paul manafort again for his, quote, crimes and lies even after he agreed to a plea deal. the president's disapproval rating spikes to 60% in a new gallop poll, the highest level this year and matching the highest of his presidency. and the opposition from some democrats to nancy pelosi is not going away, even as the party smashes a midterm record dating back to watergate. those are just a few of the stories we'll be covering on a very busy tuesday morning. i'm willie geist alongside washington anchor for b bc newark caddie kay, mike barnacle, sam stein, noah rothman and eugene robinson. joe and mika are off this week. everyone has agreed to go along

with my voice this morning. >> it's beautiful. >> are we okay with it? >> it smoked 25 cigarettes a day is what it sounds like. >> long night in the clubs. let's begin with a new filing against paul manafort. robert mueller's office is accusing paul manafort of violating the plea deal he agreed to earlier this year. quote, afteren signing the plea agreement, manafort committed federal crimes by lying to the fbi and the special counsel's information and does not agree with the government's characterization. but manafort's legal team replied in part, manafort has provided information to the government in annest to live up to his cooperation obligations. he does not agree with the government's characterization or that he has breached the agreement.

back in august, a federal court found manafort guilty on several counts of financial fraud. manafort entered into a plea deal by participating in interviews providing documents and testifying in court. both cases involved manafort's political consultancy for a previous russian-backed government of ukraine long before he served briefly as donald trump's campaign chairman. let's bring in to start things off here msnbc analyst dan ny cavala. what do you think happened? >> this plea agreement is a contract like any other. but plea agreements have serious constitutional implications. a defendant is giving up his 5th and 6th amendment rights and oftentimes his right to appeal and other things. i can't tell you how often this happens that the government sides, well, we've listened to everything you've had to say.

we don't think you're cooperating, so we're going to consider you in breach of the agreement and we're not going to give you any of that substantial assistance, reduction in sentencing that you wanted. then the defendant says, look, i really did provide you everything i know and the government just doesn't believe it. ultimately, a court can decide if the defendant forces the issue. >> so the back drop of this, danny, is that the president trump finished his written questions and submitted them, the questions provided he by the special counsel's office. does that tell you anything about this or do you think those two are unrelated? >> the timing could be significant in that president trump's answers may vary somewhat with what paul manafort provided in terms of information. but i would stress that the government surely has other corroborating information to show that it believes that manafort was not truthful and they might have even given him an opportunity to correct that, what they believe to be lies, before they decided that the

plea agreement was breached and that they should just move forward to sentencing. a lot of times, defendants,ite not even a lie. it's that defendants think they can get away with not remembering or misremembering or telling 90% of what they know and leaving the other 10% out. and oftentimes, the government is two steps ahead of that defendant. >> so, danny, can the government, can the mueller team go and ask that the sentence be imposed on manafort now based on on the guilty verdicts in the federal trial that took place earlier this year? and the second part on to this question, and this is purely speculation, but what would happen if it were revealed, if it were found out that manafort has a promise of a pardon and thus leads to his lying there? >> first, the whole reason that manafort entered into that agreement was for a reduced sentence when it comes to that sentencing date. and only at that time of sentencing, if the government thinks he's cooperating, it's

the government's prerogative to file for a departure. that leads to a reduction of a defendant's sentence. but the challenge for defendants is that it's usually up to the prosecutors to decide whether or not the defendant cooperated. part two with is the pardon. and the mueller team does not operate with pardons in mind. and, given trump's back on manafort's side, given the trump's experience or history in showing loyalty or disloyalty to those underneath him and the fact that he said i barely knew manafort, he barely worked for me, that could be an issue. >> the consequences for him are pretty obvious. that's a long jail term. what does all of this mean for mueller and the probe? does it suggest anything he's got from manafort now needs to be corroborated with other

sources and is it a blow to the investigate? >> this is always a challenge for the government. the government is getting hand in hand with someone the government believes to be a liar and a criminal. so as manafort was cooperating, the government always knew that he would have credibility problems if he ever testified or provided information and that defense lawyers could point to that, that this man is a convicted liar. but manafort's lies must have reached a point that even the governme government's team decided he's gone too far. we're happy to keep the information that he's given us, but in terms of his use to us as a cooperating witness, we don't need him any more. and this happens all the time. >> just a few hours before that news broke about paul manafort, president trump was writing about the russia report tweeting

with mueller does his final report, will he be covering all of his conflicts of interest in a preamble, will he be recommending action on all of the crimes of many from his side and will he be putting statements of hundreds of people closely involved with my campaign who never met, saw or spoke to a russian during this period? so many people ask me why they have not been called. they want to be. there was no collusion and mueller knows it, writes trump. it's worth noting that department of justice officials concluded shortly after his appointment in 2017 that robert mueller was free of any conflicts that would interfere with his overseeing the government's investigation. t you can see the case that's being put together by the white house and president trump for when this report drops, whenever it does, which is that it was complete, un fair. >> that tweet covers it. this will be a long, protracted

effort by the administration, rudy giuliani and trump to discredit it before it comes out and when it comes out. we know, for instance, they are putting together their own report. it will be largely historical and probably a bit bias, i would argue. we also know rudy hinted they would fight the release of the report citing executive privilege hoping to basically bottle it up. and mat whitaker's role as acting attorney general probably plays a role on this here. i do have a question for dan ny if he's still around. >> he is. >> so if they fight this on report, the release, mueller and manafort will have to go before a judge to outline where they thought -- on or where they are accusing manafort of having breached his plea agreement. will that report, the secondary report about manafort lying, be made public? in other words, will they be

able to release information about their own probe in a vehicle other than the final report and will the public get to see it? >> courts are different than the mueller team's mandate for secrecy. anything that's filed in court, unless it's filed under seal, and there's a presumption against filing things under seal in federal court will be filed. at some point, manafort will be sentenced and at that point there will be a prolonged hearing where there will be witnesses called and information revealed and we will learn that information. because the sent kwansing will be open to the public and people will be able to hear what exactly manafort did and did not do. if mueller aes team files a public document outlining his lies, then we will know what those lies were. paul manafort will take every opportunity to dispute that and have his lawyers produce evidence that he did not lie and

that he was showing his recollection to the best of his ability. >> right. and the question again of the pardon potentially hangs over all this. but as you listen, there are theories that have been put out there that perhaps bob mueller let manafort lie to him and maybe the president would then lie in his written answers. what do you think this means, the loss of manafort as a cooperating witness? >> we're going to engage in some reckless speculation here. you already noted, mike, that there's a pardon possibly in the wind or maybe he thinks the mueller probably would somehow absolve him. but more importantly, in order to engage in this risk, he believes he's protecting somebody and it's not himself. so who is he protecting? the first impulse is to say the president, obviously. but paul manafort's connections

are more likely to be with unsavory elements in eastern europe. given the tensions that we have on the peninsula, when we find out what that effort was, it could seriously hinder this president's ability to conduct foreign policy. >> do you think he's going to go to jail for a very long time to protect interests in ukraine in paul manafort? >> well, and then you consider why, why would he do that? how dangerous is that risk to him and the people around him? there are some very unsavory folks in eastern europe. >> is there something to paul manafort that is more scary than 10 to 15 years in jail. is that a russian coming in the middle of the night? i find that a stretch in the narrative. i know there had is almost nothing at the moment that seems implausible and it's all -- the reality tv part of this makes it a twist to the plot we've seen

already -- >> hold on. isn't the explanation here that paul manafort thought bob mueller didn't know some things and bob mueller knew far more things than -- >> and he's lied his whole life so why not carry on doing it? >> gene, what is at the root of this, the defendant, paul manafort, there is really no way to gauge what he is up to because he has been up to so many things for so many years. >> yeah, yeah. i mean, many years, actually. and, you know, caddie, i don't find it that implausible that he could have concerns about life and limb given the people he's dealt with in the past. you know, sort of shady, $10 million payments in cash under the table and dealing with -- >> so he would go to jail for potentially 15 years because that's something he might be afraid of?

>> well, if you're concerned about your -- not only your own welfare, but that of your family, that potentially of others and what these kinds of folks might do to people, i mean, these are not good people. these are people with a track record of -- let's put it this way. people who cross them, you know, tend to have of, frankly, some of them have a shorter life expectancy. i just -- you know, i don't think that james bond scenarios are that implausible at all. it looks to me like there are some secret or secrets that paul manafort is so willing to -- so determined to keep and so afraid of breaching the trust that he's willing to go to jail potentially for the rest of his life. >> he's about to go to jail for quite a long time. we've sort of half written a daniel silva novel at this point

getting deep into european intrigue. danny, thanks so much, as always, for your analysis of of this. president trump's job approval dropped last week. the gallop weekly tracking poll found 38% approve of president trump's job performance while 60% disapprove. a 12-point swing against the president. this is the fourth time that trump's disapproval rating has hit 60% in this poll. president trump is the only president who has never cracked 50% in gallop's ratings, something he has not accomplished in his days in office. democrats are on the threshold now of gain ago 40th seat in the house with new returns showing democrat t.j. cox pulling ahead of republican david volidaveo who led by more than 4,000 votes on election night. cox now leads by 436 votes and nbc news has retracted its declaration of the republican as the winner.

