contributor mike barnicle. you here? you staying? >> yes, i am. >> and columnist at "usa today" and author of "the death of expertise," zeplin aficionado. is that what we're playing? >> that was the request. >> that's what i listen to at 6 a.m., a little zep. >> i saw you listening to a little "stairway to heaven" in your car. >> i can't get away from it. >> also with us, associate editor of "the washington post" and political analyst eugene robinson. good to you have on board this morning. we've got several big stories to cover, including, did you see this, roger stone's loaded attack over the judge overseeing

his case. >> what a stupid question to ask in the era of trump but even that breaks through a new boundary of just deplorable behavior. >> it's beyond stunning, dangerous, foreboding and the ridiculous pullback, oh, i took the picture off the internet, i didn't really know what it meant. >> there's a target there. we're not going to show it. but, tom, this is again just every step forward is one step more where you desensitize americans. >> and even without the target, here's what the judge looks like, here's her name, here's the conspiracy theory around the deep state agent, et cetera, et cetera. at some point someone's going to take that too seriously. >> he throws in deep state, he

throws in benghazi. it's conspiracy theories churned up to try to get somebody injured or killed. >> what kamala harris told new hampshire voters about democratic socialism. was she for it? >> no. >> and president trump said it's not his job to police the world. what's behind the new focus behind venezuela's turmoil? a coalition of 16 states have filed a lawsuit to keep the president to use emergency powers to redirect federal funds for his lawsuit. it accuses the president of violating the separation of powers stating, quote, congress made clear that funding could not be used to build president trump's proposed border wall. the lawsuit also cites the president's own words from friday's new conference when he said congress provided more than enough money for border

security. >> i went through congress, i made a deal. i got almost $1.4 billion when i went supposed to get $1, not $1. he's not going to get $1. well, i got $1.4 billion. but i'm not happy with it. i also got billions and billions of dollars for other things, port of entries, the purchase of drug equipment. more than we were even requesting. the primary fight was on the wam. everything else we have so much, i don't know what to do with it we have so much money. but on the wall they skimped. so i did -- i was successful in that sense but i want to do it faster. could do the wall over a longer period of time. i didn't need to do this, but i'd rather do it much faster. >> yeah. you heard that in realtime. you said that, really? the lawsuit was filed in the northern district of california, meaning any appeal would be heard by the ninth circuit,

which last year blocked the president's asylum ban. >> very convenient for the president, allows him to freak out about the ninth circuit and pretend everything ends with the ninth circuit like texas courts will always hear cases and stopped that part of obamacare. but it ends up at the supreme court at the end of the day. i cannot see a way that the supreme court does not rule this to be an unconstitutional reach. >> especially now that the president has declared it just a routine emergency totally at his discretion in complete defines of the word emergency. >> "i didn't need to do this." are you kidding me? >> it's like walking into the emergency radar looom saying i

need to be here but i'd like to talk to somebody. >> so basically compare this to a foreign war in texas is ridiculous. if this were one of the great threats facing the united states of america, if this were an emergency, of course when the intel chiefs came and gave their threat assessment, they would have mentioned it. but they don't mention it. they still don't mention it. you even have the acting secretary of defense saying i'm not so sure. >> had they mentioned it, he wouldn't have listened anyway. we know he doesn't listen to his briefings. this is aimed right at the base. i wonder if the republicans are relieved by this, it's off our plates, they kick it up to the courts, eventually it gets shot down and -- this is no way to run a government. >> this was the plan all along.

woor not going to give him the money because when we republicans were in charge we downwant to give him a dime because we all have quotes where we say the wall is a stupid, stupid idea. so let's do this, we'll just pass a limb bit of money, then he can declare his little national emergency. the courts can rule it unconstitutional, but the government's open so we're not going to lose another five or ten points in our approval ratings and then when the supreme court overturns it, which they will, then donald can attack the united states supreme court and federal judges during his cam pan. >> it's totally cynical. you know, it is amazing really. you know, i'm not a republican, i've neff been a republican. but i did think the republican party stood for something. and it stands for nothing now. it stands for nothing except

neighborhood self-interest and cowhering fear of donald trump and his hold over the republican base. and so the fact that senators like, you know, the former lindsey graham and others are actually cheering this on, something they know is unconstitutional, they know is wrong, they know is destructive and yet they're cheering it on just so they can kind of get past it is really ridiculous. you know, there's going to be -- there's going to be historical accounting for those who refuse to stand up to this president. and i can't wait. >> again, they stand for absolutely nothing. >> they could have had this done in the first two years. >> i hear sometimes from friends and family members and people that you run into at zeplin shows. >> boston concerts. >> boston concerts, exactly.

there will always be somebody that will make the mistake of saying, oh, i used to like you back when you were conservative. . by the way, that's kind of like when olli would go like this and he'd go, boom, look at that, i'm about to hit you, boo! it is so easy to just go oh really? let me tell you what i stood for in 1994. i ran in 1994 to balance a budget, to pay down a debt, to make government smaller. i ran in 1994 to venen nato, to actually understand that russia was one of the great threats facing the united states of america and to keep america strong. i ran to protect the constitution and the constitutional norms so much they've would carry around a constitution in my pocket. in fact we all did because actually the constitution mattered.

i actually went down to another country to see a liberal activist being tried in peru and came back and all i talked about was our courts and the rule of law and why it was our judicial system that set us apart from everybody else. i talked about article i powers. at this point look homer simp n simpson, they've slipped back into the bushes. >> when people say i remember you had you were a conservative, they say you're not a conservative anymore because you're critical of the president. i'm like, no, i'm critical of the president because i'm a conservative, because i believe in limited government. >> what is happening that people are falling for this ruse? >> you've got almost an entire political party, republican party in the united states

senate specifically, they are more afraid of being challenged on the right in a primary. they put that ahead of the country. they have done it historically for the last -- at least the last two years. the fear that trum of engenders in them, i don't know the root of it. >> they value three institutions in order, the senate, the republican party and then somewhere in there the constitution. but those first two -- that the most porng i think that happens after you've been in washington long enough. >> do you think think they care more about holding on to their jobs than they doholding on to the country? >> i think they've convinced themselves those are the same thing. i think a lot of the people that we once lived with on the right have said to themselves, well, this is a terrible thing and i'm making some terrible compromises but i'm doing it for the good the country because the alternatives are so bad.

and i think they've taub themselves into it to think of themselves as indispensable and what they're doing is the last bulwawark against the deluge. >> i have to say i have friends that i've been friends with for 30 years that i can't -- i mute their twitter feed. if i keep i've seen things come and go. up like mika, i think this fever passes. you know, me fighting them on twitter is not going to do any good but it does break your heart for these people that should shoulder to shoulder with you when you were fighting against things that you thought were bad for this country are now actually you've turned your

conscience over. they voted for a life long democrat who is a con artist. who contributed his entur life until he dee sided to be a birther in 20 1 because he assumed republican primary voter was so racist that he could ride that to the republican nomination. and i thought he was out of his mind. >> do you think the fever will break? i wonder if you use the focal point of lindsey graham for the fever, he was handcuffed to john mccain for months. >> it was said the former lindsey graham, almost as if to say whoever that other guy was is gone, there's a new senator called lindsey graham.

