nadel nasdaq. i'll see you tomorrow. thank you for watching. deadline white house with nicole wallace starts right now. hi, everyone, it's 4:00 in new york. before donald trump was at war with his own justice department and fbi over the russia investigation, he was engaged in a feud with his own intelligence agencies over their assessment of russia's role in the 2016 election. today, he has returned to that battle with a broadside against his intelligence community whom he called, quote, extremely passive and naive in an early morning tweet. that was over testimony given yesterday on the threat posed by iran. trump also suggested, without a hint of irony, "perhaps intelligence should go back to school." the intelligence community dealing with unprecedented challenges in the trump era, a president who disregards their expertise on the topics of russian meddling, the saudi crown prince, north korea, and now iran. also, a president who we learned

earlier this month is the subject of a counterintelligence investigation over concerns that he might be working for russia. the intel community also now in the center of another brewing scandal over trump's son-in-law, jared kushner, and his access to classified information. the president's swipe at his intel community came after headlines like these on yesterday's hearing. "intelligence chiefs contradict trump." trump and his intel chiefs are worlds apart and intelligence chief's de facto message to allies around the world, you're right, trump is wrong. here's some of that testimony followed by the president's vastly different public statements on the topics of isis, russia, and north korea. >> isis is intent on resurging and still commands thousands of fighters in iraq and syria. >> and we have won against isis. we've beaten them and we've beaten them badly. >> not only have the russians continued to do it in 2018, but we've seen indication that they're continuing to adapt

their model. >> he just said it's not russia. i will say this, i don't see any reason why it would be. >> north korea will seek to retain its wmd capabilities and is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capabilities. >> chairman kim, we have a great chemistry, and we're well on our way. you know, we signed an agreement. it said we will begin the immediate denuclearization. >> i'm sure they saw that too. you'll remember donald trump has retaliated against former intel officials, stripping the security clearance of former cia director john brennan but that didn't stop former national security officials from speaking out about the latest break from four star general barry mccaffrey. incredible, willful blindness by trump to looming threats to u.s. national security. he has denied the evidence of our own intelligence officials. he has concealed from his own cabinet and congress private dealings with putin and kim jong-un. we are in trouble.

that's where we start with some of our favorite reporters and friends. jonathan, associated press white house reporter, and msnbc political analyst. matthew mill e a former chief spokesman at the department of justice, journalist alicia me n menendez and in washington, a former cia officer, john siefrt. i talked to former intelligence officials who from the moment they walked into trump tower and briefed the president-elect about the intelligence community's assessment on russia's role of meddling in the 2016 election, through the khashoggi murder and slaughter, through the constant, bizarre, now suspicious interactions with vladimir putin and others, have had their eye on what is really unprecedented hostility from the intelligence community's most important, most powerful client

and customer, the president. >> that's right. i mean, the disconnect here between the president of the united states and what is the reality on the ground is something we haven't seen in a long time. and these sort of attacks at the intelligence community make it really hard for the leaders of those agencies, you know, who represent large workforces around the world and they have to maintain credibility with that workforce. you know, donald trump has never led a large organization and had to have -- develop trust and credibility with people who work for him and he's not making their job any easier. >> you know, matt, you reminded us of one of the most, really, heinous tweets that this president has sent and he sends a lot of ugly things. it was comparing the intelligence community to nazis. >> yeah, look, one of the things about this attack. >> there it is. i'm sorry. anyone in their car, the president tweeted this, intelligence agencies should never have allowed this fake news to leak into the public. one last shot at me. are we living in nazi germany? i believe that was about the dossier back in january or february or 2017. >> yeah, that's right. one of the things about this

attack on the intelligence communities today is this is a feature of donald trump, has been going all the way back to the transition. i think the only thing that's changed in his attack today is he has broadened his disagreement. he has been disagreeing with them on russia publicly, privately ever since the transition, ever since he was first briefed on russian interference but now he disagrees with them not just on russia but on north korea, isis, iran, north korea, and i think the reason he always disagrees with them is one of the central tenets of his political strategy has always been to create this alternative reality, this fantasy world that's not based on reality. that's not based on truth. and any independent arbiter of the truth, whether it be the intelligence community or law enforcement or the media has to be constantly attacked and delegitimized every time they present real facts to him or to the american public. >> general hayden, who was on this network, i think, on this very day, either on the day of or the day before the intel chiefs flew up to new york to brief then president-elect trump, made that point.

