairman of the foreign relations committee, and jeff flake, both of them leaving washington and the republican party they have left behind is if anything more focused on trump than ever, feeling as though they can't win if they repudiate the president. one person's voice i'll be looking at, mitt romney, somebody who's tried to carve out during his presidential campaigns a specific focus on foreign affairs, he was of course mocked when he talked about russia in 2012, that turned out to be the right thing. but i don't really see sort of a ground swell against the

president in his own party on this. like so many other things, joe. >> i got to believe, look at the people who were up, corey gardner in colorado, hard to embrace someone that has been called a murderer that's running saudi arabia right now. ben sasse. i find it hard to believe it would be fine for ben sasse. pretty soon donald trump doesn't have a majority coalition did dealing with a foreign leader that the cia is now saying murdered a member of "the washington post." that gets pretty rough. >> you're absolutely right. the challenges that mitch mcconnell is still in charge of the republican congress. he'll be up for re-election

coming up here, his biggest threat is a primary challenge. he's taking these actions to go out of his way to protect the president. you remember what mitch mcconnell did in advance of the russian investigation while obama was still president. i just have trouble seeing him allowing the senate to take official action against mbs or audi arabia is f the president is opposed to it. >> i don't know how popular saudis are that killing people. the cia. in western kentucky is going to be pretty interesting. so, let's move on here and talk about the election. bob costa, donald trump claiming over the weekend to chris wallace that it was a huge victory this past election. a huge victory for republicans despite losing over 300 state

legislative seats. losing more seats than the republicans have, 37 right now, that could go up to 40. most likely, it will be 39. losing almost 40 seats in the house. the republicans were showing since watergate. what is the mindset of republicans on capitol hill right now? >> my colleague and i have a story in today's "post" about this. we wouldn't use the term "huge victory". democrats doing well in urban and suburban areas. president trump's presence on the campaign trail pushed both parties toward their bases in the final stretch of the campaign. that's the dynamic now if you talk to strategists and pollsters heading into 2020. trump at the center of everything. every debate and that's putting the parties further and further

away. >> again, that's just bad news for the republican party, moving forward when the electorate expands two years from now. suburban districts going democratic. by gosh, back in the ice age when i was running we the republicans loved the suburbs because that's where we got most of our votes. >> that's exactly right. a highly democratic turnout in a presidential election year, so the president's base will remain probably highly energized due to president trump but democrats are feeling better about their opportunities in 2020 because of the higher turnout they expect. one quick point on jamal c khashoggi there's more than a political collation for every lawmakers, there's a human ri t rights collaboration. whether it plays in your

re-election bid or not. >> also, great point, also, enemy of the press. we have seen other tyrants across the globe echoing what donald trump is saying when he talks about the enemy of the press and you can't help but think this was seen as a greenlight by the leader of saud arabia, mbs, thinking he would get a free pass especially after donald trump attacked the washington post repeatedly and its owner. i want to talk about the nature of this race, it's clarifying the two sides sort of they did, democratic areas became more democratic. at the same time, though, you had the suburbs which, again, was a bedrock koconstituenconst.

the only way republicans win presidential elections is by winning the suburbs. donald trump proved that by doing better in the suburbs of philadelphia two years ago but i don't think i'm killing hamlet in the first act to say he's not going to do as well in wisconsin in 2020 as he did in 2016, unless he radically changes. no ed in front of us believe that he can radically change enough to win those votes back. that pathway to victory has to be narrowed after 2018. clarifying election in the sense that donald trump isn't going to win re-election. i said it, write it down. >> i wrote it down the first

time you said it, joe. i keep it on a little piece of paper in my wallet. >> really nice. i also said that donald trump could win. >> yes, you did. so, look, i think bob costa's right in the sense that it's obviously it was clarifying. it's a big pretty big victory for democrats. you can keep those two things in your mind at once given the kind of slow rolling escalating size of the blue wave. it's bluer and bigger than we have have thought on election day. another way in which it's clarifying, you think about those democratic governors who took back control of wisconsin, after being out of office for eight years while scott walker was there. michigan, after being out of

office for eight years. keeping pennsylvania, three big important industrial mid western states that donald trump eked out his electoral college victory. we're back to blue in those states. and then, you look to where -- you look south, and to the southwest, where what we saw in this midterm election what states that democrats have hoped to make purple or eventually blue finally starting to actually look that way -- georgia, texas, arizona, reached states for democrats back in 2008 and 2012. all of a sudden, they look like they're within reach. the map gets really tricky. the map gets really tricky for donald trump if the blue states are back to blue and some of

these red states are starting to look purple. >> quick point, john, spot-on, the wisconsin race, scott walker's defeat hasn't gotten enough attention. you think about scott walker, in 2010, 2014, republican hero. he's just aligned with paul ryan on the fiscal issues, the tax issues for him to go down in wisconsin, this is where the republican party is, reflective, where do they go in the midwest? old-school republican message doesn't win. democrats had a candidate in tony evers running on healthcare and education and he won. moderate democrat. not a roaring liberal in the midwest. >> pretty remarkable success going back to 2010 for republicans in that state.