>> i knew lindsey graham, senator, and you're not lindsey graham. that's kind of where we are. >> people in south carolina for years have wondered how lindsey graham wins primary races down there. for years. republicans say can i not believe that guy keeps winning republican primaries. and this is all about lindsey graham winning the republican primary. he has proven there is nothing he will not do, there is no value he will not throw over the side of the boat. there is no former friend or mentor that he will not betray to win that primary. and if you don't believe it, just look at what donald trump has said about his dead friend and how lind john mccain. >> it's really shocking.

he has deech stieded that in order to win his next primary, he has got to not on go along with donald trump but be out front and be the most vocal supporter of the president. he's decideds that what south carolina republican primary voters want and that that's what he's going to give them. is just -- it's just shocking. it's just amazing. maybe his calculation is correct but imagine what this is doing to his insides. i hope it doing something. >> well, it comes a too high of a cost. here we have the chairman of the senate judiciary committee actually pushing and encouraging the president of the united states to move unconstitutionally against article i powers. >> right. >> to move unconstitutionally to

seize power from congress that he knows as a chairman of the senate judiciary committee, he knows it is an unconstitutional grab for power and he is on the forefront encouraging donald trump to do it. >> i hope you're right that the fever will pass but i also think there's political fever and lind is but there's also damage to this country. we're going to be playing for you all a little bit later an extended version of what angela mrk what was fascinating was actually what she said. we're going to play a longer version of the damage o our places in the world and how we look in the world order, everything has changed.

there's been a shift because of trump, we have gone down and i think that impacts our national security among many other things, good thing that we are able to do. and that favor is not going to pass any type to and. >> it's not donald trump. >> well, it's the damage he's done. >> it's the people who still two and a half years after the racism, after the lies, after the breaching of constitutional norms, after the embrace of putin, after the embrace of strong men around the world, after the mocking of democratic values all over the world, after the contempt he has shown for democratically elected traditional american al lease. and how could you not support donald trump? that's what's concerning. one out of ten americans are

still okay with the lies every day, the racism every day. by the way, we could say that if it would help you all. we could run a list of all the lies. and by the way, not lies -- >> we're not really sure if that's an opinion. >> it wouldn't matter. we can show you a before-and-after tweet that his own words prove that he's lying. we could show you all the racist comments. but you wouldn't care, would you? it's just like roger stone puts a target by a federal judge's face. and you don't care about that. no be you den so now he's apologized after he posted that image on instagram with the

federal judge overseeing his trial next to cross hairs. the image was deleted later after being up for an hour. by then roger stone knows. everybody saw the photo of judge amy berman-jackson. everybody saw the target that you are do and gets caught lying to federal authorities and his answer after getting caught lying to federal authorities is to put a target by a federal judge's head. you don't care. and along with that target -- get this, this is really rich. make sure to tell your kids this because i know you'll be proud of yourself for supporting this and not really caring, just wiping it out of your head as

you go off to school today and off to work today with your make america great hat on. along with the target next to the judge's head was a fund-raising pitch for legal defense costs. so what's this? kill the judge, send me $5? here's how can you help me. i got the target by the judge's head and you can take that and kill judge or you could send me money. either way i'm cool with it, is what roger stone appears to be saying, and then he took down the picture. after he did that, he had a statement, said it had been m misinterpreted. >> sowing doubt, which is what president trump does. >> i made this mistake, too, when i turned in my high school graduation picture. i mistakenly turned in one where there was a target right by my

mull mullet. by the way, he's just joking about assassinating the federal judge. just relax. come on, it's donald. it's roger. that's who roger is. >> he does this. >> maybe that's the problem. >> he does this in a country literally awash in gun violence. >> there's the real emergency by the way. there are so many mass shootings over the past few days. so many deaths. >> he's a professional. this notion of i didn't really understand it. this guy spends his life manipulating the media. he doesn't make his takes limis that. the three worst things that have happened because of this fever, damage that's going to last is with roger stone on the loose, americans have -- think the

government is not serious business. and the other is people are saying things they know not to be true and that are repeating and internalizing things that are not true. >> that's what madeleine albright would say that is how it starts. >> i don't understand how they could still support a guy and still take roger stone's side. all the right wing radio talk show hosts will all be chirping today for roger stone and be talking about, oh, he made a mistake or, oh, come on, they're taking this all too seriously. but again, this is what they do. >> it's about in part at least and mainly it's about dehumanizing the other, it's about dehumanizing those who

oppose donald trump and what he's doing and the sort of the enemy of my enemy being my friend, i guess. and so it's okay if roger stone crosses every conceivable line in posting that abominable picture of the judge next to crosshairs. it's okay if donald trump lies every time he opens his mouth. and, by the way, sounds just totally incoherent in that press availability on friday. it's okay if he violates the constitution or tries to cynically knowing he's going to be reversed. what does that matter? because those other people are worse and he's on our side of the fence. and so we talk a lot about tribalism in politics. tribalism may be a factor in

this. and i wish they taught civics these days. >> everybody running for president needs to say they want -- if you want federal funding for any of your schools, you've got to teach civics. >> and i would submit, joe, to cap off this conversation that there's a larger danger here, involves more than just the people with the magga hats around the country, it involves our friends, people who through the behavior of this president who has normalized lying and disruption and chaos and people are so exhausted, it gets normalized. >> i can tell you as the father of two sons who were in middle school during that time that is correct shaped a generation, it normalized behavior. we had three or four -- as that

was going on, we had three or four emergency school meetings at the school they went to because concerns of behavior that had shifted radically over two years. what the president of the united states does shapes behavior. >> yes. and values. still ahead on "morning joe" russia's election hacking is only one facet in its worldwide influence campaign. there's a far more violent aspect of it as well and that's playing out right now in ukraine. plus, rod rosenstein's exit is now just weeks away. setting the stage for major change within the dncht o.j. we'll run through the could things to watch for straight ahead. hey, your band is playing a gig. a week from tomorrow at the cutting room here in new york city, kicks off at 7:00. stop by if you're around,

cutting room. >> going back to the cutting room. >> and i think we should have tom come up and sing "whole lot of love." >> please do "stairway to heaven." let's go to bill karins on the forecast. >> we have a huge storm that's going to affect 91 million people that are under winter weather watches and advisories. if you're not in the winter storm problems, you have flooding issues. all through the south, 19 million people under flash flood watches, northern mississippi, alabama, all of tennessee, back you through kentucky. let's talk snow. in is going to happen late tonight, you're going to wake up to a snowstorm tomorrow washington, d.c. right now i'm thinking four, five, maybe six

inches of snow. philadelphia, baltimore and in boston temperatures will be warmer in those area. des moines to minneapolis, four to six inches to you. this area of red all through the rain, rivers going and washington, d.c., one of your bigger snowstorms of this winter is on its way. what a beautiful start to the day. tomorrow morning that show will show us snow. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. i just got my cashback match, is this for real? yep. we match all the cash back new cardmembers earn at the end of their first year, automatically. whoo! i got my money! hard to contain yourself, isn't it? uh huh!

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at 7. a little earlier. bernie sanders jumping back into the presidential race again. he is running officially. >> this is going to be fascinating. everybody remember bernie sanders energized the democratic party. he had an extraordinary grass roots operation. he was fighting uphill most of the time because the democratic party establishment was all on board with hillary clinton and as some people suggested, parts of the process at times appeared to be skewed toward hillary clinton or you might say rigged. but, mike, it's a different year.

