happening in our country. ♪ it's the most wonderful time of the year ♪ i can't tell you whether the goftd government is going to be open. ♪ with the kids jingle belling and everyone telling you have a good time of the year ♪ ♪ it's the most wonderful time of the year ♪ >> then there's probably presidential harassment. but other than that, i wish everybody a very merry christmas. ♪ with those holiday greetings and gay happy meetings when friends come to call ♪ >> i'll tell you, that ending reminds me of maybe my favorite holiday movie ever, maybe, "it's a wonderful life." he goes at the end, well, other than that, merry christmas, everybody. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it's wednesday, december 26th. i hope everybody had a merry christmas. in the spirit of the holiday

season, let me say i wish the president and his family all the best, as well. but as we move towards the end of the year, now is the time we need to take stock of everything. how are we doing personally? how are our children and how are other family members doing? are they thriving? do we need more help in certain areas? are they doing great in others, but might need just a little push some other direction? how are we doing as a country? and how are our leaders doing? you know, as we approach 2019, those of us who remain eternally optimistic about this great republic of ours have reason to be concerned. little children continue to die in the custody of the u.s. government. and remember, friends, that's our government. that's your government and my government that's allowing little children to die while they're being incarcerated

because of a policy that's supposed to discourage people from coming. and thousands of children still remain incarcerated and still this holiday season, this christmas season, they're still operated from their parents. what would jesus do? well, that's where jesus would be. that would be the issue. if you read the new testament, if you read the gospels, that's exactly what jesus would be concerned about and what evangelicals who support this president and who claim to have influence over this president should be focused on in moving his policy. let the little children come -- not even close. now, that same government that is holding all of these children along the border is largely shut down in washington because a republican president refuses to accept -- he won't even accept a

deal that republicans and democrats together offered him. because a few talk radio chatterers told him to prove that he was tough, he needed to shut down the government. you know, donald trump told americans a couple of weeks agoel to prepare for the government shutdown and now he's getting his christmas wish. but i wish you would work with democrats and republicans to open it back up. you know and i know and the world knows that the president pushed out his defense secretary last week. while he's pushing cowardly policies to surrender large parts of syria to iran, russia and isis. he then demanded that marine general who is so respected in the military and around the world leave immediately. now the president, on almost a daily basis, is talking about firing the man he put in charge of the federal reserve.

because donald trump is in desperate need to explain why the stock market is having its worst december since the great depression. it's in a free fall. as you know, real leaders like harry truman said the buck stops here. in fact, he put it on his desk in the white house to say the buck stops here. i take the responsibility. real leaders, they take responsibility when things go wrong on their watch. jfk did it after the bay of pigs. he said failure is an or fan. and i accept it. well, it would never occur to donald trump that his disastrous trade policies, his record setting debt, his liberal spending, his liberal deficit spending and his erratic behaviors are the biggest

drivers of this market's down turn. the whole world is watching what's happening in america this holiday week and the world is rightly confirm. in fact, some could say the world is rightly scared. let me remind you and donald trump that this morning, i don't judge the president by my standards. you don't have to judge the pet by your standards. this morning, just judge him by his own standards. the standards that donald trump set when with he was a candidate running for president of the united states. and if you do that, if you take a couple of minutes to go on the internet, to do a couple of basic searches on google, you will see that donald trump is failing by every benchmark that he laid out in his own campaign. his campaign promises.

those fiery stump speeches that we saw day in and day out through 2016. and the blizzard of tweets that we've been reading about for five years. go back and read them. they're all seconds away for you, seconds away from being searched by you and any trump supporter who still refuses to face the truth about their president's failings of leadership. i take no pleasure in saying that because it's the great general hayden told me, joe, we only have one president. and we've got to do everything we can to make that president succeed. he told me that during the transition. other leaders told me that during the transition. i a took that to heart and i know that they were right.

but we all can't do it alone. donald trump, at some point, needed to step up and show leadership. and if he couldn't do it, then those around him who would influence him should have done it. as some of you know, i left the republican party less over donald trump than i did over the fact that almost every elected official in the gop has bowed and scraped to donald trump. treating this man, whose skills are objectively declining on a daily basis, treating this man like he was an emperor wearing the finest clothes ever made when, in fact, effectively, donald trump is on track to be the worst president of all times and perhaps ever pushing james

buchanan off that dubious perch. and i haven't even brought up the mueller investigation and the fact that this president has practically admitted to the obstructing justice and campaign finance laws that are felonies. that are felonies, republicans. you know, the coming events and that legal drama are going to be a large part of our collective 2019. but right now, world leaders, financial markets, members of congress of both parties, even senior members of donald trump's own administration are appalled and confuses by his behavior. and they're worried about the impact that his behavior is having on the real lives of real people all over america. there's a right way to make military decisions, like drawing

down military members in syria and afghanistan, but only when the taliban is dialed down. there's a right way to do it and there's a wrong way to do it. the wrong way to make and announce those decisions. there's a right way to work through the difficulties of moving toward essential legislative compromise. great presidents do it. presidents that know how washington works do it. you know, bill clinton knew how to do it. ronald reagan knew how to do it. there is a right way to do it and there is a wrong way to do it. there is a right way to reassure markets during a panic sell-off and a wrong way. some called the last week of the trump presidency the worst to

date. last week, obviously, has a lot of competition in that category. but let's not quibble with those who believe that right now what is going on right now is the most challenging moment we have faced since this man took office almost two years ago. this morning, we're going to talk about what happens next. how america's other leaders and how leaders across the world can work together and work around what donald trump has wrought. because the days of waiting for this president to change how he operates and the days of hoping that he can somehow achieve more and do better, those days are bhierchbd us. 2019 is going to be far difference. and here to discuss all of it, we have with us republican strategist and msnbc political analyst susan delpercio, republican communication

strategist and msnbc political contributor rick tyler, pulitzer prize winning author and msnbc political analyst gene robinson and msnbc correspondent garrett haik. gene, i was looking for your quote in -- when gene robinson starts going to the old testament, we know we're in trouble in his columns. psalm 35 reminds everybody on christmas morning weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. all of us you must have face we will somehow survive this trial. it really is a trial, isn't it, gene, the likes of which you and i and so many others have never seen before. >> it is a trial. it's a trial for the country in many ways a trial for the world

and it's a trial for a lot of people as individuals. i wrote that column because i had been at the grocery store doing some pre-christmas shopping, picking up things, and it took me about a half hour longer than it should have because people who watch this show and others kept coming up to me and just feeling the sort of anxiety and fear and at times despair at what was going on. in the middle of last week, it was just crazy to a nation that is used to crazy by now. we've gone through a couple of years of this. and it you had just got ton that point. and i think, yes, we have to -- we have to remember that joy cometh in the morning and it is

up to us, it is up to our elected officials, but it is up to us because they represent us, to steady this ship, to right this course, and not to let things spin entirely out of control. so we need to take stock, we need to be resolute and we have to know that we can do this, that things can be all right. and i just felt that was an important message i had to write to myself and hopefully to others for christmas. >> susan delpercio, joy may cometh in the morning, but it was a bleak night at the white house first with the president suggesting that santa may not exist and secondly saying the next morning how terrible

everything is in america, that it's an absolute disgrace what's going on in this country, but merry christmas, i guess. doesn't exactly send a strong message to members of his own party who have on to decide what they're going to do when they come back in 2019. judging by some columns we're going to read today from matt lewis, andrew ferguson, there are a lot of conservatives who are thinking no mos. we have gone along with this as a party and now the damaging is start to go be felt. >> that's right, joe. the movie that came to mind for me was "the grinch" when i saw donald trump there yesterday. but i think there's another important thing that we have to look at besides republicans just speaking up. watch for the president to turn on them. i think mitch mcconnell is on borrowed time with president trump. he left and mitch mcconnell was

very upset to the president and he said it's up to you, mr. president, to negotiate with the democrats. now he's going to come back and it's going to away different story when the president realizes that he's not going to get what he wants and he wants someone to blame. it won't just be nancy pelosi. mitch mcconnell is up for re-election. i think donald trump is really going the bring it to him. and now is the time -- i say this every time -- is that republicans, we need leadership. we need people to step up and say no. we can't wait this out. it was the theory that we can wait it out, our institutions are strong enough. i remember when the country was on edge when it was -- when we were worried about north yeah and the rocket man tweets. it's so much worse now than that day when you look at where we are as a country today and where the world is. and we just need to see that leadership step up and i hope we

do. >> well, you know, rick tyler, susan is talking about mitch mcconnell leaving, being upset. so frustrated with donald trump. first of all bragging about wanting to shut down the government, then getting a deals from republicans and democrats and deciding he wasn't going to accept it because rush limbaugh and ann colter told him not to. i'm looking at columns that have been written and it does seem that there aren't just cracks in the wall, there are parts of the wall of republican resistance for donald trump that are completely breaking. you have andrew ferguson asking the question, what does it mean when the nation's long-term conservative party becomes stamped with a style of governing that includes childish attacks and political opponents, hush money for old lovers,

dispropriety for simple manners. what does it cost when trumpism of and individual conservativety -- and andrew goes on to say sooner or later those ideals must deal with discredit to conservative ends. rick, you and i would suggest that time has already come, but a lot of other republicans this morning are thinking the same thing. >> well, joe, as you know, i worked on a campaign that opposed donald trump in the primary. i went on television daily warning people about what it would be like to hire a person for president who had no governing philosophy, no groi

grounding because he would be entirely unpredictable. now, many of our viewers may disagree with conservative principles, but i would suggest the republican party has completely lost the idea of what conservative principles are. for example, a conservative principle has been pro immigration and now we have a party that seems to think that immigration on the whole is a bad idea. and remember, this whole government shutdown is a colossal failure of leadership. this rests on nobody else but donald trump. he had every opportunity early on to get an agreement about border security and the wall. he failed that test of leadership. and if, in fact, the country supported the wall, and i understand republicans support a physical barrier which i think is a little out of date. ace mentioned last week -- >> now, when you say a little out of date, you're talking

about -- and isn't that the outrageous thing, when we shut down the government, it was because we were demanding that bill clinton pass a budget that balance the budget in seven years. he said that would destroy the economy. we said it wouldn't. we shut down the government. we got a deal and actually we balanced the budget four years in a row for the first time in a century. >> and paid off $1 billion worth of debt. >> and we paid it off. then in 2013, i was against the way that government shutdown went down. i didn't think there was a plan b. but, still, you can look and you can look at sequestration. you can look at the budget caps. you can look at a lot of other

things that passed, but it was in pursuit of fiscally conservative ideas. now donald trump and the republicans are shutsing down the government over a $5 billion expends temperature that doesn't work. that general kelly said when he was at vhs didn't work. we have technology that we use in battlefields across the world to disorient our enemies that does it so much better than building a fence or slats. that is a stupid $5 billion waste of money that is doing nothing but basically paying off a campaign punch line that donald trump .spspit out. >> and there may be support among republicans about building a wall, but it's tech logically

obsolete to build a wall in the middle of the desert. san diego is the largest where it makes sense to have a bierier because of the large populations there, but it doesn't make sense anywhere else. and, again, ft. president could convince people about an agenda or a vision that he agreed on wsh whi, which is what the presidency is about. you have to go to the kunl, describe what you're trying to getting done and move forward. the reason this is not moving is it's not obstinance by the democrats or nancy pelosi or anybody else. it's because the government doesn't party. it's easy to get the congress to move if you have public support. if you have no public support, then the congress is never going to move. >> and just as it was during the

campaign, it is today. two-thirds of americans do not consider building a wall necessary. certainly not trump's wall. garrett, let me play you a clip of donald trump saying that he's talked to people. this sounds like that guy, jim, that he talked to that kept going back to paris. remember him? he would say, hey, i talked to jim. jim used to go to paris. paris ain't paris any more. here is the president. i don't know if he's talking to jim or tom or nancy or frank, but this is a president claim to go talk to a federal worker who is glad the president is keeping him out of work. watch this. >> but many of those workers have said to me and communicated, stay out until you get the funding for the wall. these federal workers want the wall. the only one that doesn't want the wall are the democrats. >> actually, as they said, two-thirds of americans don't want donald trump's wall.