the headwinds of trumpism too much even for him in wisconsin. steve, i want you to show us a chart if you will, before the election everybody -- before every election they like to talk about congressional ballot tests and consumer confidence, there's really no better correlation between the gains and losses by the president's party. can you show us how that measurement predicts these midterms or not? >> i can. with respect to your question, joe, the fact is, we showed some of these charts before the election. consumer confidence, unemployment you don't see a high correlation of president underperform. the approval rating of the president in the midterm

election you do see a high correlation. about 70% correlation between the president's approval rating and how they're going to fare in the midterms. if you believe that trump, the republicans are going to end up losing 39 seats this model would have said 42 seats. it's dead-on with what we had respect happen. consumer confidence, out of the 11 elections, he had the second highest consumer confidence rating but ended up with the second-worst showing as far as seats. one thing we're leaving out of the equation is what the democrats do. there's a lot of debate within the democratic party about how to win the next election. this election, the democratic candidates for senate and house did a great job of tailoring themselves to the race they were running. we talked about wisconsin a minute ago. but there's a big debate within

the democratic party. should it move left? go to that side of the party and do what it did in this election, try to reach out more broadly and have a more moderate candidate atop the ticket. what the democrats do is going to be a huge determinant of what happens in 2020. >> steve, you're concerned actually about candidates progressive candidates like elizabeth warren and bernie sanders getting the nomination. you're suggesting if they do it may be a tougher ride for the democratic party in these suburban areas. >> it's going to be a tough -- centrists, moderates, lot of people i know would -- they would never go into a voting booth and vote for donald trump. didn't vote for him last time. voted at least happily for hillary clinton.

you tick off some of the names that you can imagine. they're saying, i can't vote for that person. then, you also have within the party a faction that says we shouldn't worry about this sort of centrists suburbanites we should go out there and energize the base. and that energy and that turnout will win the election. i don't believe that's true. i don't think there's any evidence to suggest that's true. but that's the debate that's going on within the party right now. that worries me about 2020. >> we should look at what the democrats did in 2018. look at the candidates that rose to the top in their primary process. i think we conservatives naturally assume that the democrats are going to do what republicans do some time and drive it off the cliff to the

left. they just didn't do it this time. if you look -- you know, they got a retired military people running. former cia agents running, and seemed a lot more effective this year in finding candidates that culturally matched the district they ran in. >> mostly -- and that's where they did well. you mentioned the suburbs of pennsylvania, and bucks county, one of the candidates out there, scott wallace, grandson of henry wallace, he ran a very far left campaign and he lost a key district for the democrats because i think he went a little too far. another candidate where we have seen, didn't perform especially well is georgia gubernatorial candidate stacey abrams. discussing the recounts in florida and the extent to which

the republicans went too far rhetoric rhetoric rhetorically. you had people like sherrod brown, corey booker and stacey abrams herself suggesting that this election was illegitimate that there was voter suppression. that's a very serious charge. >> all right, robert costa, thank you for being on this morning. still ahead -- a combat veteran turned congressman, democrat anthony brown joins the conversation. plus, a firsthand look at the devastation in california. where many survivors are reliving the trauma. >> driving through the fire was the most scariest thing i have ever done in my life. i have never experienced

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my name is mike, i'm in product development at comcast. we're working to make things simple, easy and awesome. why haven't you visited our troops serving in war zones in iraq and afghanistan in two years you've been in office as commander in chief. >> well, i think you'll see that happen. there are things that are being planned. we don't want to talk about it because of obviously because of security reasons and everything else. but, there are things that are planned as you know, i was very much opposed to the war in iraq, i think it was a tremendous mistake. i don't think anyone has been more with the military in terms of fundraising, including the vets, i don't think anyone has done more than me. i have had an unbelievable busy

schedule and i will be doing it. on top of which you have these phony witch hunts. we've been very busy. >> you're back in washington on monday. veterans day. why don't you go across the river for arlington cemetery. president barack obama did it every year. this is veterans day. >> i probably, you know, in retrospect i should have and i did last year and i will virtually every year. we had come in very late at night and i had just left literally the american cemetery in paris and i really assumed that was fine. i was extremely busy because of affairs of state, doing other things but i would have done that. >> affairs of state? >> tweeting.

tweeting is an affair of state. >> or a rally where they scream "lock her up" and defame the military. >> let's bring in a member of the armed services committee, congressman anthony brown of maryland. he earned a bronze star for his service in iraq. thank you so much for being with us. and more importantly, thank you so much for your service. >> good morning. it's been a real honor to serve our country. >> well, thank you so much for being here this morning. let me ask you about your concerns. several things that have happened. we could talk about the president not going to arlington. what happened over in paris. i'm very concerned. lot of us are concerned about what's going on in the border. the president is pulling away members of our service, keeping

them away from their families, for what looks like a political stunt. should those troops be sent back home. >> i think they shouldn't have been deployed in the first place. as early as this spring when national guard units were ordered to the border. i took issue to that. i had an amendment saying if the administration is going to order the national guard to the border there needs to be a strategy. cost and benefit to the military. they didn't do that. with the deployment of active-duty soldiers, from aviation units, sustainment elements, this is a militarization of the border that's demoralizing to the troops because they recognize there's no real mission for them on the southwest border. they're facing a migration of people who are fleeing violence and crime, they're tired, they're hungry, they're scared

and yet, we've have a militarized presence at the border. so, that's demoralizing for our troops. i think they ought to be home for thanksgiving and christmas. i have deployed and i was in iraq over thanksgiving, over christmas, i visited troops as a member of congress during the holidays and what i do understand about soldiers, sailors, when you deploy them on a credible mission and they're away from their families they get it, they understand it. they're ready to do their job. when you send them to the southwest border like the president has done, on a dubious mission, that's demoralizing and it's impacts readiness. >> congressman, good to see you again. i'm wondering about the new makeup of the new freshman class, many of them are veterans, some of them are women veterans, a number of veterans

