welcome back . i want to tart this hour with something you may have heard before. in talks with robert mueller about a plea deal. first like wilbur in charlotte's web, this is who is cooperating with robert mueller or the southern district of new york. there is paul manafort. we are suppose today learn what they are able to offer robert mueller. moving along michael cohen and david pecker also has immunity and lastly, there is gerome.

as they all become witnesses i want to break down what each person has to offer. flynn and pop -- a more personal look at the president's dealings. with gerome the focus is presumably on wikileaks. incited 12 russian agents for hillary clinton's presidential campaign. robert mueller could be close to putting the pieces together to answer the questions about russian interference. sum mar reezed this morning in the guardian. are any americans charged in connection with that? what about donald trump junior and how close did this come to the campaign? christina is here. she an author and host of the aftermath. mike pesca hosts the podcast the

gist and paul butler is a professor after georgetown yufrt university. jer home corsi, what does this say to you? it is not somebody that was working with donald trump for his campaign but he was certainly was in an orbit close to him. >> he was flown to many people because he is a nut and a liar. she t he is the one that came up with this lie that president obama was not an american, that he was not born in the united states. this is the kind of person we are dealing with. it's not that unusual in criminal investigations to be dealing with low lives. so he would never be a witness in a case. he has information about wikileaks. roger stone, his dude, his associate knew all of this stuff

apparently that wikileaks was going to do. these e-mails helped the trump campaign. so what we have now on this incredible investigation, again, just to give robert mueller his props, he has 34 indictments, 24 people, some companies, high level folks have pled guilty in less than two years in a criminal investigation with multiple subjects. mueller is move quickly but nobody has yet been indicted on the american side for anything related to the trump campaign and russia. so russians have been indicted for trying to get trump elected. i think corsi to roger stone to high level folks in the campaign. >> we have had time to digest the thanksgiving dinner. let's pause and take stock of where we are. paul going through the numbers there. he has been able to accomplish. we have moved on into this

investigation with roger stone at the center. what does that say to you about where we are at this point in the investigation? >> one of the dift -- difficult things is you have all of these people that seem like marginal characters. people who are at the center of the trump universe, right? so on the one hand roger stone is kind of a joke. on the other hand he was a very very close political adviser to trump. if you get roger stone you are very close to tieing the trump campaign to collusion. >> yeah. >> there is also something -- there would be something so satisfying in seeing corsi go down for dirty tricks.

you flow, like you said, he is out there pushing the conspiracy theory which holds that -- which interestingly is this conspiracy theory from people that are so desperate to believe there donald trump that they believe donald trump and mueller are secretly working together to take down on international pedestri

file. >> it is the kind of figure that would be susceptible to donald trump. it would be sweet if it was donald trump that took him down. >> you know, roger stone talking about corsi saying he can see the pressure that he is under. all of this he didn't expect would happen to him. how about that? they have been playing that up. >> this is actually quite earnest on their behalf, maybe they perform one aspect of it to hide their -- yeah. i do think it's interesting. if a conspiracy theorist breaks with corsi or -- >> whoever breaks with him. >> yeah. >> that conspiracy is really conspirator y'al conspiratorial. they are the one that put out the doctored video of jim acosta. he has been pounding this crazy uranium one idea. we can list all of the aspects

of corsi. i suppose manafort had juice in the 70s. other than just the fact that it's insulting that these are the kinds of people the president would associate with what does it mean they are the bottom dwellers? what does that say about the investigation? what does that say about the president? i think it says how desperate and incautious he is. if you add it all up, if you look at the character and the credibility and the professionalism of those people it would lead you to believe there are going to be much bigger indictments. you don't associate with those sort of people if you are competent at your job. >> these are the types of people that they have associated with these types of people for the past 30 to 40 years. didn't really want to deal with

him because he has never been that type of person. we also have to think about he is obsessed with the campaign. there were 16 other qualified people. so he was not getting the best of the best. he was not getting the best talent. mike pence was essentially in no man's land, sort of plucked to obscurity. it's not like mike pence was some politician that was going to be super interesting and bring some weight to the ticket. it's like no. this is something to do. i will probably get better speaking fees. >> yeah. >> and so all of a sudden this is like when hustling goes wrong. now it's like we have got this government and all of these people are being exposed. it will take time to put all of the pieces together. yes, trump is saying it's a conspiracy. no. we can look at the history of a lot of these men.