>> if you ever saw the mate tri -- m ma matrix, he was the outsider. he had that lane by himself. >> he was right. >> that it was rigged? >> it was rigged. by the way -- >> the republicans are now rigging the election. make them fight, make them scrap, make it crowded. now there are 800 people filling up that lane. elizabeth warren of course, probably those two will be probably fighting for the same votes more than anybody else on

that list. again, it's going to be a different run, a tougher run for bernie this time. >> it's going to be a much tougher run. it's a wide, diverse, deep field. you get the anecdotal impress right now kamala harris is on the verge of breaking out a little more than any of the other candidates. i think bernie's time, sadly for bern and the bernie files might be in the rear view mirror. >> of that group that we just saw up on the green, who temperamentally like it on, whether you want to see it or not, can stand up to trump. that's ultimately what democrats are looking for, someone who can beat donald trump. >> gene, democrats want to win. >> i see potentially two. >> we're talking about ideology right now. this will shock all of my dear friends on the left on twitter and all of my dear friends on the right on twitter, but

ideology at the end of the day just doesn't matter. it reminds me of the mike tyson -- i think the president even said, too, everybody has a plan until they get hit in the face. well, everybody cares about ideology until the first time that candidate grabs a microphone, stops talking and she or he owns the room. then forget about ideology. it's about leadership. >> bernie comes in with a base. he's run nationwide, he's got people out there in every state who are going to be back on the bernie train. but as was said, this is a much different year. what i think democrats are looking for is somebody who can beat donald trump and of the many candidates of this multitude, you know, a few are

going to stand out. they're going to capture the imagination. some haven't gotten in yet who i think could be major players this time and we will see, you know, i hope they fight it out and we'll see who emerges. but at this stage, everybody jump in and we'll see who really captures the imagination of democrats and who looks like somebody who cannot only stand up to but defeat donald trump. i think voters will get a sense of that and they'll let us know what they think. >> mika, you said you saw two. ia, maybe three. >> who you thought could stand on the stage and tell the president of the united states, you're a liar. >> you want to be able to stand on the stage, go with your gut

as if you speak to no one. there's actually two and a half or three. >> i'm going to write them down on a piece of paper and we'll see how this goes. don't peek. >> in a poll yesterday, joe biden is up by ten points and everybody else is within the margin of error. with these candidates just starting off at their best without being dinged up, still within the margin of error, i will be the the first to admit, and i wrote it in "the washington post" about a month ago, the democratic nomination was going to be more important than ever before because you'd just be a step away from the

oval office, it's not looking that way now. a month later it's not looking that way. >> i've spent years telling democrat being friends part democratic friends that part of the reason the party is the way it is, is republicans can sit back and wait for you to screw up. and that's really a problem. i think in some ways the democrats are risking replicating what the republicans did the last time around. you're going to have 20 candidates, some of whom are instant no-hopers. as a representative in bernie sanders' state is the answer to a question nobody is asking. he served an important role in 2016 to say this is a real primary, the election isn't rigged, if you want somebody more exciting than hillary clinton, i'm the person. i'm a little more optimist being

than you a -- optimistic than you are, joe. i don't know how it's going to coalesce. >> i'm putting this in the bottom of my purse. >> what's interesting, though, is bernie again was a guy that after the election was over, you had people saying that voted for donald trump, well, i would have voted for bernie if it hadn't been rigged against him from the dnc. it's like the people who voted for obama two times and bernie does speak to a lot of disaffected people -- >> no, no, don't open people. >> i'm not going to announce it. i'm not going to announce it. please. >> no, you have to keep opening it. you have to keep opening it all the way. >> the oscars. >> isn't this where we tell them

you have to pass the note forward. >> okay. so interesting, right? so before we go to break because we'll continue conversation. >> that's a threat. we're going to continue this conversation after the break but as we go to break -- >> senator kamala harris in her prebuttal. >> you told us you had the bite, now you're saying you don't have the bite. >> we'll be right back and show you kamala harris's prebuttal to bernie sanders. l to bernie sanders i hear it in the background and she's watching too, saying [indistinct conversation]

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and even for company events. the design lab is so easy to use. we just upload out logo and if we have any questions, customer service is there to help. seeing our team together in custom ink gear is an amazing reminder of how far we've come as a business. - [narrator] custom ink has hundreds of products to help you look and feel like a team. upload your logo or start your design today at customink.com >> he does yell at you a lot. >> last week i missed four cues. >> because he was screaming at you. he's like kornacki. >> we need to talk about that. senator kamala harris has made her first stop in new hampshire since announcing her 2020 white house bid. she held events in concord and

portsmouth yesterday and at one point put distance between herself and vermont senator bernie sanders when asked about her political ideology. sanders who calls himself a democratic socialist won 60% of the vote in the 2016 primary. when harris was asked if she believed she would have to embrace sanders' ideology to win the new hampshire primary, she said she would not. she said the people of new hampshire what is required to compete in new hampshire but i h will tell you, i'm not a democratic socialist. >> what do you think, gene? >> well, define democratic socialist. that's an interesting stance for her to take. she's doing interesting things, kamala harris. i did not know before she got into the race that she would draw these kinds of crowds. i did not know that she would seem at this very, very early

stage, too early really, would seem to be maybe even establishing a little distance between herself and much of the field. but these are very early days. one big question for bernie sanders in new hampshire and elsewhere, in 2016 there were obviously a lot of voters across the spectrum who were ready for some sort of radical change. they went for the wrong kind of radical change, they went to donald trump. but they were receptive to bernie sanders's message. in 2020 is that still the move of voters, of what's most pragmatic now? we'll find out. maybe that's go for somebody look amy klobuchar. >> speaking of amy klobuchar, last night somebody said the word that politicians don't

usually say, do you believe in medicare for all? >> no. do you believe in free education for everybody? >> no. she basically said, hey, i'd love to tell you you can get everything you want but we can't just give away everybody for free. but that's a reality that everybody candidate knows in this race. she's the on one saying it. that's a good way to get attention. i'm not santa claus, we've got a $22 trillion debt. yes, we have to figure out a way to make health care affordable and get health care for all americans but it ain't free. >> amy klobuchar lives in the middle of the country. that's where people are elected. no matter what you think about bernie being over on the left and the message is very

attractive to people. amy klobuchar is correct in what she says and kamala harris has been listening to the president who popped out the word socialist. that's where he's going top h s he's -- he's going to be running against social i. >> what's your position on health care for all. >> i think it's something we can work today. >> overhaul -- do you believe those goals are achievable? >> i think they are aspirations. i think we can get close. i don't think we can get rid of -- >> are you for free four-year college for all? >> i'm not for free four-year

college for all. >> it got one clap. again, this is a way to talk about all of this without going all the way there. you can say everybody american needs health insurance, we've got obama, let's amend it. and college, is outrageous the prices keep going up every year and bankrupting our kids. if you're a state college, we're going to put a cap on how much you can charge. there are different ways to go about it. the fact that state colleges can charge in-state student, 20, 30, $40,000 -- >> more. >> it's outrageous. and the private colleges, just astronomical costs. and the costs just keep going straight up. >> but it's okay to talk about this like adults.

instead of talking this -- oh, four year colleges for everybody. that's a bad idea. there are jobs and careers in a doesn't involve four-year colleges. it's okay to have that conversation like adults, like people who are responsible. and i kind of like the fact that, you know, amy klobuchar is new but i also think she's not exciting. i'm ready for not exciting. >> i'll take not exciting but nice. >> i'm done with the drama. >> with men, i totally agree. >> so the next conversation is out of new hampshire. we'll show you the interesting moment that kamala harris had in new hampshire yesterday when she was asked about a reporter about her initial reaction to the jussie smollett allegations. that's coming up next. we'll be right back. ing up next. we'll be right back.