a loss would leave california republicans holdsing just seven seats in the state's 55-member federal delegation. democrats have flipped 39 house seats, 7 governs mansions and 349 state legislative seats. turning of nearly 400 since president trump took office. democrats lead in the national vote for congress fliemclimbed yesterday. nbc news election data finds the size of the democrats' midterm victory has now surpassed the record for either party set in 1974 and the results have gotten worse for republicans in orange county, california. the strong hold of conservative republicans like ronald reagan and barry goldwater is now completely represented by democrats but had voted for the republican candidater for governor by double digits including in the last four elections. but not in this one. last night, orange county posted

results showing democrat gavin nuwsom taking the lead over john cox. it will be the first democratic win there since 1978. we knew this was a wave. when you look at the house and add in the state elections and look at the president's 38% job approval, 60% disapproval, what's going on in those numbers? >> the decimation of the gop should resinate very strongly with this party. the number that struck me so much is the 400 legislative seats. over the course of four cycles, barack obama's terms in office, they dismated the democratic party's farm team. if they continue on that pace, they will outpace the ability to decimate the gop party in a way

we haven't seen in a generation. so republicans shouldn't be framing this election as they have as some sort of a silver lining where they manage to perform better on the state levels and the senate seats in a map that is going to be the best map they're going to see in the next 12 years. this was a devastating wave election and they should take it as the brushback pitch that it was meant to be. >> president trump is not taking it that way. 60% disapproval. he's been there four times so far in his presidency. >> that is a stunningly low machine. i watch the weekly poll. this is a huge change from last week. you know, and so we'll see what happens, you know, again next monday. if it pops up a little or continues to go down or stays there.

but these are awful numbers. it is incredible that he has negative reached 50%. it shows that there is a ceiling for donald trump. it looks like the ceiling may be lowering. and, you know, i think politically the situation looks worse ander worse for donald trump, not better and better, and he's staring 2020 in the face. he's going to have a rough two years facing a democratic house and, you know, going into a re-election campaign with what looks like historic unpopularity. >> so after the 2012 election when the republican party came up with the autopsy of what happened and said we need to do better with minority ies, we ne to reach out to women more, there was a rethink. is the party in a position to have a similar rethink or are they so tied to president trump that they're almost prohibited

from having a moment of soul searching that could put them in a better position for the next two years? >> i think they're tied to donald trump where they can engage in that kind of intro inspecti introspection. >> that you a aura is never goi away. you don't get to those number ebbs withos without the remembers jumping ship. republicans have to be, again, not just aware of the results there, but republicans are saying, look, this guy isn't delivering as much as we thought he could be. if there are no wins associated with trumpism, what is trumpism associated with us? >> i can't imagine those conversations aren't happening. >> perhaps in closed doors. but donald trump is the most popular person in the gop, by far. >> you know what's kind of interesting, young man -- >> tell me a story, grandpa. >> the democratic achievements

at the state level are going to have high impact on gerrymandering, on redistricting in state after state after state. that's one thing. the other aspect we haven't spoke to it today, we spoke to it earlier, is the impact of the president's position on climate change. a lot of things, both cultural and political, start in california and come east. california has just been through the riggers of numerous fires that have burned extraordinary amounts of that state. and trump yesterday says about the government report on climate change issued, you know, last thursday afternoon at noob, you know, at halftime of the detroit lions game or whatever, i don't believe it. >> right. >> and that's got to be out there in these poll numbers, his negative numbers. it's got to be on out the there. >> well, yeah. i think there's a generational appeal that republican parties are clearly missing.

they've basically put up their stock in ginning up republican voters, elderly voters. climate change is not an issue for the older voters, but with young voters, it's a bigger issue because they realize they will be left with the consequences of this. one of the outcomes of this election is the republicans who were purged from office were the ones most likely to be trump critics. so what trump has been left with is a party that's actually more indebted to him, more sychophantic to him. so i think this is a troubling time for trump. the other thing i add to this is this is all happening. it's all happening in the context of fairley good economy.

the context is there for him to do well politically, the map and so on. if he can't make it work now, that's troubling. for instance, the front page story today is gm closing plants in ohio. >> almost 15,000 jobs being wiped out. more on president trump flat out rejecting a government report on climate change. shep smith had a fact check on that. meanwhile, the president is toying with the idea of writing a government news network. >> doesn't we have one? >> before we get to that, bill karins has a look at the weather. >> washington, d.c., you have your wettest year on record right now. so that rain storm in the mid-atlantic yesterday is now a

snowstorm in the new england states. careful on the roads there. additional snowfall -- and, again, some areas have already picked up 10 or 11 inches in new hampshire and vermont. careful driving from syracuse to buffalo. bi binghamton and tiger woods erie, lake-effect snow will be kicking off. how about our friends in the west? pretty good storm coming in for you, too, soaking rain from portland and now california is getting in on the mix now. storm after storm, let's build the snowpack up and continue to fill up our reservoirs with rainfall. and if you want cold -- i don't know who wants it, but if you want it, you got it. minneapolis to chicago today, 23 to 24 degrees. so the bit er cold is with you in the great lakes and also the northern plains. new york city, it looks like most of the drizzle and the showers are over with. it will be a breezy day, temperatures in the 40s.

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the climate science is accepted science. governments across the nation are spending billions of dollars preparing for what is to come. u.s. military, too, billions of dollars. this is not a political issue, it's science. but some have made it political, especially republicans. and as a result, a lot of folks missed this report. it was dropped ahead of schedule on black friday when a lot of americans are busy shopping, eating thanksgiving leftovers and spending time with the family. but it's extremely important. >> i've seen it. i've read some of it. and it's fine.

>> did they say economic impacts will be devastating? yeah. i don't believe it. >> you don't believe it? >> no, i don't believe it. >> it's fine says the president. president trump is blunt on where he stands with the findings of scientists from 13 top agencies. gene, your latest piece is titled the world is on fire and trump is playing with matches. the president dismissing of that report. b when he talked about not believing it, he was speaking out in that report. >> this is criminal, really, when you get down to it. you know, i have followed this issue since the first earth summit on climate change in 1992. i was one of the -- i was post south america corespondent then. i covered that meeting. i have since spent more of my

life than i care to admit reading these sort of dry reports from the scientists, the international scientists about climate change and i watched as they become increasingly more dire, increasingly more distressed and increasingly more certain of what's going on. and now there just isn't a question. there's no question about the science. there's no question about what's happening. the question is a political question, what we do about it. but we have a president who chooses woefully to ignore the facts all around him. and, you know, one of the things, for example, last week president trump went out to visit the scene of that awful fire in california, the paradise via the camp fire.

in this report, it notes that the acreage that has burned in wildfires in this country in the last, say, three decades or so is double what it would have been in the absence of climate change. i mean, and this -- these figures and these calculations are not -- become less and less speculative and more and more concrete and real with every report. it is tragic that we have a president who at this critical moment chooses not to be a firefighter, but to be an arsonist. >> well, he also like to rake the floor of the forest because that starts the fire, as well. >> a chance. >> noah, there are climate change deniers, but then there are people, conservatives who say i don't believe it's as manmade as some of these scientists say. i don't believe we should overhaul our economy and change

our cub completeountry complete climate change. is that a fair assess many? >> i can it's fair. there's a finer distinction, but one that is snnecessary, too, tt a projection is difficult with executive simple. because it has been proven in the past that these impacts fail to meet expectations. so these projections, especially when it takes us literally a century on out, should be looked on with skepticism. the president says that in an orange ornery way.

>> but the sea levels are rising is not disputable. your question is whether the long-term projections can be taken as gospel. >> correct. and the impacts we will take to prevent the catastrophic effects. we just talked about the car market, right? the car market is being very disrupted. but ten years ago, they bet on rising oil prices, straight line projection into the future. that was wrong. it turned out making small cars did not appeal to a market in which gas demand was lower which would make the united states a net energy deporter in 2022. >> but i would submit that's a pretty big gamble to take. >> i will always bet on the capacity of man kind to engineer itself out of a problem. >> then i would counter with this. anybody, climate denier or, you know, saying well, they are wrong in 1999 about snowstorms, they're going to be wrong through the rest of the century.

i would ask this. do you have children? do you have grandchildren? are you willing to gamble? i know you do. but are you willing to gamble on their futures? because they're going to be paying the bill for our fault and not dealing with this or they're going to be living lives that are nowhere near the quality of life -- >> and i very much respect that response and it is one that we can't dismiss because it is powerful and resonant and the something that should drive policy. but it is nevertheless a response that could produce hysteria. and hysteria has never done anything to solve this problem. >> alternatively, it could produce government policy that tries to address this issue. you're right that there are individual numbers that have been disputed and that should deserve scrutiny. but the overwhelming trajectories of the scientific evidence all points to the same thing, which is that the globe is warming and that it is majority manmade and that we have to do something urgently within the next decade or two decades to address it and that

is what is not happening and the more people that stand in the way of the science and say as we heard this had weekend, some conservatives say we had a couple of cold days, nobody speaks about those. >> weather is not climate, as you said. >> weather is not climate. but that is what is standing in the way. >> do we do things? we base policy on projections all the time outside of climate. we do projections on military stuff, on health care costs, on economic matters all the time. and we base policy around that. so it's not abnormal to do something like that. and these aren't just projections. they're data points already in the books. we have a government that can respond to many crises with incredible speed.

we know it's going to happen. we're dealing with it right now. why can't we take short-term steps to mitigate long-term losses is all that people are saying. >> i don't think anybody is saying that we shouldn't. >> i think we should look on them with skepticism, especially something 00 years out. >> but it's not being addressed quickly enough or radically enough. >> but it is not being addressed in top down regulations. it is being addressed from bottom up consumer demand and the innovation that results from capitalism. >> a public and a private sector issue. >> this has not been an issue that's resinated with voters

traditionally, but that is change, younger voters and the next generation. still ahead, i see steve kornacki standing in front of a map on a big board and i'm excited about it. we're going to go live to mississippi where president trump stumped for hyde-smith. place, the xfinity xfi gateway.

