26,000 for the first time ever in the history, so today we have the highest stock price we've ever had had. and we're very happy about that. i said that was going to happen and it has happened. everything i said is going to happen, it ends up happening. >> tt president says the stock market would be facing its worst december since 1931 and the great depression? >> this tax cut that was passed was promised to put the prime and going to put another $1 trillion or $2 trillion into the economy when the economy is doing extraordinarily well. thanks, president obama, for the obama recovery. but, yeah, mika, my gosh, right now, the market is going up and down, but really, having the worst december since the great depression. >> so maybe not respond to go

his tax cuts, but the very, very large amount of unpredictability. welcome the ""morning joe" we have mike barnacle, alesse jordan, yamish alsendor, matt miller and -- >> speaking of, by the way, 1931. >> -- oh, john meachum is with us. >> its was a good year. >> really? it was a good year for whom? for fascists moving towards power? >> if you were making bowls for soup kitchens and stuff, it was

big. it was a great year. >> i don't like depression humor at 6:00 in the morning. >> mika, do you know what else 1931 was a good year for? >> who? >> st. louis cardinal fans. >> don't go -- that's weird. don't. >> so let me ask you, it's december 18th. have you finished your christmas shopping, mika? >> yes. >> oh, that is such a lie. >> no. >> willie, i'm going to move to you. >> i'm done. >> are you, really? >> yes. >> because, willie, that's funny. i haven't even started. >> i did yours. >> you know, amazon prime makes that all okay. you can start on the 23rd if you like, maybe even the 24th. you're going to be just fine. i had a big day at best buy yesterday. i'll leave it at that. but it's going to be a good christmas. >> that's cute. don't give away what you got. okay. so let's get to the news. there's really nothing to talk about.

another really quiet morning here. there's been swift reaction on capitol hill to a pair of reports released by the senate detailing russia's efforts to influence american politics during the 2016 election and afterwards. researchers dug through millions of social media posts created by a russian based firm called internet research agency. the reports found that it was the agency's mission to help donald trump and hurt his opponent, hillary clinton, by spreading disinformation. >> of course, we knew most of that. >> according to the reports, the agency spread messages aimed at suppressing turnout among democratic voters, particularly among african-americans. researchers counted more than 260 million engagements with the russian's firm's content on facebook and instagram alone. >> here is the thing. they do that in elections,

right? so after the elections, mika, i'm sure they sort of packed up their bags and got on the boac -- >> no. >> -- flew back and it was on over. >> no. the russian disinformation teams were still posting on social media. >> who in the world would they target? >> special counsel robert mueller. >> wow. okay. so let's just -- willie geist, i guess nothing should surprise us at this point. but the russians are so in bed with donald trump, so to speak, that not only did they help him -- they did everything they could do. their spy agencies did everything they could do. the ex kgb agent did everything they could do to help the republicans win in 2016. but that wasn't enough.

now we find out that they were focussing their efforts on robert mueller, who is conducting investigation into russia who is working for the justice department. >> yeah. it's really fascinating. we should point out this report was ordered by the republican-led senate intel committee led by richard burr of north carolina. but, joe, everything we knew before this was russia helped donald trump get elected because they believed his policies would be better for russia. but now he's already in the white house and russia is continuing to work on donald trump's behalf, going after robert mueller, posting across facebook and twister and instagram. you know, different posts that go after robert mueller and criticize him and try to undermine the investigation that they know he's undertaking. very interesting, matt miller, why would russia, after donald trump is already in the white house, what is the interest of russian operatives? what is the interest of vladimir

putin in continue toggle excavate and promote donald trump than to take take down robert mueller? >> well, they spent a lot of money and made a lot of effort to get their guy there and i think they want to keep them there. i think you hit on what is the most important thing in this report. it's not just that the russians tried to interfere in the election to get donald trump elected. we knew that. we've known that for a long time. it's that their messages echo what the president says. we see them trying to suppress the vote, the campaign manager bragged about doing it. we see them echoing the president's messages, attacking the fbi, trying to undermine bob mueller. what it shows is that the president kind of sets the tone here and you see the tone that he sets being carried out not just by his supporters here, but for the online army which is a russian-paid, russian finance directed effort to undermine american confidence in

democracy, undermine american confidence in institutions and ultimately weaken the special counsel. >> john meachum, this underlines what the president's own cabinet says in that press conference moments ago when you had the president's secretary for homeland security saying american democracy was under threat. well, we thought they were just talking about while elections were being held. this is obviously a 24/7 mission by are russian spy a agency to undermine american democracy. >> and i hate to put it like this, but like all great enemies, like all great foes, they have found a way to make our greatest strength our greatest weakness, which is our essential openness in technological and digital sense. they are taking advantage of the american ethos of free expression to conduct a

concentrated propaganda campaign on behalf of a particular person and that particular person's political agenda. and i don't know how many times we've said this, but we'll say it one more time and keep doing it. the failure of those who reflexively support the president to credit this kind of information and this kind of investigation to allow it to shape their view of that president and that program is one of the mysteries of the age. and it can change quickly. it changed with joe mccarthy. it changed with watergate. but it hasn't changed yet. and i just think the more information like this, the more hard data, the more we're going to have to figure out why 38 to 40% of the country refuses to see what is so obvious to everyone else. >> and the compliant congress, especially the compliant members

of the house. our founders could have never imagined that a foreign power would pose such a direct threat to american democracy as president trump's own intel chiefs and director of homeland security said they did, yet you have republicans in congress who are compliant who not only ignore the attacks from russia, but actually double down on the aa tack as from russia. what these russians were saying about robert mueller, you had a lot of members in the house of representatives saying the same exact thing. and i want to go to matt miller for a second. matt, while democracy is under attack, we have the "new york times" reporting that social media, facebook, twitter, instagram, ignored one warning sign after another, failed to take one curative step after

another, and basically allowed this to continue because they were making money off of a system that actually, as madelei madeleine allbright and some people we were with at dni a couple of weeks ago have said have turned technology into a hopeful development for democracy into actually a threat. >> yes. >> you know, we have not gotten anywhere close as a society to figuring out how to deal with this threat. the social media companies clearly haven't yet gotten their arms around it. they've invested a bunch of new resources. facebook brags all the time that the war room is set up to monitor this activity going forward. but it's not clear yet that they have a real handle on it and i don't think we'll know until the next presidential election when we see the russian army out in force trying to re-elect the president they supported the first time. but i think even aside from the social media companies, there is a responsibility for our leaders

and for our institutions. republican ares in congress really have to stand up and say, look, we have differences of opinion here. others may not. but we altogether reject interference by a foreign power. we altogether reject people spreading lies and conspiracy theories. it's hard for the republicans to say that when you have the leader of their party setting the opposite tone over and over again. >> and, joe, i would submit and defer to professor meachum on this, but i would submit that we have infer had a moment like we have like now and it entails the president of the united states who takes the field nearly every day with the intent to sow chaos and disruption and division within our political system. that works hand and glove with what vladimir putin have set out to do to this had country.

and for the first time, i think in my memory, and i don't know about anybody else's memory, we have an entire political party standing by the sidelines basically cheering this behavior on. i don't think it's ever occurred before. it's highly dangerous. and, again, to your point that you just raised, where are the republicans? former director comey spoke to this yesterday. where are they in this pivotal moment in history? i don't know whether you agree with me or not, but i have never, ever, ever on a daily basis seen a country so immune to the terror, to the treasonous behavior that is going on right within us. >> it's quite the contrast from, you know, ten years ago when republican orthodoxy was strong foreign policy, the democrats are weak, the uber hawks at the peat. and now you have this stunning evidence of intervention in on

our election and just blatantly, the russians are trying to sow discord, they are trying to just make worse the racial wounds within this country. they're trying to suppress the vote. and you have republicans who are silent and seemingly okay with this kind of attack on our democracy. >> not only silent, as james comey said yesterday, they actually went on the attack. as we've said before, you can actually look at what vladimir putin's goals are, what the gru's goals are, what the russian military's goals are. and you actually have republicans in the house doing his bidding. it wasn't just dana rorhbacher. james comey said it yesterday

after that hearing that not only are they not asking the tough questions about how to.stop meddling from the russians, they are trying actively to undermine an investigation that is supposed to uncover that interference. they don't want it uncovered, apparently, because there are a lot of republicans that understand that the game was rigged, but it was rigged for them by the russians. >> and that complicity is the cancer, potentially, inside our democracy. meanwhile, fox news analyst andrew nepolitano is laying out quite a scenario after the president was implicated in the case of his former fixer and lawyer michael cohen. nepolitano suggests the individuals already in court could be indicted for paying off two women to keep his alleged

affairs secret. >> there's ample evidence -- this doesn't require too much analysis -- to indict the president. is question is do they want to do i. the doj has thee three opinions on this. but all three address the problem what do you do with the statute of limitations about to expire? all three suggest you indict in secret, keep it under seal and release that indictment the day he's no longer in office. >> so he could be already a coconspirator? >> he could be. but we don't know. >> you know it's bad when you've lost fox news. >> i think it's incredibly alarming for president trump if he watch that's interview, which we know he loves to watch fox news and you hear that you could be indicted in secret. it's part of the reason why i think we've seen president trump

up this level of paranoia that he's had. these tweet storms where he goes off on russia and goes off on democrats and hillary clinton in a way we haven't seen before. and i think there's this idea that president trump and the republicans in general, while they obviously maybe are interested in the idea of russia meddling in elections, there's also a conflict on of interest there. when you talk to republicans on the hill, they say yes, we should be strong against russia. but this also, as vladimir putin said in helsinki when i was there for that stunning press conference, he wanted donald trump to win. and i think over and over again, one of the things we haven't talked enough about is this idea that russia wanted to increase the racial tension in this country. in interview after interview after interview, they kept saying the idea that hillary clinton called african-americans

