isn't he? >> he's there in a certain way, but i'm not there. you have obama there. >> vladimir putin was in ukraine when donald trump made those comments two years ago. there are reports that russia is now blocking key ukrainian ports after a naval clash between the two countries this week. that raises the stakes for president the president's meeting with putin at the g20 which as of right now is still on. paul manafort's dealings are under new scrutiny from robert mueller and the special counsel's office. and president trump is not, he says, ruling out a pardon for his former campaign chair. meanwhile, the senate is sending a tough message to the white house on saudi arabia. the murder of journalist jamal khashoggi is not being whitewashed on capitol hill. >> welcome to "morning joe." we have mike barnacle, alesse

jordan, kimberly atkins, michael schmidt and joyce advance. joe and mika have the morning off. good morning to all of you. let's dive right in. just days after we learned the special counsel wants to scrap paul manafort's plea deal, president trump is now publicly discussing a possible pardon for his former campaign chairman. in an oval office interview, president trump left open the possibility of a pardon telling the paper, it was never discussed, but i wouldn't take it off the table. why would i take it off the table? in that interview, the president criticized robert mueller's investigation claiming that manafort, roger stone, and stone associate jerome corsi were all asked to lie. if you tell the truth, you go to jail, trump said. you know this flipping stuff is

terrible. but i had three people, manafort, corsi, i don't know corsi, but they refuse to say what he demanded. it's actually very brave, the president said, of the trio and i'm telling you, this is mccarthyism. we are in the mccarthy era. this is no better than mccarthy, says the president of the united states talking about the special counsel's investigation. joyce, let's pick through that a little bit and start with you on the president floating the idea of a pardon when he was asked. he said it's not off the table. that has to be music to paul manafort's ears who is now without his cooperation deal. >> i think that's probably true, willie. it's really hard to know where to start in this statement because there's so much going on, all of it bad for us as a country. but on that pardon issue, every prosecutor hears the president say that and your spidey senses all come into focus because it sounds like the president is dangling a pardon to paul

manafort. at this point in time, that's close to witness tampering. let me back up a little bit and say it's not enough in and of itself. we really would have to look at an entire course of conduct because, of course, the president would say oh, no, it's not an offer of a pardon. i'm just making a statement about my powers as president and that i'm taking nothing off the table. and it would be hard to get all of that alone across the finish line. but increasingly, the president's course of conduct makes clear that the same man who wanted jim comey to go easy on michael flynn to short circuit this investigation at the outset is still willing to do whatever he can to try to keep mueller from telling the american people what the truth is here. >> joyce, you've already alluded to witness tampering. let me ask you to put your prosecutor's hat back on. you can reach behind you and get it. tell us this, if you could. from your point of view from what we know, from the lawyers

for manafort discussing this ongoing affair with the lawyers for associated persons also charged, is there any cause here to wonder about, a, obstruction of justice, witness tampering, which you've mentioned, and key question at least for me and i think for others, what happens to lawyer-client privilege discussions here? >> yeah. so these are are complicated questions. and prosecutors are very conservative people because at the end of the day, our goal is to prove crimeser were committed beyond a reasonable doubt. the president likes to talk about a witch-hunt. that's not what prosecutors are doing because the burdens are so extreme. what you're referencing is this notion of the joint defense agreement that existed here apparently between the president

and at least 32 other people who were under investigation. and joint defense agreements are for people who believe that they will be indicted in the same indictment. and it's predicated upon this notion that in our system, we have the attorney-client privilege which permits clients to talk freely with their attorneys. if i committed a crime, i can talk freely with my attorney without fear that that will be exposed at some point in time. joint defense agreements extend that privilege to a group with common interest. the problem here is, once a defendant signs up to cooperate with the government, there's no more common interest. it's shattered. we saw that when mike flynn's lawyers gave the president notice that they were withdrawing from the joint defense agreement. i think that was our first inkling that one existed at all, in fact, was that they withdrew when flynn became a cooperator with the mueller investigation.

now we have paul manafort who was apparently cooperating with the government and with the white house. you can't do both of those things. none of those conversations that happened after manafort signed his plea deal are covered by the attorney-client privilege and that the white house as well as manafort and any other cooperators that were talking with the president could be examined by mueller about those conversations. >> so michael schmidt, we're getting new details about what president trump is said to have told special counsel robert mueller in those written answers to questions related to russian interference. two sources close to the matter says the president's statement says he was not told beforehand about the 2016 trump tower meeting. also, he wrote that he was not tipped off about the wikileaks disclosures by roger stone.

that's consistent with what the president said publicly and what stone told msnbc earlier this year. i can honestly say that candidate trump, donald trump, president trump and i have never discussed the wikileaks disclosures before, during or after. >> you've never had a single discussion about hillary clinton e-mails with him at all? >> that is correct. >> sources telling abc news another question dealt with backing off providing arms to ukraine guarding against russian aggression. the president told mueller he was not aware of it to the best of his recollection which is consistent with what trump said publicly. >> why did you soften the gop platform on ukraine? >> i wasn't involved in that. i wasn't -- >> your people were. >> yeah. i was not involved in that. i'd like to -- i'd have to take a look at it, but i was not involved in that. >> do you know what they did?

>> they softened it, i heard. but i was not involved. >> so going back to the first two questions that we have a window into, you have the president now saying what he said in interviews, but now going on the record with the special counsel's office and saying he absolutely did not know beforehand about the 2016 trump tower meeting. he's saying the that there was no connection to the wikileaks from him, perhaps from jerome corsi. >> yeah. we would have to see what the language says. how definitive watt it? did it leave open the possibility? did it say he didn't remember this or something like that? i'd be surprised if it was something so definitive. the interesting thing about the 2016 meeting at trump tower is that that was something that the president found out the prosecutors were hollering

manafort on. as manafort was meeting with them in recent weeks, they pushed manafort, the president's lawyers were told, repeatedly on that issue asking what did the president know about that meeting and did he -- what was he told about it afterwards. this was the meeting where russians came offering dirt on hillary clinton and the president's son sat down and met with them. and for the president, he says this as mueller trying to get manafort to give up something to incriminate the president and manafort insisted that he had nothing on that. that was part of a group of other things that had gone on in the past few weeks that led the president to initially delay sending in his responses to questions which ultimately did go in. >> michael, elise here. in the new york post interview yesterday, donald trump teased, perhaps, declassifying the fisa warrants and the text messages

between fbi agents. is this another teaser or what are you hearing from your sources about how likely it is that the president may declassify documents that are part of the mueller investigation? >> well, this is something that they've done before where they've made a lot of other documents available to congress as ways of undermining the fbi. this is a tactic that they have used before. but i think more importantly, to what they have tried to accomplish, you know, especially in the past few days, is they've gone back to the playbook of throwing a lot of different things against the wall. giuliani and trump really coming out saying a lot of different things, muddying the waters. the giuliani had sort of laid off of mueller in october and sort of the lead up to the election, but now it's basically return to what he was doing over the summer. and that's just making a lot of different noise about a lot of different issues, trying to make it look like the special

counsel's office is on this, you know, long ranging effort to get people to flip on the president, no matter what the truth is. >> meanwhile, kimberly, the president continues to go after the investigation itself. he tweeted last night, quote, so much happening with the now discredited witch-hunt. this total hoax will be studied for years. the president retweeted a series of tweets from a parody and fan account yesterday morning that included many controversial statements and inaccuracies. the president's retweets included one that showed a group of prominent democrats, including rod rosenstein and special counsel robert mueller behind bars accusing the group of trees job. front and center, two former presidents of the united states, the president approvingly retweeting that they ought to be in prison without offering specifics on why. the president, also in that interview with the new york post, compared this

investigation to mccarthyism saying he has raised the stakes at this point saying that it's a hoax and that it's been discredited. he's going all out to undermine this thing. >> he really is. this is not the first time we've seen this. in the last week or so through his twitter feed, you can see a real sharp escalation in that effort. and it tells you a couple of things. one, he is certainly thinking about it and messaging that f o through his twitter account. we have seen the president's efforts to have this investigation take root, public opinion regarding mueller and this probe has been on the steady decline for a while now. i think the president is counting on that, especially if

robert mueller is to return indictments within the campaign, is to issue a report that is critical of the president and his actions, he's trying to get out ahead of this and be able to say later, look, this was all phony, this was all a setup in order to save himself if he needs to. >> mike schmidt, tomorrow is another big legal day in this struggle when bob mueller's team goes into court to give some sort of explanation as to paul manafort and why he was accused of lying to the president prosecutor's team. what can we anticipate might happen tomorrow? >> well, i think what we have to look for is how much of what the government thinks manafort lied about is related to the president. are these simply things that were related to manafort's business, that had things to do with russia and the president

orrer these things that really are a central part of the investigation about contacts between the campaign and russia? what was really going on there? and we'll have to wait and see. and the thing that we -- i keep on coming back to on this is that the president thinks, the president has been told that this was about trying to get manafort to give up stuff on him. so we need to see tomorrow how far is it that mueller is willing to go on that issue. >> so we're learning now more, much more about why the plea deal between robert mueller and the special counsel's office effectively was ripped up by the special counsel. mueller slams manafort, says he violated his plea agreement by repeatedly lying to investigators. and according to the "wall street journal," those lies may include comments about manafort's personal business dealings and contacts with a former associate in ukraine. people familiar with the matter tell the journal in interviews with mueller's team, man if a fort allegedly made inaccurate statements about his contacts

with limnik. they were charged earlier this year for providing false information regarding manafort. manafort may have misrepresented information about payments he received related to his lobbying work. manafort's lawyers dispute the claims says he has been truthful. the allegations do not appear to be central to the allegations of collusion. a judge is expected to set a sentencing date toll. let's talk about the state of paul manafort. with no plea agreement in place, what does that mean for him, exactly? there still may be charges he will face on a local and state level, but what does that mean for him in the russia investigation and the witness and the side he may be playing? >> so manafort has lost his plea

deal with the government, but the plea itself still stands. he has been judged guilty of everything and will be sentenced on that base. it will be interesting to see what happens going forward. he will never be able to come back to the fold as a government cooperator. he could face additional state charges. the facts that he pled guilty to in the federal indictment could subject him to liability in the commonwealth of virginia if the commonwealth's attorney wanted to charge him. so he has a future that looks like he will be spending a lot of time in jail. maybe he's hoping for that ubiquitous pardon that's hanging out there, but the president can't pardon him from state convictions if some were to take place. >> so, joyce, what would happen to everything that manafort has given the special prosecutors thus far? if just like 10% of it is accurate, what happens to everything that they have? >> so it's a really interesting question, mike. i'm not sure that the special

counsel is damaged by this too much. the interesting thing is, they knew the answers to the questions that they were asking manafort if they're able to prove that he was lying. so essentially, they were going at manafort to see what additional details he could provide, whether he could confirm certain instances and it may be that the actual value of manafort's cooperation is that they've seen where the pressure points are and they've now learned about the cooperation that was going on with the white house and it may help them uncover more than it costs them at the end of day because they, of course, have rick gates, manafort's deputy developing and a number of our people. i'm not certain this is a problemer for special counsel at the end of the day. >> and on the question of a presidential pardon, the president said last night, quote, i wouldn't take it off the table. why would i take it off the table? joyce advance, good to have you all here.