now he's claiming that federal workers want to stay out of work. what is donald trump going to face from his republican party when he comes back to the new year. >> this idea that there is this ground swell of low level federal workers reaching out to the white house to thank the president for some of these things that he is doing doesn't match up with anything that we know. i was at the white house these last two days and struck by how alone -- there's no system around the president for any of these things. the things that he said in that small almost news conference alone about giving out 1 a -- 115 miles of border fence, there is no one to say how they're

going to do it, without congress appropriated even a dime for the system, there's nothing to back up what the president is saying about these issues. when congress comes back, $5 million is nickel and dime stuff, but there is no energy to fight for this among the republican party. this is not the kinds of thing that mitch mcconnell gets out of bed and comes into the senate for. there are people who want to have the big ideallogical fight. mitch mcconnell wants to leave the congress with a more conservative country. building a physical structure in the desert is not that kind of thing and it will be difficulty to rally republicans around at all. because the president has spent none of his political capital on it. it's a reminder, i think, a little bit, too, of how the president has failed to work with the congress that his own

party controls. the stuff that he spent his political capital on is the obamacare appeal which never got off the ground and the tax cut which didn't jibe with anything he is selling on the campaign trail and now trying to jam the wall through and it's still not getting bought by his colleagues on the hill because they don't feel the same energy he does to fight for it. >> garrett, quickly, what incentive to democrats have to give an inch on this? do you hear any democrats saying they should compromise any more? >> none at all on this. there's nothing to compromise for. it wasn't that long ago we were talking about $25 billion in exchange for a deal on daca and reforming the illegal immigration system and that hasn't even been broached in this conversation. so no, there's no give-and-take here. this is essentially the ptd trying to ha president trying to have his way

at the 11th hour without a deal. the president is saying, that's fine, we can put the ball more squarely in mitch mcconnell's court and the president's court, but the only pressure i see is people saying don't korchl mize on this. don't build this wall. >> fiscal conservatives would say the same thing, don't waste $5 million of the people's money to give the president what he wants. gene, i see some conservatives -- or people who call themselves conservatives responding to me when i say democrats shouldn't give an inch. again, i'm still a fiscal com g conservative. but, gene, i would just say to them, for those who say, well, why don't we have a universal deal where we bring in daca

relieve and we fix legal immigration? been there, done that. the president may be a day trader, but democrats remember they pushed that deal forward. do you remember when the president was sitting next to dianne feinstein and said you all come up with a deal, i'll go along with it. they came up with a deal. daca was included, and steven miller told him not to take the deal. democrats have already tried that and steven miller told him he couldn't do it so he didn't do it. >> right. if he goes to democrats with that deal, i am sure they would be willing to talk. but why should they bring it up again? they had that deal. they wouldn't take it. joe, those federal workers can't be expressing to the white house their support for the shutdown because you can't get in touch with the white house right now. you try to do it and you get a -- you get a recording telling you that we're sorry we wasn't help you right now, the government is hut down. >> gene, actually, the only

people that can get through to the president right now are little kids who the president says santa claus doesn't exist. so, yeah, it's kind of hard. and there's really no frun infrastructure in there. you have no really chief of staff. everybody is gone. gee, the president really is alone in the white house. >> yeah, i know. there was something sort of westful and sad, but totally ridiculous about that tweet the other day. i'm all alone, poor me. well, and poor us. still ahead on "morning joe," how does president trump know that isis fighters will be dealt with in syria? well, he's taking turkey aps wo word for it. what that means for the future of american foreign policy in

the region and the rebuilding of isis. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. g "morning " we'll be right back. 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. mmm, that's good. lactaid. the real milk that doesn't mess with you. and try calcium enriched lactaid. 100% real milk with 20% more calcium. still no lactose. from capital one.nd i switched to the spark cash card i earn unlimited 2% cash back on everything i buy. and last year, i earned $36,000 in cash back. which i used to offer health insurance to my employees. what's in your wallet?

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ the greatest wish of all is one that brings us together. the final days of wish list are here. sign and drive off in a new lincoln with zero down, zero due at signing,

and a complimentary first month's payment. only at your lincoln dealer. this is moving day with the best in-home wifi experience and millions of wifi hotspots to help you stay connected. and this is moving day with reliable service appointments in a two-hour window so you're up and running in no time. show me decorating shows. this is staying connected with xfinity to make moving... simple. easy. awesome. stay connected while you move with the best wifi experience

and two-hour appointment windows. click, call or visit a store today. after convincing president trump to remove all troops from syria, the turkey president erdogan invited trump to syria. trump has accepted his invitation which was extended during a weekend phone call between the two leaders, although no date has been set so far. president trump tweeted about the kingdom of saudi arabia over the holiday writing, quote, saudi arabia has now agreed to spend the necessary money needed to help rebuild syria than the united states. isn't it night when immensely wealthy countries help rebuild their neighbors rather than a

great country, the u.s., that is 5,000 miles away. thanks to saudi a. with us now, aman. let's talk aboturkey first. .how does turkey play in that dynamic? >> well, turkey sees itself as, perhaps, the most important sunni country in the region, perhaps even more so than saudi arabia because it sees itself as a conduit between europe, it is a part of nato. it had aspiration toes be part of the european union and it sees itself as part of the middle east involved in conflicts like syria, israel.

definitely saw itself as part of that front, if you will, the sunni front to contain a run. but that has changed in the last couple of years because of the war in syria. and it's going to become more complicated when the u.s. withdraws its troops from there because turkey has had its own aspirations, particularly against the kurdish minority in its country, inside syria and inside iraq. so turkey has made it very clear that with the withdrawal of u.s. troops from syria, it is going to have a free hand to continue and carry out more expansive military operations, joe, against the kurdish in order mi any of those countries. >> so the question is, if the united states -- i mean, we had reports that the russians moved on americans policy and a couple dozen mercenaries were killed. if our troops do that when

russians get in our space, why would the president bow down to erdogan's threats that turkey was coming in and the -- i mean, it's hard to say with a straight face that turkish troops are coming in and the united states better watch out. i don't want this to happen, but we could be in anchora in a week if we wanted to. why did this president cower and fold the erdogan? >> i think this is a question that a lot of people are trying to scratch their heads to answer. in a nutshell, it's this. the u.s. has had a very close ally on the ground fighting isis. that was the syrian kurdish forces. they have been one of the most reliability if not the most reliability ally that the u.s. has had in fighting isis. so forget turkey for a moment. what the u.s. is now saying to these occurreds kurds is, look,t for us, we had your back but we're going to leave you high

and dry now. you're out on your own. and the turks will do whatever they want to do because the turks view the kurds only one way and that is as a threat. so the u.s. could have said to the turks, look, we're going to stay here, but you guys have to stay away from this particular area of operation. if you want to go after isis and you want to continue that. obviously, there's something bigger at play here. and i hate to people the kind of person to put this on the map, but you have to look at this with what's with going on with saudi arabia and turkey. the u.s. has been trying to get the turks to say ease up on saudi arabia. you're coming up with all this information that the saudi prince was involved in the killing of this washington post journalist. what is it going to take to get you guys to quiet down and make these demands that you want an international investigation to find out whether or not mbs ordered the killing. what do you notice about the

turks? the tone over criticism of saudi arabia has changed in the last several weeks. they're not fighting that fight, but they're not doing it with the statements against the saudi arabian government. >> and let's not forget, of course, donald trump's financial holdings in turkey, as well. this has to be, aman, this has to be such a bitter pill for the kurds to swallow in so many ways, but not least of all so many of those members of isis that they were fighting, they got to the battlefield because turkey was the highway for isis back in 2013, 2014, when we were trying to figure out how people were getting in, how so many isis members were getting into syria, you know, it became very evident that turkey was basically letting them go straight through there. >> yeah. i mean, the countries at the time, turkey, saudi arabia, the

uae and others, they all wanted the assad regime removed from power. and so in turkey's case, to some extent, they were willing to turn a blind eye to the flow of foreign fighters going through their border into syria to join the ranks of a lot of these fighters. obviously, many of them turned out to be extremist beyond just, you know, resistance fighters of the sorts to use that expression. they became members of isis. and turkey paid a heavy price for that. turkey has been the target of many terror attacks inside its own boarders. but interestingly enough, it's not just the kurds. a lot of american allies, gulf arab countries, they feel the u.s. decision to withdraw troops -- and it's a small number -- it's 2,000 troops, but it was able to project power. it was also able to act as a counterweight to iran in the region. the syrian government wasn't going to expand its territorial control into some of these

areas. but now with the u.s. pulling out, it is safe to say to say that the syrian government backed by russia, iran and its proxies feel that they have won this war decisively and they are going to try and assert control over the entire territory and that's why it's likely to escalate with turkey with what it has said it's going to do against the kurds, as well. >> it really is stunning that one of the most effective and more importantly one of the most sustainability military operations in modern american history that held back russian aggression, iranian aggression, and the continued growth of isis is now being pulled out of the region. thank you so much for being with us. we'll be watching you and yasmin, of course, tomorrow and every weekday at 5:00 a.m. eastern leading into "morning joe." we appreciate you being here. coming up next, the president manages to unite opinion writers on the left and the right. this morning's must-reads, straight ahead on "morning joe." "

alexander's mom calls him " "the most perfect boy in the world". she's right. i love your confidence. when diagnosed with cancer, alexander went to st. jude children's research hospital. no family pays st. jude for anything... because all a family should worry about is helping their child live. now i'm perfectly cancer free. perfect proof... moms are always right. donate now at stjude.org or shop wherever you see the st. jude logo.

joining us now, credit tin anderson. i trust that you got a lot of

gator gear under the christmas tree yesterday. >> oh, yes, my new golden retriever has a gator bandanna so he's ready for bowl game season. >> very exciting. i'm sure you saw matt lewis's column n daily beast. i want to get your take on it. it's called i'm a christian and i'm a conservative. trump is making it very hard to be both. increasingly, my faith and my political loyalties are at odds and sometimes even seem to be mutually exclusive. trump's fundamental character deficiencies are part of the problem. we all fall short. but christians aspire to bring about the fruits of the spirit, love, peace, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. these virtues aren't just out of step in today's society, they are countercultural.