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all right. amid new revelations in the case involving the alleged attack on "empire" actor jussie smollett, presidential candidates appear to be backing away from their initial statements. on january 29th, senator kamala harris called the laalleged attk an attempted modern day lynching. >> which tweet? >> about saying it is a modern day lynching. >> sorry. >> jussie smollett. >> okay, so i will say this about that case. i think that the facts are still unfolding and i'm very concerned about obviously -- >> can we just say it? that's what we use to do on this show. can we just say it? >> i don't know if i want you to say it. just talk about first instincts.

she looked like she actually didn't know about the tweet. and like she was looking around at a staff member going what the -- did we tweet that out? not making any excuses for her whatsoever. the buck stops with her. i'm just saying -- >> you could tell it's going through her head. mi mike, it looked like she didn't even know that tweet was out there. it's her responsibility. >> she did as well as she could do with a humina, humina, humina home. >> are up kidding me? >> as a form aer senate stafferi would like to not throw the staff under the bus. it's one of those moments that she look at the staff and goes, hey, you know. >> they have people tweeting for them. stop.

only tweet when you're tweeting you have people tweeting for you, it's not helpful and something like that will happen. if she did tweet that, she's going to have to completely roll it back. we don't know what happened. there are allegations. that's what they are, accusations. we don't know what happened. and this is a problem. everyone thinks mob rule is where we're going to go, it's not going to work in the elections. it's not going to work for democrats. this is what trump wants. >> we saw this during kavanaugh. ask claire mccaskill how mob rule worked for her and a lot of other democrats in middle america. people still support due process. let's get all the facts first and then we'll pass judgment. >> get the facts first. i mean, there is a lesson to be learned here. and one. lessons, maybe this is an old

journalist lesson but when there's a story of an incident that has every detail possible that's just perfect and just fitting, you know, if it sounds too pat, it is. and that's just the fact. and so, you know, i think you have to reserve the kind of judgment that goes out to modern day lynching goes all the way there until you learn some facts. and as we learn facts, it doesn't sound like that. >> it's very interesting from an old, grizzlied vet to another old grizzlied vet. mook, it's so funny, off camera you said the same thing that gene said on camera, which is the old reporter in you said this is all too neat. and we still don't know. >> absolutely. >> perhaps there were guys

running around at 15 below zero carrying bleach. >> in chicago. >> your best bet is -- not everybody can do this -- go to the ground. you see what ramifications are in the story that was told, which could absolutely be legitimate. >> as a reasonably grizzlied vet, the other problem here is twitter makes people believe they have to have a fully developed view on everything right now. if an hour goes by where you don't have the fully realized position or opinion on something, well, you know, you're either behind the curve or you're uncaring -- >> in cases like this it feels really good to jump to a conclusion.

that's not where democrats want to be in the age of trump. >> you have to be really be stunned and shocked. >> and senator booker initially called the incident a modern day lynching. >> well, the information hasn't come out and i'm going to withhold until all the information comes out. we know bigoted and biased attacks are on the rise in a serious way. what we're seeing is attacks on people because people are different and we need to band together. >> the real tragedy, as cory booker said, hate crimes are on the rise, they are spiking and you already saw it yesterday from someout -- some outlets on the far right.

>> senator gillibrand also weighed in after the alleged incident calling it a sickening and outrageous attack. >> all right. well, so anyway, due process, right? >> yeah. it's a bigger conversation, though. for me it's the politics of it. i'm very worried for democrats as we move forward. i think this is a major reset that democrats need to consider when it comes to situations like this and also when it comes to situations per takening to -- p me-too situations. >> it's society. we all have to be instantaneously tribal and have a fully formed, tribal opinion within minutes. >> that's a bigger conversation about society. i'm just talking about cold, hard, raw politics. i don't think this is going to win. and it does have a --

>> and it does play into the president's game plan. >> absolutely. >> this is trump's -- a big gift to him. but we'll talk about it more. let's see what plays out in this case. >> i was just going to say, though, again you were warning in realtime, just like you were warning in realtime to hillary clinton in realtime from the beginning of her campaign actually needed a stronger message. in realtime you warned democrats on the kavanaugh front. you warned democrats that while you believed dr. ford and you believed that something happened to dr. ford, that you couldn't convict kavanaugh. and then we had another story coming out and a woman to kind of maybe remember, was it kavanaugh, was it not kavanaugh, she had to call people around to see if it was kavanaugh. immediately on cable news people said he raped her, he did this to her, he did that to her and

then another story came out and suddenly there were rape rooms and orgy lines and spiked punch and all this other stuff and pretty soon americans assad wait a seco -- said wait a second, this is crazy. and who suffered because of that? it wasn't kavanaugh. sure as hell wasn't trump. well, kavanaugh suffered horribly. it wasn't trump. here's what's not complicated. due process is not complicated. and just because, like tom said, you want that hot, immediate response on twitter with your blue checkmark to try to go viral, right, and then everybody, gene robinson is competing against everybody else to go viral, pretty soon you

have what berry rice was talking about a year ago, you have mob view. as mika has been saying for a year and a half, just wait. get the facts, then pass your judgment. >> yeah. because facts will come out and we'll learn more about these situations and if, you know, if you're going to try to come in fast, you better have a sort of good, you know, bull bleep detector to sort through this stuff. look, don't tweet it. just doesnn't send that tweet ul you learn a little bit more. i think politicians would do

very well to take that advice. better to be a little slow than to be out on a limb that is, as we speak, being sawed off. that's just not where you want to be. >> it is just past, maybe a little past the top of this hour on this tuesday february 19th. we have msnbc contributor mike barnicle, national security expert columnist at "usa today" and author of "the death of expertise" tom nichols, eugene robinson and joining the conversation, white house correspondent for pbs "newshour," yamiche alcindor and msnbc political analyst robert costa. >> mike, you want to say something? >> tweeting, it's a constant danger, the way everybody feels

compelled to get on board. what happens is you lose the core of the story. and the core of the story is the language of intolerance of this country being fed from the top, from the white house, has affected and infected large parts of the country and hate crimes are on the increase, intolerance is certainly on the increase and that's i think the larger story. >> absolutely. it's a conversation that we're going to revisit as new develops. let's get to the breaking news from just minutes ago. >> i'm bernie sanders, i'm running for president and i'm asking you today to be part of an unprecedented grass roots campaign of 1 million active volunteers in every state in our country. our campaign is not on about defeating donald trump, the most dangerous president in modern american history, it is not only about winning the democratic nomination and the general election, our campaign is about transforming our country and

creating a government based on the principles of economic, social, racial and environmental justice. three years ago during our 2016 campaign when we brought forth our progress of agenda, we were told that our ideas were radical and they were extreme. we were told that medicare for all, a $15 an hour minimum wage, free tuition at public colleges and universities, aggressively come baiting climate change, that the wealthy start paying their fair share of taxes, we were told all of these concepts were ideas that the american people would never accept. well, three years have come and gone and as a result of millions of americans standing up and fighting back, all of these policies and more are now supported by a majority of

americans. >> what do you think? >> i like him. i just think he's very genuine. mike? >> well, you know, one thing that he constantly talks about that is right there on the edge of becoming a huge issue, especially off of new york city's rejection of amazon over in queens, the fact that amazon and google, these billion dollar companies pay zero in taxes, pay nothing in taxes is more than offensive. more than o fenffensive. >> thank you. >> robert costa, you were embedded with bernie in 2016. talk about the intensity of his supporters, the size of the crowds, the amount of fund-raising, the energy around him and his plans -- and his plan to replicate that four years later. >> it was a movement campaign. i was covering senator sanders in santa monica, california during the california primary when he pledged to fight on despite secretary clinton

clinching the nomination with the delegates. you saw in senator sanders someone who ideologically was almost like the barry goldwater of the left, someone who was always the long shot but has really shaped the democratic party and the way it's drifted on policy in recent years, ever since he made that long shot run for the nomination. his movement has splintered off in some respects. there are many progress of stars in the democratic party, many more than there were three years ago but he still retains strong support and many polls show him to be the most positive candidate in the party and his aides tell me he has the energy to run. >> he's been imitated, he led several people in 2020 to jump in as progressives and believe

they could win the nomination. is that lane too crowded for bernie sanders now? >> if you ask bernie sanders, he thinks he can pull this off, which is really at the crux of why you see him running, even as some say this lane is going to be very crowded. i spent hundreds of days hearing him talk to these large crowds of people. there were times that the crowd was crying and almost like a concert. it's an argument that he lost the battle but won the war for the democratic party. his ideas are things that democrats are embracing wholeheartedly. there was a feeling that hillary clinton was running a little more moderate because that's what you had to do to win. but the democratic base never said i don't like what bernie sanders is talking about, i think hillary clinton has a better shot at the nomination.