serving in our congress had been at a historic low. what do you hope they tell your leadership. >> first of all, we're excited while the number of veterans in congress is near a historic low we've got 75 members of congress who are veterans. we're welcoming seven democratic members who are veterans and what i know about veterans who have served in the military is we're problem-solvers. we focus first on mission, we recognize that we each bring different experience and perspective. we may disagree but we have a responsibility to find the common ground. and let's move forward. i'm excited about the new core of veteran legislatiors will jon us. >> nancy pelosi and her quest to

be the next house speaker. explain why you're for her and explain in this answer what those among your colleagues who have doubts about her, what shouthey should be taking into account. >> i'm a big spotter of nancy pelosi. what we need to do is identify the most experienced leaders in the democratic caucus and we have a lot of great leaders. we need to put our most experienced field marshals on the field to go toe to toe with mitch mcconnell and the president. we have a lot of difficult work to do. we need our most experienced. i'm very supportive of nancy pelosi because she has a real healthy approach to national security. later today, i'm joining a

number of veterans, we're going to send out a dear colleague letter announcing our support for nancy. she defines national security broadly. it's addressing climate change, an important issue for national security as well as education and workforce training. so, those some of the reasons i'm supporting nancy and why i encourage my colleagues to support nancy to be our next speaker. >> congressman anthony brown, thank you so much for being on the show this morning. congratulations. >> thank you for having me. coming up -- 80 people died from the wildfires in california. 77 of them from the northern part of the state. where nearly 1,000 people are still missing. the latest from paradise is next. on "morning joe." - meet the ninja foodi, the pressure cooker that crisps,

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as big as they look on on, what we saw at pleasure -- >> paradise. >> we just left pleasure. >> paradise. >> or paradise. >> he got the name of the community wrong. had to be corrected. but the president was correct

about one thing -- in many ways the devastation in california can only be put into perspective by seeing it. "morning joe" correspondent was there over the weekend. >> reporter: as we drive down skyway road, the flames are gone but a thick layer of smoke remains, eclipsing the sun. a stark reminder of what occurred here. emergency crews work with unwavering determination, removing collapsed power lines and massive trees, burned from the inside-out. we turned down a deserted road, only chimneys remain. i'm standing in just over a week ago was the picturesque town of paradise, california. it's hard to state the magnitude of the devastation here.

just up the road, we arrive at the front line of the recovery effort. >> the search and rescue crews are literally going house by house, they zoned out the community and they want to look to find the potentially missing people. >> components from a human or an animal, then they'll call and dna testing. >> as dusk turns to darkness, first responders get a short reprieve and reflect on the difficult job they have to do. >> it's relatively indescribable. it's complete and total devastation. we've been tasked to help give the community closure. as best we can. >> this is personal for you. you're from paradise? >> yes, sir. my sons have both lost homes up here and i think that's very typical of all of our local

first responders. we're all touched personally by this incident. >> reporter: 15 miles west in the city of chee koe, the walmart parking lot has become the unofficial shelter. >> people for over chico and the state. >> reporter: this man thought he lost everything, even his best friend. >> it was just amazing the support i got from the community to find luna. she got singed pretty bad. but, you know, we're back together, having luna back has made it so much easier. >> reporter: just a few cars away, roommates emily and travis are still in shock. >> when i tried to get out of paradise, that's the point where i thought maybe i could lose my own life because the trees were on fire on either side. >> you don't know what happened to your house. >> i'm sure it burned.

i'm sure it burned. but i'm prepared for that. >> reporter: >> lot of people i talked to, they tell me there was just no warning. >> it was too late. driving through the fire was the most scariest thing i have done in my life. it's hard to sleep at night, you know, you close your eyes and you see, you know, the fire and it's just -- i can't get it out of my head. >> i promised emily we would check on her house. the next day, here worst fears confirmed. a few miles away, dave clements returned to his home and business for the first time. >> million years i never would have thought any of this would have happen. this is a 1931 corvette fully restor restored, not anymore. that right there got me upset,

though. >> that's your motorcycle? >> that was my bike. that was my pleasure ride right there. >> this is your home, too? >> yeah, it was upstairs right here. it's all gone. that's my bed and the bedframe right there. and i tried to get the hose and do something but i couldn't. and so i just grabbed what i could -- >> and get out. >> barely. you see something like this on television and you feel very badly for people. but when it happens to you it's considerably different. i don't know what i'm going to do. >> i think, you know, we can give you a couple moments to absorb it and get out of your way. >> thank you. thank you very much.

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historymaking lawmaker from texas who will become one of the first-ever latinas elected to represent the state in the u.s. house of representatives. thank you very much for being on the escobar. thank you very much for being on the show. congratulations. >> thank you. >> i'd like to start off by asking you how did you along the way in your campaign handle the issue of immigration, especially given the president's constant discussion about the wall and his controversial policy of separating children from their families? how did you navigate the issue of immigration, and what was the message of your campaign that you thought was winning? >> so, first of all, thank you all so much for having me on the show. i'm a big fan. el paso, texas, is very unique and very special. we are right on the u.s./mexico border. so my community has been on the front lines of family

separations. we've been witnesses to the family separations. we've been witnesses to customs and border protection agents preventing asylum seekers from stepping foot on american soil. and we have been on the front lines of wrapping our arms around refugees who need support and help, a place to stay, a meal to eat. we are a very, very compassionate community, a community made up of immigrants, a kmucommunity that understands are the new ellis island. for me, i have the privilege of being able to speak about immigration in the most truthful way, that we need to deal with comprehensive immigration reform. it's about time we have that debate. my community has been very frustrated by the fact that we keep talking about border security and securing the border, but it is a moving goal post. we never seem to achieve it in the eyes of the government

despite billions of dollars spent in our community, despite the fact that border patrol is about seven times larger today than it was a decade ago, despite the fact that i.c.e. is about three times its size than it was a decade ago. and despite the fact that immigration is still at historic lows. we were able to talk about immigration in el paso in a very different way in that we are ready for just and humane comprehensive immigration reform. >> and moving forward, are you going to support nancy pelosi as speaker of the house? >> i am. i, in fact, was one of the first freshmen here on this network the morning after election day to announce my support for her. she is a seasoned veteran who has successfully passed some of the toughest legislation. just by mere example, you see that there's no significant challenge to her leadership.

