stuff that you are buying. >> it was a big moment when jay press got on amazon prime, i got to tell you. that was huge for me. >> that was big for all of us. so, john, donald trump is now been on the national stage politically for the past three, three and a half years, we're moving into year four in june, it will be four years since he went down the escalator with melania, who by the way is flying back up to washington, d.c., flown back up to washington, d.c., there will be no more mar-a-lago christmas this year. we've been talking about, at least i believe, his administration is terminal now. he won finish out his term. but i'm wondering what accounts for the durability? what accounts for the 35% that he still has standing by him?

>> i think part of it is a historically based number of permanently disaffected folks. 34% was the number that joe mccarthy had in terms of national approval three months after he was censured in 1954-'55. you have a significant chunk of people who don't trust the institutions of government to address their needs. one of the things we always have to remember about presidential elections is they are choices not referendum. when you had a clinton and a bush on 80% of the tickets between 1980 and 2016, the choice of a what we would say chaotic, others would say a constructively disruptive, depending on where you stand choice of sending trump to washington, i think a lot of those people believe that the kinds of conversations we're

having are slightly hysterical, chicken little, out of touch elitists, which seems redundant. can you be an in tough elitist, i don't know. but you have this sense that the way to make the system work is to send someone to disrupt it. and what we see as troubling signs, a lot of people in that 34%, 35% base see yeah let's show them. until we address that, then i think the political struggle is going to continue and we'll continue to talk as if we're not on the same planet. >> that has been the case, david ignatius. i wonder if we haven't actually crossed a threshold over this past week. john meacham is so right. confidence in institutions in the united states have been collapsing for some time. with one exception.

the united states military. united states military continues to be one of the most respected institutions anywhere and those numbers keep going up and you look at a poll that was released this week from the united states military about what they thought about general mattis. 84% approval rating, only 4% disapproval rating, twice the approval rating that donald trump had and so i'm just wondering, david, what are you hearing from your sources inside the military? what are you hearing from your sources inside the community about the public humiliation, not that anybody knows james mattis, he's just fine, but donald trump's attempt to publicly you hpublic publicly you had m humiliate a . >> that's part of trump's base.

trump likes to say he's for a strong military and that he has military families backing him. there is no symbol of the military that's more powerful these days than general mattis. he looks like he was born a marine, born in that green marine uniform, and people watched him suffer this president and finally snapped, do something that was very unmattis like. mattis usually unflappable. he grits his teeth and gets on with it. he didn't this week, he resigned. i found that in conditioning among the diplomatic core, among recognizes who had been silent until last week, people were suddenly speaking out, people who tried to kind of keep their counsel, keep options open for president trump, former secretary bob gates who preceded

mattis, steve hadley a republican national security adviser. i was struck that some prominent members of the house sent a letter to the ambassador of australia saying that they would use their article i co-equal powers how they put to it make sure that the alliances that mattis spoke up for in his resignation letter were preserved. this was people like mack thornberry. i see little signs of revolt among recognizes, maybe within that trump base, this is a bridge too far. you don't go after the marine general who symbolizes the continuity of our military. >> no. and james mattis' departure was the most high-profile but just the latest in a long list of departures. trump administration has a record amount of high level turnover with top cabinet posts,

including attorney general, defense secretary, epa administrator, white house chief of staff, field by acting replacements. interior department and mission of the united nations is also losing their leaders. no permanent duties at the department of homeland security. housing and urban department of, small business administration. before the zinke, mattis and gerk posts, trump administration surpassed george bush's administration. trump has surpassed the entire george h.w. bush administration as well, charlie sykes, and he's not even two years through his term. >> what a surprise. i mean the fact is that in a sense he was the chaos candidate. he was the dysfunction candidates. i'm not sure that bothered much of his core base.

the last two years has been an experiment about the depth of our tribalism, how much would we be willing to accept, how far could you push the line? and, you know, up until now we've seen that there seemed to be no bottom. there seemed to be no limit and i don't know if this administration is terminal but there's no question about it there's really fundamental cracks and the way he's handling mattis, you know, leaving aside just fundamental decency. leaving aside the personal decency, you would think there would be some sort of self-preservation. i'm not saying it's going to happen. can you imagine if there was a reprimary challenge of donald trump by general mattis or if democrats put somebody like general mattis on the ticket this would be the worst nightmare of donald trump because he has portrayed himself fraudulently as the strong man who backs the military, and basically general mattis is in

the process of calling b.s. >> it's something not only donald trump but republicans themselves have to worry about. i could be wrong but i don't think donald trump will be running for president in 2020, but there's a possibility that general mattis could be a democratic selection for vice president and boy what a ticket that would be. so the chaos that charlie was talking about has led to the third government shutdown in donald trump's fairly young administration. obviously, there's been concern on capitol hill from republicans. what is the latest there? i know that the hill's largely abandoned right now but what are you hearing from members that are until there and also members back in their district? >> there was a total lack of urgency to solve this on friday and saturday, the last day that there was chance to get anything

done before the middle of this week and i think the mattis departure also had something to do with this. republicans in particular were totally deflated by the way last week end, the syria decision, mattis going out, falling apart of this senate negotiated cr that was going to keep the government open at least in the short term. senate republicans felt a little bit if not misled at least like the vice president maybe couldn't actually speak for the president, they felt they had a deal in place. when all that fell through people threw their hands up and got out of hand. i was on the hill all day saturday interviewing lawmakers who were carrying their bags through the hallways, closing up shop for the year, mitch mcconnell said on the floor we'll probably be in session on thursday. that may not happen. it could turn into a pro forma session on thursday. so republicans left town feeling

defeated. everybody was looking at this democratic majority in the house to reset and get something done when they staggered through the end of republican control of washington over the last week. >> boy, i thought it was so interesting, garrett, that not only did you have republicans not coming out and defending donald trump, but also there weren't a lot of republicans including mitch mcconnell who were eager to attack democrats. it wasn't the back and forth that you usually see in government shutdowns. here's bob corker having tough words for president trump's decision to close the federal government over what the "wall street journal" calls a phoney border wall issue. >> this is a made up fight so that president can look like he's fighting, but even if he withins our borders will be insecure. >> trump hit back saying that he refused to endorse a tennessee