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past anything that stands in its way. ...well almost anything. leave no room behind with xfi pods. simple. easy. awesome. click or visit a retail store today. i am proud to be back in the birthplace of rock and roll, elvis. i shouldn't say this. you'll say i'm very conceited, but i'm not. but other than the blond hair, when i was growing up, they said i looked like elvis presley. >> president trump delivering the claurlt for sinty hyde-smith in today's senate election. joining us from jackson, mississippi, where he's been camped out. vaughn hilliard, what with are

the campaigns thinking this morning and can the democrat mike espy pull off an upset there? >> number one, willie, you don't see many elvis presley signs around. you don't see many donald trump signs around. you see cindy hyde-smith signs around. the republican candidate in this race essentially brought in that designated hitter and then down in the southern city of gulfport. this is still mississippi and the republican party here and they're the party with the infrastructure here. >>downtown was on the ground and finished off with a gospel

explosioning here in jackson. compare the two events from last night. >> cindy's far left opponent, he's far left. how does he fit in with mississippi? just explain -- i could go over this, but how does he fit in? mike espy opposed justice kavanaugh. es py will vote in total lock step with schumer, pelosi, the legendary maxine waters. >> there are some who chose to go to a rally somewhere else tonight. if you're like me, i'd rather be at this kind of rally. because when we are seeking inspiration, we don't go to the politicians. my mama always told me that when you make an error or you do something wrong, you look at that person in the eye.

you apologize to them. you ask forgiveness from prosecute them. then you move on. you don't look down at the paper and read your politics. >> cindy hyde-smith and her republican backup operation have constantly, over the last several days on the tv air waves and at those events tried to remind mississippi voters that she's the conservative in this race, she's the pro life, lower taxes candidate in this race, that she says has supported president trump a hundred percent of the time with her votes. compare that to mike espy. the reality check here is that this is a tall task for him. back on november 6th, there was a second republican in this race, chris mcdaniel, who had 140,000 votes. he's no longer in the race. but even with those 140,000 votes, cindy hyde-smith still bested mike espy on november 6th by 8,000 votes. but on the ground across the state here, willie, having

conversations with individuals on the left, particularly african-american voters, you know, the conversation is that a lot of these individuals particularly up in the delta part grew up under the jim crow laws of the 50s and 60s and in the wake of the lynching of amed till. you talk to young, white voters, jacob told me just the other day he's going to veet for mike espy because he's tired of the stereotypes that have per pai pettat -- perpetuated across the country about his home state. >> vaughn hilliard in jackson, mississippi, thank you. as always, we'll be checking in with you throughout the day. joining us now, former aid to the george w. bush white house and a mississippi native elise jordan. and at the big board, concei

conceive -- steve kornacki. steve, we're still talking about the midterms. >> hasn't ended yet. another statewide election. espn, hyde-smith, compare this back to the end of 2017 for democrats and what they're trying to pull off here in mississippi. at the end of 2017 with, they went into alabama. doug jones, a democrat, won the senate race over roy more. he won that thing bay hair. and everything, i mean, everything had to break right for democrats for doug jones to pull that out. to win in mississippi, to have a chance of winning tonight, mike es espy, same thing is going to have to happen again. hyde-smith did finish in first, barely ahead of espy. you had mcdaniel, the third republican come in there and gobbled up some of the votes. the other challenge if you're a democrat in mississippi, this probably the most racially

polarized electoral you're going to find in the country. they tend to hit a ceiling. 41% espy got in the preliminary. that's basic areally what hillary clinton got in 2016. how about barack obama in 2012? a little better, but 44%. barack obama back in 2008 when he first won the presidency, 43%. that 44% obama that he got in 2012, that's about the high water mark for a democrat in a federal election there in mississippi in a long time. what would have to what here? everything has to break right. look at the delta region. look at the heavily black parts of the state. you need overwhelming support for espy right there. what else do you need? how about some of those regions that are republican strongholds but maybe where chris mcdaniel did well, where the republican base isn't so excited about

hyde-smith. do you get lower republican turnout? that was part of the democratic formula there in alabama. the other thing you have to find in mississippi, what's been that growth group for them among white voters nationally? it's been white, college educated, suburbanites, whie coll -- white collar professionals. mississippi, a heavy rural state. desoto county, a lot of college degrees there. higher incomes there. you need to get a lot of white crossover votes there, too. it has to be a perfect storm is espy is going to have a shot. >> we'll see you throughout the day. thank you so much. so a mississippi native, you know the state better than anybody at this table. there's been a lot of conflation, it seems to me, of alabama and mississippi, which is to say, well, if doug jones can do it in alabama, mike espy can do it in the state of mississippi. is that right, is that fair, or

is that off base? >> i think it's a tougher battle, because alabama is more metropolitan, more suburban areas just as steve gave in his excellent analysis. he can go anywhere in america, just break it down in the way a native can appreciate. but you look at how this has to break for mike espy. indeed, he has to get some white moderate crossover voters? is that going to happen? are mississippians going to be inta embarrassed enough by cindy hyde-smith's ongoing performance trying to justify her comments about public hangings in the state with a terrible history of racial violence. is the embarrassment that she's brought to the state over the past month going to cause people to turn and to vote for mike ese espy who attracts more

republicans that other democrats have in the state. >> we talked about cindy hyde-smith. if you talk to people who support cindy hyde-smith say, oh, come on, she put on a confedera confederate hat for a photograph. you guys in new york blew it out of proportions. the hacking is a common public line. do you think there's the revulsion there in the state of mississippi as there is outside of the state? >> absolutely. anyone can look at her performance on the campaign trail where she won't answer questions, where she try toes pass off her answers to senator roger wicker and to the governor and she has been literally under a candidate protection program. this is not an impressive candidate. people know that. as my mama says, she just seems like she doesn't have good sense. >> so, elise, you grew up in mississippi. talk about this as a cultural event, this election. and mississippi's continual

quest to put the past in the past. >> you know, i've been, in a weird way, pleasantly surprised. and i think that it has shown progress by how many mississippians have been so outraged and so upset that someone who is seeking the lead the state is going to make comments that are so offensive to 38% of the state that's african-american but also to white mississippians who are embarrassed about the history and want to move forward. so i have been heartened in that sense, that people are outraged and not just, you know, letting this fly the way that i think in decades past they probably would have. >> gene robinson, you're a sob of the south. what are you looking for in mississippi tonight? >> well, you know, i think steve kornacki pointed out one of the issues in mississippi. you know, they always used to say that the two biggest cities in mississippi are memphis and new orleans.

you know, there is no big city in mississippi. so you don't have those suburbs that switch from republican to democratic democrat. in this case there's a lot of revolt towards cindy hyde-smith. you don't have those ring of suburban voters who are ripe for the miccing for mi ipicking for. you do have a huge african-american population in mississippi. how have they been voting in terms of participation, anywhere near their weight in the population and is there a chance for a historic african-american turn out? >> i think there's absolutely a chance. and i think that that turn out has been african-american turn out so far has been super charged in terms of early voting and i think that the comments

made by cindy hyde-smith have justifiably outraged the african-american community and you look at what donald trump said last night. he had the nerve in mississippi to say who is mike espy? who is mike espy? he's the first african-american congressman-elected since reconstruction. his grandfather started the first hospital to give care for african-americans in the state. and started funeral homes that would serve african-americans. the espy name is a big deal in mississippi and donald trump should brush up on his history a little better the next time he wants to show up in the magnolia state. >> still ahead on "morning joe". >> they said manufacturing jobs would never come back. you need a magic wand. we found the magic wand. [ cheers and applause ] >> those comments from the president last night after gm announced it was cutting thousands of jobs and closing down plants in the united states and canada.

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and for twice the moisture, try the body wash, too. aveeno® naturally beautiful results® so to be clear mr. trump has no financial relationships with any russian old -- oligarch. paul manafort is accused of lying to federal prosecutors. welcome back to "morning joe". it is tuesday, november 27th. we have katty kay with us. sam stein former aid to the george w. bush white house. elise jordan. former adviser to george w. b h

bush, amerimark mcken janan and robinson. chief white house correspondent for the "new york times," peter baker. joe and mika have the morning off. robert mueller's office is accusing former trump campaign chairman paul manafort of violating the plea deal he agreed to earlier this year. in a joint status report filed last night mueller's team writes this. after signing the plea agreement manafort committed federal crimes by lying to the federal bureau of investigation and to the special counsel's office on a viert of subject matters. manafort's lawyers are disputing those assertions. manafort's team writes manafort has provided information to the government in an effort to live up to his cooperation obligation. he does not agree with the

government's characterization or he breached the agreement. in august the federal court found manafort guilty on several counts of financial fraud. manafort entered a plea deal agreeing to cooperate with prosecutors. cases involve paul manafort's consultancy for a previously russian backed government ukraine long before he served as donald trump's campaign chairman. all right. so last hour we went through the nuts and bolts of this. peter baker i want to start with you. as you cover the white house we know president trump submitted his answers to written questions from the special counsel's office last week with the help of his attorneys and now yesterday we get this news that paul manafort has lied, he's been accused of lying anyway to the special counsel's office and to the fbi. can you connect those two stories in anyway or is that a reach? >> well, connect them in the sense we're heading towards an end game and we don't know what it will look like.

robert mueller's team has been pretty tight and pretty disciplined about not showing its hand earlier than it wants to, not leaking, not providing a lot of information. you're right. to see the president's answer at the same time they are essentially casting off paul manafort as a witness. it says something about the time we're in that it may be good news for a president his former campaign chairman is accused in court of lying to investigators, not because it's good for the campaign manager, paul manafort faces a much steeper possible penalty but because it means he's valued as a witness even if he were to suddenly turn around and be cooperating with prosecutors in a more fullsome way would be tarnished. there will be questions and suspicions about whether there's anything behind that. the president has over the last few months at one point or another dangled the possibility of a pardon. for the moment it calls into

question what value he's going to be able to provide to robert mueller when and if robert mueller can show his hand. >> unless robert mueller got everything he needed from paul manafort and cut him loose. >> we have both ends of the spectrum, the prosecutor and the one who is being chased here. in politics there's no requirement for a license or degree to be in a campaign. it attracts a lot of what i call cellar dwellers. i had a chance to go to you crane and do election monitoring. i heard about paul manafort. i called him up, let's have a cup of coffee. i have to say it's the spookiest meeting i ever had in my life. i never felt like i met with a mob guy and wanted to go shower afterwards. >> because of the relationships he had in ukraine. >> he's talking about oligarchs and do deals here and there. what due need? all my antenna went get out of

here as fast as you can. >> you've been in some meetings which says a lot. >> so where does this leave mueller in terms of what he's got from manafort already? there's questions whether manafort had as much to off eof. he just said manafort wasn't a reliable witness. >> at this point it turns this into a tailspin. i have no idea what mueller has or doesn't have. i don't want to speculate there. but i have to wonder if paul manafort almost would prefer to stay under the protection of u.s. federal authorities than to be out in the open again the way he's behaved. it really doesn't make much sense the way he's behaved in rational thinking. >> getting back to the point.

