progressivism on the left. this is why you see the space, well hard to argue chicken and egg, the space for alexandria ocasio-cortez to introduce a green new deal and very sweeping new programs, even to entertain the idea of massive taxes about 70% on the ultra rich. >> here's the big question. are democrats going to look at these polls and take that into account come 2020? are they going to support a candidate progressive versus more center. >> embraces that. >> they already are. look at the candidates. the candidates are listening. you will have a choice between a lot of candidates who are far to the left of what hillary clinton was pitching in 2016. >> jonathan swan, thank you very much. you can sign up for the newsletter at axios.com. snow that does it for us this morning. "morning joe" starts right now. do you remember how easy it

is to be presidential, but you'd all be out of here right now. you'd be so bored. >> right now, here's the president. >> i'm very presidential. >> my fellow americans. >> ladies and gentlemen, thank you for being here tonight. >> tonight, i am speaking to you -- >> and then you go, god bless you. >> so help me god. >> thank you very much. >> thank you and good night. >> see, that's easy. if i came like a stiff, you guys wouldn't be here tonight. tonigt >> well, actually, you wouldn't be here tonight, but for the fact that donald trump's obsessing on a wall that's nothing more than a fantasy. of course, as you know, as you've heard, and as his own

statistics show you from his own government, that his justification for that wall is based on lies. mika, what we need to be looking at today, what's the impact of the speech, what's it mean as we move forward? also, what's it mean about the white house in disarray, you have a president who announced to people yesterday afternoon he didn't want to do the speech? he didn't want to go down to the border but he went ahead and did it anyway. in effect, a lot of people are holding the government hostage, holding this hostage, holding that hostage. last night, it was the tv networks held hostage for 8, 9, 10 minutes for a speech that broke no new ground, said absolutely nothing and is going to make every network have to reexamine whether they will carry his next speech.

>> a speech that denigrated an important facet of the presidency, the communication between the oval office between the president and the american people. another thing bites the dust under the trump administration because there was no import, no national emergency, no credibility to what he was bringing to the table. it was rough. along with joe, willie and me, we had mike barnicle, nbc news, national reporter, heidi and legal analyst, danny sevilla. a lot happened before the president sat down. >> it really did. i want to read you a tweet. bill carter, serious question, what justification was there for an oval office address? not one thing had not been said before. networks should feel totally burned. shouldn't they come out and tell the white house that was a fraudulent request, forget asking for platform for

political posturing ever again. does bill carter make a good point? >> he does. the next time the president requests the networks shut down their hour and speak in the discussion afterward, why? what is he doing? what is the objective here? from his point we can talk about the rhetoric and substance he said, strategically, why? he gave a speech he could have given three years ago. he was preaching to the converted and giving a speech to the fox news audience already with him on this. why a national address on this? as you said, an address the "new york times" reported he didn't even want to make yesterday. you look at it and say, from the point of view of the networks, let's take a hard look as to whether we give over our time to this president again. from the point of view of the

president, what was the point of that exercise? it feels like a colossal waste of time so he can deliver on a chant he delivered at some rallies. the government is tied up because of it, we're tied up because of it and the american people are tied up because of it and it all is nothing. >> it is, remains a seinfeld shutdown, all about nothing. he's not really good in that medium. as we all said before, he can do things in front of a crowd very few politics can ever do. again, most of the people that look at this were asking the same thing. why was he there and why did his white house staff allow him to waste one of the most powerful tools in any president's political arsenal. here's jonathan martin, asking last night, why does the

strategy behind asking for 10 minutes from the networks just to do a steven miller jag with no bigger plan, i guess those final words is what everybody, when they start to lose their head, for good reason, about the trump presidency, need to understand about this man, need to understand about this presidency, there is no bigger plan. it is day trading personified in politics. >> joe, i mean, that was so clear last night. this is a speech he has given multiple times in the past, as willie just alluded to, from his primary campaigns to the republican convention in cleveland to nearly everyday, the wall, the wall, the wall. it raises an important question, for the citizens of this community, the television coverage of that speech last night, what happens when there is a real crisis, when there is

a real emergency? does he take to the air waves? do we give him the air waves? do we believe him? that's a real question that has to be answered. the president continually refers to, gets right up to the edge of this as a national emergency. there is a national emergency, i would submit. we saw it last night. it's him. >> wow. >> you know, mika, it's the same question we asked about christian nielsen and the department of homeland security. she's already been out lying about crisis on the southern border of epic proportions. she's twisted facts around. what happens when we have a real national emergency? i think most americans aren't going to take her at her word because she's been lying so much for this president over the past few months. i want to go back to something willie said, mika. that is this is an address the could have delivered on fox news

primetime and he would have reached his same audience. he would have converted the same number of people, which is zero, because if they were watching him on fox news, in primetime, chances are very good, they'd already be on his side. last night, he converted no one. last night, he made himself look even more inept. last night, he made himself look even more lost. there's a new reuters poll out today saying more americans are blaming donald trump for the shutdown and less americans support what he's doing, meanwhile, republicans are getting slaughtered in swing districts and slaughtered in special elections across america. last night, we had a race in virginia where, you know, eight years ago, republicans were keeping it within the margin of error and now losing by 35, 39 points. >> to everything you're saying, you have to wonder what is happening in the cabinet and his

staff. steve schmidt, mitt romney, it's fair to say they think he's unfair to lead. the networks and democrats, everybody is acting as if he is fit, taking part in this colossal waste of time, which would be this presidency, instead of looking at it instead of saying, this person is not fit to lead, and acting on that fact. i'm not sure why it's happening. people smarter than me say that we're here, and yet we still have situations like last night. the president took his message to a forum he had never used before last night, yet the "new york times" reports, privately, trump dismissed his own new strategy as pointless. in an off the record lunch with television anchors hours before the address, he made clear in blunt terms he was not inclined to give the speech or go to texas but was talked into it by

his advisors, according to two people briefed on the discussion who asked not to be identified showing details. "it's not going to change a damn thing. the border trip was just a photo opportunity. but he added, bill shine, sarah huckabee sanders and kellyanne conway, these people behind you say it's worth it." >> the reason why they're saying it's worth it, heidi, more republicans are getting ancy. mitch mcconnell is not defending donald trumps a strategy and other republicans remaining quiet. the "new york times" is reporting now you have other republicans, knot just susan collins anymore that's concerned, corey gardner out of colorado. now, you have lisa murkowski and

shelly more of virginia, talking about we need to reopen the government. james langford, after mildly saluting the president for his speech about border security, said we need to reopen the government. so, you've got republicans, moderates, conservatives from maine, oklahoma, west virginia, colorado, they're saying the same thing. i got the sense last night actually his audience was really nobody more than those senate republicans. >> i spoke with top democratic aides last night, joe. they were surprised that what the president did, among many other things, but most importantly, the strength in their hand, he framed this whole debate around a humanitarian crisis, what they've been saying all around, not a border security crisis that merits a

wall, a humanitarian crisis, and all these spending bills and previous battles they've had allocated money towards that humanitarian crisis. if anything is what will happen now is what you saw last night. additional republican defections. pelosi's strategy putting out these spending bills out is to do exactly that, bring so much pressure to bear on mcconnell he will be forced to bring up that same legislation they passed before and move it along. basically, the democrats think that the question now is what is the o ramp for this president? that this is words they used to me last night. what is the face saving measure that will allow him to cave? in previous battles over shutdowns, the solution has been a temporary stopgap spending bill to allow all sides to negotiate on the issue, whatever it is they're fighting over, obamacare spending cuts.

we don't see the germs of that happening in this debate. those republican defections are going to continue, joe. that this is word i'm getting from capitol hill, because the humanitarian crisis now is not only at our southern border, it's going to be what's happening here domestically, when you have millions of children, elderly people, potentially losing their nutritional assistance. you're seeing stories coming out about little children on fda experimental drugs not being able to get their phone calls returned because the fda is shuttered, that's another humanitarian crisis that will be happening within our own borders. >> willie, the arguments are so stupid. last night, i saw on fox news primetime, somebody put up the banner, nbc says, only -- then put in quote marks, only six people on terror watchlist came

across the southern border. that was, i guess, supposed to suggest that nbc doesn't care about these six terrorists. of course, it's always half a story, always half a truth, which is, of course, a fully. seven times as many came across the northern border. and you have one republican senator after another republican senator that has to be looking at all of this and say, gee, we just don't have the arguments on our side. we don't have the facts on our side. when nancy pelosi is passing republican bills, which is what she's doing, she's passing republican bills, how do you tell voters, well, yeah, i would have voted for that bill to keep the border open four weeks ago but i'm not going to vote for it now? there's no justification. >> that's why you're seeing republican senators peel off.

shelly, the republican from west virginia, that donald trump won by 42 points calling it useless, what are we doing here? let's debate the security question and reopen the government. they're fed up, i think you're right, you will see more and more of them peel off. danny, i want to ask you a question about a national emergency. the president has threatened if he doesn't get his $5 billion for this border wall he may declare a national emergency. he stopped short of that and didn't do it in his nine minute speech last night. if he does it, if he declares a national emergency, what would be the opposition he would face? what would be the pushback from the courts? >> fortunately, history gives us a precedent for this? in 1942, the president ordered the secretary of commerce to take over the steel industry and nationalalize it for the ongoing

korea war and it made it in record time to the supreme court which struck down the president's use of power. more important, justice jackson gave us the framework for analyzing whether or not the president exceeds his or her power when he acts without the approval of congress, in fact, against the will of congress. the short answer, in this third category the president acts and congress opposes, the president usually loses but does not always lose. in fact, in 2015, there was a case in that category where the executive branch actually prevailed. for the most part, when the president acts against the will of congress, even if he invokes his emergency powers, he will likely lose. >> in justice jackson's opinion all those years ago, is there a definition now of a national emergency, executive power in a national emergency. >> it is not even defined in the constitution other than suspending the where it of

habeas corpus, so all of the president's sources of emergency powers come from emergency statutes and the brannon center identified 130 different sources of this power. to say it is a patchwork quilt is an understatement. it's complicated. that's where president trump thrives. using the truman precedent as an example, justice jackson's concurrence, the fascinating thing about this case, youngstown, all six wrote a separate opinion so hard to say there is a majority opinion in that case, but this jackson case gives us an analysis where critics say it doesn't really give us any answers other than to say in the situation where the president acts against the will of congress, then the supreme court has to find congress has zero power in that area in order to uphold the president's action even if he invokes emergency powers. >> if he declares a national