republican when he allegedly asked for it causing his poll numbers to tank. corker responded quoting tweet yes just like mexico is paying for the wall, #alertthe daycarestaff. >> you've been through and i've seen some of these government shutdowns and two sides go on sunday talk shows and pointing fingers to the other side. democrats are destroying america, republicans doing the same thing. silence this weekend for the most part from the hill. these republicans were hung out to dry and they are not defending donald trump. >> because there wasn't an agreement. they agreed on how to proceed, essentially kick the can down to february 8th and that would be the next deadline and fight during the month of january over

wall funding and whatever else they wanted to fight over. and trump just totally threw that agreement out the window. so, yes, the republicans were left to hang out to dry. i hope we're not being naive in asking can this get any worse? i think it obviously can. that's kind of the business model of the trump presidency. >> when that happens, gene, i wonder is there a goldwater that says i got to walk over to the white house and tell this guy enough. because, again, republicans by this point know that donald trump's brand of politics is toxic, the worst law since watergate. it's going to get even worse in 2020 when the electorate expands. >> ultimately you think there has to be someone like that, or a group of gray beards like that who will go to the white house

and say just cut it out. but apparently not yet. and the trump model is that, no, we won't be talking about this, this shutdown and the mattis firing forever because there will be something even more outrageous that we have to talk about in a week or so or in 15 minutes. who knows, depending on his whims and his moods and his watching of fox news. a great historian friend of mine reminded us recently that christmas eve of 1929 the white house was on fire. i think tonight we all need to party like it's 1929. because he's going to pour gasoline on the fire, and so does that intervention that you talked about happen when the whole thing is ashes? who knows. >> susan page, what happens next? >> well, you know the question is not only are there say

republican gray beards in congress who would be willing to go to the white house and have a very difficult conversation with fortunate, it's whether the president would listen to them. richard nixon in that situation, richard nixon was someone who despite flaws believed in the institutions, in the system of government. i mean he was more open to that conversation than i think president trump might be. one thing president trump is doing right now he's doing exactly what he said he was going to do during the campaign. he's focusing on building a wall. he's retreating from u.s. commitments around the world militarily and what's changed is that the infrastructure around him and his administration has gotten much less able to challenge him. you see mattis' departure is just the latest and perhaps most dangerous example of the weakening of the advisers who might be willing to challenge the president when he's doing something that they think is

wrong. >> when they do challenge him, it's so frustrating. we hear time and again the president gets angry. even when advisors tell him that what he's doing is a violation of the law. everybody stay with us. when we come back, we're going to show you a photo of churchill and fdr from december of 1941, and john meacham will regal us with stories not of this alliance but, instead, probably talk about the war of 1812. actually, i think meacham actually wrote a book on franklin and winston and we'll talk about that when we return. am i willing to pay the price for loving you? you'll make my morning, but ruin my day. complicated relationship with milk? pour on the lactaid. it's delicious 100% real milk, just without that annoying lactose.

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♪ oh, the weather outside is frightful ♪ >> welcome back to "morning joe" on christmas eve. a beautiful shot looking across the potomac of washington, d.c. thanks for being with us. hope you got all of your christmas shopping done. john meacham, we want to show you a picture of christmas eve 1941, i don't think it's christmas eve 1941 but certainly december 1941. tell us what's going on here. >> that was christmas eve.

winston churchill had arrived. three weeks after pearl harbor and in one of the great domestic moments of tension in the white house, frankly roosevelt had neglected to tell eleanor roosevelt that the prime minister of great britain and 50 of his associates were coming for christmas. churchill -- this is the great moment where churchill is writing a speech, dictating a speech, he's in the bathtub. he gets up out of the tub, the towel falls away, estill dictating his speech, roosevelt knocked on the door, wheeled in and beholds churchill in all his glory and says winston i'm sorry i'll come back and churchill said as you can see i have nothing to hide from the president of the u.s.

roosevelt told his secretary later he's pink and. white all over. this was the moment of lighting the christmas tree. churchill has been trying to seduce roosevelt since september of 1939. we forget and the reason for this story is, you know, as churchill also said, can you always count on americans to do the right thing once they've exhausted every other possibility. and we had not been as engaged in the world as we ought to have been in the 1920s and 1930s and as hitler was on the move in europe it was winston churchill as you alluded to a moment ago who beginning on the 10th of may 1940 was the one who said hitler will go that far and go no further. church little always knew he needed us even after that speech at dunkirk.

that marvelous goose bump speech. he says at the end of that speech even if england were starving then it would require in god's good time the new world to step forth to the rescue and liberation of the old. churchill always knew he needed us. we intuitively understood we needed them. finally after pearl harbor, after hitler declares war on us we've become what roosevelt would call on this trip at christmas eve' 41 t christmas '41, the united nations. what churchill said on that balcony this, is a strange christmas eve, the world is in tumult, fighting over the seas and oceans and all the lands, we should have this moment of peace. then we have to go back to the stern task that faces us across formidable years. and it's a reminder, in my view, that the work of democracy is

never done. it requires enormous human effort both at the very top but also all of us because they are a magnification of who we are but they can't do the right thing unless we enable them to do the right thing. now everry day. show that picture again, john. you look at the picture of these two men and i think it's a lesson not only to our children it's a lesson to us as people who are involved in american politic, whether it's voting, or campaigning, or volunteering or just having our voices heard. that these two men in their own time were seen as failures. we look at these two giants, one who guided us into the depression and both who helped guide allies through world war ii. churchill saving civilization in the summer of 1940, and

roosevelt, of course, when he was younger was seen as a bit of a delatant and that churchill quote, when winston is right he's right and when he's wrong oh, my god. >> exactly. >> oh, my god. and both were quite human but when history required it, john, both stood up. >> they heard the music of history in their heads. i was fortunate when writing the book years ago to get to know mary churchill somes who was churchill's youngest child, a marvelous woman. her great insight was that sitting with papa and president roosevelt was like sitting between two lions roaring at the same time. and that's the marvelous

sentimental view. you're right, they were totally flawed. robert litman said of franklin roosevelt he's a perfectly pleasant man who would like to be president very much. that was the conventional view. by the time he dies in april of 1945, the "new york times" editorialized on april 13th, '45, men will thank god on their knees a hundred years from now that frank in there roast was in the white house when he was. the one thing i hope to leave folks with is character is destiny and if you wonder whether it matters who you send to the presidency, franklin roosevelt was one person before august of 1921. he had been the presidential nominee in 1920. he was not seen as a particularly serious person. he wakes up at their summer