super predators. african-americans have always had specific issues with hillary clinton, but the language super predators, it was a way they wanted to simply phi whfy what clinton meant to african-americans. they are benefitting from some of the things russia is doing, even if the democracy is suffering. >> yeah, joe, if you look at the big picture, republicans are treating russian interference about a political issue. they're saying quiet bit because it helped their guy. but that's incredibly short sided because next time it won't be your guy or your woman, it will be the other side's. there should be a clear investigation and there has been and now we have more evidence

from these documents we got yesterday. it couldn't be more clear that russia interfered in the election and that they wanted donald trump to be president. now we know that the interference continued after the election. so the fact what this is a dirty political issue is a shame because what it is is something that should be taken seriously as a national security issue. the headline is a foreign power tried to change and maybe did change the outcome of ow presidential election and nobody should be okay with that. >> and, again, for those house republicans, that continue to carry vladimir putin's water and suggest that this is a witch-hunt, they are actually on the other side, not only of robe robert mueller, a lifelong republican, but dan coats, a lifelong republican, they are on the other side of the kiersten

nielsen, they are on the other side of christopher wray who was appointed by donald trump. they are on the other side of gina haspel, cia director. they are on the other side of the entire republican-appointed and led intelligence community. and, mika, they've been throwing out these conspiracy theories from day one. every conspiracy theory they are thrown out, and, really, they've embarrassed themselves. they've made fools of themselves over the past several years trying to cover for donald trump and the spy agency. they all blow up. and we're going to talk next block about how they lies, their conspiracy theories about michael flynn have also blown up. poor michael flynn, he was duped. he didn't know that lying to the fbi was a crime. of course, he was ahead of, like, an intel division in the military.

he was called one of the greatest intel minds in the history of the armed forces and they trot this out. now we find out that yesterday not only michael flynn was not trapped into lying, that he had been planning to lie for some time. they have text messages, they have e-mails, they have so much evidence. so here is another conspiracy theory trotted out by the far right that has been blown to bits, not by robert mueller, but by the facts. >> and that is still ahead on "morning joe." michael flynn will be sentenced today for lying to the fbi. we're going to run through his case and the new charges against two of his former business associates. and another huge story still to get to this morning, a potential government shutdown just days away. republicans in congress say they're still waiting to hear from the white house. and we want to mention that this engineyear joe is featurede

christmas songs play list by filter. it's the track we're hearing right now. filter is the world's leading third party playlist service with over 26 million followers around the world. check them out on facebook, twitter and instagram. we have much more news ahead. but first here is bill karins with a check on the forecast. >> only a week away now. a lot of people are getting ready forrer their holiday travel. we have a big storm at the end of this had week. today was quiet, but it was windy in northern new england last night. the windchills are a lot colder this morning than it was yesterday at this time. we're at 4 in vermont, buffalo is at 15. so bundle up from d.c. northwards. new york city is around 20 or so for the windchill. sunny this afternoon. beautiful travel day across the country, the exception being the pacific northwest. let's fast forward to the end of this had week. another soaking rain thursday and friday.

so we're going to see a little bit of a chance of flooding. about 1 to 2 inches widespread. the biggest issue, airports with windy conditions and heavy rain. so atlanta, charlotte, miami, ft. lauderdale, including tampa and orlando, this is going to be on thursday. and as we go through friday, airport delays are likely early in the day. d.c., philadelphia, baltimore, new york city and during the afternoon heading up through areas of new england. so keep that in mind. saturday .sunday, that storm clears out. but thursday, the southeast. friday in the northeast. a lot of airport delays because a lot of our wind and rain storm. doesn't look like any white christmas will be in the cards for anywhere on the east coast. maybe even the midwest, too. we'll use our own special effects there to give you some snowflakes. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. look, if you're not the lead dog, the scenery never changes. that's why this is the view for every other full-size pickup. and this year, it's déjà vu all over again.

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just hours after the special counsel released a redacted version of the fbi's memo about flynn's january 2017 interview, in the memo, flynn describes multiple discussions with then russian ambassador sergey kislyak telling agents about a closed door meeting with him after the 016 election, the details of which are redacted. flynn described kislyak texting him to arrange a call after the obama administration leveled sanctions against russia. flynn was on vacation in the dominican republic at the time saying he didn't remember discussing sanctions, but that if he did, he said he would not have asked kislyak, quote, don't do something. however, in his statement of

offense for lying to the fbi last year, flynn admitted that he had conferred with another presidential transition official who was with other team members at mar-a-lago about what to communicate before speak to go kislyak. and then he requested russia nots ka late in response to the sanctions when talking to kislyak. and that had after he reported back the substance of the call to the official at mar-a-lago. >> so, willie, you dig into this and you find out that far from, you know, the conspiracy theory are of some very desperate people on the far right who will do anything to try to protect donald trump and vladimir putin that, in fact, he lied about sanctions, he lied about what he said to kislyak. he lied about ongoing negotiations with turkey. >> yeah. >> he lied. he lied about numerous things. and, again, this man was one of the top intel officers in the

united states armed forces. >> well, that conspiracy theory you're referring to said says michael flynn was somehow entrapped. that's why he is now going to be sentenced,.perhaps, to prison today although robert mueller recommended no prison time for him. on the turkey question, the amazing thing many people forget is michael flynn on election day 2016 published an op-ed on the hill on behalf off erdogan. on election day. bob mueller suggested and recommended no prison time because of flynn's cooperation. do you think general flynn will go to jail today? >> i think he's probably not likely to. the only reason i hedge a little bit is this judge is one of the most unpredictable judges in the

d.c. circuit. we saw this idea raised last week that flynn wasn't warned of the need to have an attorney present. and i think the judge reacted to that harshly in asking for all of these memos to be released publicly, one that was released last night is that flynn very clearly lied to the fbi. this entire conspiracy theory that he was somehow somehow set up, that he was trapped, that he didn't lie, the fbi agents in the room didn't think he lied, but then bob mueller later decided to charge him with that, nonetheless. we see that conspiracy theory completely obliterated. so i think the judge maybe is a little angry at what flynn and his attorneys have done. but i think the most likely

outcome is probably he takes the recommendation from the prosecutor and gives him no jail time. >> you know, john meachum, we see so many cases of constitutional norms being breached every day. we see so many examples on of bad faith coming from either the president of the united states or those who work for him or who have worked for him that sometimes it's shocking to us when we just and take a step back and go, oh, my god, this is happening every day. i was struck yesterday by carol linen who wrote this great piece in "the washington post" on michael flynn who tweeted, we reported pieces of this, yet it is still shocking to read how michael flynn was willing to sell out the u.s. government and lie about his foreign clients all the way to a government job steering u.s. national security policy with donald trump.

it's still so shocking to read says the reporter that was writing it down. there are so many of these moments, john, where you stop yourself and go, my god, is this really happening in the united states of america. >> and that's part of the problem with actually being able to sustain the kind of, if you will, revela the tory or ill lo -- illuminating outrage. one of the tasks for all of us is how do you take the shock and sustain it. and in so far as there is a trump strategy, and i may be giving him too much credit there, i think it is the sense that if you just throw everything out there, all the time, all the bright objects, you kick the soccer ball at the 8-year-old game, you just change the subject, you just do everything you can to keep chaos

going, going back to the russian idea about how to sow this political dissention, that the public becomes callous to it. when ronald reagan's were called to violate norms in pursuit of a policy to get hostages free. that was very nearly a constitutional crisis. barnacle was covering it. that's how long ago it was. so one of the things that i just think is worth trying to

remember is we have to -- i don't want to say parcel out the outrage, but it has to be a sustained conversation. because you're exactly right. the number of norms, you know, that churchill once said of john foster dulles, he's the only bull that carries his own china shop with him. donald trump does that. but he's smashing our china. >> that is correct. >> and, joe, i would suggest that you can find it online, you can go to google. one of the great essays of the 20th century, defining deviancy, and it speaks to what's going on in this country today, joe. we are immune to shock. there are multiple shocks each and every day emanating from the white house, emanating from the mouth of the president of the united states, both what he says and what he's done in the past and what he does daily. we are immune to shock now. >> and, mika, how offensive that

there are still people who are trying to defend donald trump saying, quote, everybody does it. >> it's so disrespectful to the american people. >> everybody hasn't done it. this is a one off. you have a president whose campaign, with whose family, whose sons did everybody they could to coordinate attacks on their political opponent. i don't think of any politician i have ever known would not immediately pick up the phone and call the fbi and say, hey, listen, we've got something here you're going to want to take a look at. >> so we'll be talking about this a lot more. matt miller, thank you so much for coming on this morning. russia says it's deploying more

than 10 fighter jets to crimea. it's the latest russian escalation aimed at ukraine and comes through weeks after russia fired upon, rammed, and seized two ukrainian navy vessels and a tugboat and took several ukrainian sailors into custody. russia's defense ministry says its latest actions are preparations for what it claims is a ukrainian provocation coming before the end of the year. the government of poland has reversed a controversial decision that forced out a third of its.top judges ending months of tension with the european union over the issue. critics say poland lowered the retirement age for judges to give the ruling law and justice party more political control over the supreme court. the party claimed the changes were necessary, but the european union's top court accused the polish government of undermining

the rule of law and ordered two dozen judges who were purged to be reinstated. >> mika, this is something that we were talking about yesterday. >> yep. >> your father would be so pleased to see this happening and so pleased to see that the polish government was, in fact, taking guidance from the eu and moving away from this authoritative stance that really did great violence to the rule of law. >> yeah. >> this is a positive development. >> let's hope. and two chicago police officers have died after being struck by a train last night. the officers, 37-year-old eduardo momeloe and 30-year-old conregard gary were responding on foot to a call of shots fired on chicago's far south side when they were hit by a passing commuter train traveling between 60 and 70 miles per hour. chicago's mayor says they were both fathers of young children. still ahead, in just about

two weeks, house democrats will have the power to launch investigations into the white house. we have new reporting about how the trump administration is gearing up for that. "morning joe" is coming right back. ♪ ♪ ♪ the united states postal service makes more holiday deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country. ♪ with one notable exception. ♪

joining us here in new york, margaret carlson from the daily beast. >> good morning. >> also with us, jeff bennet, white house correspondent. jeff, you've got new reporting on the white house's new legal teams and it struggles it will face as it gears up for all the investigations coming in january. so far from rudy giuliani, the defense has been nobody got killed when talking about some of the allegation egs that we'v heard coming out from president trump. what are you hearing about the new strategy? >> yeah. the take away is that the white house is in no way prepared to deal with the deluge of oversight demands how democrats are expected to send down pennsylvan pennsylvania avenue in two weeks' time. part of the problem is you have a white house counsel's office that was reeviscerated with the depart temperature of don mcg

mcgahn. the new white house country has four seasoned well respected justice department lawyers, former justice department lawyers working for him, but they hit the ground running after only having been on the job a week. normally the way this would work is when there is an investigative demand sent to the white house, you would have the counsel's office working in concert with the legislative affairs team, also working with the communications staff to deal with it, not just at the white hou house, but with all the respective departments and agencies. but at the current trump white house, you have the counsel's office, you have the alleged affairs team that just got a new director over the summer and you have a communication staff that day in and day out is be sieged by the scandal did yu jour or t tweet du jour on a daily basis. >> not a huge surprise.