michael, thank you both. still ahead, what nancy pelosi is saying about her bid to get back the gavel as democrats begin to decide who will lead their party for the next term. plus, steve ratner fact checks the president who is waging a battle against gm. a big storm for california in some cases it's the biggest storm they've seen in about eight months. heavy rain in the mountainous area, snow breaking out in the higher elevations. we're waiting to see how much rain gets into los angeles for that morning commute. right now, light, spotty rain. it will increase. we've had the fire and so now we have 4 million people under flash flood risks including where the camp fire was and the woolsy fire south. as we go throughout the

afternoon, the heavy rain will the in the mountainous areas. how about the snow from this storm? here is the snowfall will pick up significant snow. on saturday, once again into the plains, we see another snow event here with heavier snows in a few spots. the other thing i need to tell you about, we're warm today in texas, but tomorrow the thunderstorms break out from this storm. we're on the warm side. we have the chance for some isolated tornados. this will be a friday night event. keep that in mind, it will be dark and those are dangerous times for tornados on the ground. little rock to shreveport and everywhere here in between. so a very active weather pattern as we go into the middle country over the weekend. east coast, no travel trouble today. last night, the lights went on the rockefeller christmas tree. looking beautiful out there this early thursday morning. i just got my cashback match,

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with $0 down, $0 due at signing, and a complimentary first month's payment. only at your lincoln dealer. following the news that general motors will close multiple factories and lay off more than 14,000 workers, president trump is renewing his threat to put tariffs on auto imports. president trump tweeted yesterday the reason the small truck business in the united states is a go-to favorite is tariffs of 25% have been put on small trucks coming into our cub. it is called the chicken tax. if we did that with cars coming in, many more cars would be built here. the countries that send us cars have taken advantage of the u.s. for decades. the president has great power on this issue because of the gm event. it is being studied now.

the president has been studying auto tariffs for months. in addition, while trump says he has great power, the only way the white house can impose tariffs on auto imports is if the commerce level concludes the current level of imports poses a national security threat. shares of general motors fell to their lows on the day after the president's tweet. joining us now, eugene scott and steve ratner. he's out with a new op-ed in this morning's "new york times," trump is wrong about the general motors bailout. good morning. the president's tweet, go. >> so the very first part addresses the president's tweet about foreign imports.

the fact of the matter is foreign imports have stayed remarkably stable over several decades hovering in this 20% to 30% range. so, in fact, there is no immediate upsurge in imports or anything like that that is causing this problem. gm's issues stem from some other factors that we can talk about. >> so the president's tweets are completely off base? is there anything in there that you can sink your teeth into? we can change all that, but the fact is, look, we don't import any cars from china. we don't. the president talked about closing plants in china. we don't import those. those cars stay in china. >> so gm is changing its model to they're making the wrong kind of cars for many years and they

have to change that to remain viable. >> the sales of cars has declined steadily and meanwhile the share of sales of suvs has been rising steadily. gm does not make exactly what consumers want to buy. those consumers switching to suvs, they're not buying chevy suburbans. they're looking for rav4s. so when you look at the plants gm is closing, they fall into two buckets, car plants because americans aren't buying cars as much any more and engine and transmission plants because as we go to electric cars, you don't need to make transmissions any more. so they're positioning themselves for the future. >> so what can the trump

administration actually do to help the problem instead of donald trump tweeting out factually inaccurate tweets that have no basis in reality? >> the whole point of the exercise is to get general motors and the other car companies to make more electricer cars, not fewer electric cars. so his idea of a policy response is more or less the opposite of what you or i would do if we were trying to respond to this problem. gm is working through it. car sales are starting to flatten out. miles driven is start to go flatten out. while gm is not perfect, i think they're trying to get ahead of the curve in terms of what's really going on as opposed to putting their head in the sand the way they did before they got in trouble.

>> out in ohio, there were people working three shifts down to two shifts down to one shift and now no more shifts. i can't help but think of the men and women who worked their all their lives who might be 50 to 55 years of age who now have no job with gm. this is exactly the barrel of voters that donald trump went after, attracted and got to vote for him with his promises and now they're back on the street again. this is a sad human story. >> trump won ohio in part because he told these voters that he would never close not even one single plant.

these are prolss that the president perhaps should not have made because he does not have complete control over them. and he's telling his voters that the problem exists because of some things that aren't true. the reality is fewer people are buying cars in the united states because most of the population lives in urban areas. these spaces are are more walkable. families are smaller and less dependant on cars. and instead of blaming international governments or businesses away from american workers, the president perhaps should have said maybe i should not have made these promises, maybe i should have en curved these voters to pursue other you're opportunities and let them know i could develop their communities economically without presenting falsesiities without creating enemies.

>>. >> what is the reality about auto jobs right now? >> under trump, we've add 343,000 jobs, slower than under that of obama. but for all the factors that we've been discussing this morning, all the factors we've been discussing this morning are overarching issues facing the industry which makes donald trump's campaign promise, as i said, a bit of wishful thinking because we are not going to be able to restore that level of

manufacturing in this country. we can do some things better, but -- >> what is it like in car sales, tell us, if anything about the larger economy? >> people are driving fewer miles, doing ride shares. that said, we're in the late stages of an economic recovery. we've been at a high level of car sales for a long time. affordability is going down. as interest rates go up, most cars are financed in this country. they don't buy as many. so yes, it starts to feel like it's a part of an overall fragility in this country that is worrisome. still ahead, the senate votes to advance a bill that would end all u.s. involvement in the saudi-led war in yemenen. what it means for u.s. relations with saudi arabia, when "morning joe" comes right back.

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i changed my mind because i'm pissed. the way the administration has handled the saudi arabia event

is not acceptable. the briefing today did want help me at all better understand the role that mbs played in the killing of mr. khashoggi. the yes, ma'men conflict is one of the puzzle. i think we have a right to be briefed by the cia. how can i make a decision about whether or not the crown prince is complicit in a murder if i don't have access to the intelligence that i read about in the paper? that's unacceptable for me. and is it too much to ask of an ally that the de facto leader of the country not lure someone to a consulate and chop them up because they wrote a bad article? if we don't deal with this now, it gets worse. >> i'm not, quite frankly. i am not going to be denied the ability to be briefed by the cia that -- i'm talking about any key vote, anything that you need me for to get out of town, i

ain't doing it until we hear from the cia. >> senator lindsey graham, of course, talking about the president and the briefing senators received yesterday about the murder of jamal khashoggi. there was an all-senators closed door briefing yesterday on yemen and saudi arabia and senators were furious that the cia director was not there. after the briefing, the senate voted in a bipartisan matter to advance a resolution that would end all u.s. involvement in the saudi-led war in yemen. the u.s. currently supports the mission are training and oversight. so what would it look like --

well, let me start with this. do you believe the united states is going to cease its support of saudi arabia in yemenen or is this a symbolic vote to put pressure on the white house? >> it's more to put pressure on the white house. if you look at the way mike pompeo and jim mattis and the white house are all signaling the u.s. support for saudi arabia, they are making the case that they are not going to stop supporting saudi arabia in yemen. >> does it mean we're going to stop selling weapons to saudi arabia or -- >> no. that would be short-term. saudi intelligence, saudi targeting packages inside yes, ma'am -- yemen, a lot of the intelligence being gathered on the ground is being provided to the saudis for targeting.

some of those disasterus civilian casualties of the bus targeting, a lot of that is being provided to the target for saudis. so it does not give diplomatic cover by changing behavior. as i said, there's no indication that this administration is going to change course anytime soon. >> but we also have, i'm told, a fairley healthy presence of special operators within yemen who are in or out of the country depending on the need. what happens there going forward? >> yeah that's the fight that the u.s. categorizing in the war on terror and the u.s. does not outsource that fight to anybody. so those special operators are fighting on the ground against al qaeda, against isis. the u.s. still does that. the u.s. still engages in drone

strikes. they're going to continue it if saudi arabia stops. i don't think there's any indication that the u.s. is going to let up and i don't think the members will want to see the u.s. let up thattest. but we're talking about the proxy fight that is taking place in yemen that has led to 85,000 children being killed as a result of starvation over the last couple of years. that is where i think the targeting has totally gone unchecked. why? because the administration has made a target of the fighten in yes, ma'a -- fighting in yemen. >> and we are doing everything but dropping the bombs. right? at this point, you look at what is happening in yemen and it is so disgusting and such a stain on the conscious of this

country. yesterday what these 14 senators did was the beginning, i think, of a pretty powerful shift against checking donald trump and it should be encouraged. and anyone who cares about america's moral standing in the world should be encouraged by this rebuke. >> let me ask you about gina haskill not being there. we had senators inside the meeting saying explicitly afterward we were told during this briefing by pompeo that it was the direction of the white house that prevented haspel from being there. if haspel was in the room, it would contradict everything the president would be saying. >> right. that is the key linchpin here is exactly what the intelligence is that is backing up this claim that the crown prince was behind the killing of jamal khashoggi.