place and he can't walk. here's the brightiest young politician with the most famous political name in america whose world ends. and as churchill later said in a piece he wrote in 1933, he said that not one man out of a hundred would have ever left the house again. not man in a thousand would have entered politics and not one man in a million could have risen to the top of a great republic in the way de. one of the reasons i believe that roosevelt was roosevelt was that he had to teach himself how to re-enter the world and, therefore, he was able to help us engage the world. >> you know, your mary churchill quote reminds me of david lloyd george of responding to the disaster of versailles after world war i and he was chided for doing a terrible job. he said it was hard to do, much of anything, when you were

surrounded -- he had clements on one side and wilson on the other. when you havana possible le hav? napoleon to the left of you and jesus christ on the other side -- let's take it from 1919 to 2019, almost 2019, charlie we're conservative, we believe in free trade, natural jobs reagan's distrust of robinsussi and we believe that america is that city is change brightly on the while for all the world to see. i wondered if you've been heartened some over the past few days by seeing some of our former brothers and sisters in

the conservative cause starting to see flight and understanding that maybe donald trump is not the best vehicle to push conservatism forward? >> i have been heartened, but also i've gotten inured to disappointment. i won't push it too far. going back to what john meacham said about character is destiny. you know, when we talk about donald trump, we talk about, you know, this erratic, fraudulent, narcissist in this moment. donald trump drags the rest of us down. i keep thinking if we wait for our institutions and our politicians to somehow swoop in and fix all this, we're going to be disappointed again because if a nation loses its soul and i'm taking john's title of his book,

if you lose your soul, if you lose your moral compass, if you don't think character matters any more it is hard to see how the country finds a way back from all of this. so, yeah, joe i'm a little bit heartened by this, but i'm also, you know, thinking when the new senate comes in you're not going to have bob corker around, you'll have marsha blackburn. the republicans will be in the minority. the shifting of the window of moral acceptability has been extraordinary but in the last couple of days i think you are seeing people who are saying, you know, hey who knew? if only somebody had warned us that this guy was like this. you and i are guilty of premature anti-trumpism. this argument that brett hume is making all this criticism is exaggerated but who knew this

guy is off the rails, the girls are down and maybe we ought to be worried now. >> apparently more and more are. susan page let's talk about the democrats and what happens next with democrats on january 3rd. nancy pelosi becomes speaker of the house. i found that democrats sort of taking the guidance, napoleon said when your enemy is destroying themselves don't interfere. >> they have been disciplined about doing that. we saw democrats being disciplined during the mid-term elections and focusing on health care and not taking the bait when president trump said provocative things. that task gets more and more difficult as they take control as investigations begin and a half-dozen house committees under new democratic chairs and this will be one of the big tasks, i think, for speaker, soon-to-be speaker period low circumstance which is to keep control of her troops, to keep their eye on the ball, to keep

democrats from overreaching where republicans overreached with the clinton impeachment in 1998. republicans are counting on democrats to overreach and to give them an opening for a come back and the question will be can they avoid doing that? >> that's a good question. garrett, as the madness continues, the pressure on democrats back in their home districts will intensify to launch investigation after investigation and eventually move towards impeachment. i know that's something nancy pelosi has been concerned about for some time. but i would guess that next week makes her job of tamping that pressure down makes her job more difficult. >> it might. the way the democrats have tried thread this needle they want to focus their oversight effort not

so much on donald trump personally which a lot of base would like to see him do but the way in which his policies have screwed things up. one of the first things the democrats will go after is the family separation policy at the border. they see that as a good way to expose failed policies which is what they see as a failed presidency without making it personal against donald trump. the impeachment word doesn't get thrown around one january or february or march when they stand up these committees and their majority and see what they can get done. i want to go back to what you were talking about on the nature side. the face of the senate is so dramaticatly changed the difference between these two bodies. you don't have bob corker on the foreign committee any more. eve lost john mccain on armed service. james inhofe is the same way. rarely if ever said a bad word about donald trump in public.

in the positions of power on the senate side those critics are gone and the discrepancy between two chambers will be extraordinary come that first week of january. >> i wonder, garrett, any chances that they may become, in their new positions, feel the need to become critical at times over mattis' departure, over america's retreat from the fight against isis and russia. >> beal see. inhofe will get pushed. he said publicly he doesn't see his role as much as an oversight, he sees it as giving the military the tools they need. there will be people underneath him who are very upset. confirmation hearings for those who replace james mattis will be intense and you'll have pressure from hawks who are still over there like lindsey graham, marco

rubio, rubio is an interesting case. he doesn't talk to the national press very much. he sought us out last week to complain and light up the president on decision on syria. i'll be curious to see what role mitt romney would play. he could be a bullet proof never trump figure. as popular romney is in utah and the president is not he could come in and be a disruptive force in that way if he so chooses. so there will be opportunities to see if any of these younger i guess folks try to rise up a little bit in a republican controlled senate. we were talking about gray beards. those folks made their designates not to be the ones to walk down pennsylvania avenue. we'll see if anybody coming up in that younger group, maybe corey gardner decides now is the time to speak up more forcefully. >> susan collins lins up in 202.

mitt romney coming in. thank you all. hope you have a great christmas, great holiday season and coming up president trump cites a self-proclaim defeat of isis for justifying pulling the u.s. troops out of syria. the islamic state is not defeated in syria or anywhere else in the world, for that matter. we'll talk to david ignatius about that and also bringing in two experts who can tell us the true status of the terror group next on "morning joe". ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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president trump made his unilateral decision to withdraw the united states troops from syria spontaneously while he was on a phone call with turkey's president erdogan just over a week ago on december 14th, according to the associated press. two days before that call erdogan vowed to launch an offensive against u.s. allied kurds in syria. a group that has fought by america's side for years against isis, although turkey has long considered them to be terrorists. trump tweeted about his

conversation with erdogan late last night. the islamic state is not defeated in syria or anywhere else for that matter. as the ap puts it quote despite losing its caliphate, tens of thousands of isis fighters remain. tens of thousands of isis fighters remain on the battlefield. the group continues to carry out insurgent attacks and could else move back into the territory it once had once american forces withdraw. the nonpartisan public policy research group the american enterprise institute notes isis still remains in the middle east and has developed stronger foot holds in africa. let's bring in now the author of that report senior analyst at the critical threads project at the american enterprise institute emily astell.