i mean, the intelligence community seems to have seen this coming. i pulled that up. let's watch it. >> frankly, i've been stunned by the degree to which mr. trump has been willing to push back on what the intelligence community believes to be a high confidence judgment and nicole, he doesn't seem to be pushing back because he's got different data or new data. he seems to be pushing back because it contradicts what he would like the narrative to be, and that's a very unusual place for american intelligence to be with its first client. >> he's completely correct. i mean, this is how the president operates. in some ways, it's the most simple answer is the correct one and he operates in a different reality. it's about public relations. and i think that in terms of the russia -- questioning the intelligence conclusions there, a lot of that was the fear of being considered an illegitimate president, that if russia interfered with the 2016 election, that means he didn't win fair and square, we know how much the fact that his popular

vote defeat sort of rankles him and this is a piece to that, even setting aside, perhaps, whatever other ties he or people around him may have to russia. and this as well. he's trying to paint for the american people this image of a successful presidency and in this regard, in the foreign policy realm. he is saying that isis is crushed and defeated, that north korea has been neutralized and we're well on our way to a deal to disarm them, the same about iran and none of those things line up with the facts, and the intelligence community deals with facts and that's what they're presenting here and that is what upsets him so much where he takes because they're painting a different picture, a far less sunny picture of america and the world than donald trump wants the voters to believe so therefore, he takes the incredibly unusual step, at this point, he's done it so many times, there's a risk of becoming numb to it. but contradicting publicly the conclusions of your own intelligence services? >> bizarre. >> it can't be oversaid how, just, unprecedented that is and how disturbing that is. >> there are certain things where the numbness can set in.

this seems like we become numb to this at our own peril. peter baker has reporting in "the new york times" that around this area of really bizarre, dangerous foreign policy, the president who's under investigation by his own law enforcement agencies for possibly being a russian asset now has some republicans breaking with him. peter baker writes today that a growing chorus of republican critics for trump's foreign policy are emerging. more than two years into his administration, the disconnect between president trump and the republican establishment on foreign policy has rarely been as stark. in recent days, the president's own advisers and allies have been pushing back, challenging his view of the world and his prescription for its problems, the growing discontent among republican national security hawks was most evident on tuesday when senator mcconnell effectively rebuked the president introducing a measure. i'm sorry, maybe they shouldn't have covered for him when he

talked act grabbing women in the bleeps and all these horrible things and now they've got him really endangering national security and they want to pass a bill. >> you read the report, for those of us who actually read the report, and it becomes with such stark and sobering terms about the relationship between china and russia, about the fact that this is the most aligned they've been since the 1950s, about the fact that they are working together towards global disorder. and again, in those opening pages, it says, not only is this happening, but our allies are abandoning us over our changes to trade and international security so we have the greatest threats we've ever had and we are the most alone we've ever been. to your question about republicans, i think it's telling that in the house, you have them passing a piece of legislation that would prevent the president from pulling out of nato without congressional approval. i hear from sources that there will be -- there's already been similar legislation proposed on the senate side, and that they're very certain they will be able to vote on that legislation. whether or not they can get enough republican votes is the

question. >> john, i remember part of the ten-day blur that was anthony scaramucci's tenure at white house communications director, there was something laced with bad words that we can't say on tv about people who thought they were there to protect the country from donald trump. is the intelligence community, do they look to you like they're asking congress to protect them and the country from donald trump? >> no, the intelligence community, you know, has been wrong in the past, but one thing i can say for sure is these professionals are doing their best to provide the best intelligence they can to these policymakers. you know, if policymakers want to go in a different direction, that's fine, they'll continue to work as hard as they possibly can for the president but what's weird here is this constant disconnect and these constant attacks, it's almost like he's a cult leader and i'm sure cult leaders are mesmerizing to their followers, but at some point, reality catches up here, and the intelligence community is going to keep providing the information that they have and they have no other choice, otherwise, they lose credibility

with their own workforce and it's better to quit, frankly, than to embarrass yourself publicly and lose your legacy. >> do you think gina haspel did herself any damage to people inside the intelligence community who spoke out about the president's, you know, seemingly bizarre but maybe not when we get to the end of the story, comments really taking up the line that the saudi royal court was putting out over the line from the cia. i mean, have there been flash points that inside the cia or the intelligence community have rankled the workforce you talk about? >> well, it's got to be hard because she, again, she represents that workforce and she has to be credible to them and so she has to be seen to be providing, you know, truth to power. that's what it's all about for the organization. doesn't mean they're not -- they're right all the time, but she can't be seen to be skewing intelligence, making intelligence political, and so she's in a tough position. if the president continues to push back against her, it weakens her with her workforce. >> and the president has dismantled the former leadership