and that was the missing piece yesterday. and it's increasingly career that the white house is going to have to produce her they're going to have to provide this briefing from the cia to house lawmakers to move forward. while this vote yesterday on saudi arabia is largely symbolic and it is not in the end going to go anywhere. and even if it did, it wouldn't get signed by the president. this pressure that lawmakers are putting on the president to produce her, have her go to capitol hill and explain exactly what happened, it's hard to see how the white house gets around

that. >>. >> the reality is it is the way this administration has covered for saudi arabia. it is the way that people are criticizing secretary of state mike pompeo for defending the crown pribs, sayince and saying relationship has to stay. a lot of senators who supported this say the administration is not handling the issue of saudi arabia as an ally the proper way. and there is a way to have an ally and still be critical of the decisions and mistakes they make and punish them and sanction them and that's what i think is the real motive behind why these republicans are supporting this particular measure. >> and there is a really important point. look at how bad it had to get. you have to have literally mike pompeo acting as the saudi's pr agent. the response being so weak, so ridiculous, that republicans who have let donald trump get away with so much are finally like, this is insane.

this is such weakness. but i'm glad that we finally are examining the sartarvation of s many yemeni civilians that we are complicit in by ignoring what we are doing in yemen and we are at war there. >> secretary of state mike pompeo said there is no direct link between mbs and the murder of jamal khashoggi. so the white house and the secretary of state going one direction, everybody else going the other. >> there was a way where they could have dealt with khashoggi in a forthright way and maintained our relationship with saudi arabia and worked our way through this, but they chose to go to one side. >> good to see you, my friend. >> always a pleasure. coming up, we'll talk to one of the senators who vote to cut off that support for that

saudi-led war in yemenen. and a potential 2020 presidential contender, julio castro joins us on set. over 100 years ago, we were talking about the model t. now here we are talking about winning the most jd power iqs and appeal awards. talking about driver-assist technology talking about cars that talk and listen.

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steve ratner, it appears the president of the united states was watching your charts. he just tweeted this moments ago. general motors is very counter to what other auto and other companies are doing. big steel is opening and renovating plants all over the country. auto companies are pouring into the u.s. including bmw. the u.s. is booming. >> on this u.s. steel he keeps running around saying that u.s. steel is opening up six new plants. they may restart two blast

furnaces. i happen to see last night at dinner, the chairman of daimler-benz, because of the tariffs of 25% on china they may decide to build a plant in china instead of making them here. i think the president is putting lipstick on a pig to some degree. >> i didn't have dinner with the chairman of daimler-benz last night. i did have dinner with 9-year-old charlie geist. stormy daniels alleges that michael avenatti sued trump for defamation against her wishes. she's unsure whether she'll keep avenatti as her lawyer.

in a statement to the daily beast, daniels wrote, for months i've asked michael avenatti to give me accounting informs about the fund my supporters so generously donated to for my safety and legal defense. he has repeatedly ignored those requests. days ago i demanded again. adding michael has not treated me with the respect and deference an attorney should show to a client. avenatti responded in statement to nbc news, i have personally sacrificed an enormous amount of money, time and energy toward assisting her because i believe in her. i have always been an open book with stormy as to all aspects of her cases and she knows that. the president of the united

states who's about to get on a plane in a couple of hours here and fly south for the g20 summit, what will you be looking for over the next couple of day? >> i'll be looking to see if he does in fact meet with vladimir putin. he has threatened that he might pull that meeting in light of russia's actions in ukraine. we have known donald trump to have a very difficult time from staying away from vladimir putin and constantly stressing the importance of a close relationship there. we'll see if the pressure of those actions by russia will change his mind. >> the last 18, 19 months, these foreign trips have been an adventure, how foreign leaders react to him, what will you be looking for in this trip? >> certainly his interactions with other world leaders. the united states' reputation

based on polling has gone down internationally. not a lot of confidence in president trump and his desire to work with other governments and be ally. what he'll do to improve that standing with countries across the global is something that i'll pay attention to. >> big meeting with president xi as well. thank you so much. coming up on "morning joe," could be a pardon be on the table for paul manafort? president trump says he's not ruling it out. plus, the number two democrat in the senate, dick durbin will be our guest. (chime) - [narrator] meet shark's newest robot vacuum. it powerfully cleans from floors to carpets, even pet hair, with ease, and now for cleaning surfaces above the floor, it comes with a built in shark handheld. one dock, two sharks.

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to them. for me it was this infusion of hope and perspective this reaffirmation of humanity that i see in our service members that will be the men and women who will help rebuild our civil society. >> yesterday, departing house speaker paul ryan telling the crowd he believes the trust between men and women if the armed services will one day repair american politics. meanwhile, earlier this month, the department of veterans affairs promised lawmakers the agency would pay back veterans who saw their benefits come up short because of massive computer glitch. yesterday after weeks of leaving veterans in the dark, the v.a. announced that it will not reimbursed the veterans that were paid than they were owed. the v.a. faced a backlog when its computers were not able to

rereceive -- the v.a. says it will not be addressed. mike, this is v.a. promise under the g.i. bill to pay for housing, to pay for school, these payments did not go through, because they can't figure out a computer system these men and women will not repaid for the short fall. it's pathetic. this can't stand. >> well, i mean, the level of fraudulence surrounding the veterans administration has been ongoing for months if not years. we have seen the speaker of the house addressing people at the pentagon about everything the veterans will mean to the american politics. the future is now for veterans and their families.

the fact that the congress cannot get together and get this done in a single hour of a single day is outrageous. >> this country has fallen short in many ways and breaking that contract that we make every day. it's so outrageous. it's a computer program. >> why is not a number one priority with the trump administration? they were going to be all about taking care of vets. they're going to let this stand? because of their own incompetencesy. they don't want to mess with a computer system and the payment and the funding. it's absurd to me. i'm so sick of the platitudes, support our troops, paul ryan talking about the men and women who serve in iraq and afghanistan.

let's handle this -- >> pay them. >> yes. figure out what they're doing in afghanistan, when yesterday a u.s. bomb killed 30 civilians. >> i don't like the formulation of trump -- i'm taking care of -- they want to have the rights and the benefits they're entitled to under law. they wanted to be treated in a responsible and humane way. as you say, can't -- this isn't like some huge social service project we're all going to -- this is making the u.s. government work competently and adequately. >> when obamacare website launched and republicans were up in arms because it wasn't working and everybody was making so much fun of it. myself included. why couldn't make sure that website work? republicans stand up now and

make the v.a. website work. >> it's a contract that we make and he's part of the 1%. he and his family -- what you have here is something that's pointed out, you can call someone at apple in cupertino, california, and they can solve this in an hour. bill kristol is here, water isaacson and susan page. welcome to you all. we have breaking news overnight in the increasing russia aggression on ukraine. russia is blocking ukrainian ports on the sea stopping 35 vessels from carrying out normal

operations. in a new interview, ukrainian president urged nato to send ships to ward off russia. he told nbc's richard engle that 40% of the country's exports float through the azov sea and it's designed to devastate his country's economy. vladimir putin addressed the seizure of ukrainian ships. saying, quote, this is a border incident, and nothing more, meanwhile president trump has said he may cancel a meeting with putin planned for saturday with g-20. just moments ago, the russian president's spokesperson told reporters in moscow that the united states has confirmed that meeting between the two heads of state. as for potential topics he said bilateral relations, strategic security and disarmament and quote, regional conflicts. the president of the united states floated that idea in that

washington post interview he may not sit down with putin. now they're saying the meeting is on. >> this is consistent with president trump's attitude generally, since he ran for office, which is to take a less confrontational, shall we say, toward russia propagation. the russia's action in ukraine is based on calculation that the united states is likely to take decisive action against what is happening there. also, it seems unlikely to me that nato decides to intervene, although we'll see as this unfolds. >> walter, we have a president of the united states who has said about the crown prince of saudi arabia that maybe he did, maybe he didn't with regard to the murder of a journalist. we have the same president of the united states who's going to sit down with vladimir putin off of a new story that we just read

from the ukraine, that's basically an act of war that russia has conducted against the ukraine, blocking the ports, blocking the open seas to them, i mean, this is just another indication i would think -- i'd like your view on what has happened not only to the foreign relations of this country but just the attitude of the presidency of the united states? >> and in particular when it comes to russia. he blubbered all over himself bowing town to putin when he went to helsinki. now, you have a really important test case which is ukraine, the president of the united states, trump has already sort of surrendered this notion that crimea should still be part of ukraine.