let me bring in david ignatius for the first question, but, david, before asking the first question, let me ask you, just how big of a threat does isis remain, in your opinion based on all the sources you've spoken with? >> joe, isis is on the way to being destroyed physically, the idea that laid behind isis in syria and iraq, obviously, persists. but they in the last week, i'm told by the syrian kurdish commandos who is leading this fight have felt a resurgent morale. he told me when i interviewed him on saturday that in their pick ups of isis communications they heard isis fighters talking about a return of the caliphate, that some day soon the black flag would be flying again over

raqqah and those other cities in syria where they were evicted so powerfully. another sign of this resurgence, there was a wave of ten suicide attacks over the last 24 hours against the positions of syrian kurdish forces. so i want to ask emily who did this new report if she could describe for our viewers the spread of isis around the world, both as an idea and as a for that might threaten america's interests. >> thanks. so isis as an organization has been preparing for a long time to lose the terrain it has in iraq and syria and been transforming itself to be resilient for years now. one of the things the group did was send leadership, send external attack planners to cells and affiliates around the world including africa.

what you have now is a series of groups at varying levels of connection to isis which nonetheless host its ideas and members and carry out the threat that isis proposed for multiple places. >> let me ask, you've covered this story for many years now and really well. what's your sense about who, if anybody, what force is going to be able to stop isis from coming back in syria? can russia do it? can the regime do it? what do you think lies ahead? >> well, up until now the force that we have relied on to push back isis has been our kurdish allies, and as has been explained to me in that fight alone the kurds lost 10,000 of their own troops whereas americans lost just four soldiers in the last couple of years in that campaign. it's unclear to me in the absence of u.s. support of the

kurds who is going to be able to do it. the russians have had minimal interaction on the battlefront with isis, so has the regime. turkey has not been traditionally a good partner in that fight so, of course, there's a concern that the very areas that have been liberated at great cost will perhaps go back to isis. >> emily, this is gene robinson. david ignatius has talked about -- we talked about the return of the idea of the caliphate. is there a danger of the return of the reality of the caliphate, actual significant territory held by isis and if so where would you see that happening? >> great. so i think actually focusing on the ideas is more important here because if you look at the growth of isis and similar groups, looking at al qaeda they are part of a larger movement that has existed for decades, but the difference is that this

movement only flourishes and becomes strong under certain conditions. when there's civil wars, conflicts and grievances, conditions of poor governance that's when you see these groups become strong and gain territory. so the problem is that even though isis has lost territory, that movement still remains. so if conditions continue such as the war in syria then i can very easily see the group coming back in sir area particularly the group that has already started to rebuild its insurgency and laid the ground work. i track libya in particular and that group used to control a city in libya and lost it to libyan forces backed by the u.s.. but the charisma in libya continues. civil war is not resolved. we're watching isis resume its activities, resume attacks and lay the ground work for what could be regaining ground in that country as well. >> this is david, again.

you've covered these wars so bravely on the ground. i want to ask you a painful final question. what effect is trump's decision to withdraw from syria going to have on america's reputation in that part of the world? >> you know, it's really quite painful to hear from my kurdish sources. these are the very troops i traveled when i was embedded in syria. it's bafflement. a couple of days before trump's announcement they were reassured by senior officials we were in it for the long haul. regarding the cal fit, i just came back recently from iraq. the islamic state in iraq was declared defeated a year ago. what i saw on the ground that defeat in many ways is cosmetic. i went to the village where

baghdadi was born. on our way to the village they stopped the convoy, asked us to turn around and was afraid we would be in an ambush. once we continued they only let us stay on the ground for ten minutes. that's how cared they were in an area that is supposed to be liberated from isis. >> thank you both for being with us. certainly sobering words and a suggest, again, with at least 10,000 isis troops in iraq and syria, that this could be a war that is about, about to flare back up and, unfortunately, the timing of donald trump's retreat from the fight against cisco not be worse. coming up next, treasury secretary steven mnuchin calls our country's top banks to see if they have enough cash sitting

in their voulgts amid the stock market's continued drop. that was not exactly confidence inspiring. we got cnbc's brian sullivan with us. he'll break down how muchin's moves could create new problems for the markets. rapid wrinkle repair's derm-proven retinol works so fast, it takes only one week to reveal younger looking skin. making wrinkles look so last week. rapid wrinkle repair® pair with new retinol oil for 2x the wrinkle fighting power. neutrogena®

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♪ cancer treatment centers of america. appointments available now. so i got a call yesterday from a friend telling me that treasury secretary steve mnuchin was calling bankers checking in on the country's top banks to see if they were financially sound as the stock market continued its downward march. i couldn't believe he made the calls and asked the questions the way he did. it was reported a few hours later. obviously true. as writer charles pierce put it, have i got this straight?

the treasury secretary is in cabo and is making unsolicited calls to heads of banks. let's bring in brian sullivan. the person that i spoke with was completely caught offguard by this phone call, actually caused even more worry than they would have had normally. what are you hearing about the reaction from the top bankers in. >> you can look at the dow futures. the stock market is trading today for a half day. we are indicated down nearly 200 points. we have the worse december for stocks since the great depression. tomorrow, christmas you are sitting around the table with friends and family and maybe talking about football and blessings and joe scarborough says check the house and it is unlikely to burn down and

suddenly everybody is looking around. there are three reasons that are going around. because these great depression references for the market maybe they felt the need to call the banks. maybe he was talking about walling to see the reaction to calling powell. maybe it was a coded message to the market that we have your back. either way, none of those three things seems to be working right now. >> no. this would be more like calling your n.a.t.o. allies and saying i'm just curious, are you prepared for a nuclear attack? if there were a nuclear attack on monday, how would that work for you guys? this was unsolicited. doesn't this actually speak to just how important the selection of treasury secretary is, that you have to have an insider that didn't just finance hollywood

films, but an insider who has been there during a scare and understands how to keep the markets calm. let's just say it. it may sound unkind, but that was a bush league move on his part. >> and i'm not sure we saw this under president bush. here is the thing. nobody knows what this was about. that's the whole point. it kind of rocked a quiet weekend. make cabo great again. it came from the weekend trip calling heads of goldman sachs, bank of america and jamie dimon. nobody can figure out where this came from other than perhaps this is a president who has looked at the stock market as a defacto report card on himself personally and his administration. it's been a terrible december. i can see the president perhaps picking up the phone saying maybe we can do something to try

to stop the slide. it's not working right now. >> thank you so much. greatly appreciate it. let's go to final thoughts now. final thoughts this christmas eve morning? >> i think the american people are going to lead us out of this. they shouldn't wait for washington to do it. i'm comforted by the fact that most people voted in 2016 to not vote for donald trump, that a big majority of people voted against donald trump. we're going to have to do this. we will have to lead our elected representatives to deal with this crisis. >> david ignaceous? >> it will be christmas eve in a few hours and christmas day soon after. i think of the one thing we know when you make a mistake the only thing you can do is confess error and be forgiven. >> thank you so much, david. john meacham, final thoughts?