and there really hasn't been all summer when there's been plenty of time for someone to launch a campaign. she's so effective. she's able to really prevent people from even getting into the race, and she's able to hold a large caucus together. that's the kind of leadership that we need going into what will be another tumultuous two years because of this president. we need someone who knows every avenue to success. >> i want to ask you a question that may make you kracringe, lia lot of audience members that the 2020 presidential race is now starting. i ask you what's your advice to congressman o'rourke about whether or not he should throw

his hat in the ring in 2020? >> funny you should ask. we just had dinner the other night while i was in d.c. for orientation. you know, we owe such a debt of gratitude to beto, those of us in texas. he showed us what an inspiring positive campaign looks like on such a grand scale. he fired up people who had felt locked out of the system, locked out of the process for a long time. i'm very very proud of him. el paso is very proud of him. when we talked, i asked him what his plans were. his immediate plans were to spend time with his family over thanksgiving week, desperately needed, well-conservatived time with h -- well-deserved time with his family. i think he should run, i really do. i think he is the kind of leader and incredible public servant that our country has been longing for. many people have compared him to

politicians during the civil rights era like jfk. and there's a reason for that. and that's because he speaks to the humanity and compassion that can be in government and that should be in government. and he does it in a beautiful, genuine way that really touches people. and i think that's what our country needs right now. we are really at a moral rock bottom with the president that we have currently in the white house. it's time to uplift this country and unite this country. and i can think of no one better than our current congressman beto o'rourke. >> thank you so much for being on the show this morning. congratulations once again. the concept of texas turning blue, is it a possibility? out of the realm? >> every cycle it seems like it's almost here, right? i guarantee you 2020 is going to be just like this cycle, just

like 2014, 2016. it's always on the fringe. one day they're going to be right, but it wasn't this time around, though it was very close. i would be surprised if it gets here by then. but again it all depends on who the nominee is on the democratic side and what the political environment is. so who knows? one day they will be correct. texas will again be blue. but it's been elusive for the past decade. >> steve ratner, final thoughts before you go? >> look, i think with respect to the next election, i think it's what i said before. i think it's really going to come down a lot to which democratic party chooses to wage this election. the center of gravity has without doubt moved to the left, but it's not over yet. and there are certainly a number of centrists. i suspect there are going to be 20-plus candidates on that first debate stage potentially.

that's going to determine a lot of what happens in the next election. still ahead, president trump down plays his losses in the house, claiming a, quote, tremendous victory in the midterms. we'll have the latest numbers that show otherwise and actual facts. and over head-scratching comments from the president over the weekend. what's going on? something's going on. "morning joe" is back in a moment. is back in a moment for each job exxonmobil creates,

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i wasn't on the ballot. >> you kept saying -- >> no. i said -- i have people that won't vote unless i'm on the ballot, okay? and i wasn't on the ballot. >> i'm not on the ballot, but in a certain way i'm on the ballot, so please go out and vote. go out and vote. >> well, we learned a lot from the president over the weekend, that republicans had a great victory in the midterms. fantastic. spo he says saudi arabia is spectacular. >> the same weekend the cia said, yes, they've heard it all and it's very clear that mbs did, in fact, order the killing. >> that raking leaves prevents forest fires. smokey the bear never told me that, but it's good that we know that now from the president.

and that america dragged its feet in killing bin hlaha laden. he down played climate change and brushed off the cia. he reduced a military leader into a political hack and claimed not to know that the acting a.g. had criticized the russia probe before being elevated to that position. that's just some of what happened over the weekend. welcome to "morning joe." it is monday, november 19th. with us we have john heilemann. associate editor of commentary magazine and msnbc contributor no wa ro noah rothman.

a what a weekend of trumpisms. >> he took the trurumpisms and would say he took crazy to 11, if we want to borrow parlance from spinal tap. 10 is loud, 10 is crazy. he turned it up to 11 on the dial. there's so much to go through here. a lot of things just showing a guy even more out of touch than usual, if that he is ev's even . why don't we start by going through donald trump denying that the republicans, who had their worst loss since watergate actually lost at all. >> democrats extended their gains in the house over the weekend as more races were called in their favor. >> wait. you mean even more races, mika?

>> oh yeah, it's a wave. >> oh my god. >> the latest count is 37 seats added to their caucus with three undecided. that number goes along with significant gains in state governments all over the country. democrats won the national popular vote in the house by at least 7.7%. >> that's a lot. >> according to the cook political report, they estimate that number could go as high as 9 points. but in an interview -- >> you know, also democrats picked up more governor seats. >> they did. >> than either party since 1994. republicans lost over 330 state legislative seats. >> it was a resounding rebuke. >> this is historic, just how badly trump republicans did. no doubt it's got to sting. >> yeah. >> i'm sure he's looking inside,

saying, you know what -- >> how much did i lose? >> i destroyed the careers of 37-38 members of congress. i destroyed the careers of seven republican governors. i destroyed the careers of over 300 republicans in state legislative races. i must look inward and examine myself donald trump and figure out how i could do better two years from now. is that what he did? >> no. in an interview with fox news, president trump insisted that the election was a far greater victory for republicans. >> what? this is a shock. >> i won the senate and that's historic too. because if you look at presidents in the white house, it's almost never happened where you won a seat. we now have 53 as opposed to 51 and we have 53 great senators in the u.s. senate. we won. that's a tremendous victory. nobody talks about that. that's a far greater victory

than it is for the other side. >> nobody ever talks about that. john heilemann, republicans pick up seats in the senate, that never happens ever. >> historic. >> oh wait, george w. bush did it. again, put into proper perspective, nobody almost ever does it. yeah, two presidents ago did it. >> right. >> this was a complete shellacking by trump republicans. and also if he wants to even look at the senate, my god, they had a historic advantage. probably should have picked up five, six, seven seats. while donald trump is saying this, chris wallace isn't believing and really no republicans on capitol hill are believing it. they know this was a devastating loss for trump republicanism. so why does he just keep saying it? why does he just keep lying? >> three possibilities.