now putin is testing him. testing him with these three ships and now closing the straits of azov. it's amazing to me that trump would not show strength. i try to imagine what people would say if barack obama had done this. >> well, bill kristol, what does a show of strength mean? >> i talked to a lot of people in asia and europe, the red line, the implications they're not going to live up to their commitment s commitments. these things do have effects around the world. if you put together the president's reaction to the murder of mr. khashoggi and now his nonreaction to putin's provocation in ukraine it's bad enough to ukraine itself and the neighbor of ukraine, what does

it say everyone? >> the red line was a terrible mistake for all the reasons you said. given the facts and circumstances we have in ukraine, what would you do to solve this problem. >> i'd have a strong nato response. >> what does that mean? does that mean sending ships in there? >> you could send ships in there and help ukraine defend themselves more aggressively. i'm not an expert -- if we had a normal foreign policy process we would have the state department, treasury department having meetings and saying, okay, what should we do? we would have meetings with our european allies seeing what we can sustain. we don't have a normal presidency here and we have

president trump doing things off the cuff. that's very dangerous i think for an u.s. president. this isn't any old place, where we don't have -- ukraine gave up nuclear weapons. they would be a nuclear state now. we persuaded them to give up their nuclear weapons which they had after the breakup of the soviet union. >> some foreign policy experts has viewed this as a test from putin to donald trump. president trump will get a chance face to face, putin is doing this days before a face to face meeting with the president. if you're working if the white house what do you hope your president will do at the g20. >> you would hope for sanctions, support for nato to send ships

out. that's not going to happen. this is not how donald trump operates. we'll see a performance similar to helsinki if donald trump and putin are together. you'll see donald trump trying to cozy up instead of being strong and tough and having the forceful response that we're used to from an american leader. when donald trump gets upset with world leaders he's upset with macron when he's saying france, you should have an european alliance because the u.s. is not a full partner anymore. he gets more upset with our allies more than with putin. >> the way to hurt putin if you want to hurt him and we ought to want to hurt him you hurt his money people, you know, steve knows more about this. they have sanctions. you know, really, not really --

they haven't really raised them, they haven't put the foot on the gas on the sanctions in quite a while. the theory, the way to hurt putin is to hurt his money people. does that still hold. >> yeah. there's only so much you can do. there's a lack -- i think there's a lack of cooperation from the europeans on a lot of this stuff. they want to continue to do business with russia. i'm not trying to be, you know, mr. negative about this but i raised the question whether nato realistically is going to send ships into there and risk a military con franation with russia another case of russia saying we can do stuff in ukraine and in our sphere of influence and there's little that the united states will do in practical way. >> they do stuff here and they -- we do nothing about it.

russia interference there is dwarfs the interference here. we can interfere in elections nearby, in the u.s., we can do our best to help our friends in hungary and other places. >> relatively cheap and no one does anything. >> if we don't anything about our elections, people are right to come back to trump's passivity about the election. >> remember, we saw trump and putin together on the stage, trump was given the chance to rebuke putin and he passed on that. let's turn now, days after we learned the special counsel wants to scrap the paul manafort's plea deal and now presidentleaving open

the possibility of a pardon. it was never discussed but i wouldn't take it off the table. why would i take it off the table? he claims, manafort, roger stone and stone associate jerome corsi were asked to lie. trump quote, if you told the truth, you go to jail. trump said, you know this flipping stuff is terrible. but i had three people -- manafort, corsi -- i don't know corsi. this is mccarthyism. we are in the mccarthy era. this is no better than mccarthy. let's go back to the beginning where he floats the idea of a pardon for paul m manafort. >> you know, we lose sight of what's extraordinary. this is extraordinary.

paul manafort is about to go to jail for possibility of the for life. there are two possible ek pla nations. one, he's nervous about retribution from people he worked for abroad in the past. the other is, he's angling for a presidential pardon, it gives him a protection he no longer needs to follow through on the plea deal with special counsel mueller. we have never seen a president talk in a public way about offering -- potentially offering a pardon who's being investigated about his relationship with the president and the president's campaign operations. this is really quite jaw-dropping. >> walter, as a great historian about the comparison to mccarthyism, what do you make of the president saying these

special counsel's investigation is similar to >> it's appalling. bob mueller, robert mueller is no joseph mccarthy. he's straight-up, straight-shooting person of deep honor, who's pursuing an investigation very well. it ties into the whole russia thing, too. here you have manafort, stone and maybe corsi being investigated for perhaps conspiring with the russians over the question of hacking into the democratic e-mails and then knowing when they're going to release and putin certainly knows all about what happened and the president refuses to even cancel a meeting with putin. i mean, this just doesn't smell -- this is so weird that he would call this mccarthyism. i mean, what's happening now is a president who is kowtowing to a russian leader and floating the idea of pardoning people who may have conspired with russian

leaders. this is insane. >> what's really appalling that -- think about the implications of what trump is saying. there would be dozens of senior attorneys in the justice department involved in this, knowing conspiresy knowing what president trump said to tell falsehoods in order to go after trump and his associates and parts of the fbi would be involved. who's trump allied with? roger stone, paul manafort and jerome corsi -- is there three more dubious characters? who do you trust more?

incidentally, i'm obsessed with this. who's the attorney general of the united states right now? a political hack who's not been confirmed by the senate, who shouldn't be in that job and who does have some ability now, conceivably some ability to curb this investigation. i think the pardons are for real. i think donald trump will pardon paul manafort and others. he's laying the groundwork for this. he's panicking a little bit and he's tweeting and all this. he's normalizing gradually the notion the president has this pardon power and it's witch hunt. >> look, he can try to normalize that. i think any clear-thinking american is going to say what

the hell is this about? mueller has presumably have gotten out of manafort what he knows. i don't know that if this changes the basic thrust of what mueller -- >> the reason trump seems to be panicking it's clear that mueller knows so much that he knows that manafort is lying. he knows stuff from e-mails and phone calls and other testimony and so forth and i think trump may be realizing that the extent of what mueller knows and he and manafort may have agreed not to say something about the trump tower meeting, let's say, it may well be that mueller has other ways to know about that meeting. >> we don't know what mueller knows. in which case the cover is

always worse than the crime. >> we sit here most mornings and the tweets occur out of the white house from the president on the average of two, three times an hour depending on the day and the event. we used to snicker and laugh at the tweets because a lot of them were comical and foolish. but now, one of the things that i fear donald trump may have done with his tweets with his constant tweets especially about this topic, manafort, and the hoax that is the mueller investigation, he is now with his tweets normalize -- near normalized the fact that the president of the united states is involved in witness tampering and obstruction of justice with his tweets. >> absolutely. he's deprived us and the american people an ability to be appall because every single one of these things, especially the

obstruction of justice and idea that you would destroy this investigation, that you would kowtow to russia, we should be appall every day and somehow, with those tweets especially to his base and being amp mlified places like fox news it somehow takes our ability to think clearly what would we say if hillary clinton had done this or barack obama did this? >> bill, before you go, you have supportive of legislation to protect mueller? why is mitch mcconnell standing in the way? >> he's saying it's not needed. therefore if it happens,

mcconnell has no excuse to have a very strong reaction but of course i said that in the past. i'm shocked they're sustaining that. in in light of the last two, three weeks. we don't need to protect mueller because sessions and rosenstein is here. after whitaker as acting attorney general and the assault on the investigation and what we learned about manafort not cooperating, it's shocking -- jeff flake to his credit tried to bring it up again with chris coons. there are constitutional questions about it. for the republican senate this is why it's so important for republicans to pass this. >> he said again yesterday, we don't need it.

bill, kristol and walter isaacson, thank you so much. coming up, senator dick durbin will join us. but first, former obama secretary julian castro will talk about his plans for 2020 and much more on "morning joe." you're headed down the highway when the guy in front slams on his brakes out of nowhere. you do, too, but not in time. hey, no big deal. you've got a good record and liberty mutual won't hold a grudge by raising your rates over one mistake. you hear that, karen? liberty mutual doesn't hold grudges. how mature of them! for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise their rates because of their first accident. liberty mutual insurance. liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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at comcast, it's my job to develop, apps and tools that simplify your experience. my name is mike, i'm in product development at comcast. we're working to make things simple, easy and awesome. are you a candidate for 2020? >> i'm thinking about how to get out from under that question fast. i'm not taking anything off the table. but i'm not sitting around having been running around to the most obvious states. am i going to think about it? of course. >> john kerry hinting that he's not ruling out a possible presidential run in 2020. joining us now, someone who's more direct about running for president in 2020, former secretary of housing and urban

development under president obama, julian castro. he's the author of the book "an unlikely journey: waking up from my american dream." thank you for being here. chris matthews got you to very likely to run for president. can we take you a step further? yes? >> i'm, you know, very likely, likely, whatever terms we want to use. i said for a while i've been very straightforward that i'm thinking about running. i'll make a decision before the end of the year. we were talking a little bit ago off camera, the season is almost upon us. so, it's no secret. you'll have a whole bunch of folks running in 2020. i think it's going to be good for the democratic party after

what happened in 2016, i think the voters are going to want to see a whole bunch of folks up there with new ideas, different experiences and feel like everybody's voice is heard and that afterward that the democratic nominee in 2020 is going to be stronger because of that. >> so, what do you bring to the table that a lot of these familiar faces who have run before perhaps do not? we see john kerry, maybe joe biden, we'll see bernie sanders, some other folks like that, it will be a big field. >> if i run it will be because i have a strong vision for the future of this country. i believe we need a 21st century blueprint for opportunity so that we ensure that families thrive in this 21st century with the right education and skills and healthcare, with good job opportunities, and i have shown that i can get things done at the local level and at the

federal level. so, everybody's going to bring their own experience, their own talent, and their own voice, if i get in the race i look forward to it. >> if you're running against donald trump you got to be combative and you're a very smart and low key guy, fair to say, you've got energy, you ran a city and h.u. dmplt, would you be up for a fight? >> i think that you're going to win in 2020 against donald trump, especially who tries to drag everybody down by connecting with the american people and keeping the focus on what you're going to do for them. that doesn't mean you don't stand up. you have to stand up for yourself and to trump. people want somebody to vote for. they want something to believe in. so, it's the candidate that offers a compelling positive and

strong vision for the future of the country that resonates with the voter and his and her family that i think is going to win and you know in 2020 it's not going to be 2016, people know a lot more about what donald trump is all about and he has a record and i think that the contrast there is a positive and the plan versus the negative in going backward. >> susan page is in washington with a question for you. >> i do have a question, there are two ways to remove donald trump from the oval office, one is to defeat him in 2020 or to attempt to impeach him before then, what are opportunities and risks when the mueller report comes out, should democrats think about impeachment proceedings or is that a trap you think for democrats?