>> christmas is about reversal. it's about the idea that kings fall down in front of a child. it's about the meek actually overtaking inheriting the earth. we have to be able to confront the possibility that we are wrong. if you support one side or the other without thinking about it, you need to think about it because that's what the great american insight is is that reason has to have a role with passion. >> certainly let's hope there are a lot of people taking a second look at their beliefs and challenging them. it only strengthens you and makes you better. blessed are the meek. i remember one of my favorite lines, with malice towards none. that seems to be a thought for this season and also well after

that. now, we typically have another hour of "morning joe" ahead, but -- you can catch them on morning show first look week day mornings at 5:00 a.m. leading into morning joe at 6:00 a.m. and sometimes they let lewis on the show. we're going to be back with another live morning joe at 6:00 a.m. wednesday morning. until then, we hope everybody has a merry christmas. a merry .

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this weekend, this morning, early exit. the president announcing the fed secretary jim mattis will leave much sooner than expected after the scathing resignation letter critical of the commander in chief, a far cry from what the white house said days ago. >> the president has a great deal of respect for mr. mattis. that is a great indicator of the type of cooperation they have. we are reporting that the president never read mattis's resignation letter. the government's partial

shutdown continuing and could do so until after the new congress comes in. >> i don't think things will move very quickly here. it is possible that the shutdown will go beyond the 28th and into the new congress. and watching wall street after reports that the president wanted to fire his own fed chair, secretary steve mnuchin spends his vacation calling banks to reassure them all is well. >> we will start with the dramatic departure of jim mattis and news he has a week left at his post, far less out of the two months he planned on. pattric shanahan, a man with no military or foreign policy experience will take over as acting secretary on january 1. >> remember this, president trump had originally praised mattis after the general resigned last week following a dispute over syria.

the president grew increasingly angry as he watched growing media reports. by sunday trump decided that the two couldn't work together and pushed up mattis's exit up to next week. we have a national political reporter for nbc news joining us with more details. let's talk about the departure of mattis or the updated exit of mattis. what does that reveal about how things went down between president trump and jim mattis, the fact that he is being pushed out ahead of schedule. >> it shows how upset president trump is at having this play out publically, this really searing resignation letter making clear the differences with president trump not only on policy issues, but also on basic values. and the president unwilling to let it go out there publically that the secretary of defense essentially wanted no part in the administration. so instead mattis found out

yesterday morning not from the president himself who actually made the decision, instead mattis got a phone call from secretary of state mike pompeo, his peer, essentially in the cabinet saying i know you were planning to leave in february to ensure as you were showing sarah sanders describing a smooth transition -- instead you will be done next week. the acting defense secretary will be the current deputy secretary and essentially you are finished. we have seen this from president trump before where he can't really tolerate the idea of rejection especially when it plays out publically that people wouldn't want to work in administration. he says you can't quit, you're fired skplmpt fired. >> any idea to mattis's reaction to this? we had sarah sanders saying this would be a smooth transition. >> we haven't gotten reaction from mattis himself aside from

that resignation letter which he wrote and submitted to the president and then asked aides at the pentagon to print out 50 copies and make sure they were distributed insuring that military members would see it and that it would make its way into the press and the public view. i don't think we will hear a lot from mattis himself. he is not a public figure that likes to talk about his feelings and thoughts. i think he basically laid out what he wanted to be out there in that letter. >> let me get your thoughts on this interesting phone call that precipitationed a precipitated all of this before the announcement was made on syria. what more can you tell us about the impact of the phone call on the trajectory of things to come. >> this phone call on friday was really central to his decision to pull out from syria. what we now know from a senior

white house official is that on the call he promised trump if the u.s. would pull out of syria, we will finish it off, turkey will take responsibility for finishing the remaining isis fighters that are still in the country. trump took erdegon at his word. as you know he has interests in syria that go far beyond defeating isis. what goes along with that is a green light for the turks to clear out the syrian kurdish forces fighting along side the u.s. and who feel abondened as the u.s. lets turkey go after them. >> i want to bring in our panel, and the former managing editor of foreign policy magazine and abby livingston for the texas tribune. i want to start with you and

pick up on the point. it appears that the president's decision on syria based largely on accepting the turkish president's assessment of the situation on the ground surprisingly comes in contrast to what we have been hearing from american military and foreign policy experts and the president's own national security team. what are the impplications of that when you have the american president for the most part basing his foreign policy decision on the leader of turkey, not even other members of n.a.t.o. we have been hearing from the french and others. they oppose the decision to withdraw from syria. >> it sounds like the president of turkey was stunned by trump's decision to just pull out of syria willy-nilly. he said hold on. but then now it looks like turkey is going to be able to go in there and do what it has always wanted to do. turkey has the kurdish population in the east and has a long fraught relationship with

that population. those folks are allies with the kurds in syria. i think if you are kurdish in eastern syria you feel betrayed. a lot of u.s. special forces were working with those groups. they feel betrayed by this decision. it's a really precipitous move and one that i think will build a lot of mistrust in the region. >> this is an open playground for the iranians and russians. i want to play part of what acting chief of staff said about the syria decision on fox news. >> we recognize the fact that this is unpopular within the beltway and the defense department. it is very popular with ordinary american people, the people who ran with donald trump -- >> with all due respect to democracy, do they really know what the stakes are of pulling u.s. troops out and leaving the

syrian defense force to the turkish slaughter and what the impact is going to be on iran? we are going to make this -- >> ordinary americans have no idea about those things. they elect the president so that he does. >> does the president know about these things either? so we can assume that the president is making a lot of decisions based on his base and what they think which makes sense when you talk about the economy because it's affecting their pocket books directly. when you are talking about syria, the majority do they know best? >> one thing that is going on, this past week i think more than the actual mid terms in november is going to mark a changing point in the trump administration. tied with the shutdown and the other chaos, this is rattling wall street. that is still an abstract concept to the average american.