>> paul manafort had an idea of what robert mueller knew and robert mueller knew way more than that. robert mueller was able to catch paul manafort in a lie. that's basically the simplest explanation we have. there are other explanations on top of that, maybe paul manafort thinks this is a play for a pardon. he'll take one for trump and trump will pay him back on the back end. that's problematic because there's a bunch of state charges that paul manafort faces. the other thing that's important is that this is now going to become public. they will go before a judge and they will talk about what it is that paul manafort allegedly lied about. and that will become part of the public record. i believe that is immune from executive privilege because it's a court proceeding. so whether inadvertently or not robert mueller has found a way or a vehicle to get some of this

information out. >> what does the president think about the answers he wrote to those questions mueller is happy to cut people loose. there's an editorial this morning entitled "putin tests trump on ukraine." the russian leader is watching the response to his latest military aggression. vladimir putin's method is to probe for weakness in adversaries and see if there's any push back. mr. putin figures now is a good time to escalate and embarrass the ukrainian president who faces an election in march. may see a western alliance whose leaders are under domestic pressure. angela merkel ceded her party's relationship. macron is facing protesters. in this context mr. trump did

well to say monday he's not happy with russia's aggression. america should make clear during the g-20 summit that such aggression will be met with more arm sales to you crane and tougher sanctions on russia. kremlin's strong man will be looking for signs of weakness. what are the odds that donald trump puts his finger on his chest and says knock it off. >> first of all, president putin's approval numbers has declined in russia. the idea that russian public really want as war with ukraine in the run up to christmas that seems a very strange strategy for vladimir putin. can the west ever get on board when it comes to dealing really tough with russia? they have to go after the money, after the oligarchs money and go after people close to president putin. peter baker, what we've seen there's quite a lot of discrepancy amongst the west. we had a strong statement out of the united nations but angela

merkel has be tepid by saying i'll try to be stronger. now the west including the united states is going to do something about president putin that has a real impact? >> no. no, i don't think so. your analysis is exactly right. he's looking at a western alliance right now that's busy with its own problems. it will be interesting to watch this meeting coming up in buenos aires later this week, the g-20 meeting where president trump and president putin are supposed to get-together. to have this flare up now with ukraine to come days beforehand really changes the tenor of that meeting. it puts the onus on president trump while he's trying to show that he's not simply a, you know, a me too figure with the russian president. how does he handle that?

how does he, you know, finally want to say something to president putin about his actions in a public way, in a fullsome way? seems unlikely given the history in the last two years. if he doesn't he risks the same sort of backlash back at home that he faced in july. >> while we're on the sub gekt of the g-20 another meet be is one between president trump and the crown prince of saudi arabia. the president has given the crown prince a pass on his culpability in the murder of journalist jamal khashoggi. what will that conversation be like if there is one? is this white house cognizant, at least, of optics in this relationship, that maybe a hand shake and a hug isn't the best idea. >> the white house is very aware of whether the president cares or not is a different thing. it's quite extraordinary thing we'll go buenos aires and see president trump meeting with three of the biggest figures in the world right now on the stage, president putin,

president xi jinping of china and the crown prince of saudi arabia, all of whom have real issues for the western alliance and western way of thinking about the world. the idea he's going to get-together with the crown prince after the cia has all but basically assessed the crown prince had something to do with, ordered the kill of jamal khashoggi is a pretty striking thing. i can't imagine another president doing that in the same kind of circumstance. the president has made clear he has a transactional true. the saudis are buying arms from us and he won't mess that up. >> let me ask you this. if you got a cia report that says it was highly likely that mbs ordered the murder of a journalist, a well resident of the united states, what would be president bush's posture? >> trust your own intelligence. if not you're trusting allies who have strategic interests

against you. the best information you're going to get is from your own intelligence and you got to trust that. if not you're throwing your fate to the wind of your enemies. >> in a blow to president trump's continued claims including last night that american jobs are coming back to this country, general motors announced it will lay off more than 14,000 of its employees. the automaker announced its slashing the factory and white collar jobs yesterday adding it would possibly close up to five plants. factories that could face closure include assembly plants in detroit and oshawa, ontario and lordstown, ohio and in warren, michigan and one near baltimore. it's to cut costs and focus on autonomous and electric vehicles. a white house official told nbc news yesterday that economic adviser larry kudlow was expected to meet with the gm ceo. president trump said he spoke

with berra and said he's not happy with the company's decision. >> we don't like it. i believe they will be opening up something else and i was very tough. i spoke with her when i heard they were closing and i said this country has done a lot for general motors. we have a lot of pressure on them. you have senators a lot of other people. >> front page story on most of the major newspapers across the country today. gm to close plants and cut jobs. gene robinson, the first thing is you have 14,000, almost 15,000 people. out of work. that's the most important part of this. it does again cut across the narrative that president trump was putting out there during the campaign and again as president that manufacturing jobs will rush back into the united states with him in the white house. >> yeah. you know he promised a lot of things. he promised manufacturing jobs would rush back in and they are not doing that. he promised that the coal industry would come back, and that's not happening. he promised u.s. steel would

open six to eight new plants and they are opening zero new plants. it was all lies. and the lies of being exposed as lies and there will be a political impact. you know, in ohio gm is closing a plant called the lordstown plant near youngstown. i remember when i was in college and had friends who lived in ohio, in that area, the mahoning valley. lordstown was in many ways an iconic symbol of gm. it's a huge plant. 6 million square feet and, of course, it had been, you know, there were fewer and fewer jobs there over the years, and finally was down to, i think, just a couple thousand jobs. symbolic importance for the state of ohio, of the closing of the lordstown plant is huge. and it's something that better

not escape president trump's notice. this is a very bad thing for him politically in ohio. >> first and foremost, it's devastating for these families. 14,000 to 15,000 families are going to have to wonder about their future right now and that can't get lost in this conversation. secondarily the context is important. people aren't buying these cars in the way gm thought they would be. gm had to make a free market decision about what to do about that. that's where you have a question what the government should do. first and foremost will the government come in and help these people out whether its through unemployment insurance or measured tax to get them on their feet again. we showed government was able to move mountains to get a corporate tax cut passed. will they do the same thing for workers here. the other question, does the government, lawmakers have a role to play in transitioning the economy to some sort of more forward looking future based economy that doesn't necessarily have to rely on these

manufacturing jobs. what the trump administration has basically said no we're going to look backwards. we're going back to steel, coal, automobiles. i wonder if this sparks a renewed interest but my suspicion is it will not. >> i think that this could be one of the most significant news developments as it relates to 2020 election. this could be the canary in the coal mine. the president promised to take us back to a time in the past when we had coal plants and steel plants and car manufacturers. what's happening with gm, it was bailed out by the government ten years ago. they failed to anticipate the future and the future was a different kind of car and they made a bet on fuel prices and they bet wrong and now they have to deal with those consequences. so government can't come in and fix a bad decision like that, only the free market can. >> also you look at how donald trump has, you know, attempted to use a tourniquet and contain

short term damage looking to the past by one off ad hoc private, you know, intervention into the free market. picking winners and losers and it's not sustainable over the long term. you look how this plays out with trade policy too and how soybean prices, 98% of soybeans that were sold to china last year weren't sold. so that sales plummeted. we have a 16 billion bail out to farmers that's adding to the deficit. >> before trump was president was to the carrier plant in namnam indianapolis. trump claimed he saved that plant. but it goes to show you that a plan in which the president has to personally intervene and talk with the ceo in order to get them to stop shipping jobs overseas is not a plan at all. it's totally reliant on trump's

time and attention both of which we know he has very little of. you have to develop a comprehensive plan to look at the possibility of outsourcing. they could have done it with the tax overhaul. they didn't. now they are stuck with this. >> if this is going to be a 2020 indicator it's not just the car industry because you got lower numbers in industrial production, you got lower numbers in retail sales, you got lower numbers in housing as well. economy is cyclical. we've been up on a boom. when does it start to dip down again and how seriously does it dip down in the run up to the 2020 election. that's something president trump has to deal with. he owned the economy. so far he may be able to say this the is the demonstrate's fault. that's why we have some kind of a downturn in the economy going in the next election. i wonder whether voters will bite and if that's the thing that peels away some of his base that's been loyal to him up to now. >> that's a very good point.

his approval ratings have been in the low to mid-40s, sometimes dipping below that. clearly held up in part by the fact that the economy has been doing well. otherwise it might fall further. we saw these numbers, i think, came out today about the house elections. 53% of voters chose democrats in these mid-term elections versus 45% chose republicans. that's an eight-point gap, much larger than the three-point gap that the democrats won the popular vote in 2016. you have to be worried about natural you're president trump's strategist looking ahead. what has helped him so far is the economy. it undercuts the single most powerful argument he's had with the electorate. >> gm ceo said we made a business decision here to keep our company alive. president trump said quote they better damn will open up a new plant very quickly talk about the state of ohio.

peter baker thank you very much. mississippi tonight, democrat mike espy, can he pull an upset against cindy hyde-smith? >> it will be interesting to see. alabama is different than mississippi. this could be a win/loss situation for republicans, if they win they may get a substandard standard bearer in the senate which creates more longer term consequences. >> thanks so much. still ahead an issue that has split some top republicans. criminal justice reform. we'll talk to senator mike lee about that and what he says to colleagues who are trying to pump the brakes. you're watching "morning joe". we'll be right back. this is not a bed.

