that is wa"the beat." i'm see you back here tomorrow. "hardball" with chris matthews is up next. i don't need no intelligence. let's play "hardball." ♪ good evening. early today president trump beha behaved weerbdly, eveern by his standard. he rip under to his own intelligence community after challenged him. he told hissed a min straz's intelligence officials they are naive and should go back to school and wrerd the top national security official including cia director and director of national intelligence dan coates released a stark warning on the national

security threats of the united states. >> the composition of the current threats we face is a toxic mix of strategic competitors and nonstate actors using a variety of tools in overt and subtle ways to achieve their goals. >> at time their assessments directsly contradicted the more rosy interpretation of rosy affairs. >> and we have won against isis. we've beaten them and beaten them badly. >> isis is intent on inresurging and commands thousands of fighters in iraq and syria. >> we've made a lot of progress as far as denuclearization is concerned. >> north korea will seek to retain its capabilities and unlikely to completely given up its nuclear weapons. >> i have president putin. he just said it's not russia.

i will say this i don't see any reason why it would be. >> not only do the russians continue to do it in 2018 but we've seen an indication they're continuing to adapt their model and utter countries are taking a very interested eye in that approach. >> director haskell was asked about iran's nuclear capabilities. it did not align with that of the president's. >> since our departure from the deal, they have abided by the terms. >> they're making preparations that would increase their ability to take a step back if they make that decision. so at the moment technically they're in compliance. >> president trump was particularly disturbed tweeting the intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and nieevr when it comes to the dangers of iran. they're wrong.

john brennan tweeted your refuse tool accept unanimous assessment of u.s. intell zns of north korea, isis, russia and so much more shows your intellectual bankruptcy. all america needs to know the danger you pose to our national security. what is the danger of the president being basically out to lunch about the real threats out there? >> first all of it's very disspiriting to members of the intelligence community who work day and night to try toepe the country safe. so i would say on the don should be ashamed of himself but i know he knows no shame. other governments round the wurld, our partners and adversaries, how are they going to take seriously what u.s. intelligence says if he

continues to disagree with it publicly. and not just disagree but to be insulting and disparaging is something i think there are a lot of folks wondering what on the on the is thinking when he does stuff like that to the intelligence community around the united states. >> it's fwrigreat to have you h. you wake up and think in 20 years we're going to have a real problem and this is getting worse and we're fought working on it. what are those areas? >> i hope he understands the complexity oof the north korea program. i think kim jong-un has demonstrated just how easy it is to play donald trump like a fiddle, which is what he has done and there's going to be another summit. iran tearing up the u.s. agreements with iran, the joint au comprehensive plan of action and provoking the iranians and

pushing them in the direction we were trying to dissuede them from previously. i don't know if he's looking for a military clash or whatever but these are things he needs be mindful of, how impactful it is in u.s. national security interest. his reckless announcement of pulling troops out of syria. what we can't do is give up all the progress we've made in these areas because of his independent recklessness. >> to you think he recognizes reality? i mean the world we live in or is he like a 5 or 8-year-old kid who says i'm not drinking my milk. what is this resistance about? >> i don't want to insult 5-and 8-year-olds. he has a sense he knows everybody better than anybody else. he knows technology better than anyone else. it is something he is blinded by his own aerogns and it's very

unwarranted. the world stage is a very complex one and the more he goes in with his gut and the less he listens to inte listens to intelligence and diplomats, the less he's going to be able to protect naaszal security. >> this is getting weird but it is fox. lieu daubs calling him anti-trump because cotes provided a global assessment. >> what in the world is the intelligence community doing? are they persisting in what they started as this president was a candidate? they're anti-trump. okay, great. get over your bad selves. he's commander in chief. i mean there's something rance udly wrong with this intelligence community. >> what do you make of that? he's attacking them for telling

the president the truth. it's not the president's job to tell them what's going on. >> there's something rancidly wrong with them. good for for speaking exactly what the intelligence community believes and they need to be able to say that with the force of the confidence they have in the assessments, which they did. so i'm big fans of dan coates and haskell man than ever before. >> they're putting intermediate rafrpg range missiles that can hit everything but seattle. can he see the truth? >> the advancements in weapons systems has been expunengsal. and if can confronted with a situation like that today, god