trump motivated via fear. his world view is rooted in a scarcity mentality that says someone else is stealing your share of the pie. this karnal mind-set clashes with the faith that calls up to gladly give to others. i'm speaking here about personal charity, not redistribution via the tax cut. and trusts in god to provide for our daily needs. of course, i haven't even delved into the personal baggage. i pray and i take my kids to church, but i freely admit that i'm a sinner in need of grace and constant forgiveness. god's mercy humbles me daily. donald trump, however, resolves in at least five of the deadly sins, pride, greed, lust, envy and wrath. this isn't a new development, of course, but with every passing minute, it becomes clearer that it would take a miracle for him to change. we all fall short, kristin, but

matt talks about that the fruits of the spirit are actually countercultural to what now is basically the mo for the republican party. >> this has been something that's been one of the more distressing sort of slow motion tragedies that's occurred over the last couple of years. this didn't start the moment donald trump became president. it started the moment he came down the escalator and went to the on top of the polls in the republican primary. what matt defines in his column is, i think, completely in line with what conservative ought to be. that those values of selflessness, of optimism, that shouldn't be separate from what we think conservativism is. while i won't hold matt responsible for the headline, i don't think that we should be defining conservativism and trump's republican party as the same thing. they are different these days. trump won because he was able to

say, look, i'm not fighting over who is going to be the most conservative. i want to be this populist guy. but it's incredibly distressing when you see these stories of an 8-year-old who dies in custody at the hands of an immigration policy administration has furthered and it's for a lot of republicans having to try to say, well, we need border security which, yes, we absolutely do, but, gosh, isn't there a way to achieve that without policies that have 8-year-olds dieing on christmas? this is, i think, the moral quandary of the republican party. but it's not a surprise. it didn't start overnight. this has been something that's been in slow motion for progress over the last 3 1/2 years. >> what's so surprising to me, though, about evangelicals supporting donald trump at a record rate, it has to do with exactly what matt lewis is suggesting here. and not even talking about the personal sins or the fact that

donald trump seems to revel in it. christians believe we are saved by grace. donald trump has said he hasn't ever asked god for forgiveness because he doesn't need to. but being an ee advantage -- evangelical, evangelicals believe we have all fallen but what? we're saved by god's grace. yes. there's the crucifixion, but there's the resurrection. and i'm not saying this to delve into christianity in any way other than explaining why evangelical america, why ronald reagan's vision of america has excelled the way it has because it's always optimistic. but as matt says, trump's is just the opposite and i don't

know how so many evangelical leaders have fallen into -- under his sway because of this. well, there's been shifts in -- you know, if you take a look at what people saying are morally acceptable behaviors, one of th the last few years is the rise in evangelical christians saying that things like adultery are okay. people are sort of reshaping their moral world view to adapt to their political world view. that's not everyone and i also think it's important to point out that there are plenty of evangelical bheefrs who are at odds with where evangelical -- proclaimed evangelical leaders are on many of these issues. theres a difference there. people are reshaping the way they say they feel on certain moral issues to make it fit what they believe they need politically in order to get the judges that they want, et cetera. now, what i think is going to be interesting is to watch over the next couple of months if the two things really holding the republican coalition together were judges and the stock market and a booming economy, if you

start losing one of those pieces of the puzzle, while trump at the same time is embarking on a foreign policy that is being condemned widely from even within his own party, can he hold this together? can he still sustain this level of support even from many evangelicals? i think as long as the courts are still in play the answer is a qualified yes. >> susan, let me go to you with andrew ferguson's article in commentary magazine. by the way, if you get a chance while we're talking about andrews, look at andrew sullivan's, i think david brooks linked it today in the "new york times." look at his column on the in you religion and that goes exactly to what kristen was just talking about to how politics unfortunately has usurped faith and basic christian theology for so many conservative americans today.

let's move on, susan, to andrew ferguson. he wrote for commentary magazine what he calls charles krauthammer's final point. in it he writes what does it mean in the long-term when the nation's conservative party becomes stamped with a style of governing that consists of casual liesed, exaggerations, childish and personal and public attacks on subordinates and on political opponents. hush money to old lovers, disregard for simple propriety and good manners? what does it cost when the lies and the other trademarks of trumpism are deployed in service of the traditional republican principles of small government and individual liberty? sooner or later, those ideals must lose their appeal in the minds of the voting public, owing to their association with a leader two-thirds of them cannot abide. how long before the trumpian means discredit the conservative

ends? and, susan, i didn't have to go out and search for columns that lined up to criticize trump from the right. that seems to be -- that seems to be what most everybody is writing about or what so many people, so many conservatives, are writing about this morning, this weekend, this past week. it's almost as if a lot of people are waking up to the realization that the bill for trumpism on conservatism is coming due. >> right, joe, and it seems like people are willing to support trump, a man with no core values, but now they're turning because they see he is affecting the values of our country. that optimism that we are a global leader and that his lack of morality in many ways is now truly affecting how our country is perceived not just globally,

but with each other, and it's causing such distress and such harm and we are not looking forward and we are not looking to work together, we're all about separation and who we can turn on, and that's where i can the conservative values are really being stretched and that we have to -- trump has to be called out. i don't know how else to put it. the more that this happens, the better it is for our country because the man is destroying the core values of our country now. >> the better it is for the country, the better it is for the republican party, the better it is for the conservative movement. and here is another one, this is from jonah goldberg this weekend writing about why the trump presidency will end poorly. jonah notes this, weirdly, it's gotten to the point that when i say president trump is not a man of good character, i feel like i should preface it with a trigger warning for many of my fellow

conservatives. most of the angry responses are rooted in the fact they do not wish to be reminded of this obvious truth. but others seem to have convinced themselves that trump is a man of good character and they take personal offense at the insult, even though i usually offer it as little more than an observation. kristen, last word. at this point it's hard to deny what is -- has been in front of people for two, three years. >> yeah, again, none of this should be surprising. i think the reason why you have an awful lot of conservatives who, nonetheless, we've seen terrible behavior out of the president but stick by him is they think he is the means to the end, as was mentioned in the previous column, but also they voted for him, this he support him. if all of a sudden they were to say, wow, i made a mistake, it's very hard, people don't like saying, i'm sorry, i made a mistake, i should have criticized this man more.

asking people to sort of go and see that sort of blind faith that they had and that may be it was wrong, this is a more flawed man than you bargained for, people don't like making that admission, hence the angry e-mails that folks like jonah get. >> we all make mistakes every day. we will see if more conservatives admit to that. cresten anderson, thank you so much. we appreciate you being here. we're going to get rick and gene's views on these columns and much more coming up. and we're also going to be talking about day five of the government shutdown and president trump digging in, saying the government will not be reopened until he gets his border wall. or slats. the "washington post" phillip rucker joins us with his latest reporting. " phillip rucker joins us with his latest reporting.

♪ only tylenol® rapid release gels have laser drilled holes. they release medicine fast, for fast pain relief. tylenol®

only tylenol® rapid release gels have laser drilled holes. they release medicine fast, for fast pain relief. tylenol®

welcome back to "morning joe." it's december 26th. i hope you and your family had a

wonderful christmas and are looking forward to a great week leading into the new year. well, things aren't going so great in washington, the u.s. government is largely shut down. a young immigrant child died on christmas day and immigrant children are dying in american custody. a respected secretary of defense is going to be gone in a matter of days while the head of the federal reserve is under constant attack by the same man who appointed him and is now claiming that he may be able to fire him. the stock market is on track for its worst december since the great depression and the president of the united states is announcing major foreign policy decisions on twitter without consulting anyone. welcome to the end of 2018 when a man who promised to make america great again is making a lot of americans feel anything but great. making them feel, actually, very

concerned about our present and even more concerned about america's future. as al gore used to say, in america everything that ought to be up is down and everything that ought to be down is up. so what's up? panic. mistrust. stalemate. and a very real sense that january is going to be even worse. what's down? the stock market. our relationships around the world. confidence in the stability of the u.s. government. and all of the implications that that brings, not just to us here at home. not just to you in your home with your loved ones, but also across the world. unfortunately there are precious few people in congress or in the trump administration who were around that can tell him, no, mr. president, that is a bad idea. james mattis tried to do that on

a somewhat regular basis, like his fellow retired general, john kelly, who also tried to tell the president when he was off base, general mattis is now headed for the exits early. mika and i have said it since it became clear that donald trump would become president, this does not end well. what's happening right now on so many fronts, well, it's actually starting to feel like we're reaching the end and it certainly looks like it's not going to end well. here to talk about all that we're dealing with on this december 26th, the day after christmas, we have republican strategist and msnbc political analyst susan dell percent joe back with us, republican communication strategist and msnbc political contributor rick tyler, pulitzer prize winning columnist and associate editor

of the "washington post" and msnbc political analyst eugene robins robinson. let's bring into the conversation white house bureau chief at the "washington post" phillip rucker, cnbc's brian sullivan, we have former dod official and former executive director. graham talent wmd commission dr. evelyn marcus, she is also a senior resident fellow at the marshall fund, and also with us we have former democratic representative from california, now the director, president and ceo of the woodrow wilson international center for scholars, jane harman. let's start this discussion with you, phillip. you wrote a piece about the president alone in the white house. how ironic that many of us this weekend with young kids were watching "home alone 2" and

seeing that scene where donald trump waves to kevin as he's entering the old plaza, and here it's the president this week yeend complaining i am all alone. it was -- it seemed at a distance a bit of a bleak christmas inside the white house. tell us about it. >> it was, joe, this was on christmas eve about lunchtime and the president had already fired off ten different tweets really airing his grievances and finally just said, look, i'm all alone in the white house, which i guess he was at that moment. melania trump, the first lady, had been in florida and then returned later in the afternoon to do those calls with the norad santa tracker, but it was also a figurative statement, i think, about the state of this presidency. he's increasingly isolated according to our reporting, there are fewer advisers around the president who are trying to help keep him in line, he feels alienated on congress and he's

losing the support on key issues of republican allies, both the decision about syria but also criminal justice reform, a number of top republicans voted against that and there are increasingly his coalition seems to be fraying a little bit. it's a very distressing moment for the president. he based on our reporting has been lashing out the last few days, he's been upset, especially with the news media coverage, commentary on shows like this one about the resignation of jim mattis as the defense secretary. the president has resented this narrative that he needs adults in the room to reign him in and that mattis was this human guardrail, which, of course, he was. all of it happens, by the way, as the president is looking ahead to january and even more troubles there on the legal front and on the political front as democrats take over the house. >> gene robinson, in the summer of 1974 leading up to richard nixon's resignation, at least he had kissinger and some other

adults still there. we heard -- we read from woodward and bernstein and others stories about a president on the verge of becoming unhinged, but this president appears to be unhinged and there are no adults left. he's fired them all. >> he has. look, everyone has to be concerned about what happens now because we've seen almost two years now of donald trump with the guardrails in place and as they've been removed one by one without mattis, arguably the most important sort of governor of all, the most important -- just because he runs the pentagon. my goodness, what happens next? it's an extraordinary moment. last hour we read an incredible column by matt lewis who talked

about how donald trump is so inimical to the values that conservatives and the republican party always professed to share and strove to emulate and it occurred to me that those are the same values in being a good progressive as well. we differ on methods, progressives have a more charitable view of the role the tax code can play in charity, for example, but basically we all want to be good people and we all believe that there is a moral compass that should orient the way we behave. so you really have good conservatives and good progressives on one side and you have donald trump kind of on the other side in the way he's trying to govern this country. it's just an extraordinary moment. matt also said that the president regularly commits five of the seven deadly sins and i'm

just still puzzled as to wondering what two are left out. >> i think -- i think that that's what you call christian charity. i think matt was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt on the other two. jane harman, the president's erratic behavior, the president's unbalanced behavior, obviously has caused shock waves in our markets, caused domestic troubles, is gutting middle america's 401(k)'s, institution and those investments. across the globe, across the world they are also sending shock waves through foreign capitals. what is the impact of that on u.s. foreign policy? >> well, i think it's going to be huge. happy holidays, joe, and i am so impressed with your solo anchoring of this show this morning, i just have to say that. >> christmas eve and the day after christmas, exactly.