>> the first order of business this is going to begin in january. to get serious about these investigations. adam schiff and others on that intelligence committee have made very clear in so many ways this investigation has not tried not because of the republican leadership, had an opportunity to get to the full truth and whether it's that issue or a number of other issues, donald trump finances and, you know maybe more to the point, some of the missteps by this administration on policy and procedure, they need to have full and robust investigations. and then, you know, where those investigations lead i think is a separate question. but they need to get those investigations going. >> julian castro, thanks so much for being here.

mr. secretary, thank you very much. we'll see you again soon. thank you. >> thank you. coming up -- nancy pelosi has moved one step closer to being house speaker but he's still facing opposition within her own party. but our next guest says rookies need not apply. rahm emanuel joins us next.

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nancy pelosi is one step closer to reclaiming the speaker's gavel but her fight is not over yet. running unopposed on the secret ballot, pelosi won the spot of 203 house democrats to claim her party's nomination. but 32 democrats defected and 3 others left their ballots blank. that means, pelosi will need to win over 18 of the democrats who did not vote in her favor yesterday. assuming all republicans voted against her. asked if she had those votes, she said, quote, i think we're in a pretty good shape. joining us now is chicago mayor rahm emanuel. you wrote yesterday this is one of the most consequential

congresses in modern history. no time to have a rookie sitting across the table from mitch mcconnell and donald trump. there's movement through these midterm elections from some of these people who made promises, democrats saying it's time for a new generation of leadership. what do you say to those young people voted into congress and want to turn the page. >> lot of people voted. i look at it from two levels. first and foremost from a presidential level. one is, when george mitchell faced off against bush on the budget it set the precedent for bill clinton's election. when we faced off against president bush in '08 it set up the paradigm for barack obama to become president. the next two years is setting up the election for 2020.

a whole group of ind pen debit voters mainly in the suburbs came our way. i see these next two years as a precedent and building a block into 2020. you need a veteran as i said in the rest of that statement, you want nancy pelosi is as cagey as mcconnell is ruthless and donald trump is unprincipled. she's a seasoned experienced veteran and she understands what's happening. therefore will respond to the energy which is positive. the second thing is that i really think is important, when you look across the elections that were very strong for democrats, in the house and in the statehouses, nancy pelosi led the democratic party for the

last two years from a really bad election in 2016. i'm from chicago. maybe i'm old school. to the victor goes the spoils. you don't usually promote a loser to the top of party and take a winner and say, we're going to take your knees off. my view is, everybody in our party says, oh, the republicans so much tougher and so much stronger -- look, in chicago, new york, across cities and suburban areas that's not how you play politics to win. 2020 is the most important game. my eye is on that prize. you need to use the foothold we have in congress to drive a triangulation that mcconnell and trump don't agree on education,

healthcare, corruption, you drive right there and you make sure you drive a wedge and it sets up for 2020. >> mr. mayor, you used the phrase, seasoned, experienced veteran, that's you. 24 hours a day walking the streets of chicago. >> that's the first time you've been complimentary, mike. >> it's early in the morning. you deal with police unions, you deal with people many of whom the democratic party has lost in terms of voters over the past 15 years. i'm thinking about lordstown, ohio, this morning about -- people have gone to three shifts to two shifts pretty soon to no shifts, what do we do about getting them back instead of talking about cultural stuff, political stuff to get them back? >> well, first of all, 100%

agree. i'd begin to what's happening in the economy is trump slump. you put it right on him. three parts to the lelectorate. you have to keep the unity between the urban and suburban and not lose lordstown in the way in we lost in the election. pennsylvania governor's race, illinois, my home state, we were doing really well in the cities like 200,000 and rural comparatively, you show up. you have an economic agenda. one thing we have in chicago, you get a b average in high school we make community college free. tell people in those cities who have aspirations for american dream for their children.

we're not going to require you to take a second or a third job just to give your child a chance to one day work and manage that company and start their own company and give them back the resources to have the american dream for their child. we have told them in many different ways, culturally and economically these kids don't count like our kids. if you want to win them back as a did temocrat you say the amer dream is available for everybody. the truth of the matter is, our kids have a leg up. they do have an advantage. they come from two parents with a college education and a means to afford it. your kids count, too. if you give them that aspiration and tell them you understand what comes at the kitchen table, they're going to reward you for understanding how they live

their lives. they don't demean how they live. at every level, economically and culturally we have dismissed them and more importantly we have dismissed their children and we have actually made a mistake and they have penalized us correctly for being dismissive of them. >> mayor, you described the economy as being in trump slump. what are the economic indicators that have led you to draw this assessment. >> first of all, you'll start to describe it that way. it goes to mike's question. what happened to gm, manufacturing job. housing starts. what's happening to sales. you can start to see the beginning of the consumer sentiment and you start to label that piece.

i'd open up a appropriately and i think the key word is appropriately, an investigation of the issues the swamp that donald trump brought over to him. at the commerce department, at the epa, interior. i wouldn't focus right on donald trump i'd focus on the other satellites that move around him that are connected to him that he brought to washington. >> mr. mayor, you're a relatively young man, what's next for you? would you run again for something else? >> look, that's way too early. first of all, my entire focus in the next six months is to make sure the sit of chicago and everybody in the city is well positioned for the future. i'm going to take some time. i've been at this literally for 4 years. i have had the honor and here's

how i look at it i'm the son of an immigrant. i've been adviser to two presidents. >> the truth is, i'm going to take a little time, amy and i to rest up, do some things that we as a family because of our kids growing in my career haven't been able to do. i'll make some resources with three kids in college and i'll more importantly think -- i think we have to think about this moment in america what's happening in other developed countries and come up with the paradigm that fits. er -- for the moment and the future. we have to think about what we have to do to make sure for another generation the american dream can't just be a line for my kids and your kids.

the american dream has to be alive for every child. we have to go in an hourglass again and expands it again. if they have the same capacity and the same sense they have that capacity, democrats have to value that and have a messagened policies that include them in the future we're talking about. we haven't. we got to acknowledge that. we have to think about that. >> chicago mayor rahm emanuel. thank you for your time. coming up next, one of the republicans taking the trump administration to task over its handling of saudi arabia. ♪

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this is moving day with the best in-home wifi experience and millions of wifi hotspots to help you stay connected. and this is moving day with reliable service appointments in a two-hour window so you're up and running in no time. show me decorating shows. this is staying connected with xfinity to make moving... simple. easy. awesome. stay connected while you move with the best wifi experience and two-hour appointment windows. click, call or visit a store today. . joining us now a member of the foreign relations committee, republican senator and marine

corps it have ran todd young of indiana. senator young was elected as the chairman of the national senatorial committee. you are not new to yemen. you pointed to the famine and civilian casualties. and you believe the united states should pull back from its role there. there is a point of leverage from people like you, who have been looking for this in the relationship with saudi arabia. what ought to be done from the point of view of the trump administration? >> so i think you correctly characterized by position on this. thank you for having me on, willie. the one thing i depart a bit. i think there is an opportunity to work with the trump administration, with i is what i have been trying to do since march of 2017, i have been trying to give them lever annual, vis-a-vis the saudis to the table to have a civil

settlement in this war south of saudi arabia and yemen. the worst humanian crisis since the 1940s with 14 million people on the brink of starvation. we passed the sanders lee resolution out of committee into the united states senate, got that discharged. so next week, we'll have a vote on whether we should have a more robust and fulsome conversation about this issue that is long overdue. >> do you believe, senator the united states of america ought to continue supporting the saudi effort there? in other words, if you want to take the american direct action off the table, do you think we should stop supporting the saudi support effort in yemen? >> i do. i do think we should stop treating the sautd dieffort in light of their effort. khashoggi was the most monstrous behavior of bad example of saudi leadership. but their indiscriminate school

buses and killing of children an denial of food and fuel and medicine to people in the most dire of circumstances has not only undermined our values, but it's helped radicalize a population that houthi population which has now aligned itself with the iranians. if this civil war continues, i guarantee the iranian presence will only grow in the country of yemen and thus threaten all of us. moreover, al qaeda and the peninsula made yemen its head quarter. the peninsula, is the most dangerous franchise of al qaeda. this is a national security interest. this is a humanitarian interest. we have to demand better behavior from the saudis. now i believe the trump administration is focused on doing that with this most recent vote. >> senator, i would like your view on troop deployments, troop deployments here in the united states. we have thousands of soldiers and marines along the border that come from camp pendleton,

ft. hood, ft. brarg all over the country. it looks like they were there for weeks and weeks to come, eating mres on thanksgiving day and will be away from their family away from their families on the christmas holiday. your view? >> i am only smiling, i was a marine on the southern border of the united states. i worked for ab unmanned aerial vehicle squadron in the marine corps. we were charged with, among other things, coming up with new doctrine to figure out how to secure our southern border. so this is not unprecedented, to use the military, especially the united states marines in ways that the president would direct. a nation that cannot secure its borders, it's often been said is not indeed a nation. but i would hope that we in congress would do our job. you know, this is a manifestation of a much bigger problem, which is our failure in a bipartisan way to reform our legal immigration system.