of the fbi because he didn't like what they did. everyone is gone, director comey, deputy director mccabe, general counsel baker is gone. he has targeted members of the intelligence community. here he is in an interview with cbs, targeting them by name. >> do you think any intelligence agencies, u.s. intelligence agencies, are out to get you? >> well, certainly in the past it's been terrible. you look at brennan, you look at clapper, you look at hayden, you look at comey, you look at mccabe, you look at strzok and his lover, lisa page. you look at other people in the fbi that have been fired that are no longer there, certainly, i can't have any confidence in the past, but i can have a lot of confidence in the present and the future, because it's getting to be now where we're putting our people in, but in the past, no. >> so, his people are in, and this morning, he tweeted at his people that they were passive,

naive, and that they needed to go back to school. >> what's interesting also is notice his description, his complaints, it's not evidence based, it's not they were wrong on this and wrong on this and i had to remove them. it's describing a reality show. well, this person had a lover and this person didn't like me and this person sent a mean tweet. that's his description. he doesn't have an analytical reason for having a problem. what concerns me about all this is yes, we've become somewhat numb to the president's bad behavior but given last year's election and given what's happening now with mcconnell and rebuking him, it is a dis disintegration of the unit we need. you've got the national security state basically saying, trust us, we're sending secret letters to keep things safe to "the new york times" or whatever but you don't know who it is. no one is working together. i would almost rather have all our leadership working together to do the wrong thing than to have four different sections of government who have absolutely no unity whatsoever. >> something you hear from a lot of people in government, democrats and republicans, is

that nothing bad has happened yet. but what you're describing is really almost like what steve bannon articulated which was dismantling the state. >> yes. >> they have had some success, unfortunately, in doing that, and you know, what's your sense of what would happen if we had a real crisis? >> so, the problem is, and i hear a lot of people say, like, if a real crisis happens, this will rally people around trump. >> no, they say he'll act normal. he's never acted normal before. how do you know he'll act normal? >> he won't because this is normal for him. this behavior that's erratic and insane and i think at this point if something terrible were to happen, i say this as somebody who's getting on the flight to go to the super bowl, which is a national security event, this country will not rally around this president. they'll blame him. they'll see the government shutdown. >> that's a great point. i don't want to let that sound go, because the president named brennan, clapper, hayden, comey, mccabe, strzok, page.

at least half of them, republicans. they never attacked trump. they investigated and attacked russia for meddling in our election. it seems that we always come back to where we started, which is that he can't stand, you know, anyone messing with his mother russia. >> yeah, that's right. and a number of those people you named, strzok, page, career officials. a lot of them are appointeed. >> mccabe and hayden and brennan. >> when you see him talking about the intelligence communities, he's talking about not just the political appointees in the obama administration who started some of the russia investigation. he's talking about career appointees who have won job, to serve the country. and you know, he has this idea, you can see it in his remarks, that there is this deep state conspiracy. i guarantee you when he watched the coverage of yesterday's hearing, he was thinking, here are these same people and the deep state, they've been out to get me from the beginning, they're still out to get me, contradicting me on all these policy issues, that's not what they're doing. they're just doing their jobs, trying to protect the country.

>> and he's the one that creates the conflict between serving the country and serving the country's president. >> because he can't look at something and see that black is black and white is white, if he wants black to be white, that's what he says and to this question, i think it's relevant, this question of what would ever happen if we were in a national security emergency, it would entirely depend on who it's with. if it was one of his opponents, iran that provoked a national security emergency, he would probably follow the advice. >> he attacked all his career officials over iran this morning. >> let's say they sparked an emergency and it was in his interest to be tough with them, he would probably follow the advice of the people telling him to be tough. but if it were russia, if it were north korea, someone he's been trying to describe as our new allies, someone who he smoothed relations with, you would see the opposite. you would see a crisis where you have the government pulling in two different ways because he can't face the facts as they're presented to him by people who are charged with looking at facts. >> the power of a love letter from kim jong-un.

after the break, at day, another previously undisclosed encounter between donald trump and you guessed it, vladimir putin. also ahead, the 2020 race for president is already stirring passions on the right and the left and straight up the middle. one of the most recognizable trump critics around here joins the conversation. how democrats are increasingly breaking through with their new faces while republicans circle their broken down wagons around a historically unpopular president. president. a wealth of information. a wealth of perspective. ♪ a wealth of opportunities. that's the clarity you get from fidelity wealth management. straightforward advice, tailored recommendations, tax-efficient investing strategies, and a dedicated advisor to help you grow and protect your wealth. fidelity wealth management.