help us given that he is commander in chief and has these authorities. that's why the members of congress who continue to enable it, should be ashamed of themselves. >> would he wag the dog? >> i certainly hope not and i'm hoping the officials in the white house and intelligence community will stop him from doing that. >> thank you very much. frq three years into his administration, he has forced the resignation of roughly 40 people that stop. maybe that's not surprising given trump's rhetoric during the campaign. >> there's noboed bigger or better at the military than i am. >> i know more about isis than the generals. i know more about courts than any human being on earth. okay. >> who are you consulting with

consistently? >> i'm speaking with myisself because -- >> i made so much more money than myth. mitt. it's a store. i know the inside and i know the outside and that's why i'm the only one that can fix this mess, folks. >> i'm the only one. after secretary of defense james mattis's departure, he callsed on the republican party to fire trump. trump's behave wrr has become so irattic and lying so persistent, his willingness to fulfill functions of the presidency like reading briefing books and consulting experts before making major changes are so absent, his readiness to accommodate russia and spurn authorities, allies so

disturbing in his obsession with himself and his ego over all other considerations so consistent, two more years in office could pose a real threat to our nation. thank you for being late, an optimist guide -- thank you. sometimes the president sounds like professor irwin curry, the world's greatest authority. the clown that used to come can on talk shows and brag about incredible knowledge and had none. >> knows more about isis than generals and intel chiefs and knows more about global warming than scientists. the world's benign in the two years that the president's been here. what's tlr basic crisis where the intelligence chiefs say we must act as country. can you imagine where the country would be in that debate

when you have believe intelligence >> how do you raise the stakes and say don't you get now? how do you make the case more strongly? >> i think the republicans have made up their mind. they're going to go down with this guy the next two years, absent even more barren behave wrr and that's why my own personal focus is how do we get a democrat or republican to challenge him who can defeat this president. it's about medicare, not med karb. i think it's about the very institutions of our country at stake. i just read the long church.

the man who did see the problem come canni coming with the nazis, he talked about the years the locusts ate under baldwin. i worry about the problems we don't see because we don't have a leader to point to them. this idea that china and russia got together, the thing that scared us in the early '50s when they both had nuclear weapons. >> two things. my friend wrote a book about the rise of russia, iran and china. three sort of traditional powers coming to challenge us and the other side you have weakening states. so one of the hardest things to manage is weakness. states falling apart like venezuela or in central american states spilling out people and to manage weakness and rising

powers on the other takes incredible deftness. >> aren't we through our sanctions pushing more migration and problems economically? >> there's probably 3 million refugees in the states around venezuela. these are problems from hell. >> wagging the dog. is the coming? you put together john baldwin. he's talking tough. he scribbled on his notebook, 5,000 troops to border with venezuela. are we going to war to save trump's problems at home? >> i kind of doubt it. he reminds me a little of netanyahu. bothing tough talkers but he's been cautious. not so sure trump is eager to troops down to latin america.

let me finish this point. these problems like venezuela or afghanistan, they can only be solved by multilateral solutions. you need a lot of allies. to go alone would be a fool's errand. >> and hillary clinton, a moderate democrat as president i would be worried because he wants to go to war. >> he may want to but the american people don't want to, i can tell you that for sure. >> remember a guy who said he was against stupid wars? where is he? and another meeting with vladimir putin we just found out about. he's still hangout with putin putin's still doing his dirty stuff against us and trump is fix a fixated on a new tell all.

we have an author coming here later in the hour. stick with us. stick with us. helps keep me feeling dry, how will they know i worked hard? i've gotta make stuff harder. ♪ there, that's hard. ♪