you were doing things that are to our nation or you have been flat out stealing. >> i want to go back to this two-part piece which is worth looking out. great line at the top of that about how he wears that turned inside. don't want to get the sun to reflect all of it. there's that history. what picture is that painting for you as we learn more about him and his past? what is that telling you about how he is going to approach this in the midst of the republican opposition he has faced in the midst of the fact he can't get republicans and democrats to get something to protect him. >> he believes in the rule of law. he was my big boss for a while. we called him bob the boss. he played by the book. he wouldn't even wear a blue shirt like plien amine and your.

he would only wear a white shirt. that's his look. >> uniformed. >> he has looked like that for the last 40 years. what that means is that he understands this investigation is ult mally about collusion, whether the russians help president trump get pleelected whether campaign officials worked with him on that and ols with obstruction of justice. not a lot of actual charges have been related to those. i think he knows that in order for his investigation and how some legitimacy, people higher up will either have to be indicted or have to be exonerated. it doesn't look like people high up in the trump campaign deserve that. we are talking about roger stone, donald trump junior. we are talking about possibly

about kushner and maybe donald trump. >> more to come here deal or no deal, what is behind the agreement that could leave asylum seekers stranded south of the u.s./mexico border. ive finae ive finae is now in session. and... adjourned. business loans for eligible card members up to fifty thousand dollars, decided in as little as 60 seconds. the powerful backing of american express. don't do business without it.

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tweeting this would be very smart if mexico would stop the caravans before they get to our southern border or if originating countries would not let them form. created this problem no crossings he concludes. this is after reports of a deal to on asylum seekers it would have them wait in mexico while cases are processed in the united states. incorming ser secretary saying talks of the deal are premature. josh joins us now. the first to break this news. thank you very much for joining us. let's start with this contradiction here. you quote the same official, she is telling them you guys first for now we agreed to this policy saying that an interview walking that balk kind of saying there is no agreement of any kind

between the future federal government of mexico. the new government will begin its mandate. set us straight here. what's happening? >> yeah. we heard from her two days ago. she is the term several times. i think once the story came out there was some within incoming administration. first of all they are not the government of mexico yet. they won't be until saturday. there are a lot of details that still have to be worked out. there is nothing on paper. so when you talk to the incoming and mexican officials and the current government they are very supportive of this type of idea. >> you say details are still forthcoming. walk us through what needs to happen for this policy to be put in place. we are talk about those on the u.s./mexico border. >> i think what mexico is

envisioning they will give work permits for these people to live in mexico along the border or elsewhere in mexico while they are waiting for these asylum rulings which could take months or years. it wouldn't be they living in some type of housing. it is you can live legally in mexico while this process plays out. >> i want to bring this here with you. i think one of the many things that is extraordinary is the president thinks it is a done deal tweeting out in two tweets that this policy will be put in place. >> sit a big win for the administration and it will be popular with most americans. it will be very popular for him. i want to ask a question though to the reporter. >> please. >> what are the considerations on the mexican side? what are political considerations? why would they do this?

i would think it would hurt them to do this. >> yeah. it's a great question. i think they want to avoid that this crisis situation is the status quo. i think the caravan was a quake up call to a certain degree and to several caravans after that that have come to mexico. they don't want a situation where it is constantly happening. they are very concerned about the threats by president trump to close the legal ports of entry, to seal the border. it would be hugely disruptive to mexico and the economy. that border crossing has 100,000 people per day. i think they didn't like the fact that the u.s. deployed military troops to the mexico border. so they want a situation where they are not in this position any longer. i think the other thing is they think in effect this is already happening. they say that the u.s. is

admitting so few people to the asylum process they are effectively staying in mexico any way. they wouldn't have to do much to make this work. >> there is a similarity to this. we have seen policy after policy done in this way. that's the not the way it used to be. it strikes me it is the same thing happening again. the president saying we are doing something and there is a lot to be hachlerred out here. >> right. he reminds me of robert moses in that. >> yeah. >> he would sort of say it and maybe put $5 on it. we have seen this constantly with this particular president. i'm frustrated where the democrats have had sever years now to think about what an immigration program should look like for the party. it is actually something i'm interested to see there are many

democrats that actually have some concern about the caravans and have some concern about the waves of immigration that are happening. and so what will be the democratic policy towards immigration reform especially since the democratic party as this wing? >> i'll turn to you lastly when we had policy initiatives rolled out there has been more often than not great legal blow back. >> what do you see is the potential with big change? >> when the president went in this tier it was in response to a federal trial judge there and that judge said to the president, you cannot ignore the

parts of the immigration law that you don't like. your job is to enforce it. the president has never wanted to be by the rule of law. to answer your question, we don't know enough about this bill, about this proposal to see whether it is constitutional. we do know that the president repeatedly with regard to immigration issues in ways that are un-american, unconstitutional and illegal including using the military for his own political ends, including having the military show up and use rules of engagement intended for war against people who are trying to come to the country and make their claim. what it is about at the border is this idea that if you have in deep trouble in another country you're suffering substantial human rights depravation.