>> no, not at all. and, jeff, from your reporting and sourcing these things out, do you get any sense of any level of trepidation about no matter who they have on the legal team, no matter who they have on the support team right now, that they have to deal with someone like rudy jewgiuliani w goes on tv and says things like, well, the president wasn't under oath when he said these things. how are they going to deal with this stuff? >> it's in no way helpful. the other thing you have is there is a sense that the white house country's team might be outmatched by people like adam schiff, elijah cummings, all these people who have made clear that they intend to investigate any width of wrongdoing, everything going from improper use of government e-mail to foreign influence on the

administration to foreign policy. and then you have rudy giuliani saying things unhelpful to the president's case. cipiloni, we understand, has helped this administration. he helped donald trump, rather, with debate prep leading up to the 2016 campaign. he advised the legal team having to do with the russia investigation. but, again, this is one of the unintended consequences of the increased turn over at the trump white house, but also the fact that they're so flat-footed and getting ready for this oversight. >> jeff bennet, thank you so much. margaret, you added to this mix, you have a new chief of staff coming in. welcome to the party, nick mulvaney. this is what you inherit. .it's coming at this white house from so many directions. they couldn't possibly be prepared for what's coming when jerry nadler takes overer or

adam schiff take of. >> it's a legal fight and he needs a bigger boat. someone added up all the investigations and came up with the number 17. i only had eight. so they're ones that haven't risen to the level where we talk about them every day. but some of the lawyers can't even be vetted and some of the lawyers he didn't get, like ted olson, robert bennet, brandon sullivan who have been through this kind of thing before said no to him. so while these may be some fine lawyers that are coming in, they haven't been quite through what trump is about to go through. and one of the lawyers i just learned who is coming this week, pat fhilbin was in the justice department with james comey when he was acting ag. and during that time, there was that famous john ashcroft hospital scene when commy came in and said we can't keep up this wiretapping program.

john ashcroft agreed with comey and who was next to comb my at the bedside but the new lawyer for the white house, pat philbin. does donald trump know that his newest lawyer, who is at kirkland now, was a supporter of james comey's? >> no. >> does he know that mick mulvaney was -- >> a deficit talk. >> was basically saying the president of the united states was a horrible human being. >> and he went against every principal he had. >> yamish, it is kind of astounding at a reality level when you have a man who happens to be president of the united states confronted with, as margaret just pointed out, so many investigations and it's seemingly the entire graduating class of harvard law school would have trouble keeping up with this and he has basically a

whole new legal team just stepping in getting ready to confront a democratic congress led by nancy pelosi and adam schiff doing the investigating along with several other members of congress. this is a potential -- not that it hasn't been a catastrophe for the administration thus far, but a real catastrophe. >> well, president trump is definitely going to face a completely different legal reality once democrats take power, but the one key thing here that needs to -- that people need to keep in mind is that president trump is as much interested in the messaging surrounding the mueller investigation as he is in the actual legal defense that he has put up against it. there's this idea that president trump, while he's hiring lawyers and talking to people about having an alternate report to robert mueller's report, there is this idea that the president understands media and he has doubled down on this idea on of a witch hunt.

just this morning, he's tweeting again that the mueller investigation is a witch-hunt and he's giving republicans in congress this idea, this vocabulary to use against the mueller investigation, anything that makes it look as though the president isn't going to be doing something. so we have up there the president just now saying the mueller witch-hunt is, in fact, part of this larger thing to take down a president that was elected. he's really giving that to republicans. so i think the president has issues when it comes to getting legal counsel at pbs. we've interviewed lawyers who have said yes, i told the president no when he tried to hire me. on t on top of that, we have a president who is way more interested in making sure people think mueller is not credible. >> the president just tweeted good luck in court, michael flynn. james comey, former fbi director, slams republicans for not standing up to president trump. and the white house is hitting back, accusing comey of, quote,

tremendous corruption. we'll show you those comments ahead on "morning joe."

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>> so another day of hillary clinton emails and dossier. while the president is lining about the fbi, taking the fbi and taking the rule of law in this country. how does that make any sense at all. republicans used to understand the actions of a president matter. the words of a president matter. the rule of law matters. and truth matters. where are those republicans today? at some point someone has to stands up and in the face of fear of fox news, fear of their base, fear of mean tweets stand up for the values of this country and not slink away into retirement but stand up and speak the truth. i find it frustrating to be here answering questions that are far

less important than the values this country is based upon. >> as we were saying before, here you have news breaking left and right that the russians were not only attacking american democracy during the campaign they were also going after robert mueller and here you have republicans attacking a man who most democrats rightly believe helped elect donald trump with his letter ten days before the election. >> trump thought democrats would be in favor of his firing james comey for that reason. republicans should quit bringing james comey up to the hill because it does not help them. >> it does not work. >> no. it backfires every time. we'll see if they learn that. but the james comey gambit where -- trump has this child-like view of the law if you get rid of the guy at the

top then your troubles will go away. he doesn't know there's a department of justice that abides by a rule of law and the u.s. code that out lasts anyone. so the firings and the witch-hunt, name calling, just doesn't work. we have a stronger country than that. >> they do. they just -- they are completely ignorant, mika, of the federal government, of madisonian democracy and also they totally misjudged the man who is actually investigating russia and putin and trying to see what happened to american democracy. robert mueller is not going to be scared away and, in fact, everything donald trump is doing this morning, everything that rudy giuliani has been doing, we see from polls that are coming out now have hurt him and hurt his standing. less than 30% of americans actually believe he's been handling this investigation

well. >> staggering. hard to find thele words. still ahead much more on the new revelations on russia's efforts to help donald trump before and after the election. first targeting hillary clinton and then robert mueller. "morning joe" is back in a moment. at fidelity, we help you prepare for the unexpected with retirement planning and advice for what you need today and tomorrow. because when you're with fidelity, there's nothing to stop you from moving forward.

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the president has now stepped into the same territory that ultimately led to president

nixon resigning the office. president nixon was an unindicted co-conspirator. certainly a different set of facts. but this investigation is now starting to put the president in serious legal cross-hairs and he should be worried and the whole country should be worried. >> that was democrat chris murphy, but some republicans we know are now quietly comparing donald trump to richard nixon, the president who, of course, was impeached and forced from office. how has trump become positively nixonian, trying to undermine the fbi, changing his story almost daily in order to try to stay ahead of events, pushing for an effort to be taken private information from the democratic national committee, counting on republicans on capitol hill to save himself from his misdeeds? increasing number of aides in legal jeopardy? if nixon had a twitter account

with millions of followers i wonder who knows how watergate would have ended? what do we know at this point? we know many republicans are worried that the walls are closing in on president trump, and this time his tweets and the russians just might not be able to save him. >> welcome back to "morning joe". it's tuesday, december 18th, 2018. along with mika, willie and me we have mike barnacle. former aide to the george h.w. bush white house elise jordan. history onand author of soul of americaon meacham and reporter for "the washington post" eugene scott. willie, the term that was used at the top of this segment by the connecticut sender, christopher murphy was unindicted co-conspirator.

that word was used yesterday by fox news' senior legal analyst judge andrew napolitano. take a listen. >> there's ample evidence, this doesn't require too much analysis to indict the president. the question is do they want to do it? the doj has three opinions in this. two say you can't indict a sitting president one says you can. all three address the problem of what do you do with the statute of limitations about to expire. all three you indict in secret. keep the indictment sealed and give it the person leaves office. >> so he may be an already indicted co-conspirator. could be? we don't know what's been sealed. >> by defending we don't know. that's theory if it's sealed it's sealed. but if you were donald trump to senator murphy's point and your national security adviser today is being sentenced and last week

your long time fixer and attorney was sentenced to jail for three years and your media protected you for all these years, if my examine manager, my director man is in a lot of trouble i wouldn't be feeling great if i was president of the united states. >> your cfo as well who probably has a lot of information on all of these things. i think donald trump just never thought this through. first of all, he never thought he would win. secondly he thought people would never turn on him. he doesn't show loyalty to them so it must come as a shock when they turn around and doesn't show much to him. point of fact, he's got so many fires on so many different front whether it's russia, whether it's obstruction, whether his foundation, which is being pursued at a state level. no pardon there from a federal executive. that it's hard to imagine how he kind of copes with all of this.