i think when you have elizabeth warren and kamala harris running on some of the same thing that bernie sanders is, you have people saying bernie sanders is one i can stick with. within of his b one of his biggest challenges will be elizabeth warren. elizabeth warren has thought the same things as bernie sanders for a very long time. bernie sanders is out saying you shouldn't be looking at a candidate's age or race or sex sewell or y but they're saying the democratic party shouldn't just be talking about diversity, they should have diversity. that's going to be an interesting challenge for bernie sanders. >> the problem for bernie as well, he may just have the force of personality and the campaign to get past this but he's fighting elizabeth warren in one part of his base but also you

look at his weakness in 2016. black voters supported hillary clinton overwhelmingly. he did not connect in part i suppose because he didn't represent a lot of black voters in vermont over the decades that he served up in vermont. and there was a real disconnect. any evidence that he's figured out a way to connect better in 2020? >> i think time will tell. bernie sanders when i covered him in 2016 didn't really spend a lot of money trying to court specifically african-american voters. i remember being in south carolina and writing stories that he hadn't even tried to get jim clyburn to endorse him. that was a big misstep because hillary clinton knew if you wanted to go into south carolina, you needed to get jim clyburn on your side. i think we'll see a bernie sanders who has likely reflected on his 2016 candidacy and say not on do i need to go and meet the black politicians that come into town, but i need to hire

people that will have the same identities of voters that i want. he had a couple african-american staffers. i expect he'll feel a little more pressure to diversify his staff. >> i know what it like to win, i know what it's like to lose. when i lost to barack obama, i immediately turned around, i endorsed him, i worked for him, i convinced my supporters to work for him. i didn't get the same respect from my primary opponent. a lot of his supporters continue to harass and go after my supporters all the time. that feeds into i think the whole sexism and misogyny part of this campaign. i'm proud to be a democrat, i've supported democrats, i've worked

for democrats. bernie's not a democrat. that's not a slam. that's what he says himself. i think a lot of what he churned up in the primary campaign was very hurtful in the general election against me. >> well, that will -- gene? >> yeah, joe. so, you know, what can you say? if there was hesitancy on the part of bernie sanders and a lot of his supporters, it was because largely they felt the whole process had been rigged to give the nomination to hillary clinton and they weren't feeling so great about that. putting that aside -- >> talking about misogyny and -- >> putting that aside, one thing we know about bernie sanders is that he can raise a lot of money across the country from small donors, and so he's going to be

in this i think for the long haul. because his donors are not going to abandon him i don't think if he lose as primary. i think they're going to stick with him and they're going to keep giving him money. we know he can raise that kind of money and that's a question that we're going to have about the other candidates. you know, beto o'rourke raised an incredible amount of money for his senate campaign, again from small donors who wouldn't abandon him in the case that he lost a primary. if he gets in, he could be a formidable candidate who could go for the long haul as well. >> we'll see. tom, you are just all-around skeptical. >> will the me be more curmudgeonly than bernie sanders. he did raise that kind of emotion but when i hear about people crying and the emotion at the rallies, can we please stop

running candidacies that are cults of personality. that's part of the appeal of been bernie, he gets out there and says i want to send you to college for free, i want corporations to pay their fair share. when you ask how you'll do that, he says, well, we'll work that out for another day. he says i'm going to get into this and cannon ball this with a very personality, "saturday night live" friendly approach to this. and going back to the part about drama, you see hillary clinton being pretty bitter about that situation, but of course, as mika point it out, kind of brought it on herself as well. but enough of the celebrity candidacy that isn't that substantive because i don't think it offers very much. >> you know, you just ran through several objectives,

campaign objectives that bernie always mentions that are still on the table, still on the minds of a lot of people in this country, no doubt about that, but the timing is so different that year than it was. each of the candidates in this field, this big and growing field of democratic candidates, there's really only one principal objective that democratic votes are feel, beat trump. >> and by the way, that may be what bernie has going for him. maybe at the end of the day democratic voters will think he's a guy that stands up to trump. we shall see. >> i don't know how you have a democratic candidate that nobody gets emotional about that can beat trump and we're in a very different place. and there has to be -- people have to be invested on a number of levels or we're never -- >> i think that's true but i think he also has to be able to mobilize the institutional machinery of the democratic party. >> then institutional machinery

of the democratic party has to play fair. maybe it will this time. >> then he should become a democrat. >> that, too. >> gene, thank you. we'll be reading your new column "yes, the green new deal is audacious but we have no choice but to think big." still ahead, new reporting on the president's decision to declare a national emergency for his border wall. and house of representatives his advisers gave him a slew of other options that might have actually been constitutional. they were trying! try and slip another piece of paper in front of him. didn't work. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

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finish the wall, finish the wall, finish the wall, finish the wall. [ crowd chanting "build that wall" ] >> now, you really mean finish that wall because we've built a lot of it. >> and there the branding experience continues. president trump and his political team plan to make his quest for a border wall one of the central theme of his reelection effort. the president's recent national emergency declaration has, quote, galvanized many of his supporters, even as others on the right remain dubious and disappointed. you say he's essentially trying to speak the wall into existence. i would agree with that.

i think this is all about branding and he's going to actually change the message before our eyes. >> and for trump insiders, it's necessary branding at this moment, looking ahead to the mueller report on the horizon, to all of the political challenges on capitol hill. they thought in 2018 immigration and the caravan, that was the way to stoke their core voter. and in 2020, they believe they have to underscore that the president is not moving away from his commitment to a border wall, even as congress balks at sending any kind of significant funding to that project, politically it remains at the center of what this presidency is all about. >> let's bring in national security reporter for nbc news julia ainsley with the latest on the newest legal challenges to president trump's national emergency declaration. he did predict there would be challenges. he had that whole sing song thing. is this step one in it? >> yeah. we've already seen a number of legal challenges just come out

over the weekend. yesterday 16 states filed in the northern district of california. i've got some reporting that soon there will be a declaration that will be used as part of one of those lawsuits from 50 former national security and homeland security officials, bipartisan, mainly those who worked in democratic administrations but some republican administrations who will say this is not a national emergency and they back it up some with nbc reporting saying there is no known terrorism at the border, there is no human trafficking drug problem that can be fixed with a wall. they say this also undermines national security and foreign policy because you're circumventing the process of congress and in terms of internationalal a internationally, what it looks like for the united states to have a leader that circumvents our normal process to have a wall on this border. >> mike. >> robert costa, the emergency

resolution, the president of the united states, what role, if any, did the white house counsel play in this whole deal? >> the white house counsel is now pat sipaloni. he replaced don mcgahn. he was hesitant about this emergency declaration, but he was not putting his hand up and trying to stop it and yanking it from happening. along with mick mulvaney, he came around to the idea that the president does have in their eyes this executive power and they also knew as they poked in the west wing that he was politically cornered and this was a political out. but pat sipaloni may have a lot to defend here as it heads to the court. >> you have to show your class

was damaged. it's different than we have about the conversation we have here about whether or not this is a national emergency. they need to show someone was hurt. if you think about the lawsuit that was most successful in challenging obama's expansion of daca, that was texas showing that it was hurt by having to pay for the driver's license of immigrants. so sometimes it's not what we would think. it has to be a class. it could be land owners in texas, it could be environmental groups, and it could be states arguing their taxpayers are unfairly burr lly burden by thi may be a place we would not necessarily go to look. >> so proving someone was hurt but also how much we all seize upon this, how important is it that the president himself said to the american people for everyone to hear "i didn't need to do this." >> i think that is important. if you're going to use that as your reason that it's an emergency, an emergency needs to

be handled now. >> he is using his power inappropriately. >> i think the expediency doesn't help his argument. that could be a two-year process if he goes to the supreme court. arguably he could have gotten that through faster if he had gone through congress. >> what's going to happen when the democrats win the white house? this what conservatives are telling me on capitol hill. they say climate change is a national emergency and we're going to declare an emergency on climate change. what's the republican argument at that point? >> julia? anybody have it? i don't think there's anything they can say. tom? >> i think the republicans are entirely in a short-term game. they don't care about what happens two years from now. i think they're in complete survival mode. julie, for the white house staff, is there any sense when

they're asked about this where the president keeps jumping back and fourth between the wall's already built, it's not really built. there's that transcript we saw today with the president of mexico, president knnieto, wher he says we're not playing for the wall and the president says, okay, just don't say it out loud. somebody ends up dealing with that stuff. >> they give the president talking points that he ignores. it could be the last thing he remembers in his mind when he goes out to deliver this. i do know there were some leading up to this who said they hoped cooler heads would prevail. they gave him many drafts of the people speech and they he didn't even use the teleprompter. you could see they wanted to do more executive action and they could have gotten a fair amount of funding just on the executive action but this pushes them to a new territory.