401 k retirement statements aren't coming out. a lot of -- there is an indirect implications that retirement savings can get hit. that's when things get consequential in politics. >> i wanted to get your thoughts on another part of the anti-isis coalition. the highest civilian official who is kind of the person who brought the coalition together under obama, maintained it during the trump years, he has resigned in protest. the president tweeted that he didn't know him and called him a grand stander. so it seems odd that the president wouldn't know the top point man in the administration who is overseeing this anti-isis coaliti coalition. give us a sense that he is resigning one more layer of the

anti-isis fight breaking apart. >> difficult for the president to say brett who? i don't know this guy. i'm the guy who has defeated ice skps has brought the elimination of this extremist group. there was very little option really about what he would be able to do at this point because he for the last several years has been the guy whose job it was to go around the world to the 60 some odd currents thount have been fighting saying put your men and women on the battlefield with us, fight along side us. this is a critical, global security threat. we need all of our allies to really come out and support us and be with us on this and you can be assured that the u.s. is committed long term to syria's stability, to its future and to eliminating the threat of extremist attacks coming out of syria and iraq. and then the next day have to be

able to say actually just kidding, we are going home and doing it right away and without consulting any of our allies who have been fighting with us. that is just the president's decision. for brett it was essentially contradicting everything he has been working for the last many years. he felt like it was an untenable situation. >> you lead to my next question. you wrote the decision to withdraw from syria by itself is not controversial. the president tweeted that if anyone else had made the decision, they would have been praised. you talk about nick mulvaney that the base chooses a president to make decision. he is not necessacessarily list to his cabinet as we have been reporting. it is really about the way in which the president has gone about making the decision more so than anything else. >> i can imagine president hillary clinton saying it's not working out in syria. why are we there?

i doubt she would have gotten there this quickly. certainly a lot of americans are scarred by u.s. wars in the middle east. i'm sure the president's decision is popular in some quarters, but you don't just do this thing on a whim and a tweet without consulting allies and working through the options in the pentagon and the interagency process. this is something the president seems to have done because he could. we are seeing the consequences play out, a lot of doubt among u.s. allies about america's commitment to the world and to 70 years of foreign policy that mattis wrote about in his resignation letter. >> it's always a question that has to be on the back of everyone's mind. i find it interesting when the decision was taken to go into syria there was a lot of controversial points being made that the president did so without authorization from

congress. when you go to war without the authorization of congress the withdrawal of american troops can be problematic. let me get your final thoughts on where we go from here with the new acting secretary of defense. he is going to be taking over. what more do we know about him? he doesn't have military or foreign policy experience. what kind of governing style and ideology does he subscribe to? >> and how long do we expect him to stay? >> i'm not terribly familiar with him. that may not be relevant. in past presidents, when you think of them you think of their cabinet and secretaries of state, defense. as these people peel off from the trump administration, the first team that he appointed, there are less substantial figures replacing the ones that were there initially. it becomes less and less about

the trump administration and trump making these choices. the onus will fall on him when history looks back on him. >> thank you all. up next, lawmakers are home for the holidays, but the country is entering day three of a partial government shutdown. what happens next? when and who's got the ball? we have to share the surprise moment by tom hanks. hanks is sure to make santa's nice list after surprising customers at an in and out burger. >> he was having lunch with his wife and decided to pick up the check for customers in the drive through. if only i was there. >> i would have doubled my order. >> keep it coming. we'll be right back. der. >> keep it coming. we'll be right back. oh, milk. another breakfast, another dilemma. am i willing to pay the price for loving you? you'll make my morning, but ruin my day. complicated relationship with milk? pour on the lactaid. it's delicious 100% real milk,

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we are down to day three of the partial government shutdown which the white house says could extend into the new year. >> president trump and democrats remain at odds over his demands for the border wall. the president has demanded $5 billion to build that wall but his money man says there is room for some negotiation on that. take a listen. >> the ball right now is in their corner. we made them an offer yesterday afternoon. so the senate democrats have the ability right now to open the government and agree to the deal. >> there is frankly no path towards his getting $5 billion

in american taxpayer money to meet his campaign promise of a big, beautiful wall. >> this is a made up fight so the president can look like he is fighting. >> he says it is an issue of border security. it's an issue of his own political insecurity. >> i'm still confused as to what that means when the ball is in the corner. >> it's out of bounds. >> what sport has a ball in the corner? >> quash. >> it could be a window as to what is going on in washington, d.c. >> we mix metaphors. it doesn't matter at this point. >> nbc news correspondent joins us live from capitol hill. let's talk a little bit about that. is the ball moving in any direction whatsoever? >> or is it in the corner? >> i think it's not even on the court, really. i think that we are just still

in the head fake stage. it's all talking points and no one is going anywhere. this thing isn't going anywhere at this point. you heard him say it could last into the new congress. nancy pelosi and the democrats take control of the house. pelosi said she is going to pass a spending bill to reopen the government. it has been demonstrated that there are the votes in the senate to go along with what the house does. that is a semantic difference that is proving to be crucial in all of this. the president is, of course, home alone. he is with the first lady who travelled back. as long as the president has time on his hands and his phone in his hands then things could change at least in terms of public pronouncements. last night the president put out a series of tweets including one

on this issue. the most important way to stop gangs, drugs, human trafficking and massive crime is at our southern border. we need border security. the drones and technology are just bells and whistles. safety for america. the 1.3 billion has the hat passed the senate and was about to pass the house was for the sort of drones and technology, the so-called border security measures that fall short of a physical barrier that the white house is insisting on now. in terms of him saying there is a figure on the table reported $2.1 billion, this is again part of the dance. everybody wants to appear reasonable and like they are negotiating in good faith. truth be told, nothing is really happening at this point so far as we know and we can tell. >> if the new congress takes hold we are going to get

nowhere. >> and then the question becomes, it passes the house and the presumably the senate. the president has a veto pen. does he veto it? does the shutdown extend? are there votes to override the veto? probably not. there is no clear conclusion, no clear path forward at this point. >> stick with us. i want to bring in two former capitol hill veterans. he served as a spokesman for olivia snow. he is now an nbc news contributor and a columnist for the usa today. jim kesler is now senior vice president for policy at third way. jim, i'm going to start with you. do you see schumer here changing his stance in any way, shape or form, giving the president some

money for his border wall? you are hearing mull vein mulva the president is maybe backing off the 5 billion. >> they had a deal, schumer, mitch mcconnell, ryan, pelosi and trump scotched it. this is a trump-orchestrated shutdown. he knows he is not going to get the wall. i think trump is doing this because he wants to distract from his worst week ever. you had the flynn fiaso, the mattis resignation. i think trump wants this shutdown and wants to prolong it. i don't see schumer moving and i don't see trump moving. >> he understand in the white house in the press conference saying i will take the responsibility for it and i won't blame you for it if it does happen. >> after the shutdown it seems like he wanted to share responsibility with the dems. >> let me get your thoughts about mitch mcconnell.