plus, the democratic house is coming in. they will have to respond to all sorts of things. whether it's other scandals. he'll have forest fires as far as the eye can see for the next six months or year or however long he's there. >> john meacham, we're beginning to see some cracks in the wall of donald trump's support with some republicans, certainly only 29% of americans now saying that donald trump is handling the mueller investigation well. you see his re-elect down to the 30s as well. but still he has a core, 75%, 80% of republicans still say they support donald trump as their president. i'm wondering, can you give us historical comparison between what's going on now and what was going on politically in watergate? i guess even late into 1973, the

majority of republicans were still supporting richard nixon. that when it came crashing down it came crashing down all at once. >> very quickly. it was a very rapid cascading effect in '73. so the break in is june 17th, '27. nixon doesn't resign until august 8th, '74. hearings began may of '73. but it was, this was the season that the late, the last quarter of '73 when nixon said "i'm not a crook" which would fit on twitter. then basically what begins to happen in '74, you have the investigations, but you also have the economy souring. and that's something to watch. if you want to -- one barometer of what will happen to president trump is what's in the corner of everyone's twig sets is what the markets are doing. i believe he's been propped up

artificially of what i think of 401(k) trump supporters because their numbers were up they were willing to give him a pass on the rest of it. when that begins to crack that goes away. one other thought is it is possible that our ordinary political vocabulary, our ordinary vernacular sent commensurate with what here. if, in fact, donald trump knew about the russian efforts on his behalf, then there's a live question about whether he gave -- he has been giving aide and comfort to the enemy, which is the definition of treason in the constitution. so this just isn't who wins the week, who loses the week conversation. this is a constitutional crisis because it's quite possible that the president of the united states right now is a witting or

at least partially witting agent of a foreign power. i say that with great care but that's a possibility. and i think that we have to somewhat tap the brakes on our ordinary assessment of things and realize that this is possibly the biggest kind of question we could confront as a democracy. >> we've never been here before. we weren't here, obviously, during the iran/contra. we weren't here during watergate. we have never been here before where you actually have, again, the president's own intelligence community, the people that he appointed himself suggesting that, in fact, american democracy of at risk, whether you're talking about the person heading up the department of homeland security or the director of national intelligence or the head of the fbi. all people that the president, of course, put up and nominated.

they are his people, talking about that. now we're finding out that the russians were doing this and attacking robert mueller, and just, elise, this past week we found out from rudy giuliani maybe unwittingly or he planned to leak it out there that donald trump was lying throughout the entire campaign about contacts with russia and not only did the talks about trump tower and moscow not end in december of 2015 when we were first told that it ended, or june of 2016 as cohen later told us, but rudy giuliani now says it actually continued through the election and for a man who didn't think he was going to be elected president of the united states, as i've said every day, if you want to understand donald trump, just understand it's all about the money. >> joe, that might have been the most stunningly truthful

declaration that rudy giuliani has uttered his entire time in this post admitting that yes donald trump has been lying, that they have been lying about their contacts. i was interested in yesterday, the poll that you were referencing the new nbc poll that 63% of americans do not trust donald trump when it comes to the russian investigation and what he's saying about it. hugo, i would be curious, what's your sense of in washington how are republicans in congress responding to what seems to me a slight shift in public mistrust of donald trump's handling of the russian investigation. >> republicans are very worried and have always been worried by donald trump. there's always been this tension between their concern that some of the allegations and some of the suspicions may be true. and they need to back a republican president. as more evidence emerge, or more

suggestions, more hints emerge, it changes the calculus that they make. they don't want to pull away from the president and, indeed, i think quite a lot of this, there's pretty solid report for the president amongst many republicans. at the same time they can look at this, at all the different calamities and fires and wondering now are the walls closing in as someone was saying. you know, they are making that calculation too. they are politicians. they don't want to be unpopular. they want to do the best they can. >> can you imagine, hugo, what would happen if we win this white house given the fact they are dealing with investigation on multiple front if when he a true hot international crisis right now today? >> there's one area where i think president trump is doing rather well and it's on

international relations. those are the things, that is to say on the policies that he has, both in the middle east and elsewhere. but how he deals with a crisis, is anybody's guess. he hasn't had to deal with one. i think that the confusion and the sort of disarray inside the white house does not give anyone any confidence that that would to be done well. >> >>en. jennifer let's talk about your column. is there a shutdown, do you think, when we hit friday, when we hit the deadline and if so what are the implications for the president because there's no way out of it at this point given he himself said it is his, the shutdown. >> in the shutdown club one does not say i'm for the shutdown. that's rule number one.

republicans were stunned, frankly, when he said this. this is not something they want. for those who are leaving they want to leave. for those coming back they know it looks terrible. you never wayne shutdown. we learned that twice in the last few years, once in 2013 when the republicans tried to do it dean it. and once earlier this year when the democrats did it over the issue of the dreamers. so whoever pulls this off does not win with the american people. american people hate this kind of stuff. what's interesting they hated it in the past even when they liked the objective. if you remember back in 2013, obamacare back then was unpopular. you think maybe they would like that. no they didn't like the shutdown or the means. earlier this year most americans favored some relief for the dreamers. they favored that end but still didn't like the shutdown. here most americans don't want the wall. they are upset about the objective. that doesn't justify it. and they are upset by the means. i have to go back to something

hugo said about foreign policy. i don't think that's been a success for the president. in saudi arabia he's now been rebuked very strongly by the saudis and by the senate in favor of the saudis. i think they are suspicious of his russia policy. north korea is not going anywhere. the president doesn't that have attention span, the skills to have a big win in foreign policy. basically he fights with our allies which doesn't look so good. the normal thing, nixon going to china during watergate i don't think he has available. he doesn't have a place he can go and win a big one and put people's concerns at ease. >> clearly the murder of the saudi journalist khashoggi and the response and the fact that the administration, the kingdom is blamed for that and, indeed, was responsible for it is a black eye for the policy. but a lot of people would say the support of israel, the

moving of the embassy to jerusalem, the bringing in of the saudis to support, essentially, american foreign policy against iran in the middle east, the 0 seveover tur to north korea the administration realizes it's not going as smoothly as they wanted. but there was support to do something about a problem that existed for several decades. i would say that on foreign policy, i would dispute with you that the extent to which this is regarded as a success. >> well, his impact on foreign policy resultly negative because he's so unpredictable. nobody knows what's going to happen next. eugene scott, back to the wall, which nobody wants. if you look at the polls and you sort of garner the american interest in this. they also don't like shutdowns.

and trump is taking ownership saying i'll shutdown the government. how do republicans try and bring this together, because apparently the president wants all that money for wall. >> well, i think republican lawmakers understand that at the end of the day when it comes to the wall the president is going to do what he wants to do ultimately, even though many americans, including republicans, especially republicans along the border have made up in their mind that this is not something they wanted and they made that clear to their lawmakers with the hope that their lawmakers could persuade the president from doing things differently. but they can't. in part because the president made this promise on day one that this was something that he was going to do and he's running his entire re-election campaign based on the slogan promises kept. so he has to lean into this, especially considering the number of things in other areas that have not gone as well for him. i think what's going to be interesting is to see how voters in particular respond to the president as his original

promise regarding the wall increasingly changes. people forget that he promised them on day one that mexico would pay for the wall and there's nothing being discussed right now and no policy in place that makes it clear that mexico will, in fact, pay for the wall. but if it does happen it will be american taxpayers and many who voted for trump themselves. >> yeah. >> hugo -- >> we won't be paying. >> this is something that i've never really understood and i'm not sure exactly where you've been on this issue, but the wall has never really been popular, even among a lot of fiscal conservatives, a lot of people even in the house and the senate republicans, come on, we understand it was a great line in your campaign pledges, but it's not worth the money and actually there's better technology. so, done that make it even more difficult for a lot of republicans to support a

government shutdown based on a political promise of donald trump? it was always unpopular with at least 60% of americans. >> well, sure. they don't want a shutdown and they don't want a shutdown over this. to say the wall is unpopular is misleading. president trump or donald trump was elected partly on the promise of building the wall. that was the central or perhaps the core promise of his campaign. so i think one of the odd things about the whole dispute on the wall is that $5 billion is a kind of, almost a rounding error in the federal budget. every time we go through immigration act we're going to a wall and that is not an unusual thing for people to face a wall when they come to a bothered. there's nothing immoral about a border wall and nothing that stops people coming through in a legal way. a lot of people understand that

and they don't think that there's something extraordinary or immoral as the democrats have said. people think that president trump is obsessed with the wall. perhaps he is. i think also the democrats are obsessed with the wall. the reason is they don't want to give the president a win, and as the reporter just said it's one of his campaign promises. he's examining on promises kept. he wants this and chuck schumer and nancy pelosi want to make sure done get it. >> jennifer, i don't think the wall is immoral. i just think it's stupid. if you look at poll numbers from 2016 forward, it has been unpopular. right now a poll this week shows that 69% of americans do not think the wall should be a priority. 28% of americans do believe the wall should be a priority, which is pretty consistent with polls that were taken in 2016. people voted for donald trump for a lot of reasons.

i would suggest that building a wall was not, even though that was his applause line, i don't think that's why a lot of americans voted for him if you look at the poll numbers. >> i think that's right, joe. listen, the american people recoil from this idea of a wall. as a practical matter it makes very little sense. it puts us at odds with mexico whose keeping we need. diverts resources. and makes for more illegal aliens because those who are casual travellers back and forth across the barrier get caught in the united states. i think this is absolutely critical. the republicans are operating in their own little world here on this and so many other issues. what's popular with the base, 80%, 90% is very unpopular with america whether you look at climate change, whether you look at the wall, whether you look at a whole slew of issues. republicans are in their own

little world. donald trump goes out and loves the applause of the crowd, goes out to red states and gets lots of applause says the people are with us. the people are the entire united states. he may not have governed that way that's the reality. now he has a democratic congress and he has a senate that's all over the map. so he's not going to get this. donald trump, his entire life has got enthrough with his salesmanship and never having to deliver. now he's caught. there's no bankruptcy he can run out of town with casinos. he can't close down the vodka or the steak line. he's got to sit there and deal with fact he has not delivered. so, i think he's caught. i don't think he particularly has a game plan. he's just waiting for congress to figure out how to get him out of this. >> again, mika, you know, i say the wall is not immoral, the wall is stupid because, i mean, the wall may have been a great

idea for the chinese thousands of years ago, but for america in 2018, if we're really talking about stemming the flow of illegal immigration in the future to this country, we've got technology. even the president, once again, the president's own cabinet, the president's own chief of staff, the president's own director of homeland security said that there are more effective ways to keep illegal immigrants out of this country. >> jennifer rubin, hugo thank you for being on the show. john meacham as well. still ahead on "morning joe" if robert mueller doesn't ruin president trump's re-election chances the state of pennsylvania might. politico says a gop meltdown there threatens to torpedo trump's hopes for a second term.