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the xfinity store is here. and it's simple, easy, awesome. in the press reports donald trump met privately with vladimir putin and no one in the u.s. government has the full story about what was discussed. would this put you in a disadvantaged position in terms of understanding russia's efforts to advance its agenda against the united states? >> well, senator, clearly this is a sensitive issue and an issue we ought to talk about this afternoon. i look forward to discussing that in a closed session. >> closed session. welcome back to "hardball." that was ron wyden with a timely question to dan cotes during that hearing yesterday. the tales of meetings in four

countries have beshrouded in secrecy including argentina. at the time the white house acknowledged it as brief and informal. the financial times reports they huddled virtually alone. noting trump was akfrmanied by melania trump but no staff while mr. putin was flanked by his translator. according to a russian government official's account, they spoke about a number of foreign policy issues. it's been not yet independently confirmed by nbc news. it come cans on the heels of a bomb shell report. those efforts include on at least one occasion taking possession of the notes of his own interpreter.

i'm joined by a democrat who served on the house intelligence committee and kelly maxim, a senior pentagon official in both obama and bush administrations. what is it about these meetings? they're almost like quiet taets. he's meeting with a person as if there was no world around them except their relationship. >> that's right, chris. it's like a "soprano's" episode where he's going to meet with another leader from another mob. it's not presidential. you don't hear of him meeting with teresa may or macron. it's only someone who leads a country that doesn't want us to succeed. but the question is what came out of this meeting? this was in a november of 2018 and a month later abruptly he does something that would really please vladimir putin, which is pulling us out of syria.

and by the way vladimir putin has not earned an audience with trump. he's changed nothing of his behavior. they medaled in the 2018 election as well. all the wrong reasons, wrong people and it's hurting us here at home. >> give ossenus a sense of what normally happens when the most important countries militarily meet? >> it's not what normally happens and a very disturbing pattern. there's a note taker with the president, yulgsusually this nal security adviser for heads of state meets. if there isn't, then he'll meet right after so everyone has a presidential record of what ocan considered. and that's important so adversaries can't use those kinds of engagements against us. >> how does this give advantage

to putin? >> first of all putin is a very skilled man, manipulative and putin can go back and work with his foreign ministry and say something occurred that didn't occur. so it's important, especially in the case of an adversary to have witnesses in the room as best you have can and have your national security team informed. >> this is like giving him a chance to interview the president. it's almost like an interrogation. fly fishing. basically. it's interesting putin would want to do that but why would trump? except to keep him happy? >> we know putin helped trump and is going to continue to do so. putin's interest is not the same as donald trump. donald trump likes putin because he's benefitted from russian money from what the russians did in the last election.

putin benefits because collaterally he gets someone who wants to help russia's interests and really able to undermine our democracy, rule of law, our interest in forcing human rights across the world. the fact he would meet with him in a way and not tell us, to me, is a consciousness of guilt. he's not telling us because he knows it looks bad because it is. >> a new court filing shows how russians continue to sew rr chaos and spread misinformation. they allege information they share would a russian social media company appear to have been altered and disseminated as part of a disinformation campaign. the special counsel's offices said the documents were posted by a twitter account that has since been suspended on a

computer based in russia. they're now acting to obstruct justice too, kill this investigation to what they did in 2016 and they're doing it in 2019 still. >> exactly. they're going to keep doing it and i find it interesting that yesterday or today the president called his intelligence community naive. there's only one person that's naive and that's donald trump as it relates to dealing with russia. they're very aggressive. they know what they want and they're getting it out of this president. >> i'm a relative amateur except i've been following politics. and every single time putin gets near trump, he's got that smirk and that's the smirk of a guy knows that the other guys know what he knows. in other words trump knows what putin's got on him. that's the way it looks to me, congressman. >> the cat that swallowed the canary. that's the look i see in purten.

putin. when i look at russia running this play, again here we are years after they interfered in our election and they're still doing the same thing the special counsel has exposed. and if you keep throwing the hook and ladder and the it was isn't stopping it, any great coach is going to have hiss team run that inplay over and over until defenses are put up to stop it and this president will not confront putin about it. and so they're going to keep running this play against us. we're thirn position in the majority where we can fund resources to defend the ballot box but with the president asserting our interests, russia's going to keep doing this until they're stopped. >> terrible stuff. and thank you so much for your expertise. up next. potential 2020 candidates are united against trump. of course divided with each other.

could a third-party bid spoil the democrat's chances against trump? we're back after this. chances t trump? we're back after this. una mesa para dos personas. so again, using "para," you're talking about something that is for someone. pretty good. could listening to audible inspire you to start something new? download audible and listen for a change.