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according to press reports, trump met privately with

vladimir putin and no one in the u.s. government has the full story about what was discussed. director haspel and director coates, would this put you in a disadvantaged position in terms of understanding russia's efforts to advance its agenda against the united states? >> senator, clearly, this is a sensitive issue and it's an issue that we ought to talk about this afternoon. i look forward to discussing that in a closed session. >> a sensitive issue that keeps happening as though on auto repeat. donald trump with vladimir putin and no records or staffers allowed to listen. we know there are no detailed notes from trump's face-to-face interactions with putin at five locations over the past two years. that's according to recent reporting, and a new piece in the financial times sheds light on one of those meetings when trump sat down with the russian president at the g20 summit in november, trump had previously

cancelled their meeting that was after russia's attack on ukrainian vessels but when the two leaders did end up speaking at the summit, white house officials characterized it this way. as is typical at multilateral events, president trump and the first lady had a number of informal conversations with world leaders at the dinner last night, including president putin. from new reporting, we now know that was a lie. "the accounts of people familiar with the conversation said it appeared longer and more substantive than the white house has acknowledged. according to a russian government official's account," it's always a russian government official, "the two leaders spoke for about 15 minutes about a number of issues including the azov sea incident and the conflict in syria. they also discussed when they could have a formal meeting," the official said. john sipher, they always talk about more than the weather. they always get read out to us

as an american public and it would appear the dni and the cia director through russian media accounts and russian intermedia intermediaries, no good, i guess? >> well, i mean, nicole, tell me a time whenever you've seen president trump speak for 15 minutes about substance. >> never. i'm guessing he was getting his honey-do list for the month. i mean, never. >> the notion that he could sit and talk about the sea of azov with president putin is laughable, i think. the problem here is if, you know, policy is not a personal process. it involves the entire u.s. government, our military, our diplomats, our intelligence agencies. by doing this in private with someone like vladimir putin, you're providing him leverage to use against us in the future. >> let me ask you something. donald trump said something super weird. he defended the soviet invasion of afghanistan and everyone was scratching their heads, like, that's not on "fox & friends" or fox prime. where'd he hear that? i don't know, he doesn't read.

his friends say he doesn't read. that's not a dis. if he said five and now it would turn out six interactions with vladimir putin, do you think putin's talking to him about his take on world events? >> well, yeah, and i think, you know, even prior to him running for president, there was things that he came up with, including the birther issue, that almost look like they were russian talking points, you know, somebody's been in his head whether it's through media or something worse but we saw, for example, when he talked about how dangerous monenegro was right after montenegro joined nato, you know he heard that from putin. different people speak to him and he sort of parrots what they say and frankly when it's people from russia and our adversaries, it's dangerous. >> he can't nail an appearance at hurricane stop. he can't get that right. but he nails the soviet spin on the afghan invasion. >> yeah, he seemed familiar with the russian talking points and we've seen this time and time again, this meeting in argentina, yes, but the year before, the g20 in germany, he

had a private meeting, there was no readout afterwards. we know about later that fall, he met in vietnam briefly with putin, and most famously in helsinki where the two met for two hours and to this day -- it's one thing that the media doesn't know, the voters don't know what was discussed. members of the president's own government do not know what was discussed for two hours. not 15 minutes. two hours. and that is something that people in the intelligence community, you know, people who have deep ties in washington, into the national -- the security divisions and community are deeply concerned about as to what possibly was discussed there. and we have seen time and time again that following one of these meetings, suddenly the president comes out with some sort of surprising remark and as pointed out there in that discussion in argentina, both leaders are really anxious for yet another meeting. but there is, you know, president who is basically curtailed most of his international travel but has discussed again having some sort of meeting with vladimir putin, another summit. putin himself is eager to come to washington, to have the

recognition of a white house summit. and people around the president, even his own intelligence community and some of his closest advisers are putting up the stop sign like, sir, this is not a good idea and yet, to this point, the president is willing to delay it but not been willing to rule out happening. >> look how happy he is in the white house with russians, lavrov and kislyak. >> the optics are so confusing and any normal administration, they would be, like, listen -- >> these pictures came to us from the russian foreign ministry of an american president in the oval office. >> looking gleeful. so, in any normal administration, you would simply say, the optics of this are terrible. let's not do this. let's let this cool down. >> that's to a real friend that you want to cover up. this is a real adversary. >> yes, and then on top of that, i just keep coming back to your question, which is, how are people supposed to do their jobs? if you don't know what your boss agreed to, how are you then supposed to turn around and