we'll talk to republican ryan costello who is retiring after two terms. you're watching "morning joe". we'll be right back. unpredictable crohn's symptoms following you? for adults with moderately to severely active

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president trump made history by winning pennsylvania in 2016, but it sure looks like the tide is beginning to turn there hanes over the past two years. joining us now a republican who did not seek re-election in one of three districts there that turned blue last month, congressman ryan costello. let me ask the question we were just discussing with our panel a few minutes ago and that's the question of a government shutdown. you're still down there for another month or so. will the government shutdown this week? >> i think probably more than any other time in my experience in congress we're closer to a shutdown now than we have ever been. the president has to come to the

table and show what he's willing to sign. we can't pass something in congress unless we know what the president is willing to sign and the president made a big mistake when he went into that meeting and essentially negotiated with himself. first rule of negotiations is don't negotiate against your several and that's what he did. >> a lesson in art of the deal in that room. let me ask you since you're leaving, a republican that swung in a place for donald trump and swung back in 2018 who is leaving office as you are now, what's your view of the republican party right now in the age of donald trump and how has it changed from 2016 to 2018 and going forward? >> i think in 2016 all of us running had the ability to separate ourselves from the president a little bit. we had our own identity. in 2018 i think most voters who went to the polls were either voting in support of the president's agenda and we saw that in missouri and north

dakota and indiana, or they were voting against the president. and so in a lot of suburban districts and house races my colleagues got wiped out on account of the fact that we've become the party of trump and i think moving forward it's going to be extremely important that we plan for the day when president trump is no longer president, whenever that is because we cannot allow some of the more caustic remarks and ridiculous tweets to define us as a party. i think those ideas are being lost in this cult of personality era that we're in. >> congressman, you're talking about free market principles but i just haven't seen that much of it under donald trump, you know, picking winners and losers, calling out individual heads of corporations. i think we're on to a second bail out for farmers because of the trade war.

do you think that the republican party that members elected to congress because they were, they said they were going to cut the deficit, they were going to attack spending, do you think that has to principles still exist? >> i think that's an excellent question. the first part of your question focused on the fact that we now have these tariffs which i don't think is the right approach and as a consequence of that now the president is doing market corrections or sector corrections by giving money away. the second part of your question related to spending we all agree in the republican party that we have not addressed deficit spending and the debt the way we would have liked. obviously we know the cost drivers are in medicaid, medicare and social security and the president has been unwilling to address them. if you look at house budgets, we have done wish we have put forward budgets that do course correct spending but when we get

to spending bills we bust budget caps again. points well taken but some of the -- if you look at some of the regulatory reform measures we've done i think we've been true to republican principles in not trying command and control economy and we have shifted a little bit from the obama administration in that respect. >> congressman, you just mentioned the president's tweets and what you call his caustic comment comments, so i'm wondering part of the tweets, a lot of the tweets and a lot of the comments are directed at institutions that are of some value to us as a country. the department of justice, the intelligence community, specifically the fbi. and why and this is not personal to you, why do you think your entire political party, your entire political party remains so silent when these attacks occur on an almost daily basis?

>> number one, i do believe that the speaker and others do say where they disagree with the president but then they quickly pivot to whatever the actual issues of the day are. number two, the president's mega phone is just so loud and he repeats the same thing over and over, but number three i'll just be very, very blunt with you. it's very damaging to our democracy, it's damaging to our institutions, and no matter what gets said by myself or even the leadership in the house or senate, it's going to fall on deaf ears with the president. and unless and until we get to a point in time where these investigations end, this is the political strategy of the president. it's not going away. i tend to think that our country wants to see any president be a role model. and when a president speaks out in this way against the very fabric of what our institutions

are, long term it's destabilizing to our democracy and. trust and confidence in those institutions. >> the president, as you speak, congressman is tweeting about twitter, facebook and google and complaining twitter has slowed the rate of his followers and stopped the flow of his follow tle followers. customs and border control claims number of people seeking asylum is soaring and the agency's processing system has hit capacity. three of nbc's reporters who have been leading the coverage of the crisis at the border all join us here on set. that's next on "morning joe". [ load crunching ] [ whispers ] this is the loudest snow ever. voice-command navigation with waze

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welcome back. joining us now are three of the nbc reporters who have been leading the coverage of the separation crisis at the border, cal perry. julia aimsly. and jacob. cal, let's start with more of your reporting from along the u.s.-mexico border. what have you found >> we've been seeing for the past few months the u.s. government in coordination with our counterparts in mexico keeping people in mexico not letting them apply for asylum in

u.s. it's a questionable legality. negative impact on children. in a nondescript building rubin garcia is welcoming another bus load of migrants just released from i.c.e. custody. he's the director of enunciation house. garcia is always asking for more support. >> the refugees coming in is not an el paso problem. it is a problem of the united states. >> those who made think it far are lucky.

[ speaking foreign language ] >> on this day, garcia explains a process that he calls metering, a controversial way controlling the number allowed to claim asylum each day. >> officers are stationed right at the international line, at the top of the bridges. and asking for i.d. if you're a refugee, they are pushing you back into mexico. >> to learn more we traveled from el paso to juarez, mexico. it's a 30 minute drive but for migrants seeking asylum it's still a world away. how are you? dillon corbett from the hope border institute works closely with this priest. they care for 250 migrants at a time at the center. this is a place we receive migrants from all countries, all

nationalities but a place where their human dignities are respected. the desire to breathe free in america is real but parents' sacrifices come at a price. >> what's his biggest fear? >> in this center are people talking about this with their kids? what are they telling their kids? [ speaking foreign language ] >> right now they are worried they will be separated from their child but they say they don't know hat will happen. >> for some this, is about the fabric of america. this is a defining american issue. 242 years and counting, we are the strongest most successful country on the face of the planet, precisely because we're a country of asylum seekers and refugees and immigrants. we lose that at our period ridiculous.

>> texas congressman beto o'rourke isn't the only one on a collision course with the current administration. >> people have to understand asking for asylum is legal. these are not criminals. these people are not dangerous to our community. these are the most vulnerable, of the most vulnerable. the american thing to do consistent with our values, consistent with our ideas as a country is to welcome them. >> after months on the road with the american dream in sight, these migrants who know the uncertainty ahead are allowing hope to prevail over fear. >> folks who have hope, folks that have dreams and that's why they are here they think they have a better shot at a better life. >> we have this maybe intentional contradiction where the president are telling people to go to ports of entry. but we're hearing ports of entry are full. we have some reaction our story. not only are they overwhelmed they are dealing with limited

resources. they are appealing to congress for quote additional funds. so this is what we're seeing. this is the new chapter that's followed child separation is to keep people in mexico not let them cross in and then as you can see -- >> cal, this morning the idea of saying we're at capacity, the united states saying we're at a capacity is something a bouncer says to people at a nightclub not to let people in at the front door. what does it mean to say the united states is at capacity. a lot of this is very shocking for people to see if you haven't been following it particularly close, people with numbers on their arms, the idea these shelters are backed up. but this is intentional by the trump administration and we have to keep on saying that. donald trump couldn't get his wall so what he's done is built a policy wall. he built a policy wall about separations, built a policy wall about metering people down at the border. the administration wants the system to overload and there are consequences, historical consequences to deterrence which

we've all talked about a lot including people dying including the 7-year-old girl who passed away last week. >> that's right. she was denied medical attention for an hour and a half as she stayed on a bus. this was not negligence against, they don't put humanitarian workers in this place. instead they decided to put troops at the border. they emphasize a wall. as we saw last night we got a call from some lawyers and members of congress who were at the border with children, there was a family, actually, one of the families that we've seen running from that tear gas a few weeks ago that was sprayed by border patrol, they to stay in a 10 x 10 space last night. they were able to cross into the u.s. territory but couldn't get to the place where they would claim asylum and be processed. today they started fencing off that area. one family got through. others remained there. these are children that don't have access to a bathroom. could you have another

medicaling in there too. if they crossed over to the u.s. side under international law they are allowed to claim asylum here. >> you know, willie, that's the thing. i always bring this up, just only because it's the truth. that i'm conservative when it comes to immigration. i believe when you come to the united states you should come here legally. i really started to believe that when i was in congress and i worked on immigration cases from people from across the world. and believed -- i saw those struggling to get here legally and i didn't think they should just cross the border. this is what's lost in this argument. these peopling coming here now are coming here legally. they are seeking refugee status. and that is legal. and as far as america being overloaded, willie, you know what? there was a time during the bush administration there was a time during the reagan administration where america was overloaded

with illegal immigrants. but as we have discussed on this show since the beginning of the 2016 campaign cycle, there's a net negative flow back into mexico. this is nothing but politics at its worse. >> you have to underline that again and again because that's fact of the matter. it's a net negative number. joe makes an important distinction that's been lost between asylum seekers and illegal immigration. asylum seekers are coming, they have a court date, by and large they appear at their court date. >> they have an international right to be here. so many -- the thing to remember is so many of them are coming quote-unquote illegally between ports of entry at this point because the policies of this administration are forcing them to do this. some people take everyone mbrage

wi -- umbrage with the word forcing. tijuana, six murders a day over the course of the last year. you're supposed to sit there with your child and wait around, sometimes in overflowing shelters in order to get into the country? that's just ludicrous. no parent would put themselves in that situation. >> eugene scott, just want to bring eugene into the conversation. republicans on capitol hill pushing for the wall, i guess or the wall funding. i mean the coverage that you see, this great coverage we're getting from our reporters at the border is so negative, i can't imagine that americans are enjoying watching people seeking asylum either being separated from their families or numbered because that's the only way to deal with them. clearly this is a complicated issue. how do they really rally support

around immigration policy and the wall given the fact this president's policies do seem to be heartless. >> i think a lot of republican lawmakers are banking on their voters and supporters not being informed of the facts we just saw being recorded. we know news consumption is very divided based on your partisan leanings and this is not the type of reports being produced in conservative media, letting people know these are not human beings breaking the law, they are following the policies that have been put in place for decades that allowed them to come to this country to seek asylum. so republican lawmakers, i think, are often responding as we've seen in the last couple of years to the best interests and desires of their base but their base are as informed about this issue as they possibly should be and, therefore, can challenge their lawmakers to vote in a way that honors what these immigrants are trying to do. >> "the washington post," eugene scott thank you very much for being with us.