>> yeah. >> i'm a strong supporter of doing that. >> so, nsenator, you enlisted te united states navy after high school, graduated anap liss with honors. you accepted a position in the united states marine corps. so you are the perfect person to ask. have you the political side of you as a united states senator, you also have served unlike many people you serve alongsidelet. i want to learn about the forever gi bill. we learned from exclusive reporting the va told congressional staffers it will not make up the shortfalls and payments to veterans. in other words, they were underpaid because of a computer glitch and the va telling congressional staffers there is nothing we can do to make up the difference. basically, they're screwed. how can you step in and do something ability this? you and your colleagues and the senate? >> well, i just learned about this, this morning from your reporting and some other sources. so i don't have a completely formed opinion. but i have formed this opinion. we need to follow the law.

the veterans need to earn, to receive every cent they have been promised and pursuant to existing law. and we need to change the computer systems overthere. so i intend to play a very constructive role, working with this administration to fix this problem and to ensure this is a top priority. i would add, however, that we in a bipartisan way led by the trump administration have really made some positive strides we are forming the va over recent month, ever since this administration and this republican congress came into office. we passed the va mission act, which would give greater discretion to va leadership to award our best performers. we've improved health care delivery. we've reduced processing time for so many of our veterans who have earned benefits and need them in an expe dishes fashion

-- expeditious fashion. >> these men and women that signed up to serve at the promise of the gi bill are fought getting the benefits of the gi bill. thank you for looking into it, senator todd young. thank you. we will talk with senator dick durbin of illinois. also ahead the president is riled up over the russia investigation, beat theingant a quote mccarthy witch hunt and an investigation and we will dig into what he is so concerned about when we come back. zplmplts i just got my cashback match, is this for real? yep. we match all the cash back new cardmembers earn at the end of their first year, automatically. whoo! i got my money! hard to contain yourself, isn't it? uh huh! let it go! whoo! get a dollar-for-dollar match

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. he's not going into ukraine, just so you understand. he's not going into ukraine. you can mark it down, take it down. put it -- >> he's already there, isn't snit. >> he's there in a certain way. you have obama there. >> vladimir putin was in ukraine when donald trump made those comments two years ago. putin may be going back for more. there are reports they are blocking key ukrainian ports. >> that raises the stakes for president trump's meeting with putin on the sidelines of the g20, which as of right now is still on. ukraine also is in the news, vis-a-vis paul manafort whose past business dealings there are under new scrutiny from robert mueller and the special counsel's office and president trump is not, he says, ruling out a pardon for his former campaign chair.

meanwhile the senate is sending a tough message to the white house on saudi arabia. the murder of journalist jamal khashoggi is not being whitewashed on capitol hill. welcome to ""morning joe"." it's november 29th. we have mike barnacle, former aid to the white house state departments elise jordan. washington bureau chief for the pawn herrold kimberly at kinls. "new york times" reporter michael schmidt. the new york attorney for the u.s. district of alabama and contributor joyce vans. joe and mika have the day you a. a day after paul manafort wants to scrap a plea deal, president trump is talking act a pardon. in a new york post article yesterday, president trump left opened the possibility of a pardon. telling the paper, it was never discussed. i wouldn't take it off the table. why would i take it off the

table in thin that interview, h claimed that manafort, roger stone and stone associate jerome corsi were all asked to lie. he said this, if you told the truth, you go to jail, trump said. you know this flipping stuff is terrible. the president went on to say, quote, but i had three people, manafort, corsi, i don't know corsi, but he refuses to say what they demanded. manafort, corsi and roger stone. he went on, it's actually very brave, the president said, of the trio. i'm telling you, this is mccarthy-ism. we are in the mccarthy era. this is no better than mccarthy says the president of the united states talking about the special counsel's investigation. joyce, let's talk about the president floating the idea of a pardon when asked. he says it's not off the table. that has to be music for manafort who is now without his cooperation deal. >> i think that's probably true,

willie. it's really hard to know where to start in this statement. because there is so much going on, all of it bad for us as a country. on that pardon issue, you know, every prosecutor hears the president say that and your spidey senses all come into focus because it sounds like the president is dangling a pardon to paul manafort and at this point in time where manafort is signed up on team usa, that's really pretty close to witness tampering. let me back up a little bit and say it's not enough in and of itself. we really would have to look at an entire course of conduct. because, of course the president would say, oh, no, it's not an offer of a pardon. i'm just making a statement about my powers as president and i'm taking nothing off of the table. it would be hard to get all of that alone across the finish line. but increasingly, the president's course of conduct makes clear that the same man two wanted jim comey to go easy on michael flynn to short circuit this investigation at the outset is still willing to

do whatever the he can to try to keep mueller from telling the american people what the truth is here. >> joyce, have you already alluded to witness tampering. let me ask you to put your prosecutor's hat back on. you can reach behind you and get it. tell us this, from your point of view from what we know, from the lawyers for manafort discussing this ongoing affair with the lawyers for associated persons also charged, is there any cass here to wonder about, a, obstruction of justice, witness tampering, which you've mentioned and a key question for me and i think others, what happens to lawyer/client privilege discussions here? >> yeah. so these are complicated questions. and prosecutors are very conservative people because at the end of the day, our goal is to be able to prove crimes were committed with everyday that's admissible in court beyond a reasonable doubt.

that's a very high burden the president likes to talk about a witch hunt. that's not what prosecutors are doing, because the burdens are so extreme. so there is a lot wrapped up here. what you are referencing is this notion of the joint defense agreement that existed here, apparently between the president and at least 32 other people who were under investigation and joint defense agreements are for people who believe that they will be indicted in the same indictment. and it's predicated upon this notion that in our system, we have the attorney/client privilege, which permits clients to talk freely with their attorneys. if i committed a crime, ki talk freely with my attorney without fear that will be exposed at some point in time. joint defense agreements extend that privilege to a group with common interest. the problem here is, once a defendant signs up to cooperate with the government, there is no more common interest. it's shattered. we saw that when mike flynn's

lawyers gave the president notice they were withdrawing from the joint agreement i think that was our first inkling one existed at all. they withdrew when flynn became a cooperator. now we have paul manafort, who apparently was cooperateing with the government and the joint defense agreement. you can't do both of those things and at least theoretically, i think more than their retically, practically, it's possible, none of those conversations that happened after manafort signed his plea deal are covered by the attorney/client privilege and the white house as well as manafort and any other cooperators that were talking with the president could be examined by mueller about those conversations. >> so michael schmidt, we're also getting if you details of what president trump is said to have told special counsel robert mueller in those written answers related to russian interference, two sources tell nbc news the president's statement says he

was not told beforehand about the 2016 trump tower meeting with senior campaign leadership and an attorney tied to the kremlin. also, he wrote he was not tipped off about the wikileaks disclosures by his long time political ally roger stone. that's consistently with what he said publicly and stone said earlier this year. >> i can honestly say that the candidate trump, donald trump, president trump and i have never discussed the wikileaks disclosures, before, during or after. >> you never had a single discussion ability hillary clinton e-mails with him at all? >> that is correct. >> sources also telling abc news say that's questions dealt with a 2016 platform change backing off of providing arms to ukraine to guard against russian aggression. abc cites sources familiar with the president's responses saying the president told mueller he was not aware of it to the best of his recollection, which is

consistent with what trump said publicly. >> why didn't you soften the gop platform on ukraine? >> i was involved in that honestly. i was fought involved in that. i'd like to -- i'd have to take a look at it. but i was not involved. >> do you know what they did? >> they softened it, i heard. but i was not involved. >> that was an interview july of 2016. going back to the first two questions we have a window, the president said if interview, now going on record and saying he absolutely did not know beforehand about the 2016 trump tower meeting. he is also saying there was no connection to the wiki leaks from him, programs from jerome corsi and roger stone, it never made it to the president, himself. those are pretty definitive declarations that robert mueller if he has information otherwise could create a problem for the president. >> we have to see how the language was, how definitive was

it, did he leave op open the possibly? he didn't remember this or that. the interesting thing about the july, the 2016 meeting at trump to youer is that that was something that the president found out that prosecutors were really hammering manafort on. as manafort was meeting with them in recent weeks, they pressed forward the president's lawyers, we are told, repeatedly were on that issue asking what what was the president told about it afterwards. >> mueller is trying to get manafort no give up something to incriminate the president. and manafort had insists he had nothing on that. this was a part of a group of other things that had gone on

that led him to be responsive to questions that ultimately did go i in. >> declassifying the nice sa warrants and the text messages between fbi agents, is this another tease or how likely? what are you hearing from your sources about how likely it is that the president may declassify documents that are a part of the mueller investigation. well, this is something that they've done before where they've made a lot of other documents available to congress or made them public throughout this investigation as ways of undermining the fbi. this is a tactic that they have used before, but i think more importantly to what they have tried to accomplish, especially in the pacht few dst few days, gone back to the playbook.

guiliani and trump saying a lot of different things. muddying the waters the guiliani had sort of laid off of mueller in october in sort of the leadup to the election. now it's basically a return to what he was doing over the summer. >> that is making a lot of noise about different issues, trying to make it look like the special counsel's office is on this, you know, long ran himing effort to get people to flip on the president. no matter what the truth is. >> meanwhile, kimberly, the president continues to go after the investigation, himself. he tweeted last night, quote, so much happening with the now discredited witch hunt. this total hoax will be studied for years! the president also retweeted a series of tweets from a parody and fan accounts yesterday morning that included many controversial statements and accuracys and misinformation. the president's re-tweets, including one of prominent democrats including his deputy attorney general rod rosenstein and special counsel robert

mueller behind bars accusing the group of treason, front and center, two former presidents of the united states the president retweeting, kimberly, they ought to be in prison without offering specifics on why. the president also in that interview with the new york post compared this investigation to mccarthy-ism. saying, he has raised the stakes at this point saying it's a hoax and that it's been discredited. he's going owl auto, kimberly to undermine this thing. >> reporter: he really is. this is not the first time he's done this. of course, we've seen him do everything he can to undermine this investigation. really from the beginning, but in the last week or so, through his twitter feed, you can see a real sharp escalation in that effort and it tells you a couple things, one, he is certainly worried about this. he is certainly thinking about it. he is certainly messaging that through his twitter account. also, we have seen the

president's efforts to discredit this investigation take root, have the effect in terms of public opinion, public opinion of robert mueller and this probe has been on a steady decline for some time now. i think the president is counting on that, especially if robert mueller is to return indictments to people within the campaign is really to issue a report that is critical of the president and his actions. he's trying to get out ahead of this and be able to say later, look, this was all phony, this was all a setup in order to save himself, if he needs to. >> still ahead on "morning joe," more on paul manafort and why his plea deal with the special counsel fell apart. it all traces back to a ukrainian man two the fbi believes has ties to russian intelligence. before that, let's get a check of the forecast with bill kierans. good morning. >> good morning, we are getting ready for our next storm on the west coast. it will eventually spread wiee

over the weekend. we could pick up one to two inches in the mountains and l.a. itself, about three-quarters of an inch. we have to see if those burn scars provide more debris flow. we hope now. 4 million people are at risk with it. as we go throughout the day, by mid-day the storm goes to the inner mountain west. by the time we get to tomorrow, we will be watching a new storm in the pacific northwest. the active area continues in this part of the country. by tomorrow afternoon, it reaches the southern plains. 16 million people at risk. even in december we can have a threat in eastern oklahoma. that's the greatest threat for super cells the danger for this, it will be overnight. when it's dark, we don't get a lot of lead time. we get tornadoes and sirens in the evening when it's dark outside. it's always a dangerous time.

especially overnight when people are sleeping. too. there's those storms friday, saturday that heavy rain goes to the north. the back side of this, we will have a winter storm. a lot of mountain west areas will get snow, south dakota, northern areas as well, too. one thing we killed do yesterday, we are kicked off christmas at 30 rock. the lighting of the christmas tree looking beautiful out there. temperatures in the 40s, just like the season. we'll be right back. ♪ take a look in the 5 and 10 ♪ glistening once again ♪ can candy canes all in one. with tendercrisp technology, food will be juicy on the inside, crispy on the outside. (upbeat drumming) the ninja foodi, the pressure cooker that crisps. the ninja foodi, you ok there, kurt? we're about to move.