we consider it. the government doesn't have to keep you. most people that present their claims, at the end of the day their claims are unfounded. you the opportunity to come here. trump is saying go to mexico and go do that. >> josh is joining us today. thank you very much. thanks to nick as well for that fine reporting. we mentioned him at the top of the show, mention that had diagram as well. we'll take a closer look at his ties to president trump and his role in robert mueller's investigation next. go team. [ snow crunching ] [ load crunching ] [ whispers ] this is the loudest snow ever.

welcome back. corsi has been on the fringe of the biggest controversy in recent memory. he has connections to several key figures. he is a foreman trump aid being scrutinized for his relationship with wikileaks.

roger stone is questioning about all of this. corsi said he expected to be charged with perjury after being interviewed. he is siting the belief that the moon landing was staged. corsi pushed it after president obama released his birth certificate. the new york times says corsi caught the attention at the time who reached out to him for his own attacks on president obama. corsi worked with alex jones driving the 9/11 movement and a range of other conspiracies. let me ask you, first of all, i have gone through the history there, something roger stone has said is corsi is under a great

to deal of pressure. what are the calls like? what is it like to speak with him about this and all of these other issues he seems to care so much else about? >> he is a character. he feels like he is under enormous amount of pressure. so he is feeling the heat right now and part of his response to that is to call me and to go to to his you tube show and say he is concerned about being indicted for perj rhode isla indict indicted for perjury. he is absolutely standing by him as a friend and stone feels he feels corsi is being pushed into a narrative he can't really deliver which is the russia collusion. what we do know from our reporting is that mueller's team was looking for two months at

all of the kplun cases august, september and october and he seemed to know that the e-mails were going to be coming out and he and stone reached out to the trump campaign after those e-mails were released to take credit for it. what about the relationship between these two? >> i think when it serves them this is his motives to another least create an image where he knows all of the players and he has his hands in every pot. he will give the strong impression that maybe he has ties to wikileaks until the investigators come and it was all just puffery. it was all just bragging. luckily in this world we live

in, what is truth, luckily we have a man to actually cut through it. y >> you mentioned a you tube channel. >> yes. what is he fogging li-- followi like? >> well, donald trump certainly flew knew of him and picked up that theory in a heart beet and hit it over and over in 2011 and 2012 which is really something damaging and problematic. in terms of who is watching he has written two books. he has a following. he often in his you tube shows

will start reading passages from the bible so there's almost an evangelical undertones to what he likes to say publicly and people who follow him and support him and actually donate money to keep him afloat. >> let me put the investigation aside for a moment and ask you about this cultural moment. >> uh-huh. >> are we at a point there is more of a reckoning than we have seen in the past with things like that? we were talk about what he has done. is that something happening as a result? these things are being shown for what they are? >> i hope so. i don't know that we'll have a moment of culture hygiene where people realize we have been flun pushed into this. i remember that that kind of

level of mainstream respectability was -- >> was old fox news. >> yes. >> and now you have alex jones. donald trump did an early interview. i think he realized early on and roger stone also that there was a huge pool of kind of disconnected people who would both believe nothing and everything. they were really right for all of this wildness. i think that one thing we will see -- one thing i would like to see is sort of the economics of all of this and, you know, who is kind of paying for it. who is -- the interesting thing i think is kind of mysterious about this is whether he is really a madman or whether he is a pure cynic. it is somebody that is a phd from harvard. a lot of these conspiracy theories, they are bunkers but

the way they have been deployed has been quite skillful. you know, i think in as much as we can get to the machinery behind all of this, who is kind of paying who in this world of roger stone in this world it will be really useful for that. >> the question to you as we see this plea deal, talk to us about the credibility. he is working with robert mueller. in light of these fantasies and fabrications, how useful is he? >> yeah. so earlier you used this sexy phrase, performed of haplessness. he is not performing haplessness. he really is hapless. the question is how will mueller use him? the crime would be if people in

the trump campaign knew about the wikileak e-mail and they participated and when they would be released. we know some times the releases, they were strategic. they were very helpful to the trump campaign. it will be riveting if there is ever a triechlt we have the tames released about the access hollywood tapes, within an hour there is another dump of e-mail damaging to hillary clinton from wikileaks. if roger stone, corsi or people in the trump campaign -- >> knew about that. >> that is soluticollusion. that is conspiracy to violate campaign laws. again, it is going down. >> all right. we'll leave it there. thank you for joining us here on this sunday morning. coming up the president versus