one, delusional. two, pathological liar. three, political dingbat. >> i'd say, four in a corner, angry, deflecting and freaking out about congress having control over everything. he will finally have to give what they ask. in a way, this will be the only time in his life ever that he has been accountable and he cannot believe, he cannot believe that he has nowhere to go. >> mika, you're confusing our contestants at home. there is five. >> what's five? >> all of the above. john heilemann, if you can, you have the actual key, the answer key. please let our viewers playing at home know what the answer is. >> i think mika's answer is really not a fourth option as much as an explanatory framework for the previous three. >> exactly. >> mika, as is often the case mika is trying to elevate the conversation and provide a why,

which is important, but i would say, four, therefore, if mika's thing was not four, yours, joe, four, all of the above, i think that you got the answer, as often is the case, you are the one who got it. all of the above. you know, i've stopped trying to disentangle them. you know, yes, desperate, scared, frightened, realizing, i think, for the first time after -- you know, this is not a new observation. we for a couple years you looked to trump's behavior and said he doesn't seem to think what will happen to him if he loses one or both houses of congress in the midterms. >> right. >> he did a lot of irrational things over the course of the two years. we noted it at the time. it does feel as though, as it has for all of us only we all got there a little quicker, the scale of the defeat for the party, the depth of it, the breadth of it and the implications of it have finally sunk in and the more they sink in for him the more he goes into delusional dingbattery.

>> yes. delusional dingbattery. chuck schumer said he's really hurting. democrats won seven senate seats in states that trump won in 2016. yes, that does have to sting. noah rothman, i was thinking over the weekend about something that i think because -- and, by the way, here we go. here is the senate elections, democrats defended 26, only lost four. republicans defended nine, lost two. if you look at it democrats actually had a better winning percentage if you're looking at such things. noah rothman, i was just thinking about it this weekend that, again, we have all said it around this table for two years now, but a lot of people in the media that didn't see trump coming the first time were saying, oh, my god, he is going to get away with it again, he always gets away with it. a lot of liberal bloggers -- it's almost like he had magic pixie dust and we kept saying you can't win with 40% of the country supporting you, that

means 60% of the country is against you. you can't win if you have low presidential approval ratings in the 40s. history shows where this is going to end up. i do wonder, john heilemann said -- he talked about political dingbattery, and i think edmund burke first wrote that in reflections. but this political dingbattery i think is natural for a guy that didn't plan on winning the presidency, didn't expect on winning the presidency and really never bothered to figure out the basics of politics 101, that you win by getting 51% of the vote, you lose when you are like in the low to mid 40s. >> yeah, the president's electoral college victory was pretty remarkable. his popular vote victory was not. he won 46% of the vote. if he does not improve on that, he's going to have a tough time of it in 2020. most republicans who have gone

on to win a second time improved on their vote totals in their second term election and donald trump is staring down the barrel of the prospect of not doing that, especially if he doubles down on his base retention strategy. as you noted there is a conventional wisdom deficit that lags what we see actually on the ground. so after 2016 we were enthralled to the magic of donald trump's ability to craft a coalition nobody thought could be crafted in the modern era. so we spent the two consecutive years after that election studying rural areas, trump voting areas, conventionally democratic places that had swung towards the gop to the detriment, i think, of understanding the actual electorate. we run the same risk now that that magic has been depleted, the magic is gone and we are focused on this electorate which is suburban, upwardly mobile, educated and leaning towards democrats in conventionally republican areas like orange county, california. we could overcorrect for 2016, focus too much on those areas

and undervalue the extent to which donald trump's incumbency and the power that he has as an incumbent and the economy do benefit him for 2020. democrats would run the risk of being too complacent by performing 2016 in reverse and focusing on their own rising electorate. still ahead on "morning joe," it spawned catch phrases like rake news and raking america great again. the president's absurd ideas about forest management draws ridicule from around the world. ridicule from around the world - [announcer] the typical vacuum head can struggle with large debris and stuck-on dust, so shark invented duoclean, replacing the front wall with a rotating soft brush. while deep cleaning carpets, two brush rolls pick up large particles with ease, make quick work of stuck-on dust, giving hard floors a polished look, and fearlessly devour piles. shark duoclean technology, designed to do more

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( ♪ ) [ready forngs ] christmas? no, it's way too early to be annoyed by christmas. you just need some holiday spirit! that's it! this feud just went mobile. with xfinity xfi you get the best wifi experience at home. and with xfinity mobile, you get the best wireless coverage for your phone. ...you're about to find out! you don't even know where i live... hello! see the grinch in theaters by saying "get grinch tickets" into your xfinity x1 voice remote. a guy just dropped this off. he-he-he-he. now to the deadly camp fire in california. officials say it is 65% contained.