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hello. >> this call is from the federal prison. >> held jobs mom. >> i love you. >> do you know why mommy is there? >> the kids that lived with her

were doing bad things and that's why she's there because she was actually with those kids. >> basically i lived in the home. i didn't buy these drugs. any crimes that he committed while we lived together i was charged with. >> the minute she heard that door knock and they had an warrant for her arrest. i turned around and saw her hugging the kids. that was tough. she knew already. >> i'm going to try to tell your story. try to make something good out of this. >> thank you, brother. >> i remember she always used to play with me and she used to comb my hair. >> the more i think about them, the more those memories are slipping away. >> it's been tough for the last nine years without her being here. >> there are thousands and thousands of people just like her serving the same ridiculously insane sentences. >> she did not go to the police so she was guilty. what we can't wrap our heads

around as a family, as her brother, as her children is the sentence she received. >> missing my daughters grow up, that's what i was sentenced to. >> that's a look at the hbo documentary "the sentence" in a call for criminal justice reform in the u.s. the director tells the story of his sister cindy who received a 15 year mandatory sentence for conspiracy charges related to her deceased ex-boyfriend's crimes. and the filmmaker joins us right now. also with us from capitol hill, member of the judiciary committee republican senator mike lee of utah. senator lee this month helped introduced revised bill with bipartisan support. it's been endorsed by president trump. gentlemen thank you for being here. rudy, tell us more about the story of your sister cindy. the girlfriend problem is what they call it in criminal justice system. 15 years for living in a house where crimes were taking place.

>> yeah. first thing i want to say, my sister was guilty. there's no, we're not trying to say thieves innocent. she was guilty. she made poor decisions. my sister was sentenced six years after the fact, after her ex was murdered. other people went away and they came and indicted her five years later, sentenced her six years later. during those six years she got married, had two kids, was pregnant. this didn't sit right with me. i didn't know what i was going to do but i knew i had to fight. as i started to do more research about what happened to her i realized she wasn't the only person. this were thousands of other people serving sentences like her. i can sit back and deal with this and let this sort of destroy our family or i can make something good out of it and i decided to tell her story. i wanted to tell it in an apolitical way. i wanted to tell the human side of the story. i wanted to share what you don't

read in the headlines and that's ramifications of these sentences, the people left behind, the children left behind. my goal was to show what it did to the people, to her daughters, what it was like for them to grow up without a mother. >> as you did the research, what was the thinking, the rationale behind minimum 15 years for a crime like your sister's. >> it boils down to a lot of things. the rhetoric of you see drug crimes, you see, you know, bad people need to be taken off the streets and they are a detriment to society. one of the things i wanted to show it's more complex than that. it's more complex than the headlines you read. these are people, community members, people who can be contributing members of society. and they are swept up in these larger, you know, laws that were written to take down kingpins but used to sweep up everyone. >> senator, it does feel like a

moment in america right now where there's some movement on this issue. partly because of ledge allocati -- legislation like yours. what will change? >> we'll have a criminal justice system in the united states that's fairer and that's more geared towards getting people ready to return to society as contributing husbands, wives, daughters, fathers, mothers and instead of rotting sometimes for decades at a time in federal prison. and you said it well just a minute ago you said this goes far beyond the economic costs of incarcerating someone. there's tremendous human costs. one of the things i love about the movie that rudy put together and one of the reasons why i attended a private screening of "the sentence" and showed it to my republican colleagues in the senate. i want people to understand the extent and the depth of the

human costs imposed by these laws that sometimes don't make any sense. >> senator, america has about 4% of the world's population but has 22% of prisoners in the globe. what's the single most important thing that the united states needs to do to redress that? is it mandatory minimum sentencing, changes to that? why do you think it is that somebody like senator tom kaufman is opposed to what you're trying to do? >> as to the first part of the question yes we do need to address our minimum mandatory sentences. you can imagine one that imposes one day or six weeks. when we get into a situation where routinely we're imposing 15, 20, 25, sometimes 55 year minimum mandatory sentences, you have to ask yourself the question does this punishment

fit the crime. are we doing more to harm families, communities and neighborhoods than we are to reform people and deter crime? that's the center of my disagreement. i believe this legislation would make america more safe than less. >> senator, you looked into this issue and i commend you for doing it. i wonder, in your research, did you come up with an opinion as to whether these long sentences have any sort of beneficial impact? do they help, help keep crime down, or are they essentially useless? >> i believe that in many instances they might well be counter productive. that is to say that when you take into account the cost to the government and especially to the cost to the family to the

community to the neighborhood they might end up producing the opposite of the results that we want. take for instance a young man who was prosecuted for a federal crime in salt lake city. he sold three dime bags of marijuana. user quantities. because he had a gun on his person at the time which was not brandished or discharged in connection with the offense, because of the way he was charged he received 55 year minimum mandatory sentence. now this makes no sense. the why who sentenced him made the observation there are murderers and rapists and kidnappers and terrorists who don't get anywhere near that amount of time yet the judge said i have no choice to but to impose this sentence. then he said something that would change my life. he said only congress can fix this problem. those words have been haunting me for the eight years i've been in the senate. that's why i want to fix that problem through this bill. >> hopefully senator lee's bill will get to the floor of the senate. let's get back to the people outside the law, people left

behind. tell us more about the child who is six weeks old when her mother went away for 15 years. who has raised her. what's it like? what does she know? what does she absorb about what happened to her mom? >> the one thing i'll say is we're very fortunate in the sense that cindy's husband who she had the children with is an amazing father. and her six-week-old was able to grow up with love surrounding her and family supporting her and she was able to maintain contact, connection with her mother throughout the incarceration. >> what kind of contact? >> mostly phone calls. during the course of my sister's incarceration she was moved to florida which is a long way from michigan. during the course of the three and a half years she was in florida the girls saw her three times during that time. so these are the real sacrifices. >> what happens within that system when the bureau of prisons seemingly goes overboard

in terms of separating geographically the inmate from the family? >> i think it does exactly the opposite of what prison system should be doing. we have this punitive approach to sentencing that's not a rehabilitative approach to sentencing. the very thing that reduce s crime is a feeling you have a home to go to. working on other projects and speaking to other families it feels the beginning of a sentence through the end and even when you come home the sentence is, the sentencing structure is set up to break down every level of communication and connection and community connection and hope and it just feels so counter productive to me. we're not thinking about the human cost in all of this, we're creating this vicious cycle. that's why children with incarcerated parents are more likely to go to prison. this is a system they know and they have a family that's broken

down and the human toll is, you know, it's amazing. >> as a family member who was on the side of making those phone calls to prison and the charges that those phone calls can cost and you see the prison industrial complex up close, is that lobby just because prisons have become such big business in this country, is that lobby a big part of the problem? >> i mean i'm not a politician. i'm a filmmaker and somebody who went through this on a personal level. i do think especially seeing the entire process from beginning to end the most troubling part to me has been not only the trauma that is causing people left behind and the children but the fact people are profiting off of it. that makes no sense to me. the markups on these phone calls, when my sister was first sent away, $7 for a 15 minute phone call? these are life lines.

>> you can afford it. how many people are in prison as part of being poor? >> we can afford it in the sense, you see it in the film, my father literally on nights and weekends sold scrap metal to send money to my sister so she can maintain a connection. it's very expensive. you take the phone calls, you take the visits. it would cost thousands of dollars to get the girls to florida for a visit. they would get to see her for five hours or six hours two days in a row and then they don't know when they are going back to see her again. it's insane the toll it takes on people emotionally, financially. and i don't like to calm it a broken system. it's not a broken system. it's working exactly the way it's designed. we need a new system a rehabilitative system. >> your film is making a difference. the documentary is called "the

sentence" an available on hbo. thanks so much for being. senator lee before we let you go, will this bill see the floor? do you think it has a shot at passing? >> i believe it will see the senate floor. if it does, as i expect it to, it will pass. it will pass overwhelmingly with bipartisan support. >> good work by you and we hope it does pass. still ahead on this morning joe we'll talk to a former teacher of the year when she made history when she became the first african-american woman elected to congress. (whooshing)

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year at kennedy high school in waterbury, connecticut. we heard your platform. we heard some of your ideas. how did you win? >> i just went out and really talked to people. got groups of people engaged who had not voted before, who had been disengaged for a very long time. got young people and millennials motivated and really just had this authentic message that connected with people in the 5th district. >> congresswoman, again, congratulations on your victory. gate to see you win that seat. let me ask you, you know about to be an official member of congress. when you were here with us on set, you indicated you would not vote for nancy pelosi. has your position changed? what your thinking now? what are you telling my friend seth? >> i came into washington with an open mind. i said i want to hear all the information, and i want to cast a vote that's best for the people in my state.