clearly cooler heads did not prevail. >> yamiche, jump in. >> i have a question about the sourcing of the president's data for declaring this emergency. i was in the rose garden when reporters were pressing him saying your own data saying there isn't an emergency, there isn't a crisis. when the president or the white house counsel gets to court, do you have any idea what their data is going to be, where they're going to pull this from? >> that's a great question, yamic yamiche. because of the rhetoric, the numbers went down in 2017. the numbers are now where they were under obama and they're still nowhere near where they were in 2014 and 2016. there are thousands of people

waiting in tijuana just to come here and make a claim. >> thank you both for being on this morning. still ahead, investigators in north carolina say they found evidence of ballot fraud in a congressional midterm race that is still unresolved. we'll go live to raleigh for the latest next on "morning joe." tg [indistinct conversation] [friend] i've never seen that before. ♪ ♪ i have... ♪ -it's our confident forever plan. -welcome to our complete freedom plan. -it's all possible with a cfp professional.

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we were just talking about meat ball, the cat. >> i know. everybody got to see the video. yeah. >> tom's pro main coon, pro beatball t-- meatball, the cat. you need one. >> no, no. >> you chose harriet tubman. tell us why you chose her. >> she was on the underground railroad, freed thousands of slaves and freed not only

herself but went back again to free those from the north. she said i freed a thousand slaves, i could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves. she's talking about when you have the courage, you have to be able to free yourself. you can have opportunities and people willing to give you a lending hand but if you don't take the opportunity in yourself to really be self-motivated then nobody can help you. i think harriet tubman is an amazing person, i think about her often, not just in february, that she did so much for people around her that she didn't have to help. >> it will be the first movie about harriet tubman. >> what an amazing quote, "i freed a thousand slaves, i could have freed a thousand more if they had only known they were slaves." >> and now to new york and the

well coordinated and plot. the board heard from a handful of witness that heard of mcrae dallas' plan. dallas's step daughter admitted to filling in name on absentee ballots. >> did you pay to fill in names on the absentee ballots? >> yes, ma'am. >> you would fill in the other office? >> yes, ma'am. >> and who would have directed you to do that? >> well, we were directed by mr.

basically what we would do, what i would do is vote for whoever was a republican. >> joining me reporter lee ann caldwell who was in the hearings yesterday. what's next in the proceedings? these are federal offenses. >> reporter: yes, yesterday was quite an explosive day in this hearing. i think it was more so than what was expected. it was clearly laid out that there was fraudulent, unlawful activity regarding these absentee ballots in the north carolina ninth congress an district. there was this explosive comment from the investigators right at the start of the hearing where they said there was a coordinated, unlawful, substantially resourced scheme they called it. then we hear from lisa britt, who is the step daughter of mcrae dallas, the person at the center of this plot here, and she really turned on her

stepfather saying -- implicating him saying that what he knew what he was doing was wrong and that he did violate the law and that they tampered with ballots. so that was just day one. and then we're starting day two in just a little bit. >> lee ann caldwell, thank you very much. >> wow. >> and this is still undecided. >> still undecided. tom, republicans complain about vote tampering all the time. despite the fact there's very little evidence of it but here we have it. >> republicans finally found voter fraud. they looked long enough and they found it, just not in the place that they wanted to find it. this is really amazing. this isn't just kind of like our old massachusetts days when mike and i were in boston. i mean, this is pretty talented tampering, even by old school boston standards. >> we never got caught. >> i was just going to say. >> the only thing was, they got caught. this is really -- it's a real

black eye for the republicans in north carolina. >> it's not the first black eye for north carolina either. the legislature has tried to preempt a lot of the newly elected governor's duties. you wonder with the preponderance of evidence that's been admitted, and we just heard a sliver of it, where's the board of elections or a court or someone ordering a new election? what is taking so long? >> it just looks like it has to go that direction. you just look at the numbers from county by county by county and it's clear that there's just an aberration in this one affected county. i can't believe they're not going to order a new election pretty soon. >> up next, the president's plan to use military money to fund his border wall isn't sitting well with kentucky military families who could lose out. >> but remember, lindsey graham said -- lindsey graham said, kentucky voters, that kentucky

schools don't need the money. >> we'll deal with them later, he said. >> lindsey graham said kentucky schools don't need the money, we need to use that money for an image nary crisis to build a wall, to take care of an emergency that he didn't need to take care of, when we actually have immigration rates at a 50-year low. tom, what were you doing in 1971? i'm just curious. >> i was actually arguing with my buddies who were blowing their money on zeplin albums. but i was 10. >> you were 10 years old? >> yes, i was. >> 1971. that was the last time i think that border crossings were higher than they are -- or lower than they are. >> my school in massachusetts was deeply fortified against the waves of immigrants that were making their way to the connecticut valley. >> exactly.

>> okay. >> unbelievable. >> some remember they could have gotten this wall. they have this. >> the same lindsey graham that said, hey, kentucky people, don't worry, you don't need money for your schools is the same lindsey graham who said when republicans were in power, yeah, that's not really a good investment, that money for the wall. that's what lindsey said. he also said a lot of stuff about donald trump during the election as well about how he'd destroy the republican party. >> okay. >> we could just go on, couldn't we? >> we're going to talk to the state's only democrat in washington, who is now the chairman of the house budget committee. "morning joe" is coming right back. ♪ ♪

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of it that could come from military construction efforts, including construction of a middle school in kentucky, housing for military families, improvements for bases like cam ma -- camp pendleton and hanscom air force base. aren't you concerned that some of these projects you voted for in congress are going to get out? >> let's just say he took money out of the military construction budget. i would say it's better for the middle school kids in kentucky to have a secure border. we'll get them the school they need, but right now we got a national emergency on our hands. >> that was republican senator lindsey graham. >> i'm just curious. i've known lindsey since '94. >> okay, here we go. >> liked him. liked him. don't understand him. but can you imagine saying that something is not worth paying for a year ago and now saying

don't worry about the kids in middle school, it's better that we don't worry about the kids in middle school and we spend money on this, quote, national emergency because donald trump said it was a national emergency, even though i said we didn't need to spend the money a year ago when republicans were actually in charge and had the money and the power and the authority to give donald trump whatever he wanted. now he's throwing kids under the bus saying they're not as important as his, quote, national emergency. >> and saying things as though things like videotape don't exist anymore. that's the part that kills me is that all these things are -- these 180s are all said as though there's no internet, there's no videotape, there's no recordings. it just didn't happen. we sort of just kind of wave it away and say, you know, let's start again because the president said this. and i think, again, that the republican party has become a cult of personality. if the president said it, that's