president trump toured the towns hardest hit by fires, including paradise, a city that for the most part has been wiped out. while he vows to help the state, he doesn't really understand what's causing the fire as he continues to blame poor forest management. listen. >> i was watching the firemen the other day and they were raking areas. they were raking areas where the fire was right over there and they're raking trees, little trees like this -- not trees, bushes that you could see are totally dry, weeds. they're raking them. they're on fire. that should have been all raked out. >> what about the argument that it's climate change, that it's drier, it's hotter and that's contributing to -- >> maybe it contributes a little bit. the big problem we have is management. i think we're all on the same

path. we do have to do management, maintenance. we'll be working also with environmental groups. i think everybody's seen the light. i'm committed to make sure that all of this is cleaned out and protected. got to take care of the floors. you know, the floors of the forest, very important. you look at other countries where they do it differently and it's a whole different story. i was with the president of fin hand and he said we're a forest nation. he called it a forest nation. they spend a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things and they don't have any problem. >> raking. >> the president of finland says he briefed the president recently on his country's forest management but did not recall mentioning anything about raking. this just adds to the list of

reasons why our allies and other countries around the world just look at america differently today ncht today. >> yeah. the social media things going around finland today are groups of people getting out over the weekend and kind of humorously raking, trolling donald trump. we'll look back and see that one of the great tragedies of this political moment of division is the extent to which climate change has become a victim of that partisanship. if you are on the side of trump and his supporters, you will go to the ends of the earth to say that climate change is not responsible for what is happening out in california or other parts of the world at the moment. and if you are a believer in climate change and science, you will try and address that. but the president is in an incredibly powerful position to lead the world right now on what

is probably the most pressing issue of our time. and in the face incontrovertible scientific evidence that climate change is contribu behind these things, the president still says, well, not really, tiny bit, hasn't changed his view on climate change. he doesn't really think that's the issue here. let's get back to raking leaves. anything other than let's address the issue of climate change. >> you'd think we'd be done. >> i must say again raking leaves -- i think i saw this in a southpark episode a couple years ago or if not, we need to see it. again, it's such a laughable explanation for why we're having these tragic forest fires. coming up on "morning joe," admiral william mcraven was too busy hunting terrorists to care about petty politics.

president trump, however, remembers it differently. his la differently his la it's time for ultimate sleep number week on the new sleep number 360 smart bed. it senses your movement and automatically adjusts to keep you both effortlessly comfortable.

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welcome back to "morning joe." president trump was asked over

the weekend about criticism that he's facing, including from retired admiral william mcraven, that former navy seal who oversaw the 2011 daring operation that killed osama bin laden. last year mcraven said that donald trump's attacks on the news media represented the greatest threat to american democracy that he's ever seen. during that fox news sunday interview, donald trump decided to hit back, suggesting that mcraven and the navy seals had failed, that they had screwed up, that the navy seals were insufficient to the task in front of them and they should have found osama bin laden much sooner. >> bill mcraven, retired admiral, navy seal, 37 years, former head of u.s. special operations. >> hillary clinton fan. >> special operations -- >> excuse me, hillary clinton

fan. >> who led the operations that took down saddam hussein. >> he's a hillary clinton backer and an obama backer. >> he was a navy seal 37 years. >> wouldn't it be nice if we had gotten osama bin laden a lot sooner than that? living in pakistan, beautifully in pakistan which i guess they considered a nice mansion. i don't know, i've seen nicer. >> steve ratner, first of all, he's lying. this shouldn't shock anybody. maybe die hard trump fans don't want to know the truth, but they can check their google machine. unless they want to keep bathing in lies, because right now donald trump is lying about one of america's great heros that helped kill osama bin laden.

admiral mcraven said that he never supported hillary clinton, he never supported barack obama. i did not back hillary clinton or anyone else. i'm a fan of president obama and president george w. bush, both of whom i worked for. i admire all presidents regardless of their political party who uphold the dignity of the office and use that office to bring the nation together in challenging times. that's admiral william mcraven. yet, you know, steve, this whole nonsense that donald trump is some big supporter of the troops, we found out this weekend that he said he was too busy making phone calls to go across the bridge to arlington and lay a wreath like every president has done since jfk. he, of course, didn't want to get rained on, so he didn't go to one of the most sacred ceremonies in one of the great battles in u.s. marine history. he's never been really to a war

zone. hasn't even visited the troops on the border. he's put american troops on the border to keep them away from their families during the holidays for a political stunt. i don't know, this guy doesn't sound a whole lot like a supporter of the military to me. >> no. look, first of all, admiral mcraven is one of the great military heros of our time. he joined the navy the day he got out of the university of texas. he rose up to be the commander of seal team 6. he rose up to be the commander of all the joint special operations forces. it was not his job to find osama bin laden. it was the cia's job. they did it. then the seal team went it as soon as he was found. he also gave one of the great commencement speeches of all time at the university of texas. he's really a true american hero that donald trump has just trashed for bhul absolutely no reason. secondly, he lied about saying

he went to arlington on the last armistice day. he did go on memorial day. barack obama went every single armistice day to arlington. yes, for all the reasons you say, donald trump can say he's a great supporter of the military, but to act like this toward one of our great heros and toward the fallen dead is not being a supporter of the military or a great president. >> what if barack obama had done it? what if barack obama had attacked a navy seal? what if barack obama had never gone to a war zone? what if barack obama sent troops to the border over the holidays as a political stunt? we could go on and on and on. it's really, again, donald trump is treating men and women in uniform in these instances at least in a very shabby manner.