we do appreciate it. let me throw a question to the panel, julia, tell me how many, as we go into the holidays, as we go into christmas, how many children are going to be inckar scar certificate -- incarcerated along the border? >> we're looking at over 10,000 children who are still being kept in these tent cities. we've been there. we walked through. there are very tight restrictions. you're not allowed to talk to the children. sometimes, you will recall, some of the supervisors refer to it as a summer camp or a sleep over. it's not. these children came to the united states not knowing the united states incarcerated children. they try to have representation from lawyers. they get know your rights presentations but it's hard for children, especially those who are younger than 5 years old to understand their legal rights in a country whose judicial system

they know nothing about. they remain there and big reason they remain there so long is because of these new processing requirements under this administration. not only do they need to make sure they are going a safeguardian they have to fingerprint the entire house. run it through the criminal databases. run it through the fbi. make sure there's not a brother in there with a dui. these are the standards they are using to put these children in these houses and keeping them for a long time. a lot of people say it's a policy with good intentions but the american ped tick association says children should not be staying in these tent facilities for months at a time. >> getting these pictures out to the world, sending a message that the u.s. is closed trying to keep people from coming. >> also, to you gene's point i understand certain media outlets don't cover it the same ways, but the caravans, they never

showed up, did they? where are the caravans, where is the big crisis at the border, that war we were preparing for? are the troops still there? no they are not. at some point i think they're n >> some of the troops are. >> sitting there putting up barbed wire. >> they're there for political reasons just like these policies which are heartless and are being pushed by people like stephen miller inside the white house, being done for political reasons. again, the bitter irony of it is, one, it doesn't help the white house, it doesn't help in the polls. and secondly and most importantly, the most bitter of an irony is it is a policy in search of a crisis that no longer exists. >> it's embarrassing.

coming up, we're going to ask a former national enquirer executive about that safe of embarrassing stories the publisher reportedly kept on donald trump and how much of it he thinks has already been handed over to federal prosecutors. "morning joe" is coming right back. mas because they keep getting better. there's smartouch for selfies, then there's four way stretch for flexibility. they even have smartdri. see? stays dry. so get isotoner gloves for the whole family.

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welcome back. the "washington post" reports that republican allies of president trump have launched research and polling efforts to analyze data and figure out ways to expand his base before the 2020 reelection campaign. >> wait. why don't they just research how they can have a monkey crack the code for cold fusion? because there's as much of a chance of that as donald trump expanding his base. >> the party is currently struggling to hold in areas that trump won. politico reports that pennsylvania's state republican party is reeling with little

money and double digit defeats inside top statewide races. while nationally republicans suffered the biggest defeat in a house midterm election in generations with the democrats winning by 8.6 points nationally, a margin of 9.7 million votes. and the final state level numbers in california showed democrats claimed 29 of 40 state senate seats and three-quarters of the 80-member assembly, which the l.a. times says is the largest number since 1883 when chester arthur was president. >> elise jordan, let me say right now, first of all, i don't think donald trump's going to run, but if he does, he's going to lose pennsylvania, he's going to lose wisconsin, he's going to lose michigan. he's going to lose badly. he can't expand his base because he refuses to expand his base. he's addicted to the steve

bannon 33% solution, isn't he? >> you know, for once donald trump is creating some jobs. good for those republican consultants and pollsters who are making money doing this research that is, quite frankly, simply pointless, because as you say, donald trump is going to continue to cater to his base. we're not going to suddenly see the whole foods republicans who abandoned donald trump in this last round of midterm elections suddenly go back with his revitalized and augmented messaging, because the message is not going to change. the donald trump we see now is the same donald trump that we're going to get in 2020. >> which of course is so bizarre because that's not what he was before he got into politics. he was -- democrats don't like to hear it. it's just the truth. he was a moderate democrat. so he's playing this role as a

do cartoonish race baiting republican. it's a branding exercise that's going to keep him at 33%. still ahead, president trump is up tweeting about the "high -- mueller witch hunt. the president's message to michael flynn this morning, good luck today in court. and could president trump himself already been under sealed indictment? wow. fox news answers that question ahead on "morning joe." i landed.

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the worst december since great aggression. >> so maybe not responding to his tax cuts but the very very large amount of unpredictability this presidency has brought to the table. welcome to "morning joe." it's tuesday, december 18th. we have mike barnicle, former aide to the george h.w. bush white house elise jordan.

matt miller is with us. and also historian, author of "soul of america" and rogers professor of the presidency at vanderbilt university, jon meacham is with us. let's get to the news. there's really nothing to talk about, another really quiet morning here. there's been southwest reaction on capitol hill to a pair of reports released by the senate detailing russia's efforts to influence american politics during the 2016 election and afterwards. researchers dug through millions of social media posts created by a russian-based firm called internet research agency. the reports found that it was the agency's mission to help

donald trump and hurt his opponent hillary clinton by spreading disinformation. >> of course, we knew most of that. >> according to the reports, the agency spread messages aimed at suppressing turnout among democratic voters, particularly among african-americans. researchers counted more than 260 million engagements with the russian firm's content on facebook and instagram alone. >> so here's the thing. they do that in elections, right? so after the elections, i'm sure they packed up their bags and got on the boac and flew back. >> even months after the election, the russian disinformation teams were still posting on social media. >> really? who in the world would they tact in if not hillary? >> they trained their sights on

a new target, special counsel robert mueller. >> willie geist, i guess nothing should surprise us at this point, but the russians are so in bed with trump, so to speak, that not only did they help him, they did everything they could do. their spy agencies did everything they could do, the gru did everything they could do to help the republicans win in 2016. but that wasn't enough. now we find out that they were focusing their efforts on robert mueller, who's conducting an investigation into russia who's working for the justice department. >> yeah. it's really fascinating. this report was ordered by the republican-led senate intel committee led by richard burr of north carolina. everything we knew before this report yesterday was that russia helped donald trump get elected because they believed his policies would be better for russia, that they liked him

better than hillary clinton. but now he's already in the white house and russia is continuing to work on donald trump's behalf going after robert mueller, posting across facebook and twitter and instagram different posts that go after robert mueller and criticize him and try to undermine the investigation that they know he's undertaking. why would russia after donald trump is already in the white house, what is the interest of russian operatives? what is the interest of vice president in continuing to promote donald trump and to take down robert mueller? >> they spent a lot of money and effort to get their guy there and i think they want to keep him there. it's not just that the russians tried to interfere with the election to get donald trump elected. we've known that for a long time. it's that their messages largely echo what the president says. we see them trying to suppress the african-american vote, something the president's now campaign manager who handled his

online engagement during the 2016 campaign bragged about doing it. we see them echoes the president's messages at tacking the fbi, attacking robert mueller. the president sets the tone here. we see the tone he sets being carried out not just by his supporters here but by his online army, the russian directed effort to undermine american confidence in democracy and institutions and ultimately weaken the special counsel. >> jon meacham this just underline what s what the presi own cabinet said in that extraordinary press conference several months ago where you had the president's fbi director d saying that american democracy was under threat. we thought they were just talking about while elections were being held.

this is obviously a 24/7 mission by a russian spy agency to undermine american democracy. >> i hate to put it like this, but like all great enemies, like all great foes, they have found a way to make our greatest strength our greatest weakness, which is our essential openness in a technological and digital sense. they are taking advantage of the american ethos of free expression to conduct a propaganda campaign on behalf of a particular person and that particular person's political agenda. i don't know how many times we've said this, but we'll say it one more time and keep doing it. the failure of those who reflexively support the president to allow this kind of information to shape their view of that president and their program is one of the mysteries

of the age. it can change quickly. it changed with joe mccarthy. it changed with water gate. but it hasn't changed yet. i just think the more information like this, the more hard data, the more we're going to have to figure out why 38-40% of the country refuses to see what is so obvious to everyone else. >> and the compliant congress, especially the compliant members of the house. our founders could have never imagined that a foreign power would pose such a direct threat to american democracy as president trump's own intel chief and director of homeland security said they did. and yet you have republicans in congress who not only ignore the attacks from russia, but actually double down on the attacks from russia. what these russians were saying

about robert mueller, you had a lot of members in the house of representatives saying the same exact thing. i want to go to matt miller for a second. while democracy is under attack, we have the "new york times" reporting that social media, facebook, twitter, instagram ignored one warning sign after another x fa another, failed to take one curative step after another and basically allowed this to continue because they were making money off of a system that actually, as madeleine albright and some people we were with at dni a couple of weeks ago said have turned technology into a hopeful development for democracy into actually a tha

threat. >> the social media companies clearly haven't yet gotten their arm s around this threat. facebook brags to the press all the time about the war room it set up to monitor this activity going forward. but it's not clear they have a real handle on it. i don't think we'll know until the next presidential election when we see the russian online army out in force again. even aside from the social media companies, there is a responsibility for our leaders and our institutions. as you said, republicans in congress really have to stand up and say, look, we have differences of opinion here. but we all together reject interference by a foreign power. we all together reject people spreading lies and conspiracy theories. it's hard for republicans to say that when you have the leader of their party setting the opposite tone. >> i would submit we've never

known a moment in american history like the moment we are living through right now. it entails a president of the united states who takes the field nearly every day with the intent to sow chaos and disruption and division this our political system. that works hand in glove with what vladimir putin has set out to do to this country, to sow division, chaos and unrest in our society and our political system. and for the first time i think in my memory -- i don't know about anybody else's memory -- we have an entire political party standing by the sidelines basically cheering this behavior on. i don't think it's ever occurred before. it's highly dangerous and again to your point that you just raised, where are the republicans? i mean, former director comey spoke to this yesterday. where are they in this pivotal moment in history?