>> wow. let me project a little reagan optimism. when you and i served in congress we were in different parties, we both thought the deficit mattered, we both thought that a path towards a balanced budget mattered and that decisions had consequences. right now we're seeing a congress where that has not mattered. i predict that as the new congress comes back together two things are going to happen, one is that mitch mcconnell will find his voice. remember, he just wrote a book, his autobiography called playing the long ball and i think mitch mcconnell has figured out he's going to be in the senate longer than donald trump is going to be president and he better take control of what he can, which is a party that will keep him as majority leader. and i think that's a good thing. i think nancy pelosi will play ball with mitch mcconnell and they will pass things, including

a bill to reopen the government and that will be a really good thing. on this issue of the markets and everyone is scared to death, yes, you bet, nobody knows where he's going, should he fire or try to fire his fed chairman that he selected along with four other fed members, i think that would be a catastrophe. now he's going to fire maybe mnuchin as well because mnuchin is the one who recommended the fed chairman. you can't fire enough people to generate confidence. the way you generate confidence is to have a vision, a positive optimistic vision, like ronald reagan. so i predict that congress will rise on january 3rd, i also predict that the mueller inquiry finally will conclude in a few months and that the combination of those two things will send the right message to the world that this president has done some good things, but he's under some control again. >> there's some hopeful words from jane harman. brian sullivan, jane is exactly

right, you know, we worked together, republicans and democrats alike, we balanced the budget for the first time in a generation, first -- balanced it four years in a row for i go he is it's the only time that's happened in a century now, and the markets responded positively. greenspan told us we had to move in that direction or we were going to be -- we were going to see the markets collapse, we were going to see interest rates explode. here we are the federal debt was at $4 trillion. we are at $22 trillion right now, spending is as reckless as ever, this president has gotten us into trade wars left and right and the volatility continues. the market has been jagged up and down, but mainly down of late. what's the reaction on wall street to what's happening in washington and what are they expecting today? >> well, the reaction has not been good. i mean, to your point in the opening preface there, joe, it is the worst december not since the great depression but actually with the declines on christmas eve the worst december

since 1928. so it's actually worse than any of the months during the great depression. that's how bad the stock market has been. the average stock in america is down 17% in about 17 trading days. >> brian, can you explain -- can you explain for people that don't understand that, if the markets are down around 20%, if you take the dow and you take nasdaq a little over 20%, what does that do to middle class americans' retirement accounts? >> how about this, don't open that envelope you get from your 401(k) company in late january because it's not going to look pretty for the quarter, it also impacts pension funds, teachers, et cetera. here is something, by the way, that you guys maybe have not discussed as much about trump's attacks on the federal reserve. we always take it as it's a personal thing with jerome powell and he has to put down the twitter. you mentioned deficits, remember, that as the fed raises rates the bond market moves which raises borrowing costs.

who is the biggest borrower in the world? it is the u.s. government. as interest rates rise it's not just about mortgages going up, credit card rates ticking up, it's about the fact that the united states government and its taxpayers will have to spend a lot more on interest payments on some of that debt. with every dollar we spend that's dollars that we cannot put toward whatever you want in the government, paying government workers, social programs, the military, whatever your choice is, that's extra money that is going to interest costs just like the american household. when you spend more on debt costs, you have less money to spend on other things. so maybe that's part of the president's attacks, either way i need to correct you, you said something about christmas and sort of -- you talked about airing of grievances. i think that's another holiday, joe. that's festivus. do you remember "seinfeld?" feats of strength, airing of grievances, that seems to be where we are, happy festivus. >> happy festivus to you, too. it's going to be another wild day today i'm sure on wall

street. rick tyler, let's talk about deficits. let's talk about the federal debt. i'm so glad brian brought up the other cost of rising interest rates. we're sitting at a -- almost a $22 trillion national debt. americans taxpayers spend more money on servicing that national debt than they do on almost every other part of the federal government and that has been happening with historically low tax rates -- i'm sorry, historically low interest rates. when those interest rates go up, those are interest rates that are going up on $22 trillion of debt. that could have a devastating impact on our federal government and you've got, unfortunately, a republican congress and a republican president that has been adding hundreds of billions

of dollars to that federal debt. >> and when have we heard the republican party talk about debts and deficits, which was a huge -- always been a huge central core theme of reelections. look, joe, the reason -- i think stock markets don't reflect what happened, they reflect what is going to happen. there's so much unreliability in the government. the government is supposed to provide a sense of entropy, a sense of stability that in order for businesses to plan and succeed they need to know that the dollar is going to be stable, that's what jerome powell is trying to do over at the fed, they need to know that the labor market is available, this he need to know that interest rates will remain stable and it just goes on and on. the government is supposed to provide this steady course. the market itself is supposed to be chaotic, that's what creates innovation, that's what creates new apple, the next google, et cetera, et cetera, but look at what president president has said just over the last couple of weeks here, he said he spoke to federal workers who support

the shutdown. that's implausible, it can't be true. he said that he personally awarded a contract to build 150 miles of wall. there's no mechanism for the president to award contracts at all. he says we're building the wall as we are negotiating. there's no new wall that's being built. he remarkably says that saudi arabia has agreed to pay for -- to rebuild syria, which will run into the 300, 400 billion dollars. we have no -- we have no confirmation from saudi arabia that that's, in fact, going to happen. he said recently, and this didn't get any press coverage at all, that ten terrorists were recently caught and apprehended at the border. we don't know who these terrorists were, what their plans were, who they were associated with and even what their names were. he has talked about proing gr he is with north korea. you would have to argue that this has been negative progress with north korea. we have all these acting secretaries, we just lost jim

mattis, it's just going on and on, and this is the reason the people are feeling so insecure. all donald trump had to do was keep this economy going into his reelection. everything you point to you would have to point to him. he's the reason there's so much instability in the market and people are getting all these mixed messages. it's just -- it's just confounding. >> it is confounding and, you know, it reminds me -- i spent my weekends -- i know this won't shock many people -- locked in my room and i would listen to kasie case em's countdown every week on saturdays. it drove my dad crazy, he wanted to come downstairs and watch college football and i would after kasie was done. i'm reminded of a song called "midnight blue" and the line leading into the chorus was even the simple things become rough. haven't we had enough?

when you have donald trump fumbling a phone call from a child about santa claus, that pretty much tells us the state of the presidency, doesn't it, rick? he can't -- and i am being -- i'm joking in part, but also very serious. that you're right, if the president just stayed out of the way, cut taxes, cut regulations, appoint judges, did what republicans expect him to do, keep his head down, the man would be at 55% in the approval ratings. he can't even do the simple things. in fact, he is the worst at the simple things. >> it really is remarkable that you would fumble a phone call to a seven-year-old girl about santa claus. these are the easy things. these are the photo ops that the communications department of the white house sets up to make the president look human and even that he fumbles. >> so, evelyn, when barack obama

met with donald trump what was that, i guess two years ago now. >> yes, in the oval office. >> seems like about 87 years ago, but two years ago they had that meeting at the white house and donald trump was actually impressed by barack obama and came out and told people close to him that it was a great meeting. one of the things that he said was, forget about obamacare, you can go after obamacare all you want, but your pressing issue is going to be north korea. and that's what's going to keep you up at night, mr. trump. here we are two years later and i'm wondering where we are, evelyn, as it pertains to north korea because the president has told us we would never have to worry about them again, the president is talking about meetings and deals, but haven't the north koreans actually sped up their missile technology and their nuclear technology and are

now demanding that donald trump remove troops from south korea before they do anything? haven't things actually gotten worse over the past two years? >> yes, and this is the thing, joe. i mean, if you rack up the tale sheet, remember, our objective is denuclearization of north korea. right? that's the u.s. objective. that's been our objective all along. donald trump froze military exercises, he had a big summit with north korea, he met -- he was a sitting u.s. president meeting with the north korean leader, the first time that ever happened. let me think, there are a whole list of things that he gave the north koreans. now they are talking about giving them humanitarian assistance, which is fine, reviewing the ban on u.s. travel to north korea, which is fine, but, again, those last two carrots you can understand because of course for humanitarian reasons we need to try to do something for north korea, but we have gotten nothing in exchange. the north koreans essentially destroyed facilities that they weren't going to use anymore for the missile testing and for the

nuclear testing. we know that based on our expertise, inside government and outside government, and they have continued to build we think now new facilities that are hidden, secret facilities for their nuclear program as well as for the missile program. so the threat has actually gotten worse and it's made worse by the fact that the president pretends now that there's no threat. meanwhile, you have south korea that's been put in this awkward situation partly of their making because they also want to have a better relationship with the north, but they're trying to find a way to minimize the threat while they're moving forward with this more conciliatory interaction with north korea. we aren't helping them because there's actually -- this is kind of behind the scenes thing, but one of the things that secretary mattis was very well aware of when he resigned was the fact that we, the united states, are giving south korea a hard time about how much they spend in order to support our troop presence in south korea, which is among the highest of all of our allies. our asian allies pay the most for u.s. troops to be in the

region, on their soil, and we are showing very bad faith with our allies right now having that kind of dispute in front of the north koreans. and there's also stuff going on with japan, there is a whole list of problems that we have that secretary mattis understood very well in our various alliances in asia and also in europe. >> all right. we're going to talk about those issues with our panel, jane harman, get her take on not only north korea but also the possibility of the coming rise of isis again. also going to talk to phil rucker, get more reporting out of the white house and our entire panel when "morning joe" returns. our entire panel when "morning joe" turerns. oh milk. 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, 100% real milk, just without that annoying lactose. mmm, that's good.

the zip code you're born into can determine your future. your school. your job. your dreams. your problems. (indistinct shouting) but at the y, we create opportunities for everyone, no matter who you are or where you're from. for a better us, donate to your local y today.