actually implement that into policy unless policy is not the objective. >> i think historically, of reagan. reagan used to romanticize his relationship with gorbachev. if it was a wider picture, there's like 20 people around them assisting in the process so there is a romance, a mythology to presidents being able to have these intimate conversations with enemies but only when it's actually based on functional behavior, actual change and that's what we're not getting here. >> keep going, but let me put up all the things. someone's getting something. it just isn't us. >> we're not getting anything. >> here's all the stuff putin's getting. change to campaign platform to be more russia friendly, sided with russia over american intel on russian meddling when the great jonathan asked him about it, announced his troop withdrawal from syria, attacked eu, withdrew from the tpp, called nato obsolete, continues to do so, fought implementation of congress approved sanctions and is still fighting them, lifted sanctions on a russian oligarch's businesses, publicly

says russia is part of crimea, invit invited putin to washington, dropped a public statement concealing the purpose of the 2016 public trump tower meeting, chose former putin friend rex tillerson as secretary of state, congratulated putin on election victory, never criticizes putin. someone's getting something, it just isn't us. >> it's a honey do list the likes of which i don't think melania could get out of him with real consistency. my concern going forward is if this is information or this is sort of information gathering by russia, you know, putin says, look, i need you to do this, trump goes and does it, comes back and brings his information. everything that's being shared with vladimir putin is also being run through china which puts all of our allies in danger as well. at this point, the security state doesn't even want to share intel with him. >> they don't trust him. this just broke since we've been on the air. more evidence that russia is

running a disinformation campaign about robert mueller. >> this is a remarkable story. when mueller indicted the russians responsible for the social media operations there in the 2016 campaign, he didn't just indict individuals, he also indicted a russian company. none of the individuals are obviously going to show up in u.s. court and submit themselves to trial and potentially be put in jail but the company through american attorneys showed up in the form of these attorneys and has asked for discovery. the interesting thing that's happened, mueller has been fighting turning over sensitive discovery, go back to the indictments, they showed that we had done a lot, been able to penetrate deeply into russian intelligence operations to find out exactly what they were doing. he's resisting turning over that information because he knows it will go straight to the russian government. that's why this company is in u.s. court but he turned over nonsensitive information to them under a protective order, supposed to stay only with the attorneys and people in the country. it showed up on twitter in a russian disinformation campaign along with fabricated materials,

making clear that all of this information that he's turning over to the lawyers is going to the russian government and being used, again, against the u.s. and now arguing that he obviously shouldn't have to turn over sensitive information that would hurt national security. >> it's amazing, it's the sort of thing that a normal american president would call a normal russian leader and yell at him about and a normal white house would have the staff in there to read about a normal interaction between an american president and russian president and go out to the press and tell people like jonathan, yeah, the president just told the russian leader that if he sees one more scrap of sensitive information from robert mueller's investigation on facebook or whatever the heck they do with it, we're going to have trouble. >> yeah, but president putin and president trump have a common interest in doing damage to robert mueller, in doing damage to the fbi. >> that's so depressing. >> in doing damage to nato. and this plays into the russian hands. we saw in 2016, they used this disinformation, forgeries,

subversion, sabotage, all of these things, trolls, bots, to find fissures and take advantage of them. they've realized there's a fissure between trump and muler and they're playing into that and we're helping them. >> vladimir putin and donald trump have a shared interest in undermining robert mueller. >> no question. i mean, the vladimir putin we know and the russian government covertly or not so covertly is already efforting again to interfere with the next elections. in 2018, we saw it. we're going to see it again in 2020. we saw the warnings yesterday from director wray and others and the president every day seems to belittle the special counsel and his findings for fear of what it's going to uncover about him, to imperil his presidency and that's been his concern. he was given the opportunity in hel s helsinki to tell vladimir putin in front of everyone, knock it off. he did not do that. while there have been tough measures from the government, not nearly enough and they don't carry the meaning, the weight, that it would if the president himself said, this cannot happen