emergency he gets 136 statutory powers become open to him at his disposal. is there anything standing between him and that declaration. if president trump makes up his mind we wouldn't put past him if it is a national emergency. is there a national emergency or someone in congress who can stand in his way. >> immediately it is a unilateral decision between the president and the president alone. in times of emergency, that's what they are supposed to do, act immediately. they are reviewable, not only by congress but the judicial branch. as we saw in the youngstown steel, that got to the supreme court in record time, almost immediately, in record time, and the supreme court can and will review that use of power. the president threatened i may do it at that rose garden event

last week. next still on "morning joe," a campaign chairman, not surprising, paul manafort was discussing donald trump's poll numbers but it is surprising he was sharing that data to someone tied to russian intelligence. first, bill karins has a look at the forecast. >> we had thunderstorms rolling through areas of southern connecticut and here we are going to the middle of january. wild weather to the northeast. we have winter storm warnings and advisories and lake-effect snow out of it and enhancements in the appalachians. northern vermont and new hampshire and rain mixing in and reports of very slippery roads and ice just outside of boston, snowing there from cleveland to pittsburgh and the mountains will get it along with our snowbelts as we go through the next 24 hours. some areas south of buffalo

could pick up a foot of snow. and 22 foot waves are crashing on shore at california right now and getting snow at higher elevations and snow in san francisco and continues from seattle to portland. a lot of people wondering what's that possible forecast. still looks like accumulating snows missouri to ohio valley and west virginia and even d.c. has a chance of accumulating snow saturday night and sunday morning and northward, hardly anything at all. we'll get more specific for the mountains as we go to the upcoming weekend. "new york times" and time square, still a little bit in new york city but the best chances appear to be south. we'll be right back. here we go.

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now, to a major court filing error shedding new light on the case of former trump campaign chairman, paul manafort. special counsel robert mueller accused manafort of sharing 2016 campaign polling data with an associate tied to russian intelligence. the accusations were accidentally disclosed in a poorly redacted section of papers filed by manafort's defense attorneys. they accidentally reveal manafort may have discussed a ukraine peace plan wion more th one occasion. he said he never intentionally misled federal investigators, instead, blamed a faulty memory

and cast him as a sick man trobld by severe gout as well as depression and anxiety and made misstatements because of a faulty mecry and lack of access to his own records and could have had access to trump campaign data. >> perhaps the trump campaign, there was a conspiracy to give the russian government information. so the gru could target certain areas in swing states that could make a difference in the election. >> in a number of different theories of connection between the campaign and russia, this fulfills the theory that manafort may have been offering for sale access to the campaign in exchange for debt forgiveness or whatever else he needed on his end.

it certainly suggests a quid pro quo of some kind, any kind of communication that suggested it might give the russians some advantage or valuable information. information is currency in this world of election and campaign success and everything else. so, you have a connection like this between the russians, strongly suggests one of the theories of liability in the manafort case. >> a procedural question before my substantive question, how does this happen? how does manafort's team present a document unredacted? >> i can diagnose this problem. a problem of the last 10 years, as courts have increasingly become efiling court, lawyers like me live in the world of pdf. in the old days, lawyers would physically take a black pen and redact by hand or they'd use black tape.

that's a very effective system, because once you scan it, there's no text to read at all on the document. nowadays, when you publish a pdf, the system has a redactive feature. it's cumbersome, hard to find, multi-click, irritating. an easier lazier fix is using the highlight feature and set it to black and looks exactly like a redaction. the problem with that is underneath that black highlighter is the text and you've redacted nothing. that's what i suspect with these pdf documents, a problem old school lawyers are struggling to catch up and learn how pdfs work and how to use them. this went undetected by the team and a big gaffe. >> pdfs and highlighting, you're eating this up.

the question is did donald trump know about any of this activity? no evidence tying it directly back to president trump, a question that perhaps bob mueller is working on. nothing we've seen publicly in these indictments or plea deals or convictions have proven president trump directed any of this. do we see any evidence president trump was behind this or does this look like paul manafort working as a freelancer. >> there were no secrets to the candidate, in his business or candidacy, he directed everything. here's the concern with the manafort case, as it's emerged in the last few weeks. the best case scenario is manafort may have been selling access to the russians in exchange for debt forgiveness or whatever quid pro quo, that's the best case scenario for the present, that he willingly brought in somebody who was doing this even if it was without his knowledge. the worst case scenario was he

knew about it on any level whatsoever or should have known about it and basically stuck his head in the sand. that is a very bad situation for the president. at minimum, as a floor, i think we can safely say there's a strong probability manafort was offering this kind of access with or without the knowledge of the then candidate. >> mike barnicle, this is so interesting what danny brings up, the question whether manafort passed along this information to donald trump or not. we said on this showtime and again donald trump's campaign was a mom and pop operation without the mom. it was one of the smallest -- it was the smallest most closely held presidential campaign in american history, certainly one that got the nomination. i will say, the only exception of all the people around donald trump who would not immediately let him know, like for instance, they had to let him know about the meeting going on in trump

tower that don junior set up. the only person that might keep information from him, would be somebody $19 million in debt to an oligarch and probably more of a sleazy trader than donald trump. i could totally see manafort trying to sell information on the side to get him out of hot water with the russians. >> absolutely, joe. paul manafort is and has been identified and proven in court, a grifter, major league grifter, dealing with ukrainian leaders, deeply in debt to them, always scamming, trying to raise money for himself to bail himself out of his debts, i agree with you. i also agree with you, joe, there's no way we can overestimate this point, the level of what he did is incredibly serious. if he is sharing and clearly

appears he has been sharing trump campaign organization information polling data with the russians, then you can identify specific precincts in wisconsin and michigan and pennsylvania, where the russians can then go with their propaganda, using facebook and everything like that, to turn a few votes. there's no way we can overestimate this. i would like to ask you, all of this stuff feedback to the one word over and over again, we heard it again, russia, russia, russia. what is the difference between collusion and conspiracy here? >> collusion often said doesn't really exist in the criminal code. conspiracy does. conspiracy is just an agreement between two or more people to achieve some unlawful objective and some overt act in furtherance of that. it can be a small act and not every conspirator has to know what the others were doing.

that's the power of conspiracy law. one of the problems with liability might be computer hacking looking at roger stone and the jerome corsi situation. any conspiracy against the united states to achieve that unlawful objective probably falls within federal conspiracy laws. you can call it conspiracy, but in reality, conspiracy law is presumed to be so broad even picking up a phone and making a phone call could expose a defendant to liability under our conspiracy law in the federal system. >> sharing political data. >> sharing political data, especially if it was political data that was hacked. then, you get into any number of computer access lawed criminal and easily punishable. meanwhile, the supreme court has ruled against a foreign company in that mysterious case

apparently tied to the russia investigation. it has gotten attention mostly because of how secretive it has been. last month, the company asked the supreme court to intervene when it resisted a subpoena arguing it's beyond the reach of u.s. law. they were fined and ordered to pay a fine for everyday it resisted. yesterday, the supreme court denied the company's request to block the fines, the case assumed to be connected to the mueller probe because of lawyers observed on the case. yesterday, we learned of a meeting between trump officials and donald jr. at the trump tower, natalia veselnitskaya, the lawyer at that now infamous trump meeting, now charged with obstruction of justice in a

federal civil case in manhattan, accused of an intentionally misleading statement to the court as part of money laundering allegations that involved a russian businessman and his investment firm. according to prosecutors, what she said were findings by the russian government that exonerate her client when she actually helped draft the findings in secret cooperation with a russian prosecutor. again, this new indictment is not directly related to the trump tower meeting. meanwhile, gabe sherman in "vanity fair" said all of this has pushed the trump investigation out of the spotlight for the moment but hasn't gone away. rudy guiliani recently told a friend he expects mueller's report to be horrific. guiliani did not respond to a request for comment but guiliani

said to a friend, you're already hearing people speculate trump could do a deal and resign. the white house did not respond to a request for comment. mike, you were around during watergate, obviously, just a young lad. i was playing t-ball at the time as well. this is, if mueller's report is as devastating as rudy guilliani is telling friends that it is, could you see this ending with donald trump doing a deal that would have him resign and be pardoned for his offenses? >> joe, given his nature, given his personality, no, i don't see him resigning. i see him clinging to the desk of the oval office, being dragged out kicking and screaming, if it came to that. again, we don't know. we don't know what's going to be involved in mueller's report. we downtown know 90% of what bob mueller has on his hands, maybe

100%, maybe that close, i do not see the president resigning. >> danny, what's your reads? you have any preliminary reads what we've seen from the supreme court so far? so far, it seemed to be hands off. also, there are quite a few trump appointed judges that are making rulings either directly related to the mueller investigation or on the periphery, federalists, members of the federalist society, ruling against the president and for bob mueller. they don't seem to be in any mood to break a sweat for the president of the united states. >> that's the thing we need to realize about the federal judiciary. it's an appointment for life and it's designed that way so once a judge gets into office the judge can rule without regard what anyone including us, may say on the morning shows. many of criticized federal judges they tend to align

themselves with the president that brung them to the dance. we see that historically, that's not a modern phenomenon. it is historically a phenomenon, even a case i talked about earlier, youngstown, same accusations, that the president's appointed judges tended magically to align themselves with the president. you talk about the supreme court case here, denying that mystery company's wish to get rid of the fines and the contempt, that's exactly the kind of thing that is good for the mueller team. you have it right there, the contempt issue. that's a great thing for the mueller team in the sense that this company was always going to lose the subpoena fight. it was a relatively easy decision by the supreme court. some of these easier cases are not really that controversial for the supreme court. regardless whatever your political leanings are, the rule of law should be the rule of law. >> all right. thank you so much.

great to have you on. up next, we'll talk to jonathan swan of axias, about the possibility of the president declaring an emergency to get his border wall. new polling from gallup reports for the first time, a majority of democrats identifying as liberal. we'll talk about what that means for the next presidential race. "morning joe" is coming right back. ning joe" is coming right back (clapping) every day, visionaries are creating the future. ( ♪ ) so, every day, we put our latest technology and vast expertise to work. ( ♪ ) the united states postal service