do you think he will be able to thread the needle and come up with anything that the white house and the democrats could possibly agree on? what is his role in all of this besides simply backing the president? >> his role will have to be accepti accepting whatever nancy pelosi sends him. mitch mcconnell is boxed in. it will be hard for him to go back on that and try to do something different. he will end up passing whatever the house sends him and then trump will have to own this shutdown for a second time. you know how bad it will look for trump if the congress sends him a bill to end this shutdown and he vetoes it? it will mean that he owns the shutdown at the same time that the market is falling and fight wg his outgoing defense secretary. that is too many wars to fight for donald trump. >> you seem pretty sure that this will extend into the new year and you will not get this

resolved in the next week. >> the only way the is resolved is if trump backs down. he is doing the bidding of his far right base. there was a deal and it was going to avert the shutdown. they went crazy and then trump capitulated to them. this is the only part of support that he has. he can't afford to lose that. if he loses that base support and those conservatives who are so vocally opposing the deal, if he loses them he has nothing left. >> you can't just help remember this was the core of his campaign promise was building -- if he feels like he fails at this, then what does he have to hold up? >> let me pick up on that point that everyone is discussing the possibility of solution in the new term. i want to play for you something that the white house budget director and chief of staff have to say about nancy pelosi and

the politics of the negotiations. >> i think it is a really good question as to whether or not this deal can be cut before the new congress comes in. i think there is an implication here. i think she is in the unfortunate position of being beholdened to her left wing to where she cannot be seen as agreeing. i think there is a chance we go into the next congress. >> it seems that you are trying to strike an optimistic note saying nancy pelosi is hampered by politics and she may not be in that position. do you agree with that assessment? is that why nancy pelosi won't agree -- >> i don't agree with that at all. that was the same point that president trump made in the 17-minute improv that we saw in the oval office. she batted it away. i represent my third way think

tank. we are the centrist wing of the democratic party. nancy pelosi has the speakership nailed down. there is no doubt about it at all. democrats aren't going to spend $5 billion on a bumper sticker that president trump promised that mexico is going to pay for. he is orchestrating this. this is not about nancy pelosi's weakness but about her strength. chuck schumer has strength, as well. the senate already voted on this so the leverage is all on the side of democrats and frankly pragmatic thinking republicans. >> what do you think is their incentive for trying to make nancy pelosi seem vulnerable? is it shifting responsibility for the shutdown? >> i think trying to create a distraction and news here because there is no doubt whether nancy pelosi will be speaker or not. democrats are united on this and they have been from the beginning. so there is always a method to

trump's madness and it is to distract from the larger things thrks mattis resignation, the flynn fiasco. >> final thought about outgoing senator bob corker. he is not mincing his words when it comes to what is going on. >> this is a made up fight so the president can look like he is fighting. even if he wins, our borders will be insecure. part of it is because of what we are spending the money on. >> your thought on that. is he correct? >> he is correct. i also wish that more republicans would be vocal opposing trump while in office. that would be a lot more meaningful and have a lot more impact. it's interesting that they are trying to move this nancy pelosi blame game around. trying to raise alarm about this invasion at the border, making nancy pelosi the face of it. the american people

overwhelmingly rejected it. i don't see why they are doubling down on what we already know. >> i wonder why. >> nothing to lose, it seems. thank you guys so much. and coming up, the desperate search for survivors at this hour. the death toll continues to climb. a live report on the rush to rescue the missing, next. the o rescue the missing, next.

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turning now to the devastating news out of indonesia where dozens are missing after a deadly tsunami as the death toll continues to rise to 373 people confirmed dead and thousands more are injured. >> we are joined now from london. the images coming out are just devastating to see. what are you hearing from on the ground there? >> the focus this morning is on search and rescue operations. this is day two for that indonesian tsunami. thousands are combing through

the wreckage of hotels, houses and cars trying to find survivors. this is a race against the clock amidst new fears of more deadly waves. >> reporter: with the death toll climbing higher, a desperate search for the living. this little boy pulled to safety after being trapped for more than 12 hours. coastal towns devastated, homes flattened, cars crushed in the debris. no warning, no time to get away because there was no earthquake. >> there would have been zero warning. it just happened. nobody could have been able to predict this. >> reporter: chis is what experts believe triggered the tsunami, an eruption of the volcano setting off an underwater landslide. >> we have over 1,000 people injured, 281 people that are dead. there is about 15,000 who are displaced. many, many of the people that

were domestic tourists. >> reporter: this indonesian pop band was performing at a beach resort when the ten foot tall tsunami wave suddenly hit. the lead singer posting this tearful message saying his bass player, guitarist and manager died, two band members and his wife missing, sharing this photo in paris saying today is your birthday. hurry home. with the body count piling up, new fears this morning, could disaster strike again? authorities warning residents and tourists around the strait to stay away from beaches. a high tide warning is in place until christmas day. tragedy has struck indonesia before. more than 2,500 were killed by a quake and tsunami this september. and in 2004, the day after christmas, the deadliest tsunami

recorded in history claimed more than 230,000 lives. today more grief and anguish for a country that has suffered so much. you heard that red cross official in my spot, he said he gave us some updated death tolls. we have seen the numbers rise. 373 dead, 1,459 injured, 128 still missing. the fear is the numbers could go up again. >> i know you mentioned there are warnings for high tide that could still impact the area. do you get a sense that officials are concerned about other tsunamis this morning or in the coming days? >> it's absolutely a possibility. the volcano is still active. in fact, it began erupting again last night sending clouds of ash and smoke high into the air. if there is another partial collapse of the volcano wall if another chunk of land slips into the ocean, that could potentially trigger another

tsunami which is why folks are being warned to stay away from the coastal areas. >> do you know if they had any warning of the possible volcanic eruption? is it they didn't anticipate a tsunami? >> the volcano has been erupting since june and may. the problem is the chunk of the volcano that broke off and slid into the land, that -- into the sea, pardon me. that is what caused the tsunami. they have earthquake warning systems. this wasn't an earthquake. >> especially after 2004 with that one you think they would have all kinds of early warnings for scenarios, earthquakes and fallen land masses. >> you forget about the incredible loss of life that happened back then. unbelievable. so sad. up next, defense secretary jim mattis's early exit from the