again. there's nothing more sacred than our democratic process, we're starting a new presidential cycle, 2020, i'm going to be involved, we know what happened last time, we want to play it fair, we want no outside interference. president trump has yet to do that. >> social securiit's not a smok it's damn convincing circumstantial evidence that donald trump not only green lit russia's history with the 2016 election but he's involved in coordination or contact, let's not use the toward collusion, by his conduct as president. >> he obviously isn't concerned about it because there's a certain way ek envision trump as an egomaniac who's like, no, no, no, i won fair and square and i want you to prove that the russians had nothing to do with the it. the way he's gotten so angry at any suggestion, it makes it abundantly clear he knows they were involved. he knows that person one, person two, person three, roger stone, somebody was involved and providing this kind of information and the real concern that i have is, what do we do when this moves, again, because we've already seen this in the

past, not just in propaganda but the functional mechanics of government. i've always thought, look, we can deal with bots, we've all probably dealt with bots at some point but when you start hacking into voting machines. >> i think i follow a few back. >> but when we start hacking into voting machines and grids going down during election week. >> they act as though this threat is growing, bigger than russia, bigger than china, these capabilities of cyber attacks are happening across the region and so the threat is great, and yet nothing is really being done as we barrel towards 2020. >> yeah, they have to do it sort of without the president finding out. john, jonathan, i won't sleep tonight but i'm glad you were here. after the break, call it a brewing smackdown, the starbucks billionaire trying to carve out space for himself in a 2020 field that seems united in its intent to turn him away. hey, darryl! hey, thomas. if you were choosing a network, would you want the one the experts at rootmetrics say is number one in the nation? sure, they probably know what they're talking about. or the one that j.d. power says is highest in network quality

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well, i must be doing something right to create so

much interest and backlash from the democratic party. i mean, some of it is a surprise, but i think we expected to see some of the level of vitriol but not to the extent it's been. >> it may take a political newcomer to be surprised by the level of vitriol in politics. that was howard schultz whose net worth is roughly equivalent to the gdp of a small country. he's considering an independent run for president and the field at large isn't exactly rolling out the red carpet. here's the headlines he's staring down this morning. liberals try to bully schultz out of 2020, don't help elect trump, howard schultz heckled as an egotistical billionaire at his book launch. the cue degra, that's a sampling of the political grenades being lobbed at schultz and by and large it's the left holding the pins. these democrats want to keep the

coffee king from siphoning anti-trump votes and perhaps unintentionally helping reelect trump. we're hearing boycotts, and emotional, insistent lobbying of his advisers, one of washington's best wired party operatives told me, i've talked to six dozen democrats and the overwhelming sentiment is that he will be pushed out by this incredible wave of disgust and disdain rolling his way. joining us, my friend, former republican strategist, now an adviser to howard schultz, you've been advising him for a long time, steve, you're getting some of this vitriol coming your way, and i just want to talk about howard schultz in a minute but i want to talk to you about what the last 72 hours have been like. >> oh, look, i mean, i've had -- >> look at that. >> it's tough. it's a tough business out there. >> we thought sarah palin was tough. >> it's a tough business. look, i think that when you think about howard schultz and you look at the last week, at

long last, there might be someone in america's political life who isn't intimidated by the twitter mob. and i think that's a good thing. you know, for me, i've been at it for a long time. if you're in this business, people say mean things about you and i suppose if your kids love you and you have a couple good friends and your dogs like you, that everything's going to be okay. and -- >> you and i have always been good with our dogs. it's more than the twitter mob. i think all three of you are concerned about it. and just in fairness to the critics of an independent run, the 2016 election was decided by a razor thin margin and the third party candidates could have done just what they're afraid they did, siphon off enough votes to tip the election. >> well, let's look at what howard schultz has said that has set off this frenzy. he said that i'm seriously considering running for president. it's the right of every american. should they choose to do so. and if i do so, i'll do it as a centrist independent candidate.

he also has said he will not be a spoiler in the race. he has also said he views it as an urgent national imperative to remove this morally unfit president from office. he believes that. he's not jill stein. he's not ross perot. he's not ralph nader. what he said is he wants to have a conversation with the american people to see if perhaps the hour of disruption may be at hand for our utterly broken political system. and make no mistake about it, the brokenness of that political system is what resulted in the election of donald john trump. are we fated in perpetuity to be in this cycle of revenge politics, of self-interest where the american people are not represented, their future is not represented, or can we do something better? 600 days before the election, he's asked the question. and so we decry rightly the ill