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joining us now, national political reporter for axios, jonathan swan. we've been talking a little bit already whether the president will declare a national emergency. the didn't do it last night but you have new information from the white house whether he may do it. >> yes. i spent yesterday talking to officials what the president was going to do. a few impressions emerge. number one, there was a lot of confusion throughout the day, fairly late leading up to this speech. you saw that with mike pompeo,

secretary of state, expect a lot of news. i was hearing privately from people who were seeing early drafts people who could expect news. this could be teasing and hype, et cetera, put that aside. the very strong impression i have from people involved in the process or briefed at the highest level, the most likely alternate option is the emergency declaration because it does give the president the most latitude and there is access to, i think, around $13 billion at the pentagon, sitting in this pot for construction. there is a really strong backlash the white house is aware oven with the conservative legal community, people close to the counsel's office really don't like this idea. i think it's sort of summed up in a tweet by, i think eric erickson, conservative commentator, a staunch conservative saying, imagine the day you have a progressive president saying climate change

is a national emergency and all the things they might do as a result of that. there is a real unease in the conservative world about declaring a national emergency for this purpose. the only other thing i will add is omb is seriously vetting other options. apparently there are other ways to tap money from the pentagon. >> you said it was the most likely way to declare a national emergency, how does he get the shutdown. democrats give him $1.3 billion and he wants $5.7 billion. he may actually declare a national emergency, is that what you're saying? >> of course. i don't know he will nor does anyone. the strong sense i have of those briefed on it the most likely

option is he ultimately does declare a national emergency. there is no way forward on the hill. you saw it last night with the speeches, you think there's a beautiful moment of coming together today with congressional leaders, i don't see it. >> democrats have no incentive to budge as we saw last night from chuck schumer and nancy pelosi. let me show you this that for the first time a majority of democrats call themselves liberal, 51%. what's the significance of that and what's behind the trend? >> it's really striking. if you compare that to 1992, when bill clinton was first elected, that number was 25%. 25% of democrats self-described themselves as conservatives. so you're seeing a left ward shift of the party. it's creating an environment where it's hard to say chicken and egg, which is causing which? a quite compelling young class of democrats shifting public

opinion or are they taking advantage of what's already -- there has been a gradual drift. i think it's a bit of both. you're opening the way for the green new deal, medicare for all, a big conversation about taxes we haven't had in this country for quite some time, the permission alexandria ocasio-cortez discussed on cnn about taxing 70% plus marginal railts on people who earn more than ten million. rates. this conversation has been largely referred to the fringes of political dialogue. it's now getting closer to the mainstream in the democratic party. >> it's interesting, heidi, for years the news media reported how republicans in the house and the senate have become more conservative and more right wing. it's also ben celebrated over

the past decade we've started to see that happening with democrats in the house and especially in this senate. gone are the days for the most part of moderate democrats that can sit in the middle and strike deals with republicans and democrats alike. both sides are becoming more extreme and now seems the majority of democrats, not saying because you call yourself a liberal you're more extreme but the differences between democrats and republicans now, certainly there's a wider ideological gap than there has been in quite some time. >> joe, you were in congress when it was a different era of a coalition of so-called blue dog democrats, fiscally conservative. that is a dying breed that died off pretty quickly. i think you have two forces at play here. the first one is we are seeing the full-on effects of

gerrymandering and zero sum game our politics have become as a result of it. in the congress, that's a structural force. on the democratic side, what you're seeing is also unmakebly a reaction to this presidency, given how quickly these numbers have changed in terms of democrats just feeling more comfortable embracing that liberal label. like jonathan says, it's up-ending the debate in 2020. what we're seeing is bernie sanders may have not been successful in the primary but he certainly has set some of the terms of the debate now with issues considered fringe just in the last election cycle now moving into the mainstream. the big question and unknown, how this will play with a broader general electorate. one good sign for democrats is this populism trump stirred up and spoke to is still there.

many democrats feel he didn't deliver on that populism at all. he ushered in a very typical establishment russian agenda establish establis ment of agenda of tax cuts and sharing in these profits, concepts democrats feel really are truer populist concepts. >> if they can make the issues they're behind actually pay off for the voters, that would make sense. jonathan swan, thank you. coming up for the past two years, many republicans have been quiet about some of the president's offensive language. they were outraged when a newly sworn in congresswoman used an expletive last week. now, she's apologizing, not for what she said but those details ahead on "morning joe." ing joe.

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heidi, before you go, i understand you spoke to southwestern border sheriffs after the president's visit to the border. what are they expecting or hoping after visiting with president trump. >> i spoke with the president of the southwestern border association. he said, even if the president got the money for his wall, let's say today, he would still be tied up in court for 10 to 15 years when it comes to texas. what would happen is you would get border wall in new mexico, california and arizona and you'd create an absolute disaster of a choke point in through texas. and, secondly, he said that there is however a humanitarian

crisis down there. he told me what they need for it, mika. here's the thing. there is an increase in west texas of families coming through. he said, just last week in brewster county, they picked up a group, a family, quote-unquote, of rental kids. here's what's happening. in some cases, these kids are being sold or kidnapped or trafficked. people have gotten the word it's easier to get in if you come as part of a family. there is a humanitarian crisis. here's what he says he needs, more boots on the ground, not a wall. more sheriffs, more border patrol. snow i'm hoping the president and his staff sets up meetings and visits with children and families. >> everything -- it's -- it's so maddening because you talk about the drug epidemic and heroin coming across the southern

border. you have mike pence and the president saying we have to stop the drugs coming in by putting up a wall. the wall doesn't stop anything. it won't stop drugs. 90%, the federal government says 90% of those drugs come through points of entry. that's not the wall. >> people are smart enough to understand that. >> when you spend $5.7 billion on the wall, you're actually taking money away from exactly what heidi said, from boots on the ground, that can check those cars and check those ports of entry and keep that poison. it can keep heroin, it can keep illegal drugs out of our country. actually, the wall makes that more difficult for our border guards. >> thank you very much. coming up, the president is set to attend the senate gop luncheon as republicans begin to break with him on the government shutdown. kasie hunt joins us with that.

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my fellow americans, tonight i am speaking to you because there is a growing humanitarian and security crisis at our southern border. this is a humanitarian crisis, a crisis of the heart and a crisis of the soul. democrats in congress have refused to acknowledge the

crisis. every member of congress to pass a bill that ends this crisis. >> most presidents have used oval office addresses for noble purposes. this president just used the backdrop of the oval office to manufacture a crisis, stoke fear and divert attention from the turmoil in his administration. >> welcome back to "morning joe." its wednesday, january 9th, along with joe, willie and me, we have msnbc contributor, mike barnicle, pulitzer prize winning author and presidential historian, doris, and walter isaacson and host of kcdc, host of nbc. great group to have this hour. >> you look at donald trump there. you saw the speech last night, a

speech we found out later he didn't want to give. we found out later he doesn't want to go to the border, found out later it was his aides that pushed him into doing it. he told reporters earlier in the day it wasn't quote going to change a damn thing. there he was delivering a speech, it was so low energy, if donald trump was running against that guy, he would call him low energy don. >> he would. he definitely would. again, the use of the word "crisis" and the way the facts were twisted to create what he was considering a concept of a crisis was, i think, another way where he is denigrating the value of this truth and abusing the office of the presidency to his own needs. >> more to the point, walter, there are a lot of people where you live, like me, people who grew up on the gulf coast, we actually are concerned about

keeping the border secure. we actually do want to keep heroin out of the border. i'm not speaking for you, but i'm speaking for myself. i've always said a person's first action coming into our great constitutional republic shouldn't be to break the law. i want secure borders. there are a lot of people across america that want secure borders and keep heroin out. what donald trump is proposing actually allows more heroin to come into the country because you're diverting $5.7 billion to build steel slats that won't make a difference. his own government says 90% of the heroin and 90% of the drugs come in here through ports of entry. we need more boots on the ground. that's what our border security people are saying. even if you support keeping borders secure, donald trump is doing you a disservice.

>> yeah. where i come from, you hear a lot of what you said at the beginning, which is we have to keep our borders secure. i think, if i may something a bit controversial, i think, as in the brett kavanaugh case, democrats and others may be getting a little too ahead of things. trump is pushing them into acting as if they don't care at all about border security. i think everybody thinks trump's making a mistake and everybody's dumping on him, partly, but it's not just his base. there are a lot of people in louisiana that say, why don't we have more of a fence? why don't we have more of a physical barrier. you can argue the nuances of physical barriers and points of entry and percentages of people, all that makes some sense. it's not that hard to figure out how to get out of this quandary that we're in. i think the democrats have to be sure they don't get pushed into being people who are saying, let's get rid of all physical boundaries.

it's immoral to have a fence along the wall. there should be a compromise that allows more fencing to be built. >> you are going to have more fencing built. there is a time and a place to build fencing but donald trump's obsession on the wall and him wanting to waste $5.7 billion just to fulfill a campaign promise makes no sense. we don't -- i know your child served -- your very grownup child served in the military. your son didn't serve in a military still building lines. that didn't work against the germans in 1939. why would we not, if we care about defending the border, why would we not use the most advanced technology that we have? why would we not see where the problem was and spend our money so it will be most effectively spent and most wisely spent, to get the job done? >> what i kept waiting for last

night was that in 1941, this is what i'm always waiting for, something in the past, makes me sound ridiculous. >> any will do. >> in 1941, roosevelt had to explain to the country why security was an issue. he gave a national emergency speech because there was still isolationists in congress. he had to go over their head. he explained what was happening in europe and later showed maps to show where our security was at danger. more maps were sold by cs hammonds before his speech than any other time during the whole week. suppose he could have shown an issue and the problem was he couldn't have shown it, had to shown ports of entry rather than people coming over the border. he wasn't able to do that last night. i don't know what his goal was. you go there being pushed into something and don't have the rally to give you energy and

vitality, you're giving out words, you've lost one of your ammunitions. fdr, when he gave his big speech, this is one of the only ammunitions i have, i can't use it twice. will we believe him when a real crisis comes down the line? the facts are all at issue. >> the facts are at issue, willie and people get tired of hearing the fact checking. let's go through it quickly. first of all, every claim the president made was a half-truth and fully. gave an example of americans killed by illegal immigrants. every study shows, statistic, kato, americans are 44% less likely to be incarcerated than natives, illegal immigrants 66% less likely to be incarcerated than native and illegal