i mean, i don't know whether you agree with me or not, but i have never, ever, ever on a daily basis seen a country so immune to the terror, to the treasonous behavior right with us. >> republican policy used to be strong foreign policy, the democrats are week. and now you have this stunning evidence of intervention in our election and just blatantly the russians are trying to sow discord. they are trying to make worse the racial wounds within this country. they're trying to suppress the vote. and you have republicans who are silent and seep iokay with thisk on our democracy. still ahead, there's a lot of speculation about whether president trump could be indicted. another theory, he already has

been. why one fox news legal analysis is floating that idea. and we want to mention that this year joe is featured on the christmas songs play list by filter. it's the track we're hearing right now. you can check them out on facebook, twitter and instagram.

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implicated in the case against michael cohen. napolitano suggests the president, who's been identified in open court as individual 1 could already be indicted for directing cohen is break election law by paying off who women to keep his alleged affairs secret. >> there's ample evidence to indict the president. the question is do they want to do it. the doj has three opinions on this. all three address the problem of what do you do when the statute of limitations is about to expire. all three agree in that circumstance you keep the indictment secret, keep the indictment sealed and release it the day they get out of office. >> he may be an already indicted coconspirator. >> that i don't know about, but it could be because we don't know what's been sealed.

>> wow. you know it's bad when you've lost fox news. >> i think it's incredibly alarming for president trump if he watches that interview, which we know he loves to watch fox news and you hear that you could be indicted in secret. i think it's why we've seen president trump up this level of paranoia he has, these tweet storms where he goes off on russia and democrats and hillary clinton in a way that we really haven't seen before. i think there's this idea that president trump and the republicans in general, while they obviously maybe are interested in an idea of russia meddling in elections, there's also a conflict of interest there. when you talk to republicans on the hill they say, yes, we should be strong on russia, but vladimir putin wanted donald trump to win, he wanted donald trump to be the president of the united states and they want him to still be there. i think over and over again one of the things we haven't talked

enough about is this idea that russia wanted to really increase the racial tension in this country. in interview after interview, black millennials kept saying the idea that hillary clinton had called african-americans super predators -- now african-americans have had all sorts of issues with hillary clinton but the specific use of the word super predator is something that russia put there. it was a way they wanted to simplify what hillary clinton could mean to african-americans. i saw on the ground firsthand that that worked. i think what we have is we have a real successful attempt to really sow discord. and then we have a republican party and a president who realize that they are benefitting from some of the things that russia is doing, even if democracy is suffering. >> republicans are treating russian interference like a political issue, but really it's a five alarm fire and national security issue. to your point, they're okay with

it. they're staying quiet about it because it helped their guy, a republican become president of the united states. but that's incredibly short-sighted because next time it had been the other side's guy or woman. the fact that this is mired in politics, it shouldn't be. now we have more evidence from these documents we got yesterday. it couldn't be more clear that russia interfered in the election and that they wanted donald trump to be president. now we know that the interference continued after the election. the fact that this is a dirty political issue is a shame, because it should be taken seriously as a national security issue. the headline is "a foreign power tried to change and maybe did change the outcome of our presidential election." nobody should be okay with that. coming up on "morning joe," the national enquirer has been making some very real headlines lately. we'll talk to one of the magazine's former long time editors. ♪

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in federal court last week, american media incorporated, the parent company of the national enquirer, admitted to paying hush money to help president trump ahead of the 2016 election, but there is potentially more. in august, the associated press reported that ceo david pecker kept a safe with sensitive material about trump. and back in april, the a.p. reported about a $30,000 purchase of a rumor about trump and then never publishing it. plus, there's the matter of the curious issue devoted to praising saudi arabia's crown prince mohammed bin salman, just a cover story randomly. joining us is the former bureau chief with the national enquirer who spent 28 years with the publication. thank you for being on the show. a lot of questions.

is there a connection with the royal family that you're alluding to when you talk about that cover story that had mbs on the cover to have the national enquirer? >> good morning, mika. yes, there's definitely a connection between the saudis and the trump family especially son-in-law jared kushner has had a longstanding friendship with the saudis and was very implemental in bringing the saudis together with the american media. >> what do you think the transaction was? the american media korge covera the saudi prince and the trump family. >> i think the saudis were looking to make inroads to the

united states and i think an idea was kicked around about how american media could help. and one idea was to promote this tourism special with the saudi prince on the cover. it sort of came out of left field and it was racked at kmart. it made no apparent sense from a retailer's point of view. you know, nonetheless it appeared, it was very expensive and there it was. >> so who would have made money off of that and how would the trumps have been involved? >> i doubt that anyone made any real money from it, but i think the trumps brought american media together and i think david pecker, the ceo, was sort of feeling out the saudis for future funding.

>> for future funding. and do you think any future funding happened? >> well, coincidentally or not, shortly after the saudi special was racked, about three months later cash-strapped american media somehow came up with the media to buy up its competitors in the titling from bower magazine, virtually swallowing up what's left of that company and it now dominates the supermarket racks. >> hmm. and one other thing. i heard you mention last night on msnbc that david pecker might have had stories that were never published about the trump family and you said some involved potential criminal activity. like what would that be? >> well, you know, david pecker

viewed holding back stories that might be potentially embarrassing to the trumps as bargaining chips. and those stories ranged from marital infidelities, problems within his marriage to melania, problems with the children, sibling rivalry, you know, business dealings that have gone wrong, a host of stories that aren't flattering to the trump family or the children. >> it's willie geist. big picture question for you. in the time that you were at the enquirer up until about five years or so ago, i'm interested in your view of the relationship between donald trump and the national enquirer. i understand what donald trump got out of the deal. he got the suppression of some stories. he got favorable coverage in a widely circulated magazine. what was it in and what

continued to be in it until just recently for the national enquirer? why was that important relationship for your company? >> well, the national enquirer was able to collect a library of stories on the trump family that were potentially embarrassing and by holding them back, they virtually became bargaining chips for him to redeem further down the line. obviously that's not going to happen now, but at one point they were a valuable commodity. >> for david pecker to redeem down the line? >> yes. >> what would that look like? what would he extract from donald trump? >> well, he had the lenverage o staying to the president, i've got in great story on, say, an argument between you and melania. none of us wants to see that printed, so i'm going to just

file this away and further down the line i may need some help. perhaps you could help me out. >> you've mentioned jared kushner several times here in this conversation. tell us a little bit more about what you know about that relationship, given sibling rivalry in that family with trump's own children x h, his son-in-law. what's going on with jared kushner? what's his role in all of this? how did he become so trusted? >> well, i think when michael cohen stepped aside, jared assumed the mantle as the liaison between the trump organization and american media. >> so then he would have full knowledge of perhaps the felony that has obviously been committed here with trump participating in it? how do you know this? >> well, we know that jared at one point was trying to unload

his publication "the new york observer" and he had great hopes that american media might eventually buy it up. so there was an incentive for him to ingratiate himself to david pecker and his organization. >> what's the criminal activity that the kids could have been involved in that you were all e alluding to last night? >> well, i think that, i mean, there are definitely indications of campaign finance violations, which would be particularly difficult for the president. and as far as the children go, they all have their business interests and they took full advantage of american media to

help promote their own businesses. >> and then back to the saudi connections, is there anything perhaps criminal there? and anything that could have been of interest to bob mueller? >> well, you know, of course the involvement of a foreign entity is always troubling, and of course we also have looming the new york post journalist who was murdered. >> the "washington post" columnist. >> excuse me. thank you, the "washington post." kashoggi. >> yes. thank you very much for being on the show. coming up, russian hackers didn't vote, but according to our next guest, they did help elect a president. keep it right here on "morning joe." ♪ minimums and fees.