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early exit of defense secretary jim mattis. he will be leaving president trump's white house at the end of this year. >> the news comes after mattis's resignation letter mentioned the importance of supporting n.a.t.o. allies. mattis planned to stay in his role until february when a defense minister's meeting was scheduled. now bipartisan concerns are growing about the future of american diplomacy. joining me now, professor at the university of denver, former u.s. ambassador to iraq, poland, macedonia. happy holidays to you, sir. let me begin with the president's tweet about jim mattis. he said i gave jim mattis a second chance but mattis's appointment was widely welcomed. talk about the long term consequences about the abrupt shift. what does it say to you that the president is able to --

completely let go at a moment's notice because he disagreed with him? >> it is hard to assess the president's interpersonal relations. he seems to love people until he doesn't or hate them until he doesn't. it is kind of hard to say. what is becoming clear is that he has absolutely no idea to carry out how to carry out strategy, what the u.s. role should be in the world. he has a vague notion that the u.s. is a victim that other countries have not ponied up. then he talks to someone on the telephone and he has a new policy. the question is where do we go from here. is the president going to double down on what is a pull back from the world. as you all have been discussing a pullback from historic allies and partners which has always been the bed rock of u.s. foreign policy. so for those who believe that this administration is in disarray and perhaps the wheels

are coming off, there is a lot of evidence for that today. >> there was a time where we thought john kelly was the adult in the room. he has left. jim mattis has left with regards to -- he has now left. it seems as if maybe the adults aren't in the room anymore especially with regards to foreign policy. should we be worried? >> yeah. i think we should be worried. the president -- the one institution that seemed to kind of hold this presidency up was the military. we had so many military officers in this administration, you almost could have called it -- that is all changing very quickly. in the meantime, as the president said himself yesterday he didn't know the name of the chief civilian dealing with the syrian coalition. so again we have a president who seems to rely more on sort of television news and occasional telephone calls than he does on a sort of broad concept of how

to proceed. there are a lot of problems in syria. if a president wanted to say i don't see where we are getting out of this, therefore i want to see what we need to do to pull our troops out, that should start a sort of memo process to say yet president we can do this, but the problem, of course, is what do we do with our allies. that would bring out another memo and gradually through this iterative process you would come up with a foreign policy whose purpose is to get the troops out but to leave stability there. clearly, this is not happening. the president just has an impulse. impulses are fine if you know what you are talking about. if your stock broker has an impulse the stock broker knows a lot about stocks and has a concept of how to proceed. when you have people acting on impulses who have no idea what they are talking about, that is the problem and that is very much what we have in this administration. >> i want to merge the questions for you.

one is the incoming -- he is currently the deputy defense secretary patrick shanahan. what lies ahead for him? when you think of what somebody like the acting chief of staff had to say about the future of that position, i want to get your reactions to this sound byte. >> does he want a defense secretary who is willing to challenge him or does he want somebody who will be lock step in his views? >> i think the president wants a little bit of both. i look across the cabinet agencies and look at who the president thinks is doing a really good job. it's folks who don't always agree with the president but don't always disagree with the president. >> what lies ahead for patrick shanahan and what does it say about the future of the role if the president doesn't consult with his secretary of defense before he makes a decision like withdrawing american troops from the battlefield? whether you agree or disagree it

seems the pentagon was blind sided about that. >> the pentagon is a planning organization. they plan for everything. they plan for how to defend the islands from martians. they plan for absolutely everything. so to have a tweet come out with absolutely no sort of antecedents and no explanation of how it is happening apart i gather from a quick phone call with the turkish president, the pentagon has a big problem. there is no question that the new acting secretary is an extremely competent person. with respect to foreign policy, with respect to national security policy, he is going to have quite a learning curve. the deputy at the defense department is someone who kind of develops the force of the future. he looks at all kinds of things. do we need more wheel vehicles or a space force, this kind of thing.

that is his job. for him to have to go to a n.a.t.o. and explain what the future of the u.s. role in afghanistan is, i think it is something that is going to keep him up very late at night. >> news confirming the pentagon planning possible martian invasion. >> breaking news everybody. [ laughter ] >> up next, futures point to losses as the dow tries to rebound from the worst week in a decade. we'll head to wall street in just a few minutes. we have good news because it is the holidays. a special delivery. an 8-year-old girl releasing her christmas wish list into the air tied to a red balloon wanting to make it to the north pole. instead, it reached a man in arizona who with clues from the letter tracked down the girl to deliver the clothes, drawing supplies and the slime on her

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so in the midst of a disappointing december. mnuchin called the ceo of the top six american banks to show up some confidence there. >> did he really? where is he really? >> mexico. >> i heard he was spotted in mexico doing some golfing. >> have you heard that of mnuchin who's golfing in new mexico. >> stocks are set to open lower this christmas eve after markets staged a dramatic decline last week. treasury secretary steven mnuchin holding calls ahead with the six largest banks sure are confidence in markets and investors. the banks all confirmed, ample liquidity is available. markets are trying to understand

why exactly this call was held on a sunday right before holiday break. the other big concern for the market is not only the recent turmoil but how investors and consumers are going to respond to the rising rate environment after the federal reserve raised rates last week. the other topic will drag onto at least thursday. last week was a wild week for wall street. the s&p 500 is down 17.8% and the nasdaq is lower than 25% of its perspective highs. the climb are significance as investors are trying to understand what the federal reserve will do next and what the call between mnuchin with the ceo banks mean. >> and discussing the future of jerome powell. >> mnuchin is saying that he had

no plans and firing him. >> thank you so much seema. >> that does it for me. can you do it? you will be solo. >> it is not going to be the same. >> defense secretary james mattis out of office before his planned departure date. the market is opening a little bit more than half an hour, we'll be watching that and bring it to you live as well. ♪ -we have the power -to make a difference, right now.

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hello everyone, president trump moves up departure date for defense secretary james mattis and word this morning the commander in chief never read that resignation letter. >> he's basically saying this president does not share the same world view as every single american president going back to world war ii. >> does that disturb you? >> yes, it does. >> and still shutdown with no end incite with the government stalemate. looks like the president is prepared for a much longer fight to get his border wall. >> i think we know better. it is an issue of its own political security when the right wingers start screaming he just backs off. we reached a depth of

dysfunction that i have never seen. >> we are 30 minutes away of the market opes opening. we begin with the decision to oust secretary james mattis. the president took a few days to absorb the scaviing criticism in the letter. he ordered secretary of state mike pompeo to inform mattis he had only a week left on the job. i want to go to jeff bennett live at the white house. the tone that came out of the president, sarah huckabee sanders with gratitude and a lot of praise. different tune and att t