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we're the tenney's we're the hayles, and we're usaa members for life. ♪ get your usaa auto insurance quote today. welcome back to "hardball." big fight in the democratic party is being played out between senator elizabeth warren in massachusetts proposing a wealth tax.

and one who compared it to socialism. households with more than $50 million in assets would pay -- and potential nominee shot down that plan. >> we need a healthy economy and we shouldn't be embarrassed about our system. if you want to look at a system that's noncapitalistic, look at what was perhaps the wealthiest country in the world and today people are starving to death. it's called venezuela. >> warren responded saying what's ridiculous is billionaire whose think they can buy the presidency to keep it rigged for themselves while opportunity slips away from everyone else. this is one of the battles they will face. one thing they agree on is they need beat donald trump. democratic governor washington state, jay insly.

insle yrbs. are you for the idea of a wealth tax. not income but how much money you save and own, you would be taxed on that? >> i haven't looked at the specific proposal and we have had such massive income and equality in our country and we need do the things we're doing in our state. it's a capital gains tax but it helps finance our schools and i think that's fair for folks that have done so exceedingly well than single mothers trying to buy shoes. we need repeal the trump tax. they're absurdly unfair. we have to look that massive subsidies in the oil and gas companies in our code and the things that will right the ship of state like minimum wage increases like we've had. there's a birch bunch of things

we've got to do. >> what about this new idea of taxing wealth? not income but money you have? obvious obviously for super rich people? >> to be honest with you i haven't thought much about it but i think we aught to start with writing the income tax situation in the trump tax give away and there are many things we need do before we get to that new idea that can bring in more fairne fairness to our tax code. i don't think it's envy of people that have done well and i billionaires. i think people think we ought to have a fair tax system and you can deal with that through the capital gains tax, the oil depletion allowance and other things in our fossil fuel industry. >> i think that make as good

argument. you're going to hit the income, wage and whole thing. but what happens if a guy or woman runs outside the democratic party and grabs 10 or 20 million votes. is that a danger to knocking off trump? >> i think maybe it's the most dangerous ideas floating around america right now. i was a huge opponent of the iraq war and who gave us that was in a sense ralph nadir. he gave us the george bush presidency and we got the iraq war and we're still dealing with horrendous consequences of that. so when i see howard schultz thinking about splitting the democratic vote and allowing donald trump to be reelected, i can't tell you how disturbing that is to me and disappointing

and i know i'm not alone. i'm not alone. >> i've been listening to 24 hours today. it is a loud cry. by the way you sound like me talking about this in the iraq war. we got in it because we got the wrong presidents. when are you going to makeup your mind about running fors? >> in the next few weeks. >> weeks? >> we need a president who will make climate change a priority and a foremost issue in the country and i believe that is because we're the first generation to feel the sting of climate change but we're the last generation that can do something about it and we know this is a time of great peril but it's also a time of great promise of economic growth and i think we need one to aspouse that. i may be carrying that banner. >> what's that mountain behind me? >> not sure but it could be mt. ray near.

ranier. you aught to climb it one day. it's a good one. >> governor insle yrbs y of the of washington. here he goes. >> elizabeth warren wants anoth another bite of the apple after you've paid all your taxes. >> it's so insane and they've become so radicalized. it's almost an anti-american message. >> and campaign director for progress action fund. right off the bat about this guy, billionaire as bernie sanders would say, a billionaire running as an independent. also against trump but not running for the nauomination of the democratic party. >> wouldn't mike bloomberg have decided to do that himself? he became an independent then a

democrat to run for president. i think he has the experience of having been america' mayor of new york city. i don't diminish what he's achieved in life but i do think that clearly what happened in the last election -- we've seen this over and over again that the third-party candidate does not benefit democrats. >> it would seem that way. >> i think he needs follow bloomberg's lead. he said he knew better than to pull a stunt lierk this. honestly you're reelecting on the on the is what you're doing. >> let's talk about the ideological battle. democrats have generally been center left, sometimes left over the years. they've pushed for opportunity, good public e education, nation health. now this thing about taxing wealth at the top.