liberalism of donald trump, his attacks on the press, his attacks on the rule of law, but what about the illiberalism of people who claim to oppose trump who shout down people from the public square. it seems that for some the progressive utopia that is on the horizon is one that will not come about by persuasion but by imposition because you better dare not speak out of line, out of turn, no deviation or you are shouted down and by the way, the people are doing the shouting, almost universally, are the same people who said joe biden shouldn't run because it was hillary clinton's turn. and they were the same people who put their thumb on the scale for hillary clinton against bernie sanders because he couldn't win. and they guaranteed us -- >> let me ask you one question. >> they guaranteed us that donald trump would never be elected. >> some of them are sitting right here and they can all speak for themselves better than i can speak for them but let me just say, what about the argument that donald trump wasn't a republican or a democrat. he was a trumpist. he went in and changed the

republican party. why can't someone like schultz go in and try to win inside a democratic primary and change the party to be more centrist? why not just go win in the two lanes that historically elect our presidents. >> i think when we look at the american -- >> or primary trump. >> i think when we look at the american constitution, there is no mention of political parties. in fact, i think it's important -- >> but you don't disagree that's how we choose presidents. >> well, we have chosen president by all different marnmarn manners. i mean the era of the modern primary of direct election as opposed to the back room by delegates is a recent invention in american history. george washington matters for a couple of reasons in american history, but one of them should be the warning. he issued when he left office. what did he warn about? what was his warning that he sent in his farewell into posterity? he warned about factions, about political parties, about tribes at war with each other. >> listen, you can out-history me asleep better than i can awake but my point is we have never -- it is a -- people are

terrified, and people are terrified that you, one of the most visible trump critics, are now behind someone they feel like can take away the democrats' best chance of toppling donald trump. >> nobody is voting. the election is two years away. >> we're already scared. >> he has said, unequivocally, he won't be a spoiler in this race. if at some point in the future, when he goes out and meets the american people, if it's the case that it's a legitimate three-way race, he'll make a decision at the appropriate time to be a candidate or not to be a candidate. what he has said is that when he looks out, the system, in his view, a view i share, it is broken. it is shattered. the trust of the american people has been broken, and it's not just the institutions of government, it's generally big institutions, whether it's big media, whether it's big business, across the board, we see institutional failure and it's that institutional failure -- >> i don't think anyone disagrees with you. i just think that you and i deal

in a world of public sentiment and public sentiment would be more favorable if you were primarying donald trump as a republican or you were running as a democrat than the idea of someone with nothing but money to spend running as an independent. >> we will find out, and by the way, let me say something about the man i know. because i think it matters who this person is. he wasn't born on third base. he was born to the projects in new york. his father beat him. he grew up dirt poor. he said when he was loaded up with debt, he had an idea and some guts and some vision and a passion for coffee, and he went out and kept that key in the pocket for that store for 40 years. he said, my only goal was to start the type of company my dad never got a chance to work for. he's the first company in america to give everyone health insurance. part-time employees too. everyone got stock ownership. everyone got a free college education. this is somebody who has

practiced conscious capitalism. he recognizes that there's a crisis in american capitalism, that income inequality is an enormous deal. what he did when he was chairman of starbucks is he kept two chairs in the room that were empty for every board meeting. one chair was for the customer, and one chair was for the employees. let me ask you this question. who in a meeting in washington, d.c., has an empty chair looking at the american people? let's look at healthcare. you know, mitt romney has the idea, romney care, barack obama takes it, republicans are for it so the democrats are against it. it's broken. >> i don't think anyone disagrees. we have to sneak in a break and then everyone here is going to jump in. don't go anywhere. everyone hero jump in. don't go anywhere. there's little rest for a single dad,

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sorry, is that too loud?oud. you don't need any more hormones in your house. that's why you chose kraft natural cheese. made with fresh milk without the added hormone rbst. it's cheese as it should be. we're back. alicia. >> i appreciate steve's passion and i guess my question is i feel as though howard schultz did a very good job coming out and asserting what he's against and the ways in which he believes the system is broken. what i'm looking forward to are

arct articulations of how those big challenges should be solved because we're seeing candidates doing a very good job of articulating the nuances of their policy positions up front, such that voters can actually tell the difference between them and they have an understanding of what they stand for. i think there was the risk that all of them would come out and be like, i'm not donald trump, please elect me and they have understood there is a great sorting out among the democratic base where they're trying to figure out how do you balance the various economic messages and needs of this base against some of the social justice needs of this base and they're using this period to suss that out. it will be interesting to me to see how schultz positions himself within that. >> i think there's been such a avalanche, right, this week that obviously he'll get there and he'll have to answer questions about a range of issues, but for example, one issue this week that -- and i think he's responsible for precipitating an honest to god old-fashioned policy debate within the democratic primary on the