immigrants are less likely represented. he talks about crime he's not telling the truth. illegal immigrants far less likely to commit crimes. talk about heroin coming into america. 90% comes through legal points of entry. he is not hiring crossing guards he needs to hire because he shut down the government and he wants to build a wall that won't stop those drugs. you can go point by point by point. not only was the president misleading the american people, he just wasn't telling the truth. >> this is the extension of the argument and case he's been making since june of 2015, when he came down the escalator and opened his presidential campaign talking about rapists coming across the border and mexico not sending us the best people. the stories are horrific including the story of the late

police officer killed by someone here undocumented. it doesn't make the larger case to spend $5.7 billion on a wall where there is not a security crisis. he said we have a security crisis at the border. we just don't. we've said it time and again. i was watching doris last night, thinking about the gravity of an oval office address. it used to be when that shot came up and the president was sitting behind the resolute desk, whether george w. bush after 9/11, it meant there was an emergency in this country. i'm curious what your lens of history is as you watched the president's address? >> i was thinking of jfk after the cuban missile crisis or president bush, after 9/11 or nixon he's leaving or lbj, withdrawing from the race. these are moments fit for the oval office talk. it's hard. none are good at it. reagan was great at it because

he knew how to speak to a teleprompter. guys used to talking in front of rallies are less good of talking to a teleprompter and be sure what you get out of the bottom of it. at the bottom, this is for fund-raising, that introduces a partisan part. when you're behind the oval desk, you can't do this very often. that's what i'm worried about, if there is a real crisis, people will be wondering, is this really a crisis when the other turned out not to be. that argument, what a tangled web we weave when we first practice to deceive. a bad cycle right now. >> you made the point fund-raising efforts. >> it was on the bottom. >> for re-election. let's bring in a member of the foreign services and budget committee.

tim kaine, good to have you on the show. last night it looked like a continuation of some republican colleagues in the senate peeling off from president trump, lisa murkowski and shelly from west virginia. both said this shutdown is useless. we can have a conversation about border security but let's open the rest of the government while we do it. do you have the sense you have the votes if mitch mcconnell will bring it for a vote to end this shutdown? >> if this was put on the floor today, overwhelmingly, they would vote to end it. >> why not? >> mitch mcconnell doesn't want to buck the president. more republicans need to put pressure on him to do it. i made a speech on the floor last night. the article i branch is not supposed to play mother may i with the article 2 branch. our republican counterparts joined us just two weeks ago to pass these same bills and fund

the government through the end of the year and through february to negotiate about a deal. the president is manufacturing a crisis and punishing all kinds of unaffected people out of a petulant desire to get his way. i do think republicans are starting to peel away from this. this friday, 800,000 votes, it's payday, people are going to start missing paychecks right after christmas, when christmas bills come due, heating bills high, families are trying to stroke a check for spring tuition for kids in college, i think you will see more republicans peeling away. >> let me take it to kasie hunt. what will break mitch mcconnell and why is this so difficult? >> it's so difficult because the president has essentially drawn a line in the sand in a way that makes all the normal rules of how these situations typically unfold absolutely go out the window.

normally, we see political pain applied to one side or the other. you can figure out where the end of the tunnel is, anyway and how fast you get to that light simply depends on the political conditions around you. as the senator was just pointing out, everyone is so dug in here. senator keen, that's my question to you. senator kaine, that's my question to you. at what point you are a state that has federal workers. the impact in virginia is very significant. at some point, does somebody have to stand up and be the bigger person here. if the president's not going to give in, at some point do democrats have to do something to end this? >> look, kasie, democrats are very willing to act. i was part of a group of 16 senators, you know this, last february, we went to the president with an immigration deal that was $25 billion in border security, done right, not done wrong, over 10 years, in exchange for protecting

dreamers. eight democrats, eight republicans, we had every reason to believe the president would accept it. guess what he did, he didn't just say no, he didn't put a counter-offer on the table, he blew up the whole thing and name-called everyone involved in the deal. democrats are willing to invest sizable money in border security but our message is fist reopen government. don't publish farmers who need ag loans or small businesses who need business loans. open the rest of government. we already demonstrated by offers we put on the table we will invest tens of billions of dollars in border security but we're not going to let you publish people. it's unpatriotic behavior beneath the oath of office. >> senator kaine, last night predictably, the president relied on the fear factor about the border.

he's of used that, to some effect. part of the effect sits out there doing fairly well with a certain percentage of people because they feel rightly or wrongly that the democratic party, democrats specifically are soft on border control. >> right. >> that you want to allow people in. he uses the open borders all the time. what is the strength position of the democratic party or your position specifically to seal off the border? >> president trump repeats that lie every time he talks. it was democrats and republicans in the senate in 2013 that put together a comprehensive reform bill and it had 40 plus billion dollars of border security in it and we all voted for it. we got 46 of 49 democrats in november, to vote for a compromise offer to the president that included $25 billion of border security. i was listening to the show before i got on. you guys are right.

we just want to do it right. we have a problem with drugs coming over the border, you don't fix that with a wall, you improve ports of entry and give the post office and u.p.s. the ability to enter. the biggest group of undocumented aliens in the country are people who come in on visas and overstay them. you can build a million walls and won't overcome that and need to stop the visa overstay problem. we want to spend the me on the right way rather than spend it stupidly to back up the president's broken promise that mexico would build the wall. democrats again and again have voted for big border security investments. all we're saying is don't waste taxpayer money. the president now wants to call a national emergency and pull money from the military construction projects. i'm on the national services committee, i have a kid in the

military. if he pulls money out of military construction, those monies are used for fixing up barracks where there's lead in the water supply so our troops will be safer or fixing facilities overseas so our troops will be safer or rebuilding military bases in florida and north carolina that just got blitzed by hurricanes a couple months ago. we need to spend the me on the right way, not waste taxpayer dollars. >> invest taxpayer dollars wisely. that's the opposite of what he's doing, make the border less safe and allow more drugs to come in because he's not investing it where it needs to be invested. go ahead, senator, i'm sorry. >> joe, allowing more drugs to come in, do you know one of the agencies affected by the shutdown is the coast guard? the coast guard folks, many are not working right now or working and not getting paid, those are the guys who interdict drugs.

the president is shutting down the coast guard to say there's a crisis and we need to do more about border security. how ridiculous is this? >> it's backwards. he has it backwards. speaking of backwards, every trend for the republican party has been going backwards. we certainly saw back in 2015 what happened in virginia. it was as always a sign of things to come in 2016. now, you had an election last night, a special election in sd 33. this is a seat not so long ago republicans were very competitive in, in fact, they held it to single digits in 2011. last night, republicans lost in that same swing district, what used to be a swing district, by 40 points. >> joe, this is a district -- >> it almost suggesting, senator, that the president's approach on trying to scare americans is not working.

>> joe, not only did the republicans lose in this district by 40 points, their candidate was somebody who had been elected often to the lower house of the general assembly. not somebody not well-known, very well regarded and still lost. what you saw in virginia, massive pickup, sweeping statewide offices. in virginia, not only did i get reelected, we flipped three houses with democratic women beating incumbents. virginia, a red state and then a swing state is demonstrating the trump government by spectacle and sound bite and fury is not what people want to see. they want to see results. >> thank you so much. that was the 2017 election told us what would happen in 2018.

walter isaacson, you heard those numbers from virginia last night. a competitive district not so long ago, now going democratic by 40 points, democrats winning the biggest election since the watergate off-year elections. it seems to me the republican party is driving their operation straight into the ground. you're a historian. aren't we going to look back on this time and be amazed there were no republican leaders that stood up and said, we have to protect ourselves from this former life-long democrat destroying our party? >> i harken back to the mccarthy era, you had all these people that seemed to resemble the roger stones around donald trump. and albert einstein, when he saw what was happening with mccarthy

red baiting and fighting and tearing up people's loyalty sort of things or tearing up people's ability to work. he said america, had seen it happen before, he had seen germany and the communists come and now seeing it happen in his adoptive land. a few years later, as you said, republicans stood up. dwight eisenhower stood up to joe mccarthy, the senator. when that happen, eisenhower wrote his son, america has a gyroscope, just when you think it's going to tip over, it rights itself. that's what you are seeing in the electoral process and what tim kaine was saying about virginia. holding our breath, it would be nice to have it happen sooner rather than later, this would be a nice thing, america showing once again showing how it can right itself using the electoral

and democratic process. >> these days, it happens time and time again, we talked about this so much, seems to happen every two years. you would hope at some point we start electing leaders, if they want to stay in power more than two years, controlling the house or senate, or if they want to stay in the white house, the way to do that is to reach across the aisle and make deals in the best interests of the country. compromise. don't be so afraid of your own hard core base, whether that's on the right or the left, that you can't just walk across the aisle, sit down and have a conversation and say, hey, let's figure out what's best for the country and get it done. >> we will have much more with walter, kasie hunt and doris kearns goodwin ahead. if president trump would get his border wall, hundreds of miles would run through the next

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my name is tito, and i'm a tech-house manager at comcast. we're working to make things simple, easy and awesome. really, you know, we've been following very interesting we've been following what happened on fox news. i talked earlier about seeing a headline and hearing a certain commentator say things that, let's say were disconnected from reality. to the fox news news division, right after this speech, they put on shep smith and shep hit the president pretty hard with fact checking. immediately following trump's approximately 10 minute speech, smith broke down a number of claims misleading and talked about how statistics showed there's less crime by immigrant

population than general population and making the point government statistics show much of the heroin actually comes not over unguarded borders but through ports of call. the anchor informed fox viewers the number of illegal border crossings has steadily been going down over the past 10 years despite donald trump's assertion and good on fox news for putting shep smith out there and letting their viewers know what the truth was about the president's claims. >> shep does that everyday in the afternoon on fox news. >> he does. >> he's swimming upstream a bit there but doesn't mind doing it. let's give credit to chris wallace in his interview of sarah sanders totally tearing down her argument of 4,000 terrorists coming into this country, always prepared and does a good job whoever it is. let's bring in the nine u.s. districts of the southern border, only one represented by

a republican, republican will hurd from texas. you speak from experience. you are in a border district. this is not a theoretical argument to you. you are at the border. what do you think about the president digging in for $5.7 billion for a physical structure along a southern border. >> first and foremost if this is indeed a crisis, the people dealing with the crisis should get paid. i was just down on the border this weekend and talked to men and women on border patrol. they used color language i can't put on television how they felt about working without pay and the shutdown. flying through the airports, my hometown of san antonio, the tsa agents are nervous. we all almost a million federal employees, their paychecks will be impacted january 11th.