for a better us, only tylenol® rapid release gels have laser drilled holes. they release medicine fast, for fast pain relief. tylenol®

welcome back to "morning joe." jane, we were discussing that meeting between donald trump and barack obama two years ago when president obama told the incoming president what his

greatest fear should be, and that was north korea. from your perch at the wilson center and from obviously your very long history dealing with national defense and foreign policy, if you were giving -- if you were having a meeting with the incoming members of the -- the new members of congress and they asked you to name the two or three most pressing foreign policy challenges in 2019, what would you tell them the biggest dangers were facing us? >> well, first i endorse evelyn's list, her sad list, of what could go wrong. i would tell them north korea, i would tell them a resurgent iran, which just got a blank check to operate in syria, which, let me point out, joe, borders parts of israel and certainly parts of lebanon and israel has been complaining that hezboll hezbollah, an iranian proxy, has

been digging tunnels nice real. so we're making israel more vulnerable by the move we just made. i would also say that russia is resurgent because we have just announced we're getting out of the intermediate range nuclear treaty, the inf treaty and they're fleet thing to advance their nuclear capabilities, let me put on my list north korea, russia, syria and i'm actually not done, china, let's understand that china is going to be the dominant economy in the future. china and russia were just identified by the defense department as our most important security threat along with our terrorism -- counterterrorism mission. let me just add there al qaeda is, according to british intelligence -- resurgent and plotting if it can pull it off to down a plane over europe. let's remember that's al qaeda's m.o. that was how we were attacked on 9/11. i see the world getting more

dangerous, the trump white house not understanding linkage among all of these things. i think that when voters start to look at what the world looks like, including the tanking stock market, that there will be a reassessment and congress, which is bottom line a reelection machine, is going to reassess how much it wants to support this president. >> last week we had the atlantic council's and also mika's brother, by the way, ian brzezinski on. ian has been studying russia for quite some time and is deeply concerned as are many other experts that vladimir putin may make an aggressive move against ukraine over the coming months because donald trump's distractions and donald trump's weakness and the weakness he showed at helsinki. do you share that concern for 2019, that we may actually have a russian invasion of ukraine? >> jane? >> oh, sorry, i didn't realize you were talking to me.

i don't think there will be a russian invasion of ukraine. i think the little green men and the war of attrition will continue. europe will be tested. a problem we're having is that europe is in disarray. macron's numbers are tanking, the president of tranfrance, th merkel machine is on the way out, brexit is adding uncertainty in terms of european economy and in o one or no group of leaders is rising as we say, the adult in the room, against russia. i think that russia wouldn't dare do that. russia does understand that it lives in a world of allies, so i don't see that. >> all right. phil rucker, gene robinson your colleague has a question for you. gene? >> phil, my simple question is what happens now? i mean, so we're past christmas, the white house will sort of repopulate, the government is shut down. what are the president's

advisers, those who remain, going to be telling him? how are they going to be able to help us get past this shutdown impasse and calm the turmoil that seems to be roiling the markets? >> well, you would hope that they will be back at work today trying to come up with a plan for the shutdown. there should not seem to be one. the president just yesterday in his christmas morning message to the troops took a couple questions from reporters and said he intends to keep the government closed until he gets that border wall funding and that it could be a very long time. he actually claimed that many federal workers were personally communicating their desire to keep the government open to him. that's just not a credible claim and there's no evidence to support that. but, look, i think the advisers in the white house are going to look to figure out how to deal with this, how to govern in january in a divided -- with a divided congress. and that's a problem. the other thing that i hope that they'll do is provide some answers and information for the

many claims that the president has made on his home alone day, christmas eve. he said, for example, that he had negotiated -- he had given away a contract for 115 mile part of wall, i guess it's in texas, but we have no information about where that is, about what the company is, about how much the contract was for, about what the bidding process was like. i've tried for two days to get sources in the white house to tell me any of those answers to those questions and they've had no answers so far. so there's a lot left to try to figure out because the president seems to be making a lot of these decisions and mataking a t of these actions on his own. >> incredible. >> susan. >> evelyn, with he saw that the president took out -- is removing 2,000 troops from syria on a whim, he did it on his own without counsel. he has also taken a lot of heat for it. my concern is this president likes to look strong and just on the same type of whim he may do something aggressive with our

troops. what part of the world should we be looking towards or what concerns you of what the president can do on a whim with the military? >> yeah, i mean, i think, susan, we've talked about this before, if something goes wrong in his negotiations with north korea where he feels somehow slighted, he could then choose to use force. we were very worried about that, you and i were talking about the -- what is it, the fire and fury, right? >> right. >> it seems too long sag, but yet that's still in his repertoire. we know he goes back and pulls these things out again. so i'm worried about that. i'm worried about a terrorist incident. you know, we talked -- the former congresswoman, we talked about the rise of al qaeda, right? but isis, there are still about 15,000 isis fighters we believe active in syria. they're not destroyed. and a lot of them are in that region where we're supposedly going to leave, right? that one-third of syria that we control. so if there's a terrorist attack i worry about our president taking some sort of military action that's rash, right, and

escalates the situation with mother country or with the terrorist group. but ultimately i want to go back to the russia thing because i'm worried about what vladimir putin will do in this window where he sees he's got a very pliant president, he's got his buddy in there, right? what does he want? he wants to control ukraine. i'm more worried than jane harman about what might happen with regard to russia. i hope she's right -- and ukraine. we saw the russians wage all out maritime war against the ukrainians, this just happened a couple weeks ago. they are still holding 23 ukrainians and several ships. the international community said give them back. you did this in waters that you share with ukraine, you russia. they didn't do it. we didn't do anything about it. so what's vladimir putin doing right now? he has more troops massed on the border with ukraine today, all the experts watching ukraine and russia are really nervous, they are talking about the troops massed, maritime movements, submarine exercises occurring

around crimea. the russians want to control crimea but ultimately they want to control the ukrainian government and if they don't get their way they're going to keep pushing because they think the best opportunity is under donald trump. >> rick tiler. >> brian, i wanted to ask you about the implied open of the markets looks pretty good. what is the market looking for to sort of reverse this decline? what would they want to see to get us out of this spiral down? >> i think stability in the federal government, stability with the president's comments about the federal reserve chairman to make sure the federal board of governors does remain constant. the market is a predicting machine, it simply does not like uncertainty. it does not like it when it's unable to come up with what is likely to happen and right now i think theis a big part of where we stand. having a federal reserve that is sort of cohesive and together is a big part of this market in general. i think the president's comments about the federal reserve chairman, jerome powell and maybe whispers about whether or not he would try to into i

remember him -- by the way, the president's ability to fire the federal reserve chairman is an open question, it's never been tried and legal scholars say we simply don't know. either way the market wants stability, wants to understand where interest rates are going to be next year, wants to understand if this economy is going to slow down next year as many people think it might, how much will it slow down? will we enter recession at the end of next year or will it simply be a gradual slowdown? it needs all of those things together and you have this perfect storm where you have uncertainty about the economy, uncertainty about what may happen at the highest level of the executive branch as far as the federal reserve chairman go and the one thing the market hates is uncertainty. >> and that's what we have unfortunately. jane mar hand, and others, thank you so much for being with us. we appreciate it. by staying home yesterday donald trump became the first president since 2002 to not visit military personnel during the christmas holidays.

at the same time outgoing defense secretary james mattis tells troops that, quote, storm clouds loom. we're going to be talking to an iraq war veteran turned u.s. congressman next on "morning joe." congressman next on "morning joe. 25% of your mouth. listerine® cleans virtually 100%. helping to prevent gum disease and bad breath. never settle for 25%. always go for 100. bring out the bold™ most can tell the continent or country that your ancestors are from, but ancestrydna showed me the specific places they called home. 20 million members have connected to a deeper family story. order your kit at ancestry.com. to a deeper family story.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ the greatest wish of all is one that brings us together. the final days of wish list are here. sign and drive off in a new lincoln with zero down, zero due at signing, and a complimentary first month's payment. only at your lincoln dealer. ♪ ♪ this holiday season, families near you need your help. visit redcross.org now to donate.

only tylenol® rapid release gels have laser drilled holes. they release medicine fast, for fast pain relief. tylenol®

since washington crossed the delaware at christmas in 1776 american troops have missed holidays at home to defend our experiment in democracy. to all you lads and lasses holding the line in 2018, on land, at sea or in the air, thanks for keeping the faith. merry christmas and may god hold you safe. >> that was part of outgoing secretary of defense james mattis' holiday message to u.s. troops. which was recorded just one day before he submitted his resignation. with us now is a member of the armed services committee, democratic congressman anthony brown of maryland. he's a retired colonel in the u.s. army reserve and he earned a bronze star for his service in iraq. congressman, thanks so much for being with us. why don't we just start there in that region.

as someone who was part of a long, tough, bloody war, we remember during the campaign donald trump blaming our withdrawal from iraq for inventing isis. are you concerned that his speedy unilateral withdrawal from syria could actually allow a rebirth of that terror organization? >> certainly. i mean, this was a -- quite a dramatic development when last week by tweet president trump announced that we're going to withdraw troops from syria. there's no indication that this is the product of a thoughtful deliberative process among the national security team that has led to this result. it seems as if it was based on a telephone call with the turkish president and it just raises a lot of questions. so whether you agree with the withdrawal or not, it raises questions such as is isis really defeated and what criteria are

you using to radio etch that conclusion, but other questions like, do we continue with u.s. air strikes which have been effective in that region? what about support to the war torn towns and cities? we did get our coalition partners to fund those efforts, will they continue to fund those efforts going forward? and then, of course, what is the fate of our kurdish allies on the ground who we relied on, they gave a lot of themselves, and when we withdraw what happens to them? >> gene robinson is with us, gene? >> congressman, a question, the new congress will meet, convene in a few days really and so what will the new democratic majority in the house that you will be a part of do to hold the president accountable for this erratic foreign policy moves and their

potential consequences? >> certainly. so we will reestablish our rightful role as the article 1 institution that the founders created. congress has an oversight responsibility. so we will be providing that oversight, calling in administration officials to account for decisions in syria. the pending withdrawal of troops in afghanistan. we're going to be doing things like, you know, holding hearings on deployments of active duty personnel to the southwest border, the results, the impact, the continued impact of separation of families at the border. so there's a host of issues that we will be able to press the administration on, hold them accountable, using the power, the inherent power, that congress has that the republicans have abdicated and that's oversight of the administration. >> rick tyler is with us and has a question. rick? >> congressman, before you can do all that what's your

prediction on how the shutdown resolves itself? >> look, this is in the president's lap. it continues to be in the president's lap. the president has the ability to open government, all he has to do is tell speaker ryan that he will sign the very same bill that the senate originally passed, unanimous consent, voice vote, democrats and republicans, and if the president doesn't do that, then come january 3rd when the republicans -- i'm sorry, when the democrats resume the majority in the house, then we will open the government, we will send to the senate a bill that has some border security, but it continues government until february 8th and we will force the president's hand. he's going to have to sign it. >> susan del percio? >> congressman, normally before a shutdown we have a lot of preparation, with he hear, you know, there's clocks, three days until the shutdown, but this came out of nowhere. it also seems that the government was nowhere close to preparing for this shutdown.