question of medicare for all. when you think about the banality and stupidity of the debate we have of the great wall of trump and mexico, i think that this is mana from heaven, but when you talk about medicare for all and people will say on tv, well, medicare for all, people will say well, it's popular, is it? when i asked the doorman at the hotel do you want to lose your private insurance? he doesn't. u how does that work and function? we saw kamala harris this week saying let's get rid of all of the insurance companies in america and close down the insurance markets and i think she went back to the other position. there is a lack of imagination i think in my view, right? with everyone jumping at my god, he will spoil the election, driver it to trump, but there seems to be a lack of imagination. >> what's the device for him not doing that, what's the device? that is intoxicating. if you're at 19% you don't get

out? do you have a red button? >> if howard schultz doesn't see multiple ways to 270 votes, he will not be a spoiler candidate in this race. that being said, i think there is a real lack of imagination on the part of democrats that trump can get reelected. the idea that evethere is an appetite for 70% tax rates. the idea there will be free college and daycare, student loan forgiveness. >> i think the democrats are very aware of the possibility. >> guaranteed jobs for everybody? that stuff is as dishonest as trump's wall paid for by mexico. >> let me get matt in. >> if you want to fight trumpism

with dishonest progressism with fantasy programs, tough to win a lying contest against donald trump. >> if they're worried about donald trumps, they're not doing their jobs. they have the infrastructure, the history, if you're whining about some coffee guy jumping in, then they have already lost the campaign or the election. he is not someone they should be worried about. he is more likely to hurt donald trump. i never under a liberal left or democrat that is worried about him. rich people want to run for president because they can. i can be trump, i can be mark cuban, but the more the merrier. i don't think he will be successful. i don't think he will get anywhere, but the idea that

anyone that believes in democracy would say he can't run because it might make it too competitive, then they don't believe in democracy an the american people. >> i agree with half of what you said. i admire your optimism for the cause. it makes me want to break my other arm. i think he is a more complex person and i think as the american people get to know him they will like him. >> has he been focused grouped? of course there has been diligence done, and within that diligence is that there is responsive to the message. what are the american people saying this week? what are they saying? they're saying the media class that got it wrong four years ago all of a sudden has perfectly recaptured their prognostication capabilities. >> i think the media is trying to take him in. i think there is a hubristic

aspect to how he jumped in. i think people are covering, they say the democrats make extraordinary gains. not as much as you may have thought, they are scared but it doesn't cloud people's ability to say an independent has never won. >> he had a tough launch, poor him, he is a billionaire. he has been on "morning joe." on "60 minutes." he has opportunities that no one else has. the thing that bothers me about the way he launched this campaign so far. >> his exploration, i see some of the false -- maybe you didn't like hillary clinton, she wasn't as bad as donald trump, but the destru democratic party today is not broken in the fundamental way that the republican party is broken, and none of the

candidates are anywhere as near as unfit for office as donald trump is. i see someone who is a democrat. he spent his recent life as a democrat and he left the party. he thinks democrats are preparing to raise his taxes. >> can i ask you though, did you look at -- did you look at running at a democrat? >> no, he was clear he feels estranged from the democratic party. >> why not move the party to the center. >> millions and millions of americans are estranged from the process. we're at a point where the moderate middle has never been larger, more in treatment about what to do and at the same time they have been disenfranchised and lost their voice because both sides insight and appeal to the base.

and we see that in the reaction, the breach in any orthodoxy. i'll say on taxes, what he said, matt, that he was against trump's corporate tax cut. he said it was outrageous. he said it was a sugar high that will lead to economic distress and a hangover. it did nothing to solve the core problem that was economic inequality. elizabeth warren and her consultants came up with a bumper stick er slo bega eer sl. it is time for them to have an adult conversation. it is bad for america, and it is the same type of stuff that trump has done and it is a reciprocal trumpism that is bad

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this conversation is nowhere near over. that does it for our hour, mtp daily starts right now. >> hi, i guess we won't do any viral moments with your friend. >> if you want to attack steve i will turn the floor over to you. >> the governor knows where to find me. he i could give him directions, there are no bridges. goodbye, thank you very much. >> you're so mean. >> dropping the mic. why can't we all get along. >> i know, i know. if it is wednesday, democrats time to choose wise bily.