the reality is since 2017, that's the latest credible numbers we've seen an 80% decrease in apprehensions at the border. as you said in the lead-up to this, most of the illegal drugs coming into our country are coming through our ports of entry. give you a crazy stat, our coast guard can only action 25% of the known intelligence on drugs coming into our country. that's an absolutely crazy statistic and something we should be doubling down making sure coast guard has cutters. we could get to a big number like $5 billion when you improve the technology on ports of entry, do what i call the estimate law using technology on all the miles of our border. it is 2019. we don't have operational control of the border. where you do that with tw21st

century technology not old solution. >> you backed that up by data and the president wants his wall. you have seen republicans in the senate and colleagues start to peel away from him saying this is ridiculous, making the same case you make the people are not getting paid because the president won't move on his wall. how do we work our way out of this? how do the people get paid? >> the solution is simple, already out there. if you want physical barriers, you can complete the fence act, a handful of miles, replace existing fencing. you have 650 miles of fencing created for the secure fencing act and we know how everybody voted for that back in the day in its amended version two years later. we have to address root causes. shutting down the state department is a bad idea because state department u.s. id is

working on violence and lack of economic opportunities in the northern triangle, el salvador, honduras, and in florida, there's a lot of florida workers that can streamline the economy to make it where we want to go. whether it is agricultural or artificial intelligence need workers. streamline that. this is something pete aguilar and i have been working on, a democrat from california, fix daca, 1.2 million kids and work on the equivalent of a marshal plan in the northern triangle to address those issues. put all those packages together, get north of the $5.6 billion, something all republicans and democrats can agree to. i think it was you, joe, right before you went to commercial

break, ne only way to get big things done in washington, d.c. is to actually work across the aisle. this is why the american people sent us up here, to get things done, not burn this place down. >> we're going to mike in one second. let's follow up to what you just said there. isn't there a deal to be done between republicans and democrats, where you talk about heroin coming across the southern border and saying instead of building this wall, throwing it out there, focus more on ports of entry, where 90% of the drugs come in? instead of erecting steel slats, as you said, a fourth century solution, build smart walls. our military is building smart walls on battlefields to confuse our enemy. if they're coming at you, the smart walls go up and they

confuse some of the toughest fighters in the world. it certainly could work at the border, couldn't it? >> it is. they're already testing that technology in my district. they call it the innovative tower initiative, where you are able to track someone that comes across the border, you're able to follow them and able to deploy a drone or a border patrol to do that interdiction. all that data is on a smartphone on someone's arm. there are people on the border patrol, doing the job, the smartphones don't always work. there is something in the rio grand that's an infectious weed, invasively, excuse me, not from that area, that looks like a bamboo patch. if you get rid of that, one, it improves the flow of the rio grand and makes it harder for

people to get across. i have 220 miles of border, a little bit less than a half of the border between the united states and mexico. in some parts of the border, border patrol's response time is measured in hours today. if it is measured in hours today, a wall is not a physical barrier. we have to have these smart solutions. the point on drugs, roughly, a conservative estimate, $66 billion of illegal drugs are being sold in the united states of america. most of that is coming through our ports of entry. senator kaine mentioned this earlier and a lot coming through the post offices and need tools to address those. >> congressman, given what you just said and saying since you've been on this morning, last night the president appealed to the fear factor will work, i assume, among a certain percentage of people.

what's the usage of intelligence gathering, given your background, and need for more police presence, for lack of a better phrase, more feet along this border rather than a wall? >> absolutely. right now, border patrol has 2,000 positions they can't fill. >> wow! >> they have retention issues. for example, if a border patrol agent is transferred from new mexico to texas in about 40% of those moves, they have to pay for their own move. that's absolutely crazy. what business does that? there's nobody else in the federal government that does that kind of thing. one example why you're seeing a difficulty having more folks. we need to work more closely with our friends in mexico. people forget mexico actually returns more central americans to their home than the united states does. we need to be working with this new administration on those

issues and drive our intelligence. going back to the coast guard if they can only interdict 25% of drugs, that means 75% come through our ports of entry. we don't know what that means. i'm a professional intelligence officer, i spent 9 1/2 years as an undercover officer in the cia. people making the drugs and moving the drugs in north and central america are hiding in a cave and we need to use all our tool kits to go after the kingpins and smugglers as well. you talk about the drug cartels making $66 billion. the u.s. intelligence budget, $61 billion. who do you think is winning that fight? every time we make a move, the narcos and traffy kantes will make a counter move.

this is a battle and we should be making a solution. those on both sides of this aisle lack trust amongst each other. they lack a granular understanding of the nuance and details of border security and immigration, getting in the way of those in the federal government getting paid for their salaries. >> after the election, a lot of us were surprised when you won and some people in your position lost. we called you a political houdini and whatever you were doing everybody else needs to do in the republican party. i hope they will listen to you. after talking to you for 10 minutes, it's obvious vows why you won. good luck to the next battle bringing democrats and republicans to this issue and

hopefully influencing the administration to start making smart investments in securing our border. thanks for being with us. >> heard in a very loud hallway. thank you. >> thank you. the congresswoman sparked outrage among republican lawmakers while using an expletive while talking about the president and impeachment. are you a little surprised she exactly shocked republicans who have been defending donald trump for the past three years? >> yeah, a little bit. what she's saying now though about her comments. "morning joe" is coming right back. " is coming right back i'm a little bit country. and i'm a little bit rock 'n' roll. i'm a little bit of memphis and nashville. with a little bit of motown in my soul. i don't know if it's good or bad.

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democratic congresswoman rashida tlaib apologized after using an expletive calling for president trump's impeachment. tlaib responded by defending her remarks saying she ran on impeaching trump.

yesterday, the michigan congresswoman was asked if she had any regrets about her comments. >> what i can tell you is i am a person that is, you know, authentically me. i'm very passionate about fighting for all of us. the use of that language was a teachable moment for me. i understand i am a member of congress and i don't want anything i do or say to distract us. that's the only thing i apologize for, is that it was a distraction. >> all right. i can relate. this does happen, especially in passionate moments. joe. when you feel strongly about something, you're having a reaction. she did appear to get caught up in pleasing the crowd. she did cause a distraction. was her apology enough, do you think? >> certainly. how many times has that happened to us? it happens, you get in front of a crowd and, you know, you've started to tell me, every time we walk out into a crowd, the

last thing you say is, you know, don't overmodulate. >> be boring. >> don't go out there and work too hard to get laughs. be yourself and don't overmodulate. i think, i was glad to hear her say that. we've had her on the show before. a very exciting story. it certainly sounds like she gets it. i know, doris, when i got to washington, i said a lot of things i regretted. eventually, you do learn to modulate a bit. there's a debate going on in the democratic party, certainly among some sectors of the progressive wing that concern me, which is don't apologize for anything. trump does it so we should do it. we even saw it on a rising star in the democratic party going on 60 minutes saying, it doesn't really matter whether i tell the truth or not, so much as it does

matter as my heart's in the right place or not. that's trump-like thinking. i just wonder whether they should listen to michelle obama and stay with michelle's advice, when they go low, we go high. campaigns are about contrast, if nothing else. >> i think the most important thing, anybody who is going to grow in office has to have the humility to acknowledge errors and learn from your mistakes. that's the only way you will become something different. when teddy roosevelt first got into the legislature, he was screaming at the democrats and made headlines and everybody loves it when somebody makes comments like that. he realized he couldn't get anything done and on top of a mountain and had to soften his rhetoric. i think the fact she came out and said she distracted, shouldn't have used that moment, she had a teachable moment. that means she will grow.

you have to grow in terms of expanding your empathy and leaderships have to be developed. the example we have from president trump, as if whenever he would ever apologize, it would be a sign of weakness. that's become too often a political mantra these days you can't apologize because you will look weak. you will look strong if you acknowledge something and shows internal confidence. i wish more could understand this is a teachable moment not only for her but young characters coming in with all their passion knowing they are setting a different tone right now and it has to be a different tone than the president is setting. i agree with you totally. >> the sentiment tlaib expressed, where she talked about impeachment using the colorful language she used is exactly what this new group in congress, this is their mandate. we need you to ride into town and politically take him out one way or another.

they feel they are representing the passion of their voters when they talk like this and use this rhetoric. >> i think it's a mistake to gobert relling into impeachment well before you looked at the mueller report and this is not a road to go down just because the passion is within your base, you have to do it because there are certain facts and we'll find out what those facts are. joe made a point a moment ago, is the democratic party going to be trumpized and become uncivil and attack at all times or a party that says, no, we know how to govern and work together. i think the country, i heard mike say this many times, it's hungering. let's calm down now and be serious. i hope the democratic party would go on that option as well. >> part of the reason for her passion and what she said and

how she said it lies in the fact of the district she represents, where, still, today, there are hundreds of school children unable to drink the drinking water in their schools in that's part of who she is. representing that anger and that frustration. >> rashida tlaib is a longtime activist. she's in a very safe democratic district. i would say she doesn't accurately represent the freshmen class that swept into washington. a lot came from trump districts and flipping swing areas. when you listen to them, some of them didn't support nancy pelosi for speaker. they say look, i'll work where the president when i can't but i will stand up to him when i can't. that was the part -- the issue was less the expletive she used but how that expletive ramped up

her comments about impeachment and that turned the situation right away from democrats attempting to reopen government, from their legislative agenda to them going after the president. it gave an opening to the president's staff to be able to stay look this president doesn't have an interest in helping you, all they're interested in taking down the president. nancy pelosi's been careful to make sure that's not the message. they're going to wait for mueller's findings. if in fact there's something there, they will, of course, take the appropriate steps. i think by and large democrats think -- make no mistake, they want president trump out of office, they just think the likeliest route is through an election, less through a process that will ultimately throw him out of office. if that's the goal, going too far down this impeachment rule is an electoral problem the president can use to run on in 2020. that's the thinking coming out here. >> very good point. coming up -- much more the

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we're working to make things simple, easy and awesome. news. nbc news has now confirmed a report that deputy attorney general rod rosenstein will leave the justice department. he will do it just as soon as william barr, president trump's nominee to be the new attorney general, is confirmed. those confirmations hearings begin next week, tuesday and wednesday. our capitol hill reporter said you can expect a six-week time line when it's all said and done that rod rosenstein will be gone from the justice department. pete williams, our senior justi justice reporter, has said this was not seen for many years.