>> the way he's talked about mcraven since this first became a controversy is easily the most appalling. and yes of course if barack obama did any of those things, there would have been moves for his impeachment among republicans almost instantly. of course they do not do the same for donald trump. coming up, it's been just weeks since the synagogue massacre in pittsburgh. but the type of hate that begets it has been around far longer. there's a powerful new documentary called "the new american nazis." we're going to talk about that next. nazis." we're going to talk about that next

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one year after the deadly rally in charlottesville, virginia, pbs's frontline debuted the first of two films investigating the resurgence of white supremacist groups in

america. the team is now back on the trail with its latest report called "documenting hate, new american nazis" which includes a visit to the site of last month's synagogue rampage in pittsburgh. take a look. >> retired fbi agent brad orsini is the director of security for the jewish federation of pittsburgh. even while pittsburgh was grieving, he says neo nazi propaganda was appearing around the city. what's going on here? >> these are posters that are up at various parts of the city. >> after what's happened in recent days you have a fascist group coming in here? >> yes. we have put casualty bags in each one of our synagogues and schools. there's tourniquets, compression pads, wound packing material. >> you have extreme first aid kits in the synagogues, schools

and other institutions around here. >> every one of our major institutions, we have them. >> it's kind of sad. >> it's incredibly sad. you think we're in a day where we have to worry about security for people going into pray. >> frontline correspondent and reporter for pro publica joins us now. we have jonathan weissman, the author of the book "semitism, being jewish in america in the age of trump." president of the national action network reverend al sharpton. and ruth marcus is with us as well. >> ac, are we seeing an uptick in membership of white supremacist groups, neo nazi

groups? or is it they feel the political environment is more inviting for them to express their twisted view of reality? >> what if i told you it was both? we started seeing people who track these movements, 2015-2016 we started seeing a massive uptick in this area, new groups, new publications, new energy, people taking to the streets. i think a lot of those people were emboldened by a political moment. we have people in power or people moving toward power who are giving us possibly the opportunity to realize our goals. we have achievable goals in sight now. i think it's a combination of both. >> jonathan weissman, obviously hate crimes against jews and other members of american

society have spiked over the past year, year and a half since donald trump became president of the united states. i ask you the same question, though. are we actually seeing an expansion of these groups, an expansion of membership? or are they just feeling more bold because they believe, if you believe what david duke and others post on social media, that they have an ally in the white house? >> well, something in ac's documentary struck me, which is that at times of the demobilization of armed forces after wars, they've always seen some kind of spike. remember, in 2009 the department of homeland security actually released a study of the rise of these possible right wing militia far right terrorist groups and it was suppressed because there was this absolutely backlash for people who would even suggest that some members of the military after

retirement would join them. but in this documentary, you see that is the case. this is a tiny fraction, but it is real. and now they are feeling encouragement. they feel like this is their moment. >> so is it an overstatement to say that hate is being inspired in a way that we haven't seen maybe even in our lifetime or at least in the past two decades? >> i think that what we're seeing -- i think we saw the rise of it start when we had president obama because of the backlash of seeing a black president. and i think that was expected. those of us in the civil rights community knew there would be a resentment and we knew that afterward there would be a backlash. i think what the trump era has done is normalize it and in some

ways empowered it. that is where we have the problem, is that you do not have given the fbi report that came out just a few days ago about the increase of hate attacks on jews and blacks and others. you don't have a real administration pushing back. in fact, when he says there are good people on both sides, ac, do you know -- and i think you have a very important documentary, but do you know of a specific strategy by this administration to counter this rise of neo nazi groups? >> no. we're hearing the opposite. we're hearing a lack of a strategy at the department of home land security. we're hearing about lapses at the fbi. now, there have been some aggressive prosecutions there. but in general what we're hearing about is sort of not being focused on this issue of

white domestic terrorism and white supremacist groups. >> the new film also exposed a neo nazi group that has actively recruited inside the u.s. military. take a look at this. >> we're looking at a division and they are actively recruiting military members. does that surprise you? >> one thing to understand is that throughout american history, there's always a correlation between the aftermath of warfare and this kind of vigilante and revolutionary white power violence, nationalist fervor, populist movements, those are all worse priedictors in the aftermath of war. it's important to remember too that returning veterans that join this movement and active duty troops, we're talking about a tiny not even statistically

significant percentage of veterans. but those who did are playing an important role in weapons training. >> so ruth marcus, we have to worry so much about the mental health of our troops coming back. suicide rates are extraordinarily high. this may be something else we want to start talking about a lot more as far as helping people get back into society and resist the calls of some of these extremist groups that want to prey on them. >> i think it need to be taught that the values our wonderful troops are fighting to protect need to be reinforced and inculcated not just as they're getting ready to leave the military, but maybe we need to step it up a little bit more

throughout. one of the things that's so troubling about this latest eruption of anti-semitism is that it's coming at a time when the economy is going well. you usually see these things at times of high unemployment and other stresses in the economy. so what is beyond this? i think we need to think about that. we've done such a good job since 9/11 of talking about islamic terrorism and trying to figure out how to harden our defenses from the outside coming in. we need to talk about how to harden our defenses from inside so people don't have to worry about going to synagogue or going to pray or just walking down the street. >> so jonathan, ruth brings up a great point. when i hear people talking about how so much of this resentment may be caused by the economic

fortunes of people changing and things being so terrible. it's a joke. i know there are always pockets that are tough, but if you just listen to donald trump, the economy is stronger than it's ever been. he'll say what barack obama was afraid to say. unemployment below 4%, consumer confidence at an all-time high, wages going up. this ain't germany in 1932 with people pushing around wheelbarrows full of cash to buy a loaf of bread. that's actually more disturbing. >> it is. but remember that's on the macro level. on the micro level the disparity between rich and poor keeps widening, there's a sense of pockets being left behind. i hear this all the time that the jews are prospering on the backs of everyone else. there is an economic component