the court system, how the trump administration is fighting back as new york's attorney general takes a closer look at the foundation. ard advice, tailored recommendations, tax-efficient investing strategies, and a dedicated advisor to help you grow and protect your wealth. fidelity wealth management. to help you grow and protect your wealth. essential for pine trees, but maybe not for people with rheumatoid arthritis. because there are options. like an "unjection™". xeljanz xr. a once-daily pill for adults with moderate to severe ra for whom methotrexate did not work well enough. xeljanz xr can reduce pain, swelling and further joint damage, even without methotrexate. xeljanz xr can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections, lymphoma and other cancers have happened. don't start xeljanz xr if you have an infection. tears in the stomach or intestines, low blood cell counts and higher liver tests and cholesterol levels have happened.

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a judge in new york blocked an attempt we to have a lawsuit against him and his children dismissed. barbara underwood alleged it was misused including claims of

$2.8 million given to the campaign and money spent on the president's portrait. tweeting the trump to serve business and political interests. there are rules that govern private foundations and we intend to enforce them. the lawyer maintains the money went to charitable cases. that is one of the many lawsuits the president faces. there is the group of writers suing him and that's lot happening here. how important was that decision in. >> it was really important. what it shows is that trump was operating in this sham charity that was supposedly helping people like veterans. reality he was helping his campaign and paving his private bill. the people that were supposed to

stop this from happening are the board. here is my favorite fact from this lawsuit about the board e first of all, it hasn't met since 1999 a reporter called the treasurer to find out why that was. he didn't even know he was on the board. when you look at what's happening in courtrooms across the country, what's drawing the most attention for you? >> there is a lawsuit and a criminal investigation. i will be curious to see whether there becomes a criminal investigation which there might be some ambiguity. there is none that i know of about criminally charging his children. it will be a new york state investigation, so i believe there's no question of them being able to pardon ivanka or

don jr. after the original filing it was really blatant. one thing she was saying earlier is that so much of the crime is right there out in the oechltpe. it almost makes it hard to discern. you're thinking wait, you're just doing that. you look at the papers of this foundation that are in that civil lawsuit. you know, it's kind of donald trump writing notes, send this money here and that money here. it is clearly just being run as a slush fund. >> yeah. >> and i also think that this whole nightmare, right, everything about this has been so incredibly on the nose from all of the details sort of overwritten. >> right. >> but if we are in the sort of reality show of the trump

presidency i feel like we might be reaching the like second act when everything unravels because like you said, it's not just mueller. they are going to be drowning in subpoenas. there will be this lawsuit, a number of other lawsuits going forward. i feel like we might finally start to get charity. >> yeah. can i make a point? it seems there is a certain low grade but shocking shadiness that is in american life at the highest levels. so it's like at that level they seem to have gone on. you election law violations that seem to have gone ochbn. you have the new york times reporting about how he hid his wealth when his father passed it onto him. >> forgot about that. >> yeah and the reporters will

do their due diligence and quote the best professor in the field. now it becomes president and it is prosecuted. i would like that reckoning. what are the penalties for these crimes? it seems like that charity think, i don't know, could he go to jail or get a fine? i have heard with the elections, you know, usually we give a fine for this. if he is guilty of all of these how huge a deal is it? >> it would certainly in another world have political consequences. it's very unusual for someone to do jail time for an offense like this. it is usually handled through the civil losses. that way it's kind of like election law violations. that's possible criminal enforcement but it's rare. >> yeah. go ahead. >> so the saddest part is we saw this after watergate. the republican party took a hit.

what really concerns me is this o open -- the disregard for morality and laws and what george washington warned us about in 1776, we cannot have a president that interacts with foreign entities and cares about them more than their own country. we saw people coming out. as someone that talks to young people on a daily basis it is difficult to get them to not be jaded and cynical and disgusted with what they are seeing. >> there needs to be a sort of process. we have a process so reveal what was stolen and have really serious anti core ruchgs

reforms. >> as someone that understands the media it's like you're just picking on me. he is always the hero and victim in every single story. >> he got elected president of the united states. my question is what if your movie doesn't end with a day of reckoning. what if it ends with the reelection of donald j. trump. >> i think it has always been possible. there's no guarantee of a happy ending to the story of american democracy. i think that's up to everybody. >> and you know a movie in trouble if we can't define the genre. >> yeah. and people keep saying this is trump's america. i keep reminding folks, this is our america. we have rules that can help beyond voter suppression and voters theft we can change that narrative. coming up he said you have to understand a place like mississippi. the runoff happening this week.