he was the bulwark behind president trump and the mueller investigation. it's iepnteresting to see what that relationship looks like between the trump administration and mueller investigation because he's criticized the administration saying they will be mueller investigation will be fulfilled. >> rod rosenstein will be remembered well. we will see what happens and one has the hope barr will conduct himself in the way rosenstein did. >> doris? >> in the very beginning when meetings were being held from the cabinet office, particularly foreign policy guys, there was some moment of hope when trump said i want these guys to disagree with me. they're all disagreeing on climate change and russia. that's what i want. as this administration has gone

on, they're going one by one by one, fired or leaving, and he's choosing people who are loyal to him. the extraordinary thing is you have to choose people that can argue with you, the whole key to leadership, people who will question your assumptions and not your echo around. up fortunately, those echoes are all around him. and when mckinley said how can you have people like that in there, they're not loyal to you, he said i don't care what they did in the past, what i care is they're going to be loyal to their work right now. >> we need teddy roosevelt. >> we need teddy roosevelt to take on trump. >> rosenstein appointed robert mueller and has overseen the special counsel's investigation. we will see the news, what happens, rod rosenstein will leave the justice department as soon as a new attorney general is confirmed. it could be six weeks from now.

doris kerwin, walter isaacson, good to have you with us. still ahead, senators head to the white house for a third time in the hopes to reopen the government. that after president trump delivered an oval office address he reportedly thought was pointless to begin with. we will explain that ahead. head i got a leaf right away. a leaf is a hint that is connected to each person in your family tree. i learned that my ten times great grandmother is george washington's aunt. within a few days i went from knowing almost nothing to holy crow, i'm related to george washington. this is my cousin george. discover your story. start searching for free now at ancestry.com on your wild west vacation... guarantee you'll find gold but we can guarantee the best price on that thar rental cabin or any hotel, home, boat, yurt, whatever. ♪

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if i came like a stiff, you guys wouldn't be here tonight. >> well, actually, no, you wouldn't be here tonight but the fact donald trump's obsessing on a wall that's nothing more than a fantasy. as you know and as you've heard and as his own statistics show you from his own government, his justification for that wall just is based on lies. so, mika, what we need to be looking at today is what is the impact of the speech? what does it mean as we move forward? i think also what does it mean about a white house in disarray that you have a president who announced to people yesterday afternoon he didn't want to do the speech. he didn't want to go down to the border, but he went ahead and did it anyway, and in effect

holding a lot of people -- holding the government hostage or this hostage or that hostage, last night it was the tv networks held hostage for eight, nine, ten minutes for a speech that broke no new ground, said absolutely nothing, and that is going to make every network have to re-examine whether they're going to carry his next speech. >> a speech that denigrated and desecrated another important facet of the presidency, is that communication from the oval office between the president and the american people, another thing bites the dust under the trump administration, because there was no import, there was no national emergency, there was no credibility to what he was bringing to the table. it was rough. along with joe, willie and me, we had msnbc contributor mike barnicle, nbc news national political reporter heidi priscilla, msnbc legal analyst

den denny sevilla. a lot hand since the president sat down. >> it really did. i want to read you a tweet bill carter, serious question, what justification was there for an oval office address? not one thing had not been said before. networks should feel totally burned. shouldn't they come out and tell the white house that was a fraudulent request, for get asking for platform for your political posturing ever again. does bill carter make a good point? >> yeah, i think he does. you have to review now and think about the next time the president requests all of the networks shut down their hour or give him ten minutes to speak and obviously the pregame that comes with it and discussion afterwards, why? what is he doing? what exactly is the be ottive here. from his point of view, joe, we can talk about the rhetoric and substance of what he said, but strategically why? he gave a speech he could have given three years ago. he was speaking, he was preaching to the converted, he was giving a speech to a fox

news audience that was already with him on this. why a national address on this, and as you point out, an address he said "the new york times" reported he didn't even want to make yesterday. >> right. >> so you look at it and you say, okay, from the point of view of the networks, let's take a hard look an whether or not we give our time to this president again, and from the point of the view of the president, what was the point of that exercise. it felt, and this entire process by the way, felt like a colossal waste of time so he can deliver on a chant he began three years ago at some of these rallies. the government is tied up was of it, we're tied up because of it, the american people are tired up because of it, and it's also about nothing. >> it is. it remains a "seinfeld" shutdown, all about nothing. mike barnicle, again, his heart wasn't even in it last night. he's not really good in that medium. as we've all said before, can he do things in front of a crowd

that very computer politicians can ever do. but, again, most of the people that look at this were asking the same thing, why was he there, and why did his white house staff allow him to waste one of the most powerful tools in any president's political arsenal? here's jonathan martin asking last night what is the strategy behind asking for ten minutes from the networks just to do a steven miller jag with no bigger plan? i guess those final words is what everybody when they start to lose their head, for good reason about the trump presidency, need to understand about this man, need to understand about this presidency, there is no bigger plan. it is day trading personified in politics. >> joe, i mean, that was so clear last night. this is a speech that he's given

multiple times in the past, as willie just alluded to, from his primary campaigns, to the republican convention in cleveland to nearly every day -- the wall, the wall, the wall. but it raises the question, an important one for the presidency and for the citizens of this country, the television coverage of that speech last night, what happens when there is a real crisis, when there is a real emergency. does he take to the airwaves? do we give him the airwaves? do we believe him? that's a real question that's going to have to be answered. the president continually refers to -- gets right up to the edge of this as a national emergency. well, there is a national emergency, i would submit, and we saw it last night. it's him. >> you know, mika, it's the same question we ask about kirstjen nielsen and department of homeland security. she's out lying about the crisis

on the southern border of epic proportions. she's twisted facts around. what happens when we have a real national emergency? i think most americans aren't going to take her at her word because she's been lying so much for this president over the past few months. i want to go back now to something willie said, mika, and that is this was an address that he could have delivered on fox news primetime. and he would have reached his same audience. he would have converted the same number of people, which is zero, because if they were watching him when fox news in primetime were on, chances were very good they would already be on his side. but last night he converted no one. last night he made himself look even more inept. last night he made himself look even more lost, and there's a new reuters poll out today saying more americans are blaming donald trump for the shutdown, and less americans support what he's doing. mean while, republicans are just

getting slaughtered in swing districts and slaughtered in special elections across america. last night we had a race in virginia where, you know, eight years ago republicans were keeping it within the margin of error and now they're losing by 35, 39 points. >> to everything you're saying, you have to wonder what is happening in the cabinet and with his staff? i just got the big question mark to me because people a lot smarter than me, steve schmidt, mitt romney, just to name a few, i think it's fair to say they think he's unfit to lead. and this exercise where everybody, networks, the democrats, everybody is acting as if he's fit and taking part in this colossal waste of time, which would be this presidency, instead of looking at it and saying thp person is n saying this person is not fit to lead and acting on that fact. i'm not sure why it's happening. people smarter than me say we're here, and yet we still have

situations like last night. the president took his message to a forum he had never used before last night. but yet "the new york times" reports privately trump dismissed his own new strategy as pointless. in an off-the-record lunch in an after-hours address he made clear in blunt terms he was not inclined to give the speech or go to texas but was talked into it by his advisers, briefed during the discussion, who was asked not to be identified sharing details. quote, it's not going to change a damn thing, but i'm still doing it, mr. trump said, of the trip to the border. including to one of the people in the room. the border trip was just a photo opportunity. but he added gesturing at his communication aides, bill shine, sarah huckabee sanders and bill

con owe w conaway say it's worth it. >> the reason they say it's worth it is more republicans are getting antsy. mitch mcconnell is not coming out here fighting and defending donald trump's strategy and other republicans are remaining quiet. but "the new york times" is reporting you have other republicans, it's not just susan collins anymore that's concerned, corey guarder out of colorado, now you have lisa murkowski and shelly moore caputo of west virginia talking about we need to reopen the government. james langford last night after mildly saluting the president about his speech about border security, said we need to reopen the government. so you've got republicans, moderates, conservatives from maine, from oklahoma to colorado, they're saying the same thing. so i got the sense last night actually his audience was really

nobody more than those senate republicans. >> i spoke with top democratic aides last night, joe, and they were surprised that what the president did among many other things, but most importantly to strengthen their hand was he reframed this whole debate around a humanitarian crisis, which is what they've been saying all along, this is not a border security crisis that merits a wall, it's a humanitarian crisis and that they have already in all of these spending bills and previous battles that they have, allocated money towards that humanitarian crisis. and if anything, what's going to happen now is what you saw last night, which is additional republican defections. pelosi's strategy in putting these individual spending bills out is to do exactly that. to bring so much pressure to bear on mcconnell that he will be forced to bring up that same legislation that they passed before and move it along. so basically the democrats think the question now is what is the

off-ramp for this president? that is the word they used to me last night. what is the face-saving measure that's going to allow him to cave? in previous battles over shutdowns, the solution has been some kind of temporary stopgap spending bill to allow all sides to negotiate on the issue, whatever it is their fighting over, whether it's obamacare, spending cuts. we don't see that happening. we don't even see the germs of that happening in this debate but those republican defections will continue, joe. that is the word i'm getting from capitol hill. the humanitarian crisis now is not only at our southern border, it's going to be what's happening here domestically when you have millions of children, elderly people, potentially losing their nutritional assistance. you're seeing these stories coming out about now, for instance, little children who are on fda experimental drugs not able to get their phone calls returned because the fda

is shuttered. that will be a crisis within our borders. still ahead, paul manafort's lawyers say he's suffering from depression and anxiety. but that doesn't explain why he was apparently sharing trump's poll numbers and content with the russian reporters. >> maybe that was the gout. >> those details next on "morning joe." i hear it in the background and she's watching too, saying [indistinct conversation] [friend] i've never seen that before. ♪ ♪ i have... ♪ i have... but in my mind i'm still 35.