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he violated his plea agreement by repeatedly lying to investigators. according to "wall street journal" they may include comments about manafort's personal business dealings and a former associate in ukraine. people tell the journal an interview with mueller's team, manafort made inaccurate statements about his communications with constantine kilimnik. both he and manafort were charged earlier for influencing two witnesses providing information on manafort. according to journal, manafort may have allegedly misrepresented information about payments he received related to his lobbying work. manafort's lawyers dispute mueller's claims, saying he has been truthful. the alleged misstatements do not appear to be central in the russian interference in the 2016 election. at this point it's unclear whether prosecutors plan to accuse him of additional lies. a judge will set a sentencing

date for tomorrow. joyce, let's talk about the state of paul manafort, with no plea agreement in place. what does that mean for him, exactly? there may be charges he will face on a local level and a state level, what does that mean for him at the center of this russian intelligenvestigation a sag he may be playing? >> so manafort lost his plea deal with the government. the plea, itself, still stands. he is adjudged guilty of everything and will be sentenced on that basis. it will be interesting to see what will happen going forward. he will never be able to come back into the fold as a government cooperator. they branded him as a liar. he could face additional state charges. a lot of folks pointed out the facts he pled guilty to in the federal indictment could subject him to liability, for instance, in the commonwealth of virginia, if the quell's attorney wanted to charge him. so he has a future that looks like he will be spending a lot of time in jail. maybe he's hoping for that, you

know, ubiquitous pardon hanging out there. but the president can't pardon him from state convictions if some were to take place. >> joyce, what would happen to everything manafort has given the special prosecutor so far, if 10% is ac rat, what happens to everything they have? >> so, it's a really interesting question, mike. i'm not sure the special counsel is damaged by the too much. the interesting thing is, they knew the answers to the questions that they were asking manafort to prove that he was lying. so essentially they were going at manafort to see what additional details he could provide, whether he could confirm certain instances and it may be that the actual value of manafort's cooperation is that they've seen where the pressure points are, they have now learned about the couldn't, that was going on with the white house and it may actually help them uncover more than it costs them at the end of the day because they, of course, have

rick gates, manafort's deputy cooperating and a number of other people i'm not certain this sa problem for the special counsel at the end of the day. coming up on "morning joe," who leading operators from the different sides of the aisle. congressman mike turn were joins us, first, senator dick durbin of illinois is standing by. plus, there is a new focus on a special contend tore replace jeff sessions. u.s. attorney and labor secretary alex acosta played a key role for a key billionaire accused of sexually abusing dozens of underage girls. >> that story is ahead on "morning joe." mitzi: psoriatic arthritis tries to get in my way? watch me. ( ♪ )

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a bombshell investigation by the miami herald is shedding new light on a controversial moment in the career of president trump's labor secretary alexander acosta. nbc at the my govg joins us -- stephanie gosk joins us. >> reporter: 60 women said they were assaulted by jeffrey epstein, he only served a little more than a year because of a deal signed off on by miami's

top federal prosecutor at the time alexander acosta. now one victim tells the herald, this is not just about justice for them but other victims who aren't olympic stars or hollywood stars. this is video of jeffrey epstein's home, takenpy investigators during a search of the multi-millionaire's palm beach mansion. it's where epstein was involved with over 40 under age girl, some he had sex with. several of his accusers speaking out for the first time to the miami herald. >> i was 16. >> i was 16. >> i started going to him when i was like 14, 15, 14 turning 59. >> reporter: a report from the palm beach police department alleges the girls were promised money in, change for ma soldiers and a female allegedly told one victim the more you do the more you get paid. >> he laid down in his towel on

his stomach. he was just talking to people on the phone. when he flipped over, that's when he said, okay, you can go ahead and take off your shirt and pants. >>. >> reporter: the accounts include indecent exposure to inappropriate touching to rape. the then under aged girls say they were lured by cash. >> my mother was on drugs at the time and she couldn't .for me and i was pretty much homeless. >> reporter: former palm beach police chief michael ryder says many of the years didn't know each other but had the statement i same story. >> we believe this would end up in an incarceration that would incarcerate mr. epstein for the remainer of his life. >> reporter: prosecutors had a 53-page filing. epstein, who famously palled around with donald trump, bill clinton, prince andrew, never faced those serious charges.

instead a plea deal was struck. he pleaded guilty to solicitation of prostitution and served 13 months in a county jail. >> he arranged it so he got work release. which meant he had a valet and driver, to pick him up at the jail every day and essentially drive him to an office. >> reporter: the former u.s. attorney who approved the deal, alexander acosta is now president trump's secretary of labor and a possible pick for attorney general. a labor department spokesperson tells nbc news the u.s. attorney's office defended the deal across three administrations and pointed out that secretary acosta was asked about the plea deal during his confirmation hearing last year. >> professionals within a prosecutor's office decide that a plea that guarantees that someone goes to jail, that giern tees that someone register generally and guarantees other

outcomes is a good thing. >> reporter: the former palm beach police chief disagrees. >> i think almost the entire system failed them. >> reporter: the agreement protects epstein and anyone that worked for him from federal charges. she a registered sex offender, but can travel to homes in florida, new york and the caribbean. they are trying to get his deal thrown out. emboldened by the #metoo movement, they want their stories heard. >> some soft victims will be in a big trial that starts on mon. it's a civil case. this is a case involving epstein and an attorney for the victims. it will be the first time that these women will have a chance to testify and tell their stories in a court, which is remarkable. >> this is a 53-page indictment that you think would send someone to jail for the rest of their life. instead he strikes this deal with the u.s. attorney alex acosta and gets 13 months of a phony jail sentence. he gets to come and go and valet

we heard in the piece picks him up. we heard him try to defend him there in a hearing there. what itself defense? >> so we reached out to the labor secretary. a spokesperson says to us. you referred to us in those comments in the hearing and said this had been a deal approved or a defendant across administrations. i guess my question for him, would have been the follow-up to that response in those confirmation hearings would have been, yes, prosecutors would see that as a good thing, unless they had a lot of everyday to convict him on far more serious crimes and one of the things that the miami herald reports is that the fbi investigation was well on its way to trying to prove international sex trafficking, that some of these victims weren't just in the u.s. but also from overseas. it's hard to imagine that that investigation came to a screeching halt, to send him away for 13 months. >> it's incredible, 6-0, victims, young girls.

>> they identify 80. they located 60. they identify 80. there are some that believe the number can be higher than that. >> in 13 months, i want someone who is preying on 80 live girls to have life in prison. you look at the nonsense laws we have right now. mitch mcconnell isn't let ig it go to the floor. this is insane. >> one of the things we didn't get to in that piece you saw, that is a big part of this miami herald lawsuit by these victims is when this plea deal was struck that the lawyer for the victims as well as the victims, themselves, never knew anything about it. they never knew the details about it. it was sealed. it wasn't opened again for over a year, that no one knew it had happened. >> that actually violates a federal law. so if it played out the way that they said it did. >> susan paige, alexander acosta is the current labor secretary. a name as you know that's been

floated to be the next attorney general of the united states. >> i'd like to ask, stephanie, number one, if you can think of the follow up questions that have been asked in the previous hearing, why didn't senators think of the follow-up question? why wasn't there a stir then and do you think he would be attorney general given this story? >> i have to tell you, having covered a lot of these stories. i spent a lot of time covering the #metoo movement, this to me is equally as egregious as the stories we heard about, weinstein, larry nassar, the cover upis as egregious as well. you have basically what appears to be the federal system allowing someone to skirt these more serious charges by a deal that was signed off by everyone involved. >> and so many powerful people are potentially going to be ensnared if this comes to light again as it very well should. >> off the clip we showed of his

testimony in the senate and the confirmation hearings. i know a few united states attorneys and former united states attorneys who would be shocked at what had happened during the plea bargaining of this case. you are talking 15, as you pointed out, 15, 16-year-old children, 60 victims involved, you know, many of them on the record now. >> yeah. you know that former police chief that we talked to from palm beach, he was very guarded in our conversation, but you can tell, this was a guy that thought they had him cold on much more serious charges and charges serious enough as he said to send jeffrey epstein away for life. what has happened, instead, jeffrey epstein is back in the public, a potential sexual predator. it doesn't appear to have been adjudicated. >> there is a turn in this research piece in the miami herald from the police chief

michael ryder, where some of these crimes took place. his quote is, this was not a he said, she said, 50-something hes, one she and the shes tell the story. >> a lot of them didn't know each other. >> stephanie gosk, thank you very much. we appreciate it. coming up next on "morning joe," we will look into the new report robert mueller is looking into late night phone calls with roger stone during the 2016 campaign. plus, are democrats willings to negotiate with the president to avoid a possible government shutdown over the border wall? a lot to discuss with senator dick durbin when he joins us next on "morning joe."