your thoughts >> yes, it's different and honestly when are you going to have the opportunity to really dig in and debate these type of proposals is a primary so welcome to debate. this is one of the biggest, best crop of democratic candidates we've seen in a while. >> i agree it bait is important. and what's lost is the trump tax cuts that went through. the elimination of the estate tax. our country has no divine right of kings, right? >> a guy living in a high tax state hates this thing because all it was was trump's revenge of new york, maryland, massachusetts. >> a massive gift to the wealthiest corporations. >> if you move to florida, to other states -- >> what a privilege. >> senator warren's push for taxing the wealthy and here it goes. >> we got a problem where the

big corporations, the billionaires. they're calling the shots. >> amarerica's middle class is under attack. billionaires and corporations decided they wanted more of the pie and enabled politicians to cut them a giant slice. they've been pouring unlimited sums of money into making sure our government works for those at the top and leaves everyone else behind. >> i'm not sure. i think she's great. i like her whole style. i think going after wall street is appropriate for progressive politics. calling mike bloomberg, a guy who goes into politics to protect billionaires, i think his smoking thing was smart in the end. he was right to get the people out in the cold smoke and they smoke out in the cold. i think the big gulf thing was a mistake. but i don't think he's ever been in politics for the money.

he's got the money. >> and mike has been aheads of the curve in many respects. his nyc 2030 plan, you can adjust pricing. planting a million trees in new york city, open park space to new yorkers that never had it before. access to water. we had no running waters, ponds, lakes. our access to water was rock away beach and now you can take canoe, kayak and go to the hudson or the east river. he has a lot to do with that. there were a lot of people in opposition and still are to that as well. >> who's running that you like? >> i honestly like everybody. i haven't seen anything yet as far as policy wise that will turn me off because that's what i'm looking at. >> aren't you stunned nobody's over 8%? you would think biden would be able to get -- >> i think there's something to the fact we have a lot of fresh

faces breaking in and as a woman of color i'm extremely thrilled about it that. >> i think a woman from california is looking very strong. >> the woman of california came out strong. >> please come back. up next a new tell-all book. a white house insider puts on the room. he's talked about what it's like to be in the room with trump on election night. "team of vipers" author coming to. f vipers" author coming to than psoriatic arthritis. as you and your rheumatologist consider treatments, ask if xeljanz xr is right for you. xeljanz xr is a once daily pill for psoriatic arthritis. taken with methotrexate or similar medicines, it can reduce joint pain... ...swelling and significantly improve physical function. xeljanz xr can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers,

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i would like to promise and pledge to all of my voters and to all of the people of the united states that i will totally accept the results of

this great and historic presidential election if i win. >> that's not funny. that was president trump in 2016 saying he'd accept the election results if he won. a new book shows trump considered protesting the results if he didn't win. cliff sims wrote that on election night of 2016 quote trump was coming unglued about reports streaming in from virginia showing hill him ahead there. he writes that at 10:20 p.m. trump pulled out his phone to tweet he was going to protest the results. he came up with a compromise to get rupert murdock on the phone and tell him to make this a big deal if we need to. fortunately at that moment ohio was called for trump.

the president seems to be a bit fixated this week on cliff sims' book. he tweeted a low level staffer that i hardly knew named cliff sims wrote yet another boring book based on made up stories and fiction. he pretended to be an insider when he was nothing but a goefer. he signed a nondisclosure agreement. he's a mess. well, that gofer joins me next. .