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i am a techie dad.n. i believe the best technology should feel effortless. like magic. at comcast, it's my job to develop, apps and tools that simplify your experience. my name is mike, i'm in product development at comcast. we're working to make things simple, easy and awesome. shedding new light on former campaign chairman paul manafort. according to papers filed yesterday, robert mueller has accused manafort of sharing campaign data to an associate tied to russian intelligence. the accusations were accidentally disclosed in a poorly redacted section of

papers, filed by manafort's defense attorneys. the documents also accidently revealed that manafort may have discussed a ukraine peace plan with kliminik on more than one occasion. manafort's lawyers argue he never intentionally misled federal investigators. instead they blamed a faulty memory, last of access to his own records and claim manufacturemanafort's suffering from severe gout, depression and anxiety. as pointed out, it indicates a pathway by which the russians could have had access to trump campaign data. >> which, of course, danny, the import of that is that could lead us to what many people suspected, perhaps the trump campaign, there was a conspiracy to give the russian government information. so the gru could target certain

areas and swing states that could make a difference in the election. >> in a number of different theories of connection between the campaign and russia, this fulfills the theory that manafort may have been offering for sale access to the campaign in exchange for debt forgiveness or whatever else he needed on his end. but it certainly suggests a quid pro quo of some kind, any kind of communication that suggested that it might give the russians some advantage or valuable information. information is currency in this world of elections and campaign success and everything else. so you have a question like this between the russians strongly suggests one of the theories of linability in the manafort case. >> a preevious question, how dos

this happen? how does he present a document that was unredacted? >> i can say this is a problem the last couple of years, as documents are ee-filed, never become paper, they are created and live entirely from microsoft word to pdf. lawyers like me live in the world of pdf. in the old days, lawyers would physically take a black pen and redact by hand or use black tape. that's a very effective system. because once you scan it, there's no text to read at all on the document. nowadays when you publish a pdf, the system has a re-dakotas feature but it's cumbersome, it's hard to find, it's multi click, it's irritating. an easier, lazier fix is using the highlight feature, set it to black and it looks exactly like the re-dakotare-dakotas but them with that is under the highlight is the text and you have

redacted nothing. that's what i suspect hand with the pdf documents. it's a product of some old-school lawyers are struggling to catch up and learn how pdfs work and how to use them. this may have been a fixed went unnoticed by the team and big gap. >> deep in the clerical weave. >> i know. >> it's great. pdfs. >> it's fun for me. >> other people maybe not. >> you're eating this up. the question now, did donald trump know about any of this activity? know any of the evidence that we've seen tieing it back to president trump? the question bob mueller perhaps is working on, nothing we've seen publicly in the indictments or plea deals or convictions have proven president trump directed any of this. so we deny evidence that the president was behind this, or does this look like paul manafort working as a flee lancer? >> there are a couple of inferences. one is president trump, there were no secrets to the candidate in his business or in his candidacy that he directed

everything. but here's the concern for the manafort case as it emerged in just the last few weeks. the best-case scenario is manafort may have been selling access to the russians in exchange for debt forgiveness or whatever other quid pro quo. that's the base-case scenario for the president that he willingly brought in somebody who was doing this, even if it was without his knowledge. but the worse-case scenario is he knew about it on any level whatsoever, or he should have known about it and basically stuck his head in the stand. that is a very bad situation for the president. at minimum, as a floor, i think we can safely say there's a strong probability that manafort at least was offering this kind of access, with or without the knowledge of the them-candidate. >> coming up on "morning joe," he's warning of a national emergency. but hasn't officially declared one. he delivered an oval office address but didn't say anything new. what was the president's next

move to end the government shutdown? jonathan swan of axios joins the conversation. "morning joe" is back in a moment. searching for a way to help stop your cold sore? only abreva can get rid of it in... ...as little as 2 1/2 days when used at the first sign. abreva starts to work immediately to block the virus and protect healthy cells. abreva acts on it. so you can too.

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joining us now national political reporter for axios,

jonathan swan. good morning, good to see you. we've been talking already a little today about whether or not the president might declare a national emergency. obviously didn't do it last night but he left that option on the table. you have new reporting from the white house about the possibility he may do it. >> so i spent yesterday talking to administration officials about what the president was going to do. a few impressions emerged. number one, there was a lot of confusion throughout the day even fairly late, leading up to this speech. and you saw that with mike pompeo, secretary of state, saying expect a lot of news. i was hearing privately of people who saw early drafts, expect news. this could just be teasing and sort of hype, et cetera. so put that aside. but the very strong impression i've had from people involved in the process or had been briefed at the highest level is that the most likely ultimate option is the emergency declaration

because it does give the president the most latitude and there's access to, i think it's around $13 billion at the pentagon sitting in this pot for construction. but there is a really strong backlash that the white house is aware of within the conservative legal community. people who are close to the counsel's office really don't like this idea. i think it's sort of summed up in a tweet by -- i think it was eric erickson, conservative commentator, who said, and a staunch conservative saying imagine the day you have a progressive president saying climate change is an emergency and the result of that. so there is an unease in the world for declaring a national emergency for this purpose. the only other thing i would add is omb is exploring other options, seriously contemplating and vetting other options.

apparently apparently lr other ways to tap money from the prog. >> i want to look back and underlied your origina underlied underlie your first statement. democrats offered him $1.7 billion, he wants $5 billion. he may declare an national emergency is what you're saying? >> of course, it's an option. i don't know what he's going to do, nor does anybody. but there's a strong sense i have from talking to people involved and who are briefed on it, the most likely option at this point is he ultimately does declare a national emergency. there is no way forward on the hill. you saw it last night with the speeches. you think there's going to be some beautiful moment of coming together today with congressional leaders? i don't see it. >> no, democrats have no incentive to judge as we have seen last night from chuck schumer and nancy pelosi. let me ask you about the poll

you're reporting on from axios, for the first time a majority of democrats call themselves liberal, 51%. what is the significance of that, and what's behind the trend? >> it's really striking. if you compare that to 1992 when bill clinton was first elected, that number was 25%. and 25% of democrats self-described themselves as conservatives. so you are seeing a leftward shift of the party and it's creating an environment where it's hard to say chicken and egg, which is causing which. is it quite compelling, young class of democrats that are shifting public opinion? or are they taking advantage of what's already -- there has been a gradual drift. so i think it's a bit of both. but you're oftening the way now for the great new deal, for medical for all, for a new conversation about taxes, which we haven't had in this country for quite some time. the position in which alexandria oscasio-cortez discussed on cnn

about taxing 70%-plus marginal rates on people who earn more than $10 million. this conversation has been largely referred to the fringes of political dialogue. it's now getting closer to the mainstream in the democratic party. >> jonathan swan, thank you. coming up on "morning joe," president trump's oval office address was decidedly lower energy than his typical stump speech. >> he was low energy don. >> uh-huh. how will the base react to his call last night to, quote, rise above partisan politics? we'll ask one pennsylvania republican who just left congress. hey... saved you a seat.

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by all of the presidents that preceded me, and they all know it. some of them have told me that we should have done it. >> which former presidents told

president trump as he said that he should have built the wall? all of their representatives denied that, that was the case? >> well, i know the president has said that was his impression from previous administrations, previous presidents. i know i have seen clips of previous presidents talking about the importance of border security, the importance of addressing the issue of illegal immigration. >> that's different from telling the president though, right? >> look, honestly, the american people want us to address this issue. >> what issue? which one? mike barnicle, what's going on with vice president mike pence? help me out here? >> that was pretty definitive mika. clearly he answered the question we all had in mind, donald trump was tea uking to james k. polk in his dreams or president of home depot at some point at best? we don't know. but this particular another fallacy, lie, call it what you

will coming from the president of the united states and leaving it to mike pence to clean up the mess, something mike pence was clearly unable to do. >> yep. okay. it's hard to watch. joining us now, founding president of vote latino and msnbc contributor ma reesa teresa kumar, former republican congressman ryan costello of pennsylvania is with us and former chief of staff, dccc and former director of strategic communications for hillary clinton's presidential campaign, adrienne elrod is with us. she's the president of elrod statties. and kasie hunt is back with us as well. maria, well, i will start with the op-ed from "the new york times." it's entitled "the crisis in the oval office." "the new york times" editorial board writes this morning the president has exaggerated threats but ignored the hazards his policies created. and they write in this part --

how fitting is it president trump's first oval address was to stir up the american public about a crisis largely of his open making. while president trump proved a wily campaigner and political street fighter, as president he's been painfully out of his element. two years in, he remains ill-suited to the complicated, thankless, often grinding work of leading the nation. he prefers grandstanding to negotiating and he continues to have trouble with the whole concept of checks and balances. while the republican base remains enamored of him, most of the electorate has grown weary of his outrages and antics, which is why with his wall on the line, mr. trump so desperately needs to convince the american people that they are facing an acute crisis. maybe even a bona fide emergency. shutting down the government is only the most recent effort at getting what he wants by traumatizing the nation he has sworn to serve. maria teresa kumar, i want to

start with you just on a very basic human level, what was it like watching the president talk last night about this crisis? >> it was hard to watch because that oval office should be used for real emergencies. it was -- presidents have used it when they had to declare a state of emergency after 9/11, when we had to talk about hurricane katrina and human lives were on the line and our national security were at threat. it's also -- the oval office has been used to uplift americans and remind us what makes us strong. yesterday the president went toe to toe with the basic dna of our aamericanness, the idea we're kind, generous, immigrant words and the dna is based on these factors. sadly, precisely what he was talking about is precisely what he has created. the emergency on the border is a humanitarian crisis largely to his making. in fact, mika, he shuttered a program of 2014 as a result of

the crisis of the border when we had 70,000 people trying to rush in because of the instability of central america, he created a program called central american minors. folks -- minors from guatemala, el salvador, honduras did not have to make a treacherous journey as they did yesterday but could present themselves at u.s. embassies and seek asylum. president trump last year shuttered that program in january. four months later, we see 2,000 young people coming in with mothers, trying to seek shelter. he's shuttered the course of entry. he tear gases innocent people and forces them to find other ways so they can seek asylum. let's not forget, asylum is completely legal. the moment you come to our borders, you're allowed to see asylum. the judge told him you cannot prevent asylum seekers, so what did he do? closed the border. we already had two young deaths

and no accountability. he should have used his platform to say how he would address the problems at homeland security and get american workers 800,000 federal workers back to work. >> ryan costello, you've been out of office for only what, six days now, after serving a couple of terms as a republican out of pennsylvania. help me understand how this ends, how this come to an end, as somebody who just left that body. president trump, we should remind everybody, about a month ago was reported to walk way from the wall and when he went public he heard from his base, rush limbaugh and sean hannity saying, hey, that was the central promise of your campaign and now the president saying will he not move off his demand for $5.7 billion wall at the border. what breaks this fever? how do we get past it? >> he's really backed himself into a corner. i think republican members of congress at this point in time are growing wearily between the juxtaposition between a wall and keeping the government closed. and i think democrats have