and there is that notion -- remember, this is a global movement. this isn't just in the united states. this kind of rising bigoted authoritarianism stretches from milan to warsaw to brazil to jerusalem. this is a global movement that we are facing and it is very daunting to think about it that way. >> it's very daunting to think about it. also this isn't new. that has been happening for some time. anti-semitism obviously has ebbed and flowed through the years. but over the past 20 years or so it has been growing, not just on the far right but on the far left on some college campuses. it is troubling because especially when you talk about anti-semitism you never know where the next attack is coming from. you had republicans who attacked george soros in an anti-semitic

smear, blaming him for the caravan. then we find out that facebook is trying to smear some of its attacks with right wingers blaming the attacks on who? george soros. >> it's really interesting. early on when we were watching the revival of the white power movement, issues were immigration, fear of a brown planet, islamophobia, homophobia. and then over time with these new young white supremacists it turned to anti-semitism, these twisted old tropes about jewish control of the government and the media. we saw them drawing from this deep well of twisted lodger that has propelled the movement in the u.s. >> thank you.

new american nazis premiers tomorrow night on pbs and online at pbs.org/frontline. >> reverend al, doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. you see david duke sending love notes to donald trump over twitter, going thank you, mr. president, talking about his being a white nationalist. as john meechum brought up, this sort of racism, wallace tried it. it's always a strong starter but it finishes poorly. you just wonder how much longer donald trump is going to go before explicitly calling out this type of hatred and explicitly denouncing david duke and white supremacists and not with a nod and a wink like he's

done in the past. >> it is a very, very serious question you raise. dr. martin luther king says the arc of the universe is long but it bends toward freedom and justice. trump is going to have to make a real decision. but i think where ac's last point to you and mika was very profound. when we kind of looked the other way when it was racism and home phobia and islamicophobia, now's anti-semitism. these are organized groups that will come after all of us if we don't fight against this bias. >> ruth, you look at the cost paid by donald trump and the

republican party for attacking muslims. his proposed muslim ban for calling hispanics breeders, for lying about this caravan coming up, the anti-semitic smears. it gutted republican support in the suburbs, their stronghold, and it gutted republican support among educated women. >> yes. and yet we see the consistent theme in president trump, which is that he does not want to back down. and when people attack him, he attacks back. when people support him, he is inclined to support them. i think this actually ties together with his otherwise inexplicable and very ill-advised attack on admiral mcraven. why would you go after admiral mcraven? it's the same thing. the people who support me, i support reflexively. and the people who attack me, i

attack reflexively even if it's warranted or politically smart. >> thank you both for being on this morning. up next, our thank you. up next, our conversation with the great ron howard. keep it here on "morning joe." liberty mutual accident forgiveness means they won't hike your rates over one mistake. see, liberty mutual doesn't hold grudges. for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise their rates because of their first accident. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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coexistence may prove just as challenging as it is on earth. >> there are no real boundaries here. >> the history of human conduct, there's been plenty of evidence of things going wrong. >> space exploration brings out the best in us. it's where we solve problems that have never been solved before. >> that was a clip from the new trailer for season 2 of national geograph geographic's mars. using a unique hybrid of scripted and documentary subjects. the executive producer of mars, ron howard. >> it's our second season. season 1 was very, very experimental. i got to give credit to nat geo

and our partners at radical. it's still science fiction, but more and more possible. we did journey from earth and as we started looking and interviewing people, we realized instead of just creating a scripted science fiction, why not actually use these big thinkers. when we started reaching out, the likes of elon musk, they were all eager to talk to us. it lent so much more authority than the advantage we're telling. season one was about going to mars. this is five years later when

there's beginning to be a colony and there's not only the danger of mars, the foreboding nature of trying to exist there, but it's also now human beings. industry versus science. more and more of a human drama. still, these voices of authority have so much impact. >> we talked beforehand, on paper you go, you have elon musk and tyson. and then how is this going to work? their testimony sort of makes credible what you watch after. >> that was the experiment. she was willing to take the risk along with peter rice. we're so proud of it. to the point we're even looking around at other kinds of stories.

it just does give it authority. here's a way -- and we're starting to move into the documentary world. but this is an interesting -- this hybrid, an really is an interesting format. it works. >> one of the things we've seen is the idea of space force and how do you bring that forward, if your going to create this colony on mars. and what does that society look like? >> that drama is certainly great to delve into for storytellers. in our story, it's an international move leading this move to mars but already we're beginning to get heavy industry

there. we have some parallel stories -- we spent time in the arctic shooting and dealing with some of the tensions there. ultimately, it is about people. if we're allowed to go on with what it could be like to colonize mars. this great book was our jumping off point from the beginning. you know, of course it's the frontier. frontiers are very dramatic exciting places. we're just backing it up with -- you know, with the facts and experts. >> where most people think about living on mars, they think about matt damon alone growing potatoes somewhere up there and

trying to get back. what's a realistic vision of when people might go to mars? >> when we began this, i was excited mostly because it would stimulate our imaginations and i think human beings should be exploring. i think society gains when we push the boundaries. i think that's a good investment. i started participating, reading this material, and, you know, i think it's going to be sooner than we think. it's going to be an important first step. i don't think mars per se. all the experts say it's important where to go and how to

colonize. that's where -- but the plausibility of it i think is something i've embraced. >> our thanks to ron howard. the next episode airs tonight on national geographic at 9:00 p.m. hi there, i'm stephanie rule. president trump ready to put the special counsel behind him. revealing he has now answered robert mueller's questions in written form. >> i answered them very easily. >> the president takes aim at the retired at michel ed ad a d