can you just explain how besides the employees that aren't getting paid, how services are affected to regular -- to every day americans, like hhs not being fully operational, homeland security, et cetera. >> sure. so we know that about a full quarter, 25%, of federal government continues to be shut down. these are food inspectors, these are custom inspectors at the port of baltimore and other places. there are also federal contractors, these are the men and women that are janitors in buildings, they are security, this he provide a lot of the technological support to federal agencies. the federal contractors, they probably won't get paid retroactively. federal government employees, sure, there's talk about retroactive pay, that's what we typically have seen in the past, but under the trump administration everything is just so unpredictable that, you know, there is a risk that federal government employees

themselves won't get paid after this shutdown. >> all right. congressman anthony brown, thank you so much for being with us this morning and more importantly, thank you so much for your service to our country in both war and peace. we appreciate it so much. >> thank you. happy new year. coming up next, more on the state of the union under donald trump. the government is shut down until -- well, who knows when. also, tragically, another migrant child dies in u.s. custody on christmas day. u.s. stocks are struggling to bounce back from their christmas eve plunge. there are a lot of middle class americans with retirement accounts that hope that happens soon. "morning joe" is coming right back. " is coming right back

♪ only tylenol® rapid release gels have laser drilled holes. they release medicine fast, for fast pain relief. tylenol®

you'll make my morning, buty the price ruin my day.ou? complicated relationship with milk? pour on the lactaid, 100% real milk, just without that annoying lactose. mmm, that's good.

and the army taught me a lot about commitment. which i apply to my life and my work. at comcast we're commited to delivering the best experience possible, by being on time everytime. and if we are ever late, we'll give you a automatic twenty dollar credit. my name is antonio and i'm a technician at comcast. we're working to make things simple, easy and awesome. joining us now, daniel krauthammer. he's the editor of a new book by his late father, charles

krauthammer. t the title, "point of it all." dani daniel, your father worked on this in the last years of his life and you helped finish it. i feel like i can hear his voice in the title. the point of it all is, dot, dot, dot, and he would go on to say something brilliant. >> it's not exactly a narrow focus, as you can see from the title, but he talked about so much and had so much clarity and insight across the top of politics all the way to things fun-hearted like baseball to deep and philosophical. >> i don't know if people know the entire trajectory of his life. it's absolutely fascinating. and what experiences or relationships in his life do you think helped him be so clear, so

brilliant, so on point and such an amazing thinker? such a deep thinker. >> yeah. as you said, he did go -- did so much with his life and went through so many different stages. he was a doctor at one point, a psychiatrist for almost ten years. i often think about that. he always stepped back from psychologic psychologizing or giving any deep opinions, but he saw politics on a deep scale and he always pointed out our follies of what's going on and talked about what was built for perfect people and the flaws going on. he could point out those core aspects so well and make points that are lasting even decades

after he wrote them. >> it just struck me that both of your fathers -- your fathers went to mcgill, right? >> yes. >> both your fathers went to mcgill and both were psychologists? >> they psychologized. did they ever diagnose anything? >> mika said she never had a peaceful dinner because her father was always analyzing. what about at your table? >> it was less of that than a fun back and forth. we talked about politics and all these subjects from history to baseball that we both loved, but ij it was more like a fun tente

match back and forth, just enjoying each other's thoughts. >> your dad knew that human nature is endlessly fascinating and often inexplicable. but the title of this book, "the point of it all" could be in terms of your father and what he brought to our lives through print. "the point of it all" is fairness. and in a business where it's the easiest thing to do is to write out a screed or make fun of someone or something, he never did that. what a gift. >> yeah. and certainly fairness, and i think in the context of honesty that he wasn't just going to assign equal weight to everything he saw but he was going to say what he thought the best argument was. he wasn't going to make it personal, he wasn't going to be on someone's team or someone else's team and kind of predecide what the outcome was. he was going to work from first principles all the way to the logical final point and he was

going to argue that as best he could. he had almost an obligation that that's how he viewed his vocation, his job, and he felt very lucky, i think, to be able to do what he did, and he viewed that his giving back was to be as honest and make the best, concise, and clear argument that he could, and that was compelling. >> i know he gave you so many life lessons throughout your entire life, but especially in his final year. but what is one that you could share with us, that you could share with the audience that you think might help others that are watching right now? >> yeah, i think a lot of it comes through in the last entry in the book which is my eulogy that i wrote for him, which was a hard thing to put in here, but i felt expressed better than anything else i could say who he was and how extraordinary he was and what he stood for. and i think the kind of life he lived, which he didn't make a big deal of, he just did it, is

one where he chartered his own path. he didn't let anything thrown at him by life, none of the fling of arrows of fate define him or define what he was going to do. as he wrote in his last column, he lived the life that he intended. and so many people have come to me in the months since and said how powerful his words, his life, his example have been for them. and it's one of the reasons i was so intent on making sure this book could capture that and convey that to people, because i think it's an incredibly important, meaningful lesson. >> the book is "the point of it a all: a lifetime of great loves and endeavors." . you can read more of charles krkra ur kr krauthammer at krauthammer.com. thank you. and we'll be back with more

"morning joe." liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. great news for anyone wh- uh uh - i'm the one who delivers the news around here. ♪ liberty mutual has just announced that they can customize your car insurance so that you only pay for what you need. this is phoebe buckley, on location. uh... thanks, phoebe. ♪ only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

it's a disgrace what's happening in our country. ♪ it's the most wonderful time of the year ♪ >> i can't tell you when the government is going to be open. ♪ with the kids jingle belling and everybody telling you be of good cheer ♪ ♪ it's the most wonderful time of the year ♪ >> i would call this presidential harassment. ♪ it's the happiest season of all ♪ >> but other than that, i wish everyone a very merry christmas. ♪ happy meetings when friends come to call ♪ >> that ending reminds me of maybe my favorite holiday movie ever, "it's a wonderful life." that's sort of a jimmy stewart-donna reed moment at the end where he says, other than that, merry christmas, everybody. good morning and welcome to "morning joe."

it's wednesday, december 26. i hope everyone had a merry christmas and in the spirit of the holiday season, let me say i wish the president and his family all the best as well. as we move toward the end of the year, it's time to take stock of everything. how are we doing personally? how are our children and how are other family members doing? are they thriving? do we need more help in certain areas? are they doing great in others but might need just a little push some other direction? how are we doing as a country? and how are our leaders doing? you know, as we approach 2019, those of us who remain eternally optimistic about this great republic of ours have reason to be concerned. little children continue to die in the custody of the u.s. government. and remember, friends, that's our government. that's your government and my government that's allowing little children to die while

they're being incarcerated because of a policy that's supposed to discourage people from coming. and thousands of children still remain incarcerated and still, this holiday season, this christmas season, they're still separated from their parents. what would jesus do? that's where jesus would be. that would be the issue. if you read the new testament, if you read the gospels, that's exactly what jesus would be concerned about and what evangelicals who support this president and who claim to have influence over this president should be focused on in moving his policy. let the little children come not even close. now, that same government that is holding all these children along the border is largely shut down in washington because a republican president refuses

to -- he won't even accept a deal that republicans and democrats together offered him, because a few talk radio chatters told him that to prove he was tough, he needed to shut down the government. you know, donald trump told americans a couple weeks ago to blame them for the government shutdown and now he's getting his christmas wish. but i wish he would work with democrats and republicans to open it back up. you know and i know, and unfortunately the world knows, that the president pushed out his defense secretary last week. while he was pushing cowardly policies that are going to surrender large parts of syria to russia, iran and isis. he then demanded that that marine general who is so respected in the military and around the world leave immediately. and now the president, on almost a daily basis, is talking about firing the man he put in charge

of the federal reserve. because donald trump is in desperate need to explain why the stock market is having its worst december since the great depression. it's in a freefall. now, as you know, real leaders like harry truman who said the buck stops here, in fact, he put it on his desk in the white house to say the buck stops here, i take the responsibility. real leaders, they take responsibility when things go wrong on their watch. jfk did it after the bay of pigs. he said, failure is an orphan and i accept it. well, it would never occur to donald trump that his disastrous trade policies, his record-setting debt, his liberal spending, his liberal deficit spending and his erratic behavior are the biggest drivers of this market's downturn.

the whole world is watching what's happening in america this holiday week. and the world is rightly concerned. in fact, some could say the world is rightly scared. let me remind you and donald trump that this morning, i don't judge the president by my standards. you don't have to judge the president by your standards. this morning just judge him by his own standards. the standards that donald trump set when he was a candidate running for president of the united states. and if you do that, if you take a couple of minutes to go on the internet to do a couple of basic searches on google, you will see that donald trump is failing by every benchmark that he laid out in his own campaign.

his campaign promises. those fiery stump speeches that we saw day in and day out through 2016, and the blizzard of tweets we've been reading about for five years. go back and read them. they're all seconds away for you, seconds away from being searched by you and any trump supporter who still refuses to face the truth about their president's failings of leadership. i take no pleasure in saying that because as the great general hayden told me, joe, we only have one president. and we've got to do everything we can to make that president succeed. he told me that during the transition. other leaders told me that during the transition. i took that to heart and i know that they were right.

but we all can't do it alone. donald trump at some point needed to step up and show leadership. and if he couldn't do it, then those around him who influenced him should have done it. some of you know i left the republican party less over donald trump than i did over the fact that almost every elected official in the gop has bowed and scraped to donald trump, treating this man whose skills are objectively declining on a daily basis, they treated this man like he was an emperor wearing the finest clothes ever made when, in fact, objectively donald trump is on track to be the worst president in modern times and perhaps ever, pushing even james buchanan off that dubious perch.

and i haven't even brought up the mueller investigation. and the fact that this president has practically confessed to obstructing justice and violating campaign finance laws that are felonies. that are felonies, republicans. you know, the coming events in that legal drama are going to be a large part of our collective 2019. but right now, world leaders, financial markets, members of congress of both parties, even senior members of donald trump's own administration are appalled and confused by his behavior. and they're worried about the impact that his behavior is having on the real lives of real people all over america. there is a right way to make national security decisions, like drawing down u.s. military personnel in syria and

afghanistan, but only after isis is completely destroyed and the taliban are in check. you don't do it in the middle of negotiations with the taliban so they can walk away from the table and say, all right, we know you're going to go. we have no reason to talk to you anymore. there's a right way to do it and there's a wrong way to do it. a wrong way to make and announce those decisions. there is a right way to work toward the difficulties of moving toward a sensible compromise. great presidents do it. presidents that know how washington works do it. bill clinton knew how to do it, lbj knew how to do it, ronald reagan knew how to do it, fdr knew how to do it. there is a right way to do it and there is a wrong way to do it. there is a right way to reinsure markets during panic selloffs and a wrong way.

some have called the last week of the trump presidency the worst to date. last week obviously has a lot of competition in that category, but let's not quibble with those who believe that right now what is going on right now is the most challenging moment we have faced since this man took office almost two years ago. this morning we're going to talk about what happens next. how america's other leaders and how leaders across the world can work together and work around what donald trump has wrought. because the days of waiting for this president to change how he operates and the days of hoping that he can somehow achieve more and do better, those days are behind us. 2019 is going to be far different. and here to discuss all of it, we have with us republican strategist and msnbc political analyst susan del percio.