the reality. >> and that is his branding exercises. >> absolutely. >> that's what we're dealing with, branding versus truth. >> if the voters of south carolina, if this were a national emergency, has lindsey now says it is, then why didn't he lead the charge when republicans controlled congress and had the power to build a wall from sea to shining sea? you know why? because lindsey said it was a waste of money. lindsey said it wasn't a good investment. and donald, why didn't he fight for it? because donald likes the issue. he likes waving his arms at the rallies. he likes stirring voters up. he could have gotten the wall his first two years. republicans on the house, republicans on the senate,

republicans opened the white house, they owned the dhs, they owned the court, they owned everything. and they chose not to do anything. and so now they're saying don't worry about school kids, we've got this national emergency now that nancy pelosi is running the house and we can use this as a campaign slogan in 2020. throw kids under the bus. donald trump's done a lot worse, right? it what's the big deal? again, they had the power. they didn't want the wall. they wanted the campaign issue and they believe that voters in south carolina and kentucky and across america are too stupid to remember or to spend five minutes on their google machine. >> so $62 million had been ear marked for the construction of

the fort campbell middle school in kentucky. joining us now, chairman of the house budget committee, democratic congressman john yarmuth of kentucky. >> good morning. >> congressman, respond to lindsey graham. >> well, kentucky used to be a border state, but that was during the civil war. what we're talking about here is not just schools because kentucky pays a lot more education of its students. these are military families. these are kids of soldiers who are probably at the border right now enforcing donald trump's fallacious strategy. we have more of an emergency in kentucky right now with our farm community in getting workers. we want immigrant workers in our country because right now we can't find enough.

so this is just misplaced. we saw stories of families living in housing rat infested and with mold. to me that's much more of an emergency. >> throughout almost each one of the 50 states, there are military installations that are old. the housing is sometimes run down, and the families, of course, are families that belong to someone in the family who has been deployed maybe four, five, six, seven times over the last seven years. what is your response to lindsey graham about the appropriations of money for military families? >> well, i wish he'd channel his old friend john mccain and talk about the importance of making sure that we treat our military families with the greatest attention and respect. this is one of the top

priorities of the country. we know the president is going to ask for an increase in the defense department budget. he wants $50 billion after getting a substantial increase in the last year. that's because he beliefs that the military is a top priority of this country. it is a much bigger priority than a wall that is supposed to deal with a nonexistent emergency. so, again, lindsey graham ought to go back to many things he said. i made the joke, but it is not very funny anymore that hypocrisy is not a sin, it is a strategy. that's what we're seeing out of lindsey graham right now. >> a national emergency is supposed to mobilize the country and direct us with one voice and one effort at a terrible problem to solve. in kentucky, what would you have prior advertised above a wall in mexico?

what do you think the people of your district are facing as more emergencies that require the country to come together and held snp. >> we do have a health care crisis in our commonwealth. we did one of the best jobs in implementing the affordable care act and our governor is trying to backtrack and take that away from our citizens. we still have an education crisis. we have a lot of kids starting their educational careers so far forward. we need to really focus on early childhood education or we will lose generations of young people whom we will desperately need to keep our country moving, to provide a tax base. i'm much more concerned about those issues right now than i am about people trying to escape from desperate circumstances and trying to find a better life in the united states. >> congressman, president trump won kentucky by about 63%.

what do you say to people? >> well, i think that one of the reasons that donald trump won kentucky by such an overwhelming margin was because people felt like they were left behind by an economy that was changing. technology, we have a large agricultural base in our state, many in east kentucky that have suffered because of the demise of the coal industry. he promised to revive coal. he's never going to revive coal, but he sold a lot of people on that. but i think there was a lot of probably fatigue in the clintons. it was a lot of the voters were votes against hillary clinton, not necessarily for a particular

agenda. >> congressman, thank you very much for being on the show this morning. still ahead, much more on the latest legal challenge to the president's emergency order and now his own words are being used against him. plus, this morning's big 2020 announcement. bernie sanders in. next on "morning joe." no matter where you are in life or what your dreams entail,

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i have seen firsthand how the system is bigged against our citizens just like it was rigged against bernie sanders. he never had a chance. never had a chance. but his supporters will join our movement because we will fix his biggest single issue, trade deals that strip our country of its jobs. >> we are running against a president who is a pathological liar, a fraud, a racist, a sexist and someone undermining american democracy as he leads us in an authoritarian government. i am running for president because now more than ever we need leadership that brings us

together, not divides us up. >> that was donald trump at the 2016 republican convention and then senator bernie sanders just this morning as he begins another campaign for the presidency. welcome back to "morning joe." mike is still with us, along with national security expert, columnist at usa today. white house correspondent for pp pbs news and msnbc and author of "the red and the blue." in a moment we'll bring in nbc news capitol hill respondent kasie hunt or kasie d.c. as we like to call her. >> i'm bernie sanders. i'm running for president, and i'm asking you today to be part of an unprecedented grass roots campaign of one million active volunteers in every state in our

country. our campaign is not only about defeating donald trump, the most dangerous president in modern american history. it is not only about winning the democratic nomination and the general election. our campaign is about transforming our country and creating a government based on the principles of economic, social, racial and environmental justice. so here is my question for you. will you stand with me as part of a million person grass roots movement which cannot only win the democratic nomination, not only win the general election, but most importantly help transform this country so that finally we have a government that works for all of us and not just the few. and together we can defeat donald trump and repair the damage he has done to our

country. brothers and sisters, if we stand together, there is no limit to what we can accomplish. >> so, listen, that was a very important moment. but we're very shallow people. so i want to start on a shallow note because that's just who i am. you know how i said snl was at its best when sarah palin worked into tina fey and donald trump has morphed into alec baldwin. you can't think of bernie now without thinking of larry david. >> larry is the david. >> that's just a shallow side note. but larry kills that. >> what he says about trump, of all the presidential candidates out there on the democratic side cuts through. he says it straight on. >> i will say the one thing i

haven't seen from my democratic candidates this year is the ability to cut through the noise. donald trump is up here. >> he's destroying the -- >> and bernie figures out a way to cut through the noise, not with his decembible level, whics very high. but his words cut through, and his message cuts through, i would suggest in a way that no democrat in the field cuts through at this moment. but this is a far different field than 2016. break it down for us. >> yeah. it is interesting. you look at where does sanders start out in the pack. basically second place in any poll you are taking. joe biden would be up there. sanders. and then the rest of the field. kamala harris looks like third place. if you compare sanders to those,

he's not as long as somebody like hillary clinton. reagan, dole in '96. but he's not as weak as some of the ones we have. for example would be rick santorum. i put where i'd stack sanders up historically, if you look at the poll numbers, who is he compared to on these second chance campaigns reminds me of john mccain on the republican side heading into 2008. mccain had been the second place finishers to bush in 2000, and there was that question with mccain since he had sort of been the maverick, would the republican establishment really buy into him? there was issues with immigration and him. and there is a similar question with bernie sanders here. there is a lot of resentment from bernie sanders folks, who resent the fact he's operated outside the democratic party, and there is a question does that impose a ceiling on him. >> you know what's so

fascinating. there is a lot to not like about politics. one of the things i like about politics is you never know what's going to happen. and it is just like i wrote about kamala a couple of weeks ago in "the washington post," that you didn't know whether she had it or not, whether she could fill the big stage because so many people, we could name a lot of candidates that are supposed to be good presidential candidates but they get up there and were just small. kamala fills the stage. seeing bernie talking again right there, i was thinking, you know, past his time, past his prime. 2016 that's when the guy should have done it. i mean, that's -- hey, like i'm saying, very surprised at how effective that statement was and how, again, in 2020 just like 2016 bernie sanders cuts through