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run yuf that will finish off the 2018 season. on tuesday they going head to head in the traditionally solidly red state of mississippi. democrats are hoping for another upset, a repeat maybe of what they pulled off a senator jones beat roy moore in a special election. can mississippi swing blue the way that alabama did? the republican is under fire for saying this earlier this month. >> she has defended her comments saying her words were used against her. >> this comment was twisted, and it was turned into a weapon to be used against me, a political weapon used for nothing but political and personal gain by my opponent. >> roy moore came under fire in

alabama for this. >> a senator candidate responded to a washington post story quoting a women saying he inappropriately touched her when she was a 14-year-old. >> accusations, detailed ones, from five women who say he chased them as teenage girls. >> and from there it only got worse for roy moore. that brings the total number of accusers to nine now. moore denies the allegations. he says these are political attacks. nbc has been out on the trail covering both races. in alabama he said he found plenty of people that could not vote for him. >> i cannot get over his history. >> i definitely have a problem with roy moore's past. not just being a sexual predator but also thinking he is above the law. >> i wanted to vote for moore, but i'm not so sure anymore. >> in mississippi, we have found voters more willing to give

hyde-smith a past. >> she's a conservative republican. >> do you think that hyde-smith wins on tuesday? >> i hope so. >> i will go to christina greer here first. the prospect of embarrassment is something we see coming to the floor again here in mississippi as we saw in alabama. when you look at what hyde-smith has done, democrats are trying to push this narrative that there will be people in mississippi that will be embarrassed, rightfully so, by what she's done in the past. >> and there will be people in mississippi encouraged by what she is doing. mississippi is not alabama. mike espy is not a gillum or an abrams. these are different races.

hyde-smith is not a possible ped fi pedofile. this could have been a conversation. the fact that it is so close and it is mississippi and we know that mississippi, this was the epi-center of lynching. this is the epi-center of domestic terrorism for generations. the fact that mike espy is close should say something about the political moment and what investment in the south could mean going forward. but i don't think that this is -- this is like an apples to steak comparison. >> i'm puzzled by the way this is being covered, as if these are all terrible gaffes for her constituency. not just the fact she went to a segregation, but worse that she sent her own child to one of those segregation.

i'm not sure it is. >> it is about white supremacy. so appropriate. alabama got me so upset. tennessee made me lose my mind and everybody knows about mississippi. the song is called mississippi god-damn. in florida they were subtle with the monkey sounds against gillum. and in georgia they didn't let black people vote. so that's old school. but even older school is what's going on in mississippi, where the image is black men swinging from the trees and the candidate can't even bring herself to apologize for that. >> well, she read the apology and stumbled over it. >> take us back to the university talking about the political climate in the south. moving away from this, the issue of race, looking at the way alabama looks versus mississippi, alabama you had a

lot of bigger cities. what we learned is you had a lot of white suburban women that couldn't bring themselves to vote for roy moore. >> mississippi has the largest african-american population. white people are about 60% and the republican democrats split 60/40. in alabama they rejected roy moore because part of politics is to elect an avatar hero, someone that stands for us. but most people, most viet voters, the majority of the voters in mississippi have to be honest and say a 59-year-old, that is us. it is not offensive to us because it is us. if we find that offensive, we are saying something about ourselves that we don't believe in. >> that election taking place on tuesday this week. my thanks to the panel for joining us this hour. coming up, joy reed is breaking down president trump's

call for decorum from the press just ahead for us on msnbc on "a.m. joy at. it's time for ultimate sleep number week on the

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i am a techie dad.n. i believe the best technology should feel effortless. like magic. at comcast, it's my job to develop, apps and tools that simplify your experience. my name is mike, i'm in product development at comcast. we're working to make things simple, easy and awesome. . that does it for me. thank you very much for watching "up." "a.m. joy" with joy reed starts right now. >> could you clarify and articulate what you meant? >> if i hurt anybody's feelings, we're staying on the issues on people's mind. that is lower taxes, he is

regulation. any time i say something that somebody got offended, i want to apologize. >> could you acknowledge your statement? >> yeah. i apologize for anything i could have possibly said. >> good morning and welcome to "a.m. joy." the 2018 midterms have been a case study in the ways that race still plays a central role in american life and in our politics, particularly in the strategies deployed by this particular president and his party to gin up their base. the latest case study mississippi. the final u.s. senate race of the midterm cycle where on tuesday, appointed republican senator sydney hyde-smith will face-off against mike espy. she is still having trouble explaining her controversial quip about attending a public