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. late night phone calls during the 2016 campaign between long-time political adviser roger stone and candidate donald trump now reportedly are under scrutiny by the special counsel's office the washington post reports the two had a number of calls with mr. trump reportedly calling late at night

from a blocked phone number. in recent months, the trump organization turned over to mueller's team, phone logs that show multiple calls between the then candidate stone in 2016, according to people familiar with that material. the records are not a complete log of their contables telling the "post" trumped a times called them from other people's phones. he says he never discussed wikileaks and down play the importance of phone records, calls, mueller has tape what would that prove? stone and wikileaks have denied collaborating with each other. trump said in written answers to mueller that stone did not tell him about wikileaks' upcoming release and he had no prior knowledge according to people familiar with the president's responses. joining us now the ranking member of border security and immigration, democratic senator dick durbin of illinois. good to have you with us.

>> good morning to be with you, willie. >> i'm not going to ask you about your late night calls. you came out strongly frustrated in that briefing. you said gina haskell was not in there. >> that she should have been in there. obviously the cia director. you said that pompeo and mattis told you all that she was not there at the direction of the white house. >> that's right. >> the cia press secretary came out afterward and said the notion that anyone told director haskell not to attend today's briefing is false. what exactly did secretary pompeo tell you all in that room? >> that hearing yesterday the closed door hearing was a disaster. first, secretary of state pompeo puts an article in the "wall street journal" and mocks members of the congress and the saudi regime and said we are caterwalling, i had to look up the wall, shrieking of cats, caterwalling. he and secretary mattis show up at this closed-door meeting. there is an empty chair.

the question was asked by democrats and republicans, the person who is ahead of our intelligence agency should tell us what they found about this. we were told, well, she was told not to come, that was said by secretary pompeo at one point. then later on, of course, we realize twhad had happened here, they were telling us, internth what she should have been telling us about. they said there was no smoking gun when it came to the crown prince. i can tell you there is certainly a lot of circumstantial everyday that lead us to the conclusion you don't have 17 saudis embark on this horrible escapade in killing this incident man and dismembering his body without the only in or approval without the leader of that country. for the president to think otherwise or secretary pompeo to say otherwise is incredible. >> i just want to underline what you said there, senator durbin the secretary of state mike pompeo told you directly the white house directed the cia director not to be at the briefing.

>> i want to be precise. i believe what he said is ask the white house when we asked, why isn't the cia director there? >> so, is there a way for you to get to gina haskell on your own and find out conclusively what exactly the cia knows, what it concludes. we had media reports about what the cia has concluded. have you spoken to the cia more directly? can you provide insight and shed light on what they know about the murder of jamal khashoggi? >> willie, that itself the frustration here. there are certain reliability in the united states senate to receive this intelligent information. i am not at that level. these briefings, the ones we had yesterday for all of the senators is our chance to really hear the information, learn what came from the intelligence and draw our own conclusions. in her absence, that's why it was so important in terms of what happened yesterday, i join with other senators like lindsay frame who say that until we

bring, have the cia director before us, giving us an adequate briefing of the intelligence that's gathered, we're not going to be satisfied with the representations made by third parties. >> senators, do you know whether or not miss haskell has spoken to selected members of the senate intelligence committees prior to yesterday? >> i'm sure she did. i would say of the eight who were eligible, there must be continuous briefings. and some of my colleagues have represented to us what has been found. but the notion that you need to find a smoking gun, you know, for those who have been in the field of prosecution for a long period of time, you realize there can be direct everyday. there can be circumstantial evidence. what do we know here? as raised at the hearing, we know the brother was contacting khashoggi telling him it was safe to go to the consulate before it and. there was circumstantial everyday that lead into the

crown prince's decision determination. >> the first step back has first bipartisan support in the congress, it's supported by all of the nation's governors. why is mitch mcconnell not allowing this to go to the floor? >> that's the right question to ask about the right person. we are doing everything in our power to convince mitch mcconnell, don't miss this opportunity. can you image an bill on criminal sentencing and prison reform that has the support not only of conservative republican senators but durbin and corey booker on the progressive side. the president of the united states the vice president of the united states who came to the republican conference lawnunch begged them to pass this bill before the end of the year, the endorsement of police groups as well as the american civil liberties union. this is a once in a bipartisan opportunity. let's seize it. >> senator, why between he allow

this? what is his opposition? >> i'm not sure. i'm not sure. ki tell you we are talking indirectly -- directly to the republican leadership and to many others. there is no reason why we shouldn't call this bill. republican senators tell me, according to lindsey graham, again, if you call this bill on the floor, lit have an overwhelming majority. the house told us they are ready to take it up immediately. >> susan paige has a question. susan. >> the president leaves in an hour for the g20 summit to meet with vladimir putin. do you think that meeting should go forward given the actions in ukraine and what response do you think the united states should be making to those provocative steps? should we be willing to see nato ships deployed there? >> let me tell you, i am always in favor of dialogue instead of military confrontation. if he makes it clear we find the russian actions for years to be

abhorrent and the most recent chapter in this history to be absolutely unacceptable, then it's a good investment of his time. my fear is the president will put his arm on the shoulder and believe everything vladimir putin tells him. we have to stand behind the people in ukraine. in terms of dispatching nato, they are not a part of the nato alliance. we have told them we are supportive as many european nations have. i don't want to escalate this militarily if that's fought necessary. but we got to make it clear, we stand behind the people of ukraine and behind this russian aggression. >> senator durbin the president of the united states says if he doesn't get his funding for the border wall, he is ready to shut down the government. chuck schumer says we will get $1.6 million. are we headed for a shutdown? >> the money we put for the president's wall has been spent a fraction of it. $5 billion is a waste of taxpayers dollars at many different levels. this is a decision to be made by the president he 57d he alone

has the power to shut down this government f. that's his choice, it's a bad choice. many republicans are telling him the same. >> before we go to break, i want to point out a "time" magazine. the piece is titled the world moves on and you don't. a report on the hundreds of parents across the country connected by the tragedy of losing a child in a school shooting. you can read the cover story online and the new issue is on sale tomorrow. still ahead this morning, our next guest sits on the house intel community, the armed services community and he's from ohio where gem motors is planning to shutter a plant and lay off thousands of workers. republican congressman mike turner next. ♪

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joining us, the chairman of the housed armed services on land force, republican congressman mike turner of ohio. we have a ton to ask you about. the announcement gm is going to close plants, lay off up to 15,000 people, many of them in your state, including lourdstown, ohio. the president has spoken out against gm, saying it better well build another plant in ohio. >> i think this continues to show the mismanagement at general motors. they once required a taxpayer bailout. they certainly should be subject to congressional oversight as to

their actionings. we've been very concerned. we've seen jobs leading ohio of where general motors is making investment. they're looking to offshore more in jobs and that certainly impacts our local economy. general motors was made a great company by people who worked there. they need to honor those employees, the investment that obviously even the taxpayers made to general motors and it appears they're not. >> we're wondering if you or any members of the house intelligence communitiy has received any briefings from the director of intelligence about riyadh and the crown prince. >> no, we have not. yesterday he said the investigation is ongoing. this is not going to be a change in u.s. values and those found to be responsible will be held accountable. the statements were strong. they clearly state u.s. policy. i think that's what congress is

going to be pursuing. >> who has briefed the house intelligence committee so far on this situation with saudi arabia? >> members themselves have not been briefed directly. obviously the chairman has received briefings. we're certainly -- we just met yesterday to have a discussion about our continuing demands to receive briefings on this matter. it has been frustrating. the important aspect is we maintain u.s. values. the investigation's ongoing. i think reflects the mood in congress. now we move forward and make certain congress is informed as to how that straegs is proceeding and what information we have about saudi arabia's involvement. >> sir, that's incredibly disturbing. in your role as providing congressional oversight for your

constituents, you're not getting access to requested intelligence briefings. why is this happening? why are members of the house intelligence committee not being provided with information they're requesting so you can do their job? >> i don't know the 'to that, other than the fact as we meet, we're certainly asserting to the administration our demands for that information. i think that we have seen the senate get additional information the house has not received. we don't know the reason for that is. they're certainly great displeasure from the members and that has been made clear both to the cia and administration. >> there's a new nbc news report this morning that the va has briefed staff, congressional staff, that the va will not be able to fulfill its requirements to the recipients of gi benefits. there were shortfalls in the

payments because of a glitch. the va says it cannot go back and repay the proper amounts because it would mess up future payments. what can be done about this? are you awheare of the problem? >> no, i saw the report on your show so i'm not familiar but i can tell you, when congress authorizes benefits, it is not a suggestion. we're going to be working to determine what this is. bookkeeping errors don't result in changing congressional intent. we're certainly going to work to ensure the veterans receive the benefits. i have people in my office who work full time just to ensure people receive the benefits they're entitled to. we're not going to allow the va to walk away from benefits. >> what's the recourse for people who are losing their homes, men and women who serve the country? >> the va committee has already engaged with the veterans administration.

we know they're going to be proceeding quickly to get the information to the rest of congress. and in the interim, our voices in making it clear to the administration and va this is not going to be tolerated that people do not receive benefits they're entitled to, it's going to be very important. >> we appreciate your time. before we go, the president in about an hour will be wheels up, heading to the g-20 summit. what will you look at over the next couple of days? >> he's got two important meetings with president xi. i think we'll look closely at his meeting with vladimir putting. how tough does he talk when it comes to the provocative actions with ukraine? >> the president has not shown a willingness to confront vladimir puti

putin. we'll see about today. >> we're looking for the united states to improve this computer glitch. >> that does it for us. we'll see you right back here tomorrow. in the meantime, stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage. >> good morning, everyone. i'm stephanie ruhle with a lot to cover today. starting with answers, e-mails and calls. some of president trump's response to robert mueller's questions now revealed has new details on the investigation emerged. late-night phone calls between donald trump and his associate roger stone and the president dangling a pardon for, guess who, paul manafort. emission failure. the va says it will not reimburse all veterans who were paid less due to a technical glitch. taking stock. markets surge after the