republican strategist and contributor rick tyler. columnist and associate editor of the "washington post" and msnbc political analyst gene robinson. we also have msnbc correspondent garrett haake. thank you all for being with me today. gene, i was looking for your quoting -- when gene robinson starts going to the old testament we know we're in trouble with his columns. psalms 35 reminds us on christmas morning, we may be able to endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. all of us, believers and non-believers, must somehow summon faith we will survive this row. it really is a trial, isn't it, gene, the likes that you and so many of us have never seen before. >> it is a trial. it's a trial for the country.

it's a trial for the world and it's a trial for a lot of people as individuals. i wrote that column because i had been at the grocery store just doing some pre-christmas shopping, picking up things, and it took me about a half hour longer than it should have because people who watch this show and others kept coming up to me and just feeling the sort of anxiety and fear, and at times despair at what was going on. in the middle of last week, it was just crazy to a nation that is used to crazy by now. we've gone through a couple years of this, and it had just gotten to that point. and i think, yes, we have to -- we have to remember that joy cometh in the morning and that

it is up to us, it is up to our elected officials, but it is up to us because they represent us, to steady the ship, to right this course and not to let things spin entirely out of control. so we need to take stock, we need to be realistic, but we need to be resolute and we have to know that we can do this, that things can be all right. and i just felt that was an important message i had to write to myself and hopefully to others for christmas. >> you know, susan del percio, joy may cometh in the morning but it was a bleak christmas night at the white house with the president first of all suggesting to a seven-year-old that santa may not actually exist. and then secondly, saying the

next morning how terrible everything is in america, that it's an absolute disgrace what's going on in this country, but merry christmas, i guess. doesn't exactly send a strong message to members of his own party who have to decide what they're going to do when they come back in 2019. and judging by some columns we're going to read today from matt lewis, andrew ferguson, there are a lot of conservatives who are thinking, no mas. we have gone along with this for too long as a party, and now the damage is really starting to be felt. >> that's right, joe, and the movie that came to mind for me was "the grinch," of course, when i saw donald trump there yesterday. but i think there is also another important thing that we have to look at besides republicans just speaking up, is watch for the president to turn on them. i think mitch mcconnell is on borrowed time with donald trump.

he left, and mitch mcconnell is very upset with the president how he dealt with it and basically said, it's up to you, mr. president, to negotiate with the democrats. now he's going to come back and it's going to be a different story when the president realizes that he's not going to get what he wants and he needs someone to blame, and it won't just be nancy pelosi. and mitch mcconnell, of course, is up for reelection should he seek it in 2020, and i think donald trump is really going to bring it to him. and now is the time -- i say this every time -- is that republicans -- we need leadership. we need people to step up and say no, we can't wait this out. it was the theory that we can wait it out, our institutions are strong enough. i remember when the country was on edge when we were worried that north korea and the rocket man tweets. it's so much worse now than that day when you look at where we are as a country today and where the world is. and we just need to see that

leadership step up, and i hope we do. >> still out of "morning joe," if democrats feel emboldened now, even as they have majority in the house, it probably doesn't meet the president's demands moving forward. a new congress is coming to town. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. joe." we'll be right back. ♪ only tylenol® rapid release gels have laser drilled holes. they release medicine fast, for fast pain relief. tylenol®

♪ ♪ this holiday season, families near you need your help. visit redcross.org now to donate.

you'll make my morning, buty the price ruin my day.ou? complicated relationship with milk? pour on the lactaid, 100% real milk, just without that annoying lactose. mmm, that's good. this is moving day with the best in-home wifi experience

and millions of wifi hotspots to help you stay connected. and this is moving day with reliable service appointments in a two-hour window so you're up and running in no time. show me decorating shows. this is staying connected with xfinity to make moving... simple. easy. awesome. stay connected while you move with the best wifi experience and two-hour appointment windows. click, call or visit a store today. welcome back to "morning joe." we've been talking about the ongoing government shutdown which has left thousands of workers high and dry. but president trump is claiming that many of them are perfectly happy working without pay. >> many of those workers have said to me and communicated, stay out auntil you get the funding for the wall. these federal workers want the wall. the only one that doesn't want the wall is the democrats.

>> actually, as i said, two-thirds of americans don't want donald trump's wall. now, of course, he's claiming that federal workers want to stay out of work. what is donald trump going to face from his own republican party when they come back into town in the new year? >> it's going to be interesting, joe. it reminds me also when sarah sanders said after james comb g -- comey got fired that all these people from the white house were thanking him for firing james comey as well. saying that all these workers are thanking him doesn't match up with anything we know. i was in the white house in the last two days and i was struck that there is a new system in place around the president for anything. the things he said in that small news conference alone about giving out 115 miles of border fence.

there is no system from the white house to say where that is going, who is paying for it, who is doing it without congress having appropriated a dime for the construction system. there is just no system to back up anything the president is saying on these issues. when congress comes back, this will be fascinating. you talk about the wall. $5 billion is nickel and dime stuff. but there is no energy to fight for this among the republican party, certainly not in a senate. this is not the kind of thing that mitch mcconnell gets out of bed for and comes in to fight for, right? there are people in the senate side still, especially, who want to have the big idealogical fights. mitch mcconnell wants to leave the senate with more conservative judges, a more conservative-leaning country, and building a big physical structure in the desert is not that kind of thing. it's going to be difficult to rally republicans around at all because the president has also spent none of his political capital on it. it's a reminder, i think, a little bit, too, how the

president has to some degree failed to learn how to work with the congress that his own party controls. the stuff he has spent his political capital on was the obamacare repeal which never got off the ground, and the tax cut which really didn't jibe with anything he was selling on the campaign trail. now at the 11th hour of republican control, trying to jam the wall through, and the price tag keeps going down and it's still not getting bought by his colleagues on the hill because they don't feel the same energy he does to fight for it. >> garrett, quickly, what incentive do democrats have to give an inch on this? do you hear any democrats saying they should compromise anymore? >> no, none at all on this. there is nothing to compromise for. it wasn't that long ago we were talking about $25 billion in exchange for a deal on daca and reforming the illegal immigration system, and that hasn't even been broached in this conversation. there is no give and take here. this is essentially the president trying to have his way at the 11th hour without

offering anything. it's not a deal, it's a standoff, and democrats feel like, okay, that's fine. we can wait until the start of january and put the ball more squarely into mitch mcconnell and the president's court. the only pressure i hear democrats getting is from the left, saying don't compromise on this. do not build this wall. >> all right. garrett, hey, thank you so much for being with us this morning. coming up on "morning joe," it seems that chuck schumer goaded the president into accepting blame for the shutdown. the latest from that key battlefront next on "morning joe." battlefront next on "morning joe.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ the greatest wish of all is one that brings us together. the final days of wish list are here. sign and drive off in a new lincoln with zero down, zero due at signing, and a complimentary first month's payment. only at your lincoln dealer. ♪ ♪ this holiday season, families near you need your help. visit redcross.org now to donate.

you'll make my morning, buty the price ruin my day.ou? complicated relationship with milk? pour on the lactaid, 100% real milk, just without that annoying lactose. mmm, that's good.

after convincing donald trump to withdraw all u.s. troops in syria, turkish leader erdogan is now inviting the commander in chief to ankora. the white house says trump, quote, is open to it in the future but nothing definitive is being planned. erdogan, however, told people

trump accepted his invitation which was extended in a weekend phone call between the leaders. however, no date has been set so far. president trump also tweeted about the saudi arabia situation saying saudi arabia has now agreed to spend the necessary money needed to help rebuild syria instead of the united states. see? isn't it nice when immensely wealthy countries help rebuild their narz rather than a great country, the u.s., that is 5,000 miles away. we're certainly used to talking about the sunni shia divide when it comes to the uae, egypt, and jordan against iran and syria and at times qatar.

how does turkey play in that dynamic? >> turkey sees itself as perhaps the most important sunni country in the region, perhaps even more so than saudi arabia, because it sees itself as a conduit between europe. it is a part of nato. it had at one point aspirations to be part of the european union and it also sees itself as part of the middle east involved in conflicts like syria and israel. it definitely saw ifltself as pt of that front, if you will. but that has changed the last couple years because of the war in syria. and it's going to become more complicated when the u.s. withdraws its troops from there because turkey has had its own aspirations particularly against the kurdish minority in its country, inside syria and inside iraq. so turkey has made it clear that with the withdrawal of u.s. troops in syria, it will have a free hand to continue and carry out even more expansive military

operations against the kurdish minority in any of those countries that it sees fit. because it sees it as an existential threat to have occurrkurds posing a potential threat to their country. >> we've seen americans move in a couple positions and a couple dozen meissionaries were killed. if our troops do that when russians get in our space, why would the president bow down to erdogan's threats that turkey was coming in? i mean, it's hard to say with a straight face that the turkish troops are coming in and the united states better watch out! i mean, i don't want this to happen, but we could be in ankora in a week if we wanted to. why did this president cower and fold to erdogan? >> i think this is a president a lot of people are scratching

their heads to answer because really, in a nutshell, it's this. the u.s. has had a very close ally on the ground fighting isis. that was the syrian kurdish forces. they have been one of the most reliable, if not the most reliable ally the u.s. has had in fighting isis. so forget turkey for a moment. what the u.s. is now saying to these kurds is, look, you fought for us, you helped us, we had your back but we're going to leave you high and dry now. you're out on your own and the turks are going to do whatever they want to because they saw the kurds as a threat. so they're saying, look, you can stay here, if you want to go after isis and continue that, but obviously there is something bigger at play here, joe, and i think that's why a lot of people are scratching their heads. i hate to be the kind of person to put this on the map but you have to look at this at the g geopolitics of what's happening

in turkey. so they've been trying to get the turks to ease up on saudi arabia. you're coming up with all this information that the saudi crown prince was involved in the killing of this american journali journalist. what's it going to take to find out that you ordered the killing and were involved in it, and what's coming out of the turks? the tone has changed over the last couple weeks. it doesn't say they're not still fighting that fight, but they're not doing it in the same way with the constant leaks in the media, the constant pressure, the statements against the saudi arabia government. coming up on "morning joe," history has a way of repeating itself and that could be terrifying for the markets. we sit down with three of the leading figures from the last financial crisis, ben bernanke, hank paulson and tim gardner. what they said about today's

economic instability, next, on "morning joe." ask as

♪ ♪ ♪

this holiday season, families near you need your help. visit redcross.org now to donate. you're in the business of helping people. we're in the business of helping you. business loans for eligible card members

up to fifty thousand dollars, decided in as little as 60 seconds. the powerful backing of american express. don't do business without it.