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the president said he hardly knew cliff sims. author of "team of vipers." a former white house communications aid tweeted multiple picture cans of him interacting with president trump. here's what you wrote in your book. trump's greatest fear was obscurity. if he was notice, he mattered and he didn't much care with the attention was good or bad, as long as it wasn't indifferent. in other words he didn't want to be known for anything in particular. >> the history of his career. it's all been about devoting himself to maintaining the brand. running for president. i don't know. i goedon't know if i can get ine his head.

but i know that feedback loop is important to him. >> i don't have a problem with him as a human soul necessarily. but there's things he does really are wrong, i argue. one is if you win in less democratic countries, you start arresting people you beat and if you lose, you say it's rigged. hillary, lock her up and you report in your book it looked like he was going to lose in 2016, he was going to claim it was rigged. >> it was in virginia and i don't remember the exact details but essentially they passed a new law that allows criminals to be allowed to vote again and he saw that headline and so he saw the spread in virginia it looks like he was going to lose and wanted to tweet. actually steve bannon was like we need to be patient tonight.

>> you mean he claim canned at the moment he had a real reason to say the election was stolen? >> in virginia. in virginia, he felt it was unfair. >> but they changed the law, hadn't they? so how could it be stolen if it was a change can of law? >> fortunately he didn't tweet -- >> do you think he would have said i lost fair and square to hillary? >> i think probably so. i think it was a moment of peek. >> you wrote the charlottesville response did not cause you to reconsider working in the white house because you flat out did not think he was racist. why did he constantly say barack obama was from a foreign country? he wasn't an american? >> i don't know because that was way before my time. >> you went to work for a guy that used race against his predecessor. >> i think it was racist, wrong.

there's no question about that and there are a lot of things about that. the race issue i've said my purs purs purse interas, i never saw in a racist way. you have that bully -- >> how long were you at the white house? >> fie500 days. >> were you proud of a lot of those days? >> i was proud of the policy. i'm proud of being identified with those policies. >> what about the man? he has a job and that includes head of state. he's the persawnification, for better or worse, for our country and young kids growing up in this country. are you happy you helped build up this guy to be our head of state? >> there are good and bad things about him just like everyone. i'm proud to work in the white house. >> i worked in the white house

but you're working for trump. >> and i'm proud i worked for trump. people ask all the time you say you hate things he did but you don't hate him and yrb say -- >> would anything have made you walk? >> well, sure. >> access hollywood didn't make you walk? >> we felt it was an a-b choice. and i couldn't think of anything i thought would be better if hillary clinton had won. >> let me tell you about something. do you believe the 30th of the month of january, to you believe the are people in the white house right there in the west wing who the president should put on his enemy's list that are not loyal to him? >> yes. >> give me some names. >> i do name some in the book. most of them aren't here anymore. >> is kelly ann? >> i think publicly not.

at bare minimum says very negative things behind his back about him, sure. >> why does he have people around him he doesn't trust? >> that's something i wrestle with in the book and try make sense of that. one of the great mysteries is he didn't invest himself in the staff, in making sure he had -- outside of his family. >> is he morally fit to be president of the united states? >> i thin he is but that does not let him off the look for things of his character i find troubling. yes, fit. in historical context of things we found out about past presidents because we didn't bow about lbj, kennedy, different people. donald trump has big flaws. there's no question about that. >> you think that's the only

difference between him and roosevelt? >> obviously i was tlnt for roosevelt. >> i wish i was. up next the name of the book is "team of vipers." up nex that effective third-party candidates is not always a bad thing but it usually is.

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back to "hardball." our history shows good and bad people have run for third-party candidates. roosevelt split the republican vote and elebted woodrow wilson. democrat henry wallace ran on the progressive ticket and strong thurman ran on the dixie ticket but truman still won anyway. george wallace ran as an independent splitting the democrat's solid south, giving the election to richard nixon. john anderson and liberal pat lucy ran together on a third party but had no real impact on the vote count. ronald regan defeated zimy carter. ross perot of texas ran what seemed to be a vendetta campaign against george herbert walker bush. president clinton won that one. and ralph nader winning with al

gore losing a contested vote with assistance from the supreme court gave to george w. bush. jill stein pulled a decisive number of democrats from hillary clinton in wisconsin and michigan. we know who won that one. howard schultz should show that they don't always spoil things but usually does. and that's "hardball" for now. and that's "hardball" for now. tonight on "all in. " >> is donald trump an intellectual? trust me i'm like a smart person. >> the president mocks his intelligence chief as they warn of another shutdown. tonight senator chris murphy on the shrinking presidency of on the on the. new reporting