become very emboldened by this. i do not see a sin nar jcenario the president said, you know what, i give up on the wall. my best guess is the shutdown continues unless the president decides to go the emergency declaration route. because i don't think democrats will concede anything here. i don't think that they have to. i think to quote an old aerosmith song, it's kind of the same old song and dance at this point. in the process i don't think the president enhanced his position or argument with the american public that somehow it's worth shutting down the government for a border wall. >> so a new poll finds, adrienne, president trump is losing ground with the american punl ov public with the shutdown. a new poll saying who is to blame for the shutdown and now 51% say the president is to blame. that's up four points from the shutdown's first week fwho, whi

those saying democrats dropped by a point. let's take a step back. the president of the united states is willing to keep the government shut down because he wants to deliver on a chant he led at the rallies in 2015, 2016, while running against your candidate, hillary clinton. to ryan's point, the only way out he sees is a national emergency. if you're a democrat, you have no incentive to give any ground on this. what do you see as the way out of it? >> you don't. i think you bring up a smart point, this is on trump the majority of the american people are seeing president trump is responsible for this. they're giving him the blame. democrats to that point have little incentive to cooperate on this, especially when we know $5.7 billion for a concrete wall is absurd. it's not going to cause -- it's not going to help anything. it's going to be ineffective. at the same time, however, i do think democrats potentially run the risk of not appearing that they care about border security. they do. and leader pelosi and leader schumer have made it very clear we will compromise on some sort

of border security funding because we do have not necessarily a national security crisis at the border but we have a humanitarian crisis as leader pelosi said last night. so democrats need to make sure that they don't look like they do not care about border security. >> yeah, and adrienne, i think this is one of those moments where sometimes the situation is so ridiculous that, you know, the democrats could hold the power in their and hands to hold trump accountable for what he's saying and not give him the money, irresponsible money, to spend on this wall. but what are the risks and pitfalls as they move forward and how they handled the situation? >> we do know that, mika, the most important issue, the wedge issue that really drives trump's space is immigration and the wall. but at the same time the majority of american people do want some sort of national security, or they do see the border as some sort of national security risk in terms of what is happening now at the border. they want some sort of border

security funding, immigration reform bill passed. so i think democrats need to show that, look, in good faith we're not going to pass this $5.7 billion funding for the wall but at the same time we want to make sure we don't look like we're not addressing this. and democrats do a slightly better job of coming forward saying here's the legislation we're putting forward. that makes it clear we will address border security. we will put into place measures like more drones and stronger border -- more border patrol agents at the border but not necessarily building this concrete wall >> can i pick up on that real quick? >> sure. >> i agree there. i think that if the offer here is $5.7 billion or some additional colors for border security, that fifths democrats the protection that they care about it and then the president signs it into law and simply call it's a wall after the fact. there's no -- let's make no mistake, whatever gets signed

ultimately, the president will say he got his wall. that is where i think if the democrats soften and republicans soften on the terminology here, everybody gets what they want, at least to those who they're messaging to. it's clear the president is messaging to his base. >> my question here too, congressman, is at what point does the white house start to have a real problem with republicans in congress? it's pretty clear to me from talking to some of your former colleagues throughout the day yesterday increasingly republicans are watching this unfold and saying what is the exit strategy here? you're putting us in a really tough spot. at the same time there's not enough of them to override a presidential veto. how does the white house balance that, and how big of a problem do you think that is for them? >> i think it already is a problem. i think they're already having to figure out how to balance it. this week, these are not going to be good votes as a republican member of congress to go and vote against a clean

appropriations bill to open the irs, or to open up the fda so that they can accelerate -- >> these were written in a bipartisan way. >> right. and frankly, you send that bill over to the senate and the senate says we're not going to take it up, even though we already voted for it in the past because the senate is not going to sign it. the president's political operation understands that this is not what you want your republican members of congress to have to vote against. and so to your point, kasie, i think we're already there. i think it's probably still maybe a little bit under the blanket, but there's a lot of movement there and people i think are ready to bust out. i think you're already hearing that from some republican senators, and i'm sure you're going have at least a dozen, maybe a couple dozen, republican members vote for it on the floor because why not? it's going to pass. why not put up a vote to open up the government? >> maria, there's a lot of talk here this morning and everywhere every day about the wall, the

border, republicans, democrats, poem solutions, poem exception of the government shutdown. but what's it like on the ground? what's the mood on the ground where we literally have a series of refugee camps from the state of texas through san diego, hundreds, thousand of people at least in these refugee camps. >> so i was in el paso last week right and every single front page article was how these individuals are getting released from the tension but haphazardly. as you can imagine on christmas day, you had to have close to 500 individuals in a matter of three days dropped off at a bus depot without a ticket with just the clothes on their back without a place to go. you have about 22 shelters just alone in el paso working on text messaging, trying to figure out how to play these mothers and children in safety until they can actually figure out what's

the next step. this is where you recognize that this is a bit of a farce when it comes from the administration, michael, because if these individuals were truly individuals that we should be afraid of, they -- they would not be released so quickly. they would not -- some have ankle bracelets, some don't have ankle bracelets because the department of homeland security runs out of ankle bracelets. so they release them. there's no way to track them. these are just notes on the border that are recognize if these individuals are truly dangerous to the american people, why are they being released in the middle of christmas without any other connection to the government after that. it's questionable. >> certainly not a crisis. maria teresa kumar, thank you so much, ryan costello, thank you, as well. up next, a high ranking military official leads the administration. will a high ranking justice department official is on the way out. we'll have all that breaking

news from overnight when "morning joe" comes right back. "morning joe" comes right back at fidelity, we make sure you have a clear plan to cover the essentials in retirement, as well as all the things you want to do. because when you're ready for what comes next, the only direction is forward.

has been excellent. they really appreciate the military family and it really shows. with all that usaa offers why go with anybody else? we know their rates are good, we know that they're always going to take care of us. it was an instant savings and i should have changed a long time ago. it was funny because when we would call another insurance company, hey would say "oh we can't beat usaa" we're the webber family. we're the tenney's we're the hayles, and we're usaa members for life. ♪ get your usaa auto insurance quote today. leader has left the trump administration. retired four star marine general and former head of the u.s. central command anthony zinni resigned yesterday as special envoy to help resolve disputes in the persian gulf, telling nbc news, "i just felt my services

were no longer needed." zinni was brought to the trump administration under then secretary rex tillerson and then defense secretary jim mattis in 2017 to help resolve the gulf crisis was qatar. that crisis remains unresolved and zinni tells nbc news "the leaders in the region were not interested in our offer to mediate the qatar dispute after multiple visits." the decorated general's resignation comes shortly after the departure of two other high ranking military generals from the trump administration, jim mattis and john kelly. zinni tells "the washington post" that he was "disappointed in what happened to jim mattis" adding "it's not a good time for generals anyway." and another departure, nbc news has learned that deputy attorney general rod rosenstein will leave his position shortly after president's trump nominee for attorney general william barr is

confirmed. rosenstein, who appointed bob mueller and oversaw the special counsel investigation, has come under fire from the president. one time calling him "totally conflicted." an administration official tells nbc news that rosenstein is not being forces out by the president. instead, the deputy attorney general halliburton long planned to be out two years. it seems to me, mike barnicle, that we're in a situation where a lot of quality is headed out of washington. >> no doubt, mika. and general zinni, tony zinni leaving the administration, very few people know more about the middle east and are as well versed in the politics and personal politics of the middle east than general zinni is. speaks multiple languages involved in the middle east. so it's a loss. rod rosenstein, of course, that's going to be a tremendous loss. is he one of the few people leaving the administration with his reputation still intact.

>> yikes. there's a lot of vacancies. there were a lot of vacancies already. now these departures. kasie hunt? >> rod rosenstein' departure, i'm interested to see how democrats react to this. clearly, our sources at nbc are being very careful to say this is not at the president's behest. obviously, having rosenstein continue in his job has been very important to people concerned about the russia probe in the context of having whitaker as the acting attorney general because he's made so many public comments. i haven't picked up the same level of concern about the potential incoming attorney general, william barr, former bush administration official. but i think it's going to be interesting today to take the temperature on that and see kind of what the perception is. with this new democratic house, i think trying to protect robert mueller is going to be at the top of the agenda once we clear this shutdown. >> and that's the question as we move forward. we have so many newcomers to

capitol hill, a record number of women. there's a lot of opportunity in front of them. adrian, i wanted to talk to you about that. especially certain situations, bumps along the road they're going to hit along the way. we had this congresswoman tlaib who used explative to describe president trump that got a lot of traffic and response. a lot of people were defending her. here is now her answer to the question whether or not she regrets what she said. take a listen. >> what i can tell you is i am a person that is authentically me. i'm very passionate about fighting for all of us. and the use of that language, you know, was a teachable moment for me. i understand i am a member of congress and i don't want anything that i do or say to distract us. that's the only thing i apologize for is that it was a distraction. >> adrian, these newcomers will

make mistakes and will throughout their lives. i know that from personal experience. what's your advice as they get on the national stage in situations like this> >> >> well, you know, the democrats have a very diverse caucus, as you know, and there's a lot of passion and energy that drove a lot of these women to run for office and get elected to office. at the same time, you've got remember you are now a member of congress. the words that you say reflects the entire democratic caucus and your colleagues. so you know, the passion can be reflected in the legislation that you support and put forward. and the way you vote. but i think when you make -- when you use rhetoric that can drives the news and drives the agenda, i mean, as you know, this story, her comments literally drove the news cycle for a couple of days. that's not something democrats wanted. i think she learned a lesson and her passion can be shown through her voting and as actions as a

member of congress. >> final thoughts, willie? >> i think the shutdown continues to be a waste of time. we've heard several people this morning say the only way out may be the president declaring a national emergency from jonathan swan at axios and a former republican congressman saying he views that as the own way out right now, too. >> that does it for us right now. stephanie rhule picks up coverage right now. >> hi there, i'm stephanie rhule. this morning, breaking news. deputy attorney general rod rosen tine reported lid set to leave the justice department in the next few weeks. and how about the primetime plea, president trump and the democrats went on tv and beak repeated their stances on immigration. >> this is a humanitarian crisis, a crisis of the heart and a crisis of the soul. >> president trump must stop holding the american people