no one has requested me for a vote other than nancy pelosi. you know, last week we were here for orientation and we caucused and i was of the mind put up or shut up. nobody came to mean at this point i think it's unreasonable for anyone to expect a vote when they haven't even asked. so i'm prepared to support nancy pelosi in caucus tomorrow when votes are cast. >> that's amazing. tell us how that happened. how did she ask you for your vote? did she ask you for a meeting? did you go see her? when did it take place? >> well, last week i did have a face-to-face meeting with leader pelosi and she laid out a platform and her vision for where we move. i expressed my concern about, you know, people have spoken. they are looking for shifts in leadership. they are looking for generational change. many thing i spoke about on the campaign and we have to acknowledge that. we have to make a path where we are bringing people along and positioning people for

leadership. and she acknowledged that she thought that was important and she flat out asked me for my support and i told her i need to hear all the information and i waiting just to hear if anyone else would step up, if anyone else would ask for a vote, if anyone else would present a contrast to her and that has not happened. >> what the congresswoman-elect just said, tip o'neill once told me the contime he ran for the house of representatives the woman across the street he bumped into her one day walking down russell street in cambridge where they both lived and he said gee, don't forget to get out and vote for me tomorrow. she said i don't know if i well. he said what do you mean. you've known me for all my life. but you didn't ask. everybody likes to be asked. >> that's important. my in-laws live in your district. ate beautiful place.

i want to talk to you briefly about your campaign platform. you campaigned on a medicare for all platform. we have bernie sanders plan which the urban institute would have to be offset by reductions in outlays to health care providers by as much as 40% and tax increases to the tune of $25,000 per annum across the board. more for some, less for others but significant tax increases. are you prepared to vote for something that corresponds along those lines? >> absolutely. that was probably one of the things that really drew me to supporting leader pelosi. i recognized the work she did on the affordable care act and getting that passed and rallying the votes to get it passed. all democrats recognize there are some challenges with that health care plan, that it was not a perfect bill. it needed reform going in. and especially in my district that was one of the things that people were most concerned

about. so, i plan to work very hard with all democrats, republicans, anyone who will move us closer to a plan to have more people and not less insured. >> again, since i spend so much time in your district i know about the voters and they are deeply concerned about tax increases. you are prepared to raise taxes on your voters? >> i don't think anybody wants to raise taxes. we can find cuts in other areas. there are ways to find money by shifting maybe funds from other places, by looking at some of the cuts that were already made in the republican tax plan and really reallocating those funds so we can help more people and not less. >> you've had a chance now to be in washington for a few days. you've gone through the orientation, found out about the cell phones, ways of getting around the building. what in your early impressions do you think now are going to be the biggest hurdles for you in congress in implementing the platform that you campaigned on

and that you won on. >> well, what i realized very quickly last week is i came anesthesia a work horse and not a show horse. it's going to take working with people, collaborating on bothsides of the aisle, bringing people together and finding out where we have commonalities and working from there. many people came in with these hard lines and defined positions and what i'm realizing is in a room with 435 people compromise is key. it's essential to be "columbia"ive and go in and be solution driven. >> jahana hayes the national teacher of the year in a matter of a few weeks united states congresswoman. thank you for being with us. we appreciate it. >> coming up next we're following breaking news out of afghanistan. details of a roadside bombing just coming in with american casualties. what we know after the break.

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there is breaking news from

the war in afghanistan. the u.s. military says three american service members have been killed in a roadside bombing in the province just south of kabul. a u.s. civilian contractor was also wounded in the blast. on saturday, an army sergeant was killed while engaging with enemy forces in afghanistan. in total, five u.s. service members have been killed in afghanistan this month and 13 total this year. reports today of three more. we don't have their names. we don't know the exact circumstances yet except that it was a roadside bomb. three more americans killed in afghanistan. 9/11 is now 17 years and two months ago. 2414 deaths in afghanistan, those are just the american deaths. sergeant jasso would have been in second grade when 9/11

happened. >> he was around 8 years old when we began this war in afghanistan. we have a country who are less than 1% serve in afghanistan and iraq. you can go for weeks on end without encountering a family whose son or daughter is serving. we are isolated from the reality of the war. it comes home to dover, delaware, as it will most likely later this week with three more american casualties. at some point, we have to get out of afghanistan. and at some point this war has to end. because the human cost in terms of casualties is certainly one thing and the most important thing, but the cost to the families who have sufficiented throu -- suffered through multiple deployments of their loved ones has been unbelievable. >> three americans killed in a roadside bomb just south of kabul in afghanistan today.

that brings to five the total number of americans killed just this month in a war that's more than 17 years long now. still ahead, president trump defends the use of tear gas against migrants on the southern border. - [narrator] meet the ninja foodi, the pressure cooker that crisps. it's the best of pressure cooking and air frying all in one so in as little as 30 minutes it will be crispy on the outside, juicy on the inside, and on your table. the ninja foodi, the pressure cooker that crisps. ♪ on the outside, juicy on the inside, and on your table.

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both sides. he saved his sharpest words yesterday for special counsel robert mueller, who just nailed paul manafort again for his, quote, crimes and lies, even after he'd agreed to a plea deal. it is election day in mississippi where embattled republican senator cindy hyde-smith is trying to keep her seat. meanwhile the president's disapproval rating spikes to 60% in a new gallup poll, the highest level this year. and the opposition from some democrats to nancy pelosi is not going away even as the party smashes a midterm record dating back to watergate. those are just a few of the stories we'll be covering of a very busy news morning. i'm willie geist alongside mike barnicle, sam stein and noah

rothman and associate editor of the "washington post" eugene robinson. joe and mika are off this week. >> let's begin with the new court filing concerning former trump campaign chairman paul manafort. robert mueller's office is accusing manafort of violating the plea deal he agreed to earlier this year. in a joint status report filed last night, mueller's team wrote, quote, after signing the plea agreement, manafort committed federal crimes by lying to the federal bureau of investigation and to the special counsel's office which constitutes breaches of the agreement. manafort's lawyers are disputing the assertions, writing, manafort has provided information to the government in an effort to live up to his cooperation obligations. he believes he has provided

truthful information and does not agree with the government's characterization of that he has breached the agreement. back in august a federal court found manafort guilty on several counts of financial fraud. manafort entered into a plea deal by participating in interviews, providing documents and testifying in court. both cases involve manafort's political consultancy for a previous russian backed government of ukraine long before he served briefly as donald trump's campaign chairman. s suss this out a little bit. what's the significance of it? >> this plea agreement is a contract. they have very serious constitutional itch camplicatio. a defend is giving up his fifth and sixth amendment rights and often his right to appeal.

i can't tell you how often this happens that the government decides well, we've listened to everything you have to say, we don't think you're really cooperating, so we're going to consider you in the breach of the agreement and we're not going to give you any of that substantial assistance, reduction in sentencing that you so dearly wanted. meanwhile, on the other hand, the defend says, look, i really did provide you everything i know and the government just doesn't believe it. ultimately a court can decide if a defendant forces the issue. >> the backdrop is that president trump finished his written questions and submitted them, the questions provided by special counsel's office. does that tell you anything about this? or do you think those two are unrelated? >> the timing could be significant in that president trump's answers may vary somewhat with what paul manafort provided in terms of information. but i would stress that the government surely has other corroborating information to show that it believes that manafort was not truthful.

and they might have even given him an opportunity to correct that what they believe to be lies before they decided that the plea agreement was breached and that they should just move forward to sentencing. a lot of times defendants think they can get away with not remembering or misremembering or telling 90% of what they know and leaving the other 10% out. oftentimes the government is two steps ahead of that defendant. >> can the mueller team go and ask that the sentence be imposed upon manafort now based upon the guilty verdicts in the federal trial that took place earlier this year? and the second part to this question -- and this is purely speculation -- but what would happen if it were revealed, if it were found out that manafort has a promise of a pardon and thus heeds leads to his lying? >> the whole reason manafort entered into that agreement was

for a reduced sentence when it comes to that sentencing date. only at that time of sentencing if the government thinks he's cooperated, it's the government's prerogative to file a 5k1 motion for a downward departure. that reduces significantly a defendant's sentence. but the challenge for defendants is that it's usually up to the prosecutors to decide whether or not the defendant cooperated. part two is the pardon. the mueller team does not operate with pardons in mind. and given trump's experience or history in showing loyalty or disloyalty to those underneath him and the fact that he said i barely newman foknew manafort, relying on a pardon might be a real hail mary in this situation. >> if manafort doesn't get a pardon, the consequences for him are pretty obvious. that's a long jail term. what does all this mean for

mueller and the probe? does it suggest that anything he's got from paul manafort now needs to be corroborated by other sources and is this a blow for the investigation? >> the government is getting hand in hand with someone the government also believes to be a liar and a criminal. as manafort was cooperating, the government always knew he was going to have credibility problems if he ever testified or provided information and that defense lawyers could point to that, that this man is a convicted liar. but manafort's lies, at least as the government perceived them, must have reached a point where even the government, mueller's team decided that, you know, we can't use him anymore, he's just gone too far. he's just breached the plea agreement. we're happy to keep the information that he's given us, but in terms of his use to us as a cooperating witness, we don't need him anymore. this happens all the time. >> just a few hours before that

news broke about paul manafort, president trump was tweeting about the russian russian probe, writing, when mueller does his final report, will he be covering all of his conflicts of interest in a preamble? will he be recommending action of all of the crimes of many kinds of those on the other side. whatever happened to podesta, the president asked. and will he be putting in statements with hundreds of people close to my campaign who never met, saw or spoke to a russian during this period. so many campaign workers asked me why they have not been called. they want to be. there was no collusion and mueller knows it, writes trump. it's north noting that department of justice officials concluded shortly after his appointment in 2017 that robert mueller was free of any conflicts that would interfere with him overseeing the government investigation. you can see the case that's being put together by the white house and president trump for when this report drops, whenever it does, which is that it was incomplete, unfair and conducted by somebody with conflicts of

interest. >> that tweet settles it. case closed. no. this is going to be a prolonged, protracted effort by the administration, rudy giuliani and trump top among them, to discredit the probe when it comes out. they are putting together their own report. they are going to be releasing their own set of findings. it's going to be largely historical and probably a bit biassed, i would argue. we also know that rudy hinted that they would fight the release of the report citing executive privilege hoping to bottle it up. matt whittaker's appointment as acting attorney general probably plays a role here. i do have a question for danny on this front if he's still around. if they fight this report release, my question to you is this, mueller and manafort will have to go before a judge, is my understanding of how thing goes to outline where they're accusing manafort of having breached his plea agreement of having lied.