. ten years ago, america's top economic figures were frantically calling banks, trying to figure out if the entire economy was on the verge of collapse. a decade later, now the current treasury secretary steve mnuchin is working the phones with the big banks. but his statement trying to calm the markets actually had the opposite effect. now, we recently sat down with ben bernanke, hank paulson and tim gardner with a look back at the last economic crisis and what could be in store for america in the future. mr. secretary, let's start with you. this was a moment in time the likes of which none of us had seen before, none of us were prepared for. we all read about what happened

in 1929. >> yep. >> but there was a time, a week or so, when we really didn't know whether all the banks were going to go under, whether the economy as we knew it was going to go under and there was going to be panic in the streets. talk about that time and that uncertainty and your instinct on how to move this country through it. >> well, we were looking into the abyss literally, because i think there was a time if we had one more institution go down, the whole system would have gone down and we wouldn't have known how to put it back together again. it would have been very difficult. but it wasn't really that one week. this thing went on for an extended period of time, and there were plenty of scary moments. but to me the enduring memory of that is how the u.s. government

came together. we saw some of the worst in behaviors leading up to that time, but ultimately, we saw great bipartisan cooperation. you know, democrats, republicans. we saw continuity between administrations, we saw people working together. and to me the other enduring memory is george bush and his leadership, and of course, working with these two guys, because i don't think any of us -- i sure couldn't have gotten through it without partners like tim and ben. >> we're going to get to the high moments in a moment, but we want the gory details. i want to ask you because i've read an awful lot about this time period. i want to ask you, what was the low point for you? what was the moment where you thought, my god, we may not have the tools in our grasp to turn this around in time? >> well, there were multiple low

points, but i will talk about one because when we -- there's no worse feeling than feeling a great sense of responsibility and not having the authority you need. so when we finally felt for the first time we could go to congress and get the authorities, and we thought we had a deal. when the house of representatives voted it down the first time, and the first time it came for a vote. and it was just a terrible, terrible feeling. and for me, the days when we were working hard wasn't when the fear set in, it would be waking up in the middle of the night and looking into the abyss, and i remember that night waking up, you know, having nightmares about food lines and huge unemployment and so on, and that was a time also where prayer played a very important part for me, but it was a tough period. >> mr. chairman, let me ask you

the same question. what was the moment where you thought, my god, we may not be able to navigate out of this? >> it was really tough. i think one of the worst moments for me was when, after lehman failed, after tim had negotiated a deal with aig to prevent the world's largest insurance company from collapsing on top of that, hank and i had to go to congress to explain this to them, and they took our questions and they were very, you know, interested, and they basically told us that congress has nothing to do with this, this is your deal, and we're not going to -- there is no promise here of any kind of support. the big problem we faced was that it took a while before the impact of the crisis really began to be felt on main street. so initially it looked like we were running around, it looked like we were just trying to bail out our friends on wall street when what we were really trying to do was protect the economy and early on that wasn't so

evident. political support only came over time. >> hank is using the word "abyss." >> they lose the capacity to finance themselves, and they ended up firing millions and millions of people. that's one way to think about it. >> the economy can't survive the collapse of the financial system. there is no way to separate the interests of the average person from a collapsing financial system, there's just no choice in that context and no choice in the country except to step in and do whatever it takes to keep the core of the system functioning so the lights stay on. >> secretary paulson was talking earlier about how republicans and democrats work together. we obviously all saw the passing and the celebration of george h.w.'s life and his ability to

bring both sides together and make difficult compromises. can you talk about how that happened in september of 2008 between an incoming president, who will be the first to admit he ran against george w. bush's legacy and ran against it hard and tough throughout that campaign, but even in the middle of the campaign, everybody came together to do what they thought was right. >> a lot of credit goes to the outgoing and incoming president. george w. bush was a stand-up guy. he did very unpopular things in order to support the effort to stop the collapse of the financial system, and he was willing to take actions to try to reduce the pressure on obama when the new president came in. meanwhile president obama also embraced the effort. he appointed tim geithner who was involved in these things in new york, made him the treasury

secretary. so president obama called me, he talked to hank. he was engaged as well. so the leadership from the two presidents was really critical. and then i give credit to the leadership in the congress, people like barney frank and chris dodd and richard shelby and many other people who did contribute. and when the chips were down, the congress did what they had to do. >> and he reappointed ben bernanke as chairman of the fed. and what ben did was incredibly courageous, because what you saw, that monetary policy, extraordinary monetary policy, and we were growing at 2% from the third quarter of 2009 on while we delivered, and there are all kinds of naysayers. he took incredible criticism. he had the courage to do that, and that's a big reason for the recovery. it's not something really dramatic to talk about like some of these rescues, but it played a huge role.

>> can i just say i think both these presidents were willing to try to let a bunch of people around them figure out what was best for the country despite the terrible political costs of most of those choices, and they are willing to have people debate what made sense to try to figure out what was the best of the terrible options available, and to try to focus on what was right and what was effective, not their near term political interests. and that was a rare and remarkable thing. this is a very important thing to say. we were lucky because there were hundreds and hundreds of very talented civil servants in the fed and the treasury who were absolutely essential to trying to figure out how -- you know, sometimes in hours we could martial the kind of overwhelming force we needed to prevent the economy from falling into an

abyss. that is a critical, treasured value resource you need if you want the country to be able to navigate in the future. >> as i look back, one of the things i'm pleased about and take real comfort in, i think the two times that congress acted to give us emergency authorities to prevent the implosion of fannie or freddie which was important to keep mortgage funding flowing, and think how many more people would have lost their homes if we hadn't had that, and the t.a.r.p. i think it's the last two times we've seen congress come together, and on a bipartisan basis, do something important and controversial. we really saw the best part of our government, and that's something that i take some comfort in. >> final thoughts, tim? >> you know, we're doing this -- we participated in this

documentary. ten years later we think it's important for people to remember this. the enemy is forgetting. if we forget about what happened, it's going to be too easy to say, well, we can unwind some of these protections, we can be less vigilant. it's important to keep alert and to make sure that our system is strong enough so whatever new shocks hit, we'll be able to absorb them without having consequences for the economy. >> all right, "a vice special report panic" is available to watch on hbo go and hbo now. thank you all so much. >> thank you, guys. >> by the way, i really think secretary geithner needs to see "too big to fail." the rock star is playing you, man. that's pretty good. >> they say he's awesome. >> paul giamotti. >> william hurt.

>> three for three there. >> thank you, guys, so much. i really appreciate it. we'll be back with more "morning joe." joe." to get the ford vehicle you've always wanted. just get to the final days of our holiday sales event. thank you. ford. built for the holidays. s time to get our best offers of the season.

♪ the new capital one savor card. earn 4% cash back on dining and 4% on entertainment. now when you go out, you cash in. what's in your wallet? 2018 saw success for women across the board. but we also came face to face with issues that continue to pose significant obstacles. joining me now, washington anchor for bbc world news

america catty cay, author zainab salby, and kasie hunt. so we saw women running for office in record numbers and record numbers of women winning. what do you think really prompted in influx of women back into politics? >> donald trump was a big driver in the united states. we saw after the president was naug rated the massive women's marches around the country, women who didn't like the way he talked about women, women who feared his policies were more conservative policies on health care, for example, might hurt women's interests. and i think that pushed certainly on the democratic side this big outpouring of women. so we now have over a hundred women in congress. it is a record number but it's not enough. we still have work to do. we're nowhere near at parity, only 20% of women in the senate. and we're going to have to see

women run more because when women do run they win in just as high numbers as men do. but we're going to have to get women to continue running more in every cycle. >> we are. but kasie hunt, it was an amazing thing that happened during the midterms. we saw female fighter pilots, refugees. i mean, the diversity of thought that we now have coming to washington, it certainly should have an impact. >> i think it absolutely will have an impact. one thing, mika, that i think we saw here this year in 2018 was that women were running as themselves. you know, historically the model for a woman running or trying to be a politician was to try to be like the guys, you know, be as much like the male politicians who have succeeded in winning, act like them and that will help you get elected. and these women, they threw that playbook out the window. you point out the fighter pilots, but there were also moms -- >> teachers. >> who said you know what, i'm bringing my kids to my campaign stops, what do you think i'm

going to do? leave them at home? now they're having to rethink the facilities in the capitol because there are way more breast-feeding women who have coming into the congress and they've never had to think through that before. so i really think that that's a huge, huge step forward. i was happy to see that women were able to win in that mold because perhaps it will help us all kind of break through that idea if you want to succeed you have to act like a dude. >> another significant factor in the year has been the me too movement. zainab, i'll stay with you. pare it down for us, if you could, what has changed in the workplace, and what hasn't? >> what has changed is women are breaking their silence. not the sexual harassment that's a new issue. it's an old issue, we all co-existed with it and we kept it to ourselves and just kept ongoing. what has changed is that women are saying we're not going to be silent anymore, we're going to break our silence and not

tolerate this behavior. that is a good moment. it's an excellent moment, actually, in american women history. and actually i would say in the world in general. what has not changed, and we really need to still do a lot, not we women, we women and men, is that change in the work space in the work infrastructure, awareness among women and men of what is the new behavior and what the new work conditions are. what that has not evolved. it's evolved from individual women speaking about individual men and now we need to make it about the culture of work space and work behavior and how we that change that. >> and then there is the existing constant issue of the wage gap, the whole reason why know your value exists. but it's the gap still exists. how much of it can women control? >> i think the fact that it is so persistent and that it's so widespread that this gap exists makes me think we need more on

the policy front too and that is also what's kpagt about these women coming into office, coming into congress because we know that when women come into office they do enact policies that can help families and women. and this is a family issue too. this is not just about the women earning more. their families need those women to earn more as well. they need them to be paid equally to the men who are working around them. i'm hopeful we can start to change the gap with more women involved who have their voices being heard up on capitol hill. >> it would be very helpful if women were at the top level and at our san francisco know your value event we had senator kamala harris reveal that right now over the holidays she's speaking with her family, kasie hunt, about the potential of running for president. do you think 2020 could be the year that we elect a female president? and who are the contenders? >> it certainly could be, mika. i mean, there are more women than ever before who are going to be very serious contenders on the democratic side for the

nomination, kamala harris definitely one of them. you also have, of course, elizabeth warren, amy klobuchar, kirsten gillibrand, i'm sure i'm leaving somebody out, all of them considering throwing their hats in the ring. i do think there is a challenge. even in early polling democrats are pointing out it may be meaningless but on the other hand the top three contenders are white men, joe biden, bernie sanders and beto o'rourke. that's causing frustration among democratic women i've been talking to who have been working to try to get women elected. it's the story, it's not beto o'rourke, as excited as progressives might be about him. there's a lot of work to do still and people will have to think about how important it is or isn't to them, potentially, to have somebody who represents a more diverse perspective at the top of the democratic

ticket. >> kasie hunt, catty cay, zainab salby, thank you all, and thank you for being a part of know your value. the movement continues. for more on these important issues, go to knowyourvalue.com. hallie jackson picks up the coverage. we start this morning with a devastating loss, for the second time in less than a month an immigrant child dies in the custody of u.s. customs and border protection, prompting changes in the way children in custody are cared for. >> with so many children, with flu season, with many people coming ill, our job is to try to identify any children that need medical care and get them to a hospital as quickly as we can. plus, walled off, president trump makes his stand, digging in on his demand for billions of dollars of money for his border wall and ensuring the government shutdown will drag into the new year. >> the people of this country want border security, you know, it's not a que