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we did great with the african-american community, so good. they didn't come out to vote for hillary. they didn't come out. and that was a big -- so thank you to the african-american community. >> that was then president-elect donald trump speaking about the role of african-american voters in the 2016 election. two new reports prepared for the senate intelligence committee reveal russia's online disinformation campaign to help get trump elected was far greater than we even knew. it included an aggressive evideeffort to target african-americans and suppress the vote. we also know now that the russians still were posting on social media months after the election, this time focusing in on special counsel robert mueller. joining us now, professor of communications at the university of pennsylvania kathleen hall jamison. she is author of "cyber war."

also with us former fbi special agent and msnbc contributor clint watts and senior video reporter at the "wall street journal" shelby holiday. what's your assessment of these new reports prepared for the senate intel committee, not just about the extent of rush interference during the campaign but now what we're learning after the campaign as russia went after robert mueller as he began his investigation into the president. >> the first thing we learned is that the sanctions haven't worked. we also see a shift toward instagram, which is interesting. that's an effort, i suppose, to reach younger voters. also that's a shift toward a platform that is probably engaged in less policing. it hasle lesser focus from poli

maker and the public. less cause for concern, probably more capacity to influence. al they tried to focus us on the impact of the advertising, which was small instead of on the viral content which was great. these reports document extent and depth and cross-platform activity. >> clint, explain for our viewers how this worked in terms of suppressing african-american vote. what could russia do? >> the whole idea is to erode trust in elected officials and confidence in institutions. for example, you might say, look, you're going to show up to the polls and maybe you won't get a chance to vote, or you may not be registered. there are ways you can misdirect or suppress. but the whole ideal overall whether it's african-americans before the election or hispanics

beyond the election is to erode trust and confidence in government institutions. you do that by playing both sides of it. >> shelby, how easy has it been for the russians to do this? and how flawed are instagram, facebook in that they cannot pick these things up quicker? >> we learned a lot about that in this report. russians, while they were very sophisticated and it was very easy for them to do these things, they actually used i.p. addresses from st. petersburg. there were a lot of hints that social media companies had to know ahead of time these people are posing as americans while not actually in america. social media companies have been criticized for responding too slowly. we still don't have all the of the information. facebook really wanted us to look at these ads, look at how many rubles were spent on their ad campaigns when in fact what was really important were the organic ads that went viral.

also we've been covering individual profiles. sfb still not disclosing these, but these were fake profiles set up to look like a person to reach out to african-americans to say, hey, come join our black business directory, sign this petition. they were able to collect the data of americans as well, not just influence what they were thinking. >> it's like a bank robbery. someone comes in and robs a bank two or three times. oh, the bank was robbed. how is it that they keep coming back and are with us still today and very little can be done? >> everyone wishes we had more answers to that. one of the things these reports highlight is the russians were very good at cross-platform promotion. when one platform got shut down, they would push people to the other platforms that were still active. they built these brands that made people think this is a real

organization. i've talked to people who interacted with them who said they had an address in new york, they had a palma paypal account. >> with the government for not doing more to stop it and with social media platforms for not being tougher on it even to this day. is it just a fact of life that there's going to be some level of social media interference in our democratic process? >> it's going to be a fact of life. they're not going to be trying to rob the same bank. they're going to be moving to your credit union and others. we're going to have to adapt to their various changes and increase vigilance. we need to look at passing the honest ads act and look at

increased privacy protections so those people who are in charge of these platforms carry severe penalties if our data is misused to micro target us. >> are we any better off than we were in 2016? >> one part of it is awareness. we have these reports now. we know some of the tactics. you can't get surprised twice with the technique. at the same point, we're seeing everyone undertake these tactics. the russians mastered the play book but that's been exported to every country around the world. you're seeing political campaigns do it. i'm worried they will be to make better bots, they will be able to harness data like we saw with cambridge an l cambridge and l

cambridge. >> ywe've seen the white house retweet video that has been modified to support the agenda that they want. this is a very dangerous phenomena going forward. >> what should be we doing as a country to stop all this? >> one thing i think we should be looking at is whether or not the russian hacking helped inform the social media campaigns. they stole voter data. did they use that to target americans with some of these ads, with the voter depression efforts. did they use the african-american data to undertake these efforts? >> thank you all very much. important conversation. coming up next, nbc's tom brokaw joins us here in our studio with a new look at richard nixon. (chime)

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correspondent tom brokaw. you recently spent time at the nixon library reflecting back on the life of the nation's 37th president. what did you found out? >> they've done a remarkable job at the library. he won by a record, a record margin. just four years later. george mcgovern only won one state that time. already watergate had occurred and for the next year of his second term, richard nixon was embroiled in watergate and eventually forced to leave. how did the library handle it? at the beginning, not very well, but they went in, retooled it and i must say i was astonished and very impressed. >> reporter: the revamped nixon library is a collection of elegant structures in yorba linda, california. the orange county village where nixon grew up in a small house made from a sears and ro s and

kit. a review of this complicated man. the only president forced to resign. >> the new exhibit is much more integrated, much more honest. it acknowledges nixon had his problems to put it mildly, but also shows the many positive sides of richard nixon. >> reporter: it is a reminder before watergate nixon began a new relationship with russia. he went to china. a stunning diplomatic coup that changed the world order overnight. he took on vietnam ending the draft, reducing troop levels. but he also escalated bombing and tried to force peace talks as set off a national anti-semitism war crusade claiming the silent majority was with him and won re-election by a historic landslide. but nixon's presidency was consumed by watergate. a clumsy break-in at the democratic party headquarters. >> nixon was a funny mixture of

brilliance and strategic ability and deep insecurity. deep insecurity. and the insecurity in the end destroyed him. >> reporter: nicxon's watergate cover-up set up a constitutional crisis that went on more than a year. >> let others wallow in watergate, we're going to do our job. >> reporter: then came the saturday night massacre. nixon firing the watergate special prosecutors and the attorney general. demanding that the investigations end. >> one year of watergate is enough. >> reporter: but the investigation went on. impeachment was inevitable. in the summer of 1974, the supreme court ruled unanimously that president nixon had to give up the tape recordings that proved he knew what was going on. >> it is clear that president nixon is actively considering resignation. >> reporter: defiant to the end, but realistic, richard nixon became the first president to

resign leaving behind accomplishment and deep shame. nixon biographer and admirer frank gannon is conflicted. >> he's an enigma wrapped in a riddle wrapped in a puzzle. most fascinating, brilliant, complex, complicated -- shakespearean. >> reporter: at the end of the day, gannon hears from visitors a welcome reaction. >> i don't like him anymore than when i came in but had no idea he did all of these things which affect my life today. >> reporter: at the entrance to the library an invitation. who was this man? walk these halls and you decide. >> you go through all the accomplishments and then you turn the corner, and there's a long corridor, big, bold letters, watergate. and it is unvarnished. they tell the truth about what happened and how it unfolded, and nixon's role in all of that. i was astonished by the candor of it and also there's a kind

of -- not only historic part of it, but it's quite beautiful in southern california, and, know, i was a reporter during that time and i had a lot of issues with richard nixon, but i think frank began and the others did a remarkable job. >> tom, evan thomas, get to the that point in the piece, in your piece, and it is this -- we all know about watergate and its admirable that the library has taken steps to readdress watergate in terms of nixon's presidency, but unlike what's going on today, richard nixon had his hands on the livers of government. he knew what government was all about and knew what to do with government. >> i'm writing a be that time. one of the things that been in my mind, he saved israel in the fall of 1973. the syrians and egyptians invaded israel. israel was on its backside in the all kippur war desperate for

help and richard nixon stepped up and sent to the pennell said pentagon, load up all the airplanes and do it in a complicated way. coal overfly europe, for example. golda meir says, richard nixon is my president. a man divided. spent most of my adult life trying to figure out who he was and frankly still didn't understand it at the end. >> tom, it's hard to predict how history will look at this presidency today, but i wonder instead of that one, long corridor, they'll be like seven long corridors with different investigations on them and then what would be the accomplishments that positively impacted americans lives that would be on trump's watch? would there be that part of the library as well? >> i think we always wait for the judgment of history on all that, but it's hard to put your finger on one thing. he would say, i made america great again.

this judgment in every corridor that would say just that. when you get into the details, the tax cut, the economy now struggling to deal with what's going on in the world. and a lot of other things. you always have to wait for the judgment of history, and in any of these presidents, and richard nixon will never, ever give up his darkness but at the same time there were those accomplishments. >> as we heard, tom, in i don't are piece, president nixon during a state of the union address. saying one year of watergate is enough called to mind all the people we've heard around donald trump saying enough is enough around robert mueller. the vice president saying time to wrap it up several months ago. people make comparisons between the nixon administration and the trump administration and the trouble that's surrounded them. what's your view of that having covered both of them? >> i think the firing of the special prosecutor in the nixon era relates to what's going on now. trying to decertify, if you will, the work that robert mueller is doing as the special prosecutor. trying to reach out to the country and say, this doesn't

count. to the very end he was doing what he could try to do to arouse the country. went to egypt, to russia. wherever there was a chance to be presidential he would show up. so i was on an airplane for the last year of my, coverage of him. but there are a lot of parallels, but end of the day i think the parallels can there was a system in place that still did work in the federal government in those days. you know, hentry kissinger was going to russia to try to work out the postyom kippur war situation. trying to deal a deal with brezhnev and knew he had him over a box, that he wasn't going to do the deal. it was more -- there were more people in charge then than there are now. it wasn't just get up in the morning and decide what you want to do that day. they had a system in place. even a lot of the people who were there had real reservations about what was going on. >> amazing. so as we close the show, willie geist and mike barnicle, final

thoughts and tom brokaw, thank you so much. willie, i wonder, is the president going to get this wall and all the money he wants for it, or is the government going to be shut down because of a wall that some data shows nobody wants? >> democrats won't give him the number he wants. we know that. he has to decide whether that's worth shutting down. final thought today we'll see again somebody around donald trump national security adviser, former national security adviser mime flynn perhaps sentenced to prison following michael cohen sent to three years in prison and paul manafort. all those around him in the campaign falling down around him. >> and what we've seen over the weekend, the president of the united states, donald trump literally put in a room where he became the architect of a felony with michael cohen and david picker from the "national enquirer" about cash contributions under the table to two women. and the other thought i have is what we've been talking about in

the wake of tom's piece. the idea, a trump library is a show-stopper in my mind. >> there we go. that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. >> thanks so much, mika. good morning, everyone. i'm stephanie ruhle with a lot to cover today starting with good luck. president trump sends his best wishes to his former national security adviser, the one he fired. michael flynn, as he faces sentencing today after pleading guilty to making false statements to the fbi. listening to the president and his supporters, you would think it was the fbi that should be sent to jail. >> they're up here attacking, the fbi's investigation of a guy who pled guilty to lying to the fbi. think of the state of affairs we've ended up in. that's nonsense. >> let that one sink in, and tick, tick, tock. lawmakers have until 11:59 p.m. friday to