will that report, the secondary report about manafort lying, be made public? in other words, will they be able to release information about their own probe in a vehicle other than the final report and will the public get to see it? >> courts are different than the mueller team's mandate for secrecy. anything that's filed in court, unless it's fielded under se seal -- and there's a presumption against compiling things under seal in federal court. there will be a prolonged hearing where there will be witnesses called and information revealed and we will learn that information, because the sentencing will be open to the public and people will be able to hear what exactly manafort did and did not do. if mueller's team files a public document outlining his lies, then we will know what those lies were. surely paul manafort will take every opportunity to dispute

that and have his lawyers introduce evidence showing that he didn't lie. >> that just shows in a way that mueller has kind of circumvented the executive privilege process to allow some of his findings potentially to be made public. >> as you listen, noah, there are theories that legal analysts have been putting out overnight about perhaps robert mueller let manafort lie to him and assume manafort would get back word to the president of the united states of what mueller's after and then the president would maybe lie in his written witnesses. what does this mean, the loss of manafort as a witness? >> there's a pardon possibly in the wind or maybe he thinks that the mueller probe would dissolve, somehow absolving him. more importantly in order to engage in this kind of dangerous

risk is that he believes he's protecting somebody and it's not himself. who is he protecting? the first impulse is to say the president obviously. but paul manafort's connections are more likely to be with unseemly agents in eastern europe. >> you think he's going to go to jail for a very long time to protect interests in the ukraine? >> so and then you consider why. how dangerous is that risk to him and the people around him? and there are some very unsavory folks in eastern europe. >> is there something to paul manafort that is more scary than the prospect of 10-15 years in jail and is that a russian coming for him in the middle of the night? i find that a stretch in the narrative. i know there's almost nothing at the moment that seems

implausible and the reality tv element of this makes any plot twist something that woe eve seen already. >> isn't the occam razor's explanation here that robert mueller knows far more than paul manafort. >> he's lied his entire career and got away with it until now, so why not carry on doing it? 6 in 10 americans disapprove of the president right now. we'll run through the numbers and how the president's change in popularity might impact capitol hill. bill karins has a look at the forecast. >> we have two big storms and cold air in the middle. we've heard reports of 15 inches of snow in northern portions of new england and vermont. additional snowfall still to come, another 6-12 in many spots

where you see the red and the pink here. it's been a banner early ski season for northern new england. in the west this rainfall coming into northern california soaking the northwest. eventually this rain is going to get down to southern california, looks like wednesday night into thursday morning. even los angeles will get some of that heavy rain. it's good but we still have to watch out for the mud and debris flows. today 23 degrees in chicago. it's like midwinter out there, 21 degrees below normal. this is sweeping all the way through the south. only 42 in atlanta. it's cold and chilly today, but it's really tomorrow morning that you'll feel it. windchill values in the teens as far south as atlanta. chicago at 7 tomorrow morning. midwinter type gear as we go throughout tomorrow. then that cold air sweeps down through florida. 60s in florida, some of the coolest air they've seen so far

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threshold of gaining the 40th seat in the house. a loss wou-- democrats have flid 49 house seats, 7 governors mansions and 349 state legislative seats. judging by the raw number of votes, nbc news election data finds the size of the democrats' midterm victory has now surpassed the record for either party set in 1974. the results have gotten worse for republicans in orange

county, california. the stronghold of conservative republicans is now completely represented by democrats, but had voted for the republican candidate for governor by double digits including in the last four elections. but not this this one. last night orange county posted results showing democratic governor-elect gavin newsome taking a slim lead over john cox. that's a lot of numbers. we knew this was a wave. look at the house, but also add in all the state elections. but when you look at the president's 38% job approval, what's going on at this moment in his presidency to reflect those numbers? >> the decimation of the gop and their ancestral homeland there of orange county, california, should resonate strongly with this party.

the number that struck me there was the 400 legislative seats. if they continue on that pace, they will outpace the gop's ability to decimate the democratic party in a way that we haven't seen in a generation and make up some ground there too. republicans shouldn't be framing this election as some sort of a silver lining where they managed to perform better on the state levels in the senate seats. this was a devastating wave election and they should take it as the brush back pitch that it was meant to be. >> president trump is not taking it that way. you look at that number of a 60% disapproval. he's been there four times in his presidency but that matches his low. >> that's a stunning and awful number for him, frankly. i'm a compulsive gallup weekly

tracking poll watcher, soy watch it jiggle. this is a huge change from last week. we'll see what happens again next monday, if it pops up a little or continues to go down or stay there is there. these are awful numbers. it is incredible that he's never reached 50%. it shows there is a ceiling for donald trump. it looks like the ceiling may be lowering. i think politically the situation looks worse and worse for donald trump, not better and better. and he's staring 2020 in the face. he's going to have a rough two years facing a democratic house and going into a reelection campaign with what looks like historic unpopularity. coming up on "morning joe", shep smith has fact checked the

president on the migrant caravan, on bob mueller and now on climate change. americans rose up this november and rejected donald trump. more unhinged by that than ever, this president declared war on the rule of law. but you gave democrats the power to hold him in check. a majority vote in the house can impeach him and expose his lawless behavior for all to see. they just need the will. please join over six million americans and together we can give congress the courage to act. then, we can begin building a more just and prosperous future.

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the climate science is accepted science. governments across the nation are spending billions of dollars preparing for what is to come. the u.s. military too. billions of dollars. this is not a political issue. it's science. but some have made it political, especially republicans. as a result, a lot of folks have missed this report. it was dropped, as i said, a head of schedule on black friday when a lot of americans are busy shopping, eating thanksgiving leftovers and spending time with the family. but it's extremely important. >> i've seen it. i've read some of it. it's fine. >> yeah. i don't believe it. no, i don't believe it. >> it's fine, says the president. president trump blunt on where he stands on the findings of top scientists from 13 federal

agencies. the president added that it makes no sense for the united states to take drastic steps to fight climate change when other countries like china and japan have not done so. gene, your latest piece is titled the world is on fire and trump is playing with matches. the president obviously dismissive of that reported. when he talked about not believing it, he was speaking specifically about the economic impact laid out in that report. >> yeah. this is criminal really when you get down to it. i mean, you know, i have followed this issue since the first earth summit on climate change in 1992. i was south america correspondent then. i covered that meeting. i was since spent more of my life than i care to admit reading these sort of dry reports from the international scientists and u.s. scientists about climate change and i have

watched this become increasingly more dire, increasingly more distressed and increasingly more certain of what's going on. now there just isn't a question. there's no question about the science. there's no question about what's happening. the question is a political question, what we do about it. but we have a president who chooses willfully to ignore the facts all around him. one of the things, for example, last week president trump went out to visit the scene of that awful fire in california, the paradise fire, the camp fire that killed 85 people and destroyed 14,000 homes. well, in this report it notes that the acreage that has burned in wildfires in this country in the last three decades or so is double what it would have been in the absence of climate

change. these figures and these calculations become less and less speculative and more concrete and real with every report. it is tragic that we have a president who at this critical who chooses not to be a firefighter but an arsonist. >> he also likes to rake the forest floor. there are climate change deniers, but then there are people, conservatives who say i don't believe it's as man made as some of these scientists say, i don't believe we should overhaul our country based on climate change. >> there's also sort of a finer distinction, but one that is necessary too, which is that a projection of specific impacts

is something we should look on with skepticism because it has been proven in the past that these projections of very specific impacts failed to meet expectations. the 2001 report was wrong about snowstorms being more or less intense than normal. just last week we had a consensus opinion about oceanic temperatures rising being retracted, not because of thepe review but because a skeptic in a blog pointed out the errors. >> the idea that temperatures are rising and sea levels are rising is not disputable at this point. your question is whether the long-term projections can be taken as gospel. >> correct. we were just talking about the car market, right?

the car market's being very disrupted. one of the things they did ten years ago was make a bad bet. they bet on rising oil prices. that was wrong. it turned out that making small cars did not appeal to a market in which gas prices were lowered as a result of innovation. no one predicted that. betting against human innovation is a bad bed. the trump administration insists its policy was not to separate families for the purposes of deterring migrants from crossing the border. we'll talk about that through the lens of something jeff sessions said not all that long ago. >> the department of homeland security is now referring 100% of illegal southwest border crossings to the department of justice for prosecution. if you are smuggling a child, then we will prosecute you.

that child may be separated from you as required by law. so if you're going to come to this country, come here legally, don't come here illegally.

they had to use because they were being rushed by some very tough people and they used tear gas. here's the bottom line, nobody is coming into our country unless they come in legally. >> how did you feel when you saw the images of the women and children running from the tear gas? >> i do say why are they there. the tear gas is a very minor form of the tear gas itself. it's very safe. the ones that were suffering to a certain extent were the people that were putting it out there. but it's very safe. you really say why is a parent running up into an area where they know the tear gas is forming and it's going to be formed and they're understanding up with a child? in some cases, they're not the

parents. these are people, they call them grabbers. they grab a child because they think they're going to have a certain -- they're going to have a certain status by having a child. you know, you have certain advantages in terms of our crazy laws that frankly congress should be changing. >> president trump among other things inventing the term grabbers at that round table last night, also talking about the tear gas used on crowds sunday sunday. the commissioner of customs and border protection acknowledged in an interview last night there is only one standard form used by all u.s. law enforcement.

>> they had this cover right away. to pick up the work of the great robert b. parker has been saw some. >> it's a book that demands to be opened with that cover. jacob, what do you make of the recent developments? >> i just help but continue to think what we're seeing down there now in tijuana is another manufactured crisis just like the child separations. we don't have to have 8,000 migrants sitting in tiny shelters and now in football stadiums south of the border. you can allocate more resources to the border to process those people and get them into the united states or at least have their asylum claims heard. over the summer it was the forced separation of, we thought, according to the trump administration, 2600 kids. now 60 minutes and others have said it might be as many as 5,000. they use this process called

meters which slows the whole asylum seeking process down. they're seeing somewhere between 50 to 100 people a day. when you have a process that was backed up to 2,000 people there before the so-called caravan even arrived, then you have thousands of people arriving on top of that, it's a recipe for disaster. donald trump is manufacturing through his policies a very dangerous situation that's obviously boiling over right now. >> the president's talked about this remain in mexico policy. he says it is a policy. the mexican government says, no, we haven't agreed to that yet. just this one group in tijuana is staying in shelters, not enough resources. imagine the backlog that would be there if there were a remain in mexico policy. >> it's a mess.

the bottom line is they're putting troops on the border. they're not putting immigration judges, they're not putting people that process asylum claims on the border. th the 2018 national drug threat assessment came out just the beginning of this month. it said spillover violence is not cause for concern along the southwest border. there are drug cartels and criminals on the other side of the border, but the fact is according to donald trump's d.e.a., it doesn't come over to this other side of the border, at least in damaging and measurable levels. >> how many children are still separated from their parents because of this original disastrous and incompetent policy? >> there were 25 that were still ineligible out of the 5,000, according to this latest number

with about 99 who they say that the parents have bailed on the kids and have gone back. obviously people like the aclu will dispute those numbers. you heard again the president by the way saying in response to that 60 minutes report, this was an obama administration policy. this wasn't a deterrent. the government came out and said this was never a deterrent policy. i brought a clip, because i just want to say it is so ridiculous to hear the government to continue to say over and over again this wasn't a deterrent policy, this was never designed to rip families apart. this is what manuel padilla told me about whether or not this was a deterrent policy. are you trying to deter people from coming by separating children and their parents and prosecuting 100% of the people who come here? >> yes. so the point is we have an upward trend, right? so if we do not do anything, we are going to be in a crisis

mode. >> so separating parents and kids is to put consequences on them coming here together? >> yes, yes. >> it's not just him. the attorney general of the united states jeff sessions said explicitly that it was a deterrent. >> john kelly as well. it is as absurd as saying we need to fire tear gas at women and children along the border. >> do you think this is a deliberate employ, keeping people outside of the country as they wait to seek asylum which was in contravention of not just u.s. law but also international law. do you think there's a sense there if they can create enough chaos on the border, have enough images of people protesting on the border because they haven't got services, they're cueing up to an hour for food and to use the bathroom. that it's somehow a deliberate

political ploy on the part of the administration? >> absolutely. i think the trump administration knows that as long as this debate stayed locked in, they believe they're winning with their base. that's why you don't hear real, serious discussion about what it would take to address what is happening at our border. that would mean investment in these asylum seekers' home country, continued sustained generous investment such that you can mitigate some of these push factors that are bringing asylum seekers here. it means refugee protections and international resettlement plans. it means resources towards our asylum process such that you can speed this up. that's what it would sound like to have this conversation in a sane, reasonable way, but instead we're talking about tear gassing children in diapers at our border. >> he wants these pictures. you know, there's a great modern expression, crisis managers.

this is crisis creating on the border. i was surprised he even answered back on 60 minutes the other night. he liked what he saw. he wants that chaos on the border as he continues to treat these people, so many of whom are leaving violent lives in central america like terrorists. there are some bad people. yeah, like bad 4-year-olds that got tear gassed the other day. >> donald trump probably does benefit politically from those images, but i find it difficult to see how he could have similarly organized such a thing. as you said, there are 5,000 or so on this border but only a couple hundred making this charge. that doesn't happen by accident. that's organized. anybody who's familiar with the palestinian territories recognizes this behavior. it's theatrical. >> he created the conditions for this volatile situation to occur by metering people coming through the border. you don't have to slow the

asylum process down to a halt, which creates this bottleneck of people which creates resentment and anger. he uses very heated rhetoric about these people who are trying to exercise their international right to seek asylum. he's antagonizing them. he is creating the war zone that doesn't exist. >> the images they're generating here are benefitting both sides. >> not as much as they benefit him. >> it's literally a campaign talking point. last night in mississippi donald trump said, i'm keeping you safe, i've got to keep these people out of the country, out of mississippi and keep you safe. he's using this politically. >> by the way, it is still as sickening to me as seeing the kids in the cages, because it doesn't have to happen. you know who it does hurt? the women and the children who are getting gassed with tear gas in diapers with no shoes on. it's disgusting. >> they're political pawns, as

are the u.s. troops sent down to the border on a political mission for donald trump's electoral advantage. >> this storming the barricades notion about these caravans, i'm sorry, which person from the caravan is going to end up shooting up a synagogue in pittsburgh on a saturday morning? yeah, there's bad guys everywhere, but the idea that this is a threat to everything decent in republic is absurd. >> president trump meanwhile is toying with the idea of creating a new government run world wide television network in an evident, evidenffort to counter cnn international which is broadcast in more than 200 countries. [ laughter ] >> i'm sorry. >> president trump harped on the network writing in part throughout the world cnn has a powerful voice portraying the united states in an unfair and false way. something has to be done, including the possibility of the united states starting our own world wide network to show the world the way we really are, great.

shortly after taking office president trump dispatched two aides to look into the voa studios which raised concerns his administration would put its stamp on the network's broadcast arm. the "washington post" notes that ahead of the 2016 election, speculation had swirled around the possibility of a trump tv channel should trump have lost his bid for the white house. remember, when a lot of people didn't think he would win, they were talking about him setting himself up for that. is this just the president spouting off about something that will never happen? >> i don't think that the white house is presently engaged in buying studio space and hiring talent to have a broadcast network aimed around the world. i do think what you said at the end there is pretty accurate. i think donald trump didn't think this was the way 2016 was going to go. it was going the way of him having a broader platform in media. >> i work for a public

broadcaster funded by the british public. it is a tough time to launch a global international news channel without a very clear source of revenue. the business model would be is so -- >> it still takes my breath away almost two years into his presidency he lacks so much basic knowledge about the power of the u.s. government and what he wields throughout the world. he just has no idea. no capacity or curiosity to educate himself. >> imagine the hurt feelings at fox. all those ingrams are thinking we give and give and now he's already got his eye on another network. >> we don't want to dismiss it but i think long shot? >> it's a long shot but i think the bigger issue is what he believes the process is supposed

to be. we got a window into this, about north korea's state-run television program. they treat you so much more nicely than they treat me. he doesn't believe that the role is to question those in power. so should not be surprising. >> he doesn't want follow-ups at briefings either. jacob, thank you. mike, thank you as well. the book is robert b. parker's blood feud, out today. sure to pass michelle obama's memoir for number one on the best-seller list. coming up next, supreme court justice ruth bader ginsburg is back, fractured ribs and all. the 85-year-old's return to the high court when "morning joe" comes back. there's no excuse for what they did to you.

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the 85-year-old fell on her office on the last day of the court's november sitting. she was taken to the hospital and discharged. she returned to her post yesterday just in time to hear the first oral arguments for the december session. good to see justice ginsburg back on the bench. giving tuesday. joining us now, the president and ceo of the 92nd street y here in new york city. msnbc is the signature media partner of giving tuesday for the fifth year in a row. i was just saying, this has become such a transcendent event. i forgot it even started with you. what was the original idea? >> we were thinking we know about black friday, we know about cyber monday, what about giving tuesday? after two days of getting things for ourselves, a day to give

back to communities. that has spread not just through the u.s. but over 100 countries. >> $46 million raised. in 2017, more than $300 million were raised. >> incredible. do you target something specific? is there something particular this year? >> it's so easy to think -- we heard this morning the world's on fire. there's within secret to giving tuesday. people everywere grabbed this idea and made it their own. there were just these instantaneous moments of good will. everywhere from bethel, alaska, a small community group. everyone in dallas and ft. worth are coming together to volunteer and give. can take something very community based and real scale. >> you need a catchy name for

the wednesday now. >> i do think -- one of the things -- one of the things we think about is bad news stories. how do we push back? >> do you find -- maybe it's just anecdotal. do you find in dark times people are more generous because they want to make a difference? >> sure. we get to vote every four years but philanthropy is a way to do it every day. americans everywhere have strengthened our democracy by philanthropy. >> has there been an uptick in the last two years? >> we've seen promising signs. i think there's always some nervousness around giving.

it's hard not to think when everything is so shaky. giving matters more than ever. whether it's someone making a donation online, that's right what giving tuesday is about. >> puerto rico, a place that needs our help. over a year since the hurricane hit. >> that's right. the foundation is there today. it's doing some really important fund-raising around solar energy. i think people don't want to feel like the world is something which comes at them. giving's a great way to do that. >> thank you for continuing this tradition. henry, you've always got a good night lined up at the 92nd

street y. >> we always appreciate having you back. >> thank you very much and for the work you do. stephanie ruhle picks up our coverage. >> good morning, i'm stephanie ruhle. no deal. robert mueller pulls an agreement with manafort accusing him of crimes and lines. manafort losing almost any hope of not spending the rest of his life in prison. general motors announces plans to close five north american factories, slashing nearly 15,000 jobs. the announcement seen as good for the company, sending its stock price soaring but drawing the ire of many including president trump. >> we have a lot of pressure on them. i think you'll see something else there. they better p