the noise. >> he, i definitely think has the potential to, joe. i am looking for whether or not it feels like you are going out with a rock star. that was one of the reasons why i figured out that hillary clinton had problems, was because i was used to covering bernie sanders, which i did for months. we almost got bored. every event you walked into the crowd just roared. he says the same thing every time. his stump speech is not, let me tell you, made for television or sound bites. it is infuriating to try to find a quick clip to represent what he says, but that's part of his appeal, quite frankly, to his voters. they knew what they were getting from him. they felt like he was authentic. if you look at the ideas that the democratic party is talking about and running on, i mean, they are all having a conversation that bernie sanders started in 2016. and i don't think that we should overlook that. now, the one thing i will say is

that, and, you know, quite frankly i experienced this from some of his supporters on the trial, bernie sanders does have a certain problem with women. there are a lot of his supporters where there is kind of a toxic tone. they were subbed the bernie bros in 2016. and you can still pick it up, you know, online if you go on, and i think that's important for him because a lot of his support does come. you can get a sense of it online. obviously twitter isn't representative of everything. but that is an important corner for him. and he's also had some problems with, you know, women staffers coming forward and saying that the campaign was not open to them. and i do think that those two things, combined with the fact that, man, democrats really want to elect a woman. we saw that in 2018 in the mid-term elections. women voters are going to be just absolutely the most important piece of this. and, you know, african-american women are the single most

important constituency. that's like you see somebody like kamala harris making those comments in new hampshire. i'm not a democratic social list. she came here at the end of her hour. those voters, those are still the core of the democratic party. and if bernie is going to have a problem, that's where it is going to come up. >> we talked about bernie's problem with black voters before in 2016 just not connecting. casey brings up the fact he may have some problems with women voters. so, i mean, other than black voters and women voters in the democratic primary, bernie is doing just fine, which of course is saying, you know, i'm doing great except i got no food and the oxygen runs out in three seconds. >> i think bernie sanders and the people around bernie sanders will have to take a hard look at 2016, apart from what some people feel like is a rigged system on the democratic side.

there was also not an investment in african-american voters in the way that you saw with hillary clinton. i'm also thinking about a story that i wrote in a church in south carolina. bernie sanders shows up. he's standing at the mic and all these african-american voters kept eating their sunday lunch. does he not understand we have other issues other than criminal justice? i think bernie sanders learned a lot from that moment. i think what we will see is a bernie sanders that will talk more about diversity but also bring on people that are diverse and understand it. but don't look at a candidate's race. don't look at a candidate's sexual orientation. except that democratic voters absolutely want to look at that because they think diversity isn't something you should just talk about. it is something you should have on the campaign. i think kasie is right.

democratic voters want to absolutely vote for a woman. >> we have this growing field. it is like trying to pick a fantasy baseball team at this stage. there is always going to be a surprise. someone is going to fail quickly. someone is going to rise quickly, probably. but you wonder, and i don't know what the polling data shows in this in terms of issues. there is a range of issues, certainly. but one of the biggest issues that you get to when you talk to ordinary people, ordinary voters is this sense of the country has been divided by a president who is intent on dividing the country. and unity seems to be one of the aspirations that are driving a lot of voters, beating trump and bringing the country back to some sense of a unified coordinated existence. >> yeah. i pick up on that. you couple that with, too, the idea of beating trump. when you take a poll right now

and you ask democratic voters what matters to you most in a candidate. what comes become more than we have ever seen is electability. and we can sit here and we can have a discussion about, you know, biden is the most electable. no, wait, it is kamala harris. i don't know where that takes us because every voter will have a different idea what electable even means. does electable mean having joe biden standing at a podium and really trying to get under trump's skin? does electable mean having a maximum contrast with trump's tone, someone that strikes a more conciliatory tone rather than trump. but the closest parallel i can think of from the democratic side a little bit, think back to 2004, how badly democrats wanted to get george w. bush out of office as he was taking the country into iraq. remember how quickly that party united behind john kerry. >> i think that will happen.

i think once somebody emerges, i think the party will unite because they do want to win badly. but, tom, we are talking about what ailed the republicans. i think that's after eight years of barack obama they wanted to win, and they would take a reality tv star, flimflam artist, a lifelong democrat who became a birther in 2011 who said openly racist things throughout the course of the entire campaign. paul ryan calling him a racist and two days later endorsing him. that's where it led the republican party. this guy is tough. this guy is strong. this guy can win, you know? i don't know that we want the democrats to do the same. >> yeah. i am curious about whether that's bernie's strategy here because it seems like he's almost begun by dismissing the rest of the democratic field and say i'm running against donald trump right now. i'm not waiting for a primary.

i'm going right into the -- >> strategy. >> but the thing i wonder about that is, as a guy who got pushed out of the way in a pretty ugly primary, is there a danger now that he's stepping forward and saying, it's my turn. i did my duty. i waited. i got, you know, pushed out of the way in 2016. and now -- because it seems like the democrats for better or for worse are debating each other on policy. sometimes it gets too wonky and that turns people off. but that's at least something you should go through as part of the job of becoming a candidate. >> i will say, you started to say it, i think it's a pretty good strategy. i remember when i ran in '94. there were 11 people running. i never mentioned any of their names. all i got out was bill clinton. >> but you were a member of the party already. and that does make a difference. >> yeah. i wonder why he's not a member

of the party. steve, why is he still not a democrat? >> the interesting thing about this is it kind of cuts both ways, doesn't it? there is a parallel here and sanders would never want to hear this. there is a parallel to donald trump. ironically one of the things that republican voters found the most appealing about donald trump was his an taggism toward the republican party. republican voters were upset with their own party, and donald trump crashed that party. bernie sanders, we saw this in 2016, there are a lot of democratic voters out there that don't like that democratic party and he's able to tap into that. on the democratic side just structurally, is there more built in support among democratic voters for the establishment and can that impose a ceiling on him that republicans were unable to oppose on trump. >> joe, can i take a stab at that question? >> go ahead, kasie. >> soberny sanders is the most

stubborn politician i have ever covered. he has been an independent his krier political career. i'm sure there have been advisers that have told him he should consider being a democrat if he wants to be the democratic candidate for president. i'm sure, and i could be proven wrong, but i feel very safe in saying that the last thing that bernie sanders will ever do is abandon being a political independent simply because he cannot conceive it and will refuse to do it. >> and you covered him some. i'm sure you can speak also to that stubbornness. what i loved with bernie was when i served with him in congress, he'd say hi to everybody. and then we went back and saw him before a speech in new hampshire last year, and he was a larry david character. we loved him, and we have been friends for a very long time.

but bernie is bernie. he is stubborn. he is independent. he is tough in his own way. >> bernie sanders is definitely a stubborn candidate that i think is not going to change being an independent. but i also think he thinks the democratic party owes him a fair shot. he believes in his soul that you don't have to be a democratic to be treated fairly. that's why you see his supporters saying the democratic party was rigged. i think we will see whether or not bernie sanders is stubborn enough that he will keep the exact same play book from 2016. if he does that, he will run into the same trouble he ran into in 2016 where people thought he wasn't investing enough into the democratic party. but he also wasn't looking at establishment democrats saying, let me help you out. sources were telling me bernie sanders had not reached out to

jim for his endorsement in south carolina. it felt like, okay, bernie sanders wants to continue to make this organic. bernie sanders had all these flocking women crying. it was because oit was organic. i think that's why bernie sanders was stubborn to change his motives and strategy because he thought i'm doing exactly what i should be doing and people are coming anyways. >> all right. kasie hunt live for us from new hampshire this morning where 12 degree temperatures are waiting for you outside. so enjoy that. stay warm. >> steve and yamish, thank you both as well. interesting conversation. i think, you know, a hard look at 2016 will be letting these candidates shine and letting the process fairly figure out who it's going to be. >> and we always talk about baseball, but, mike, you never know until they go out on the field. >> it's not who interests us.

>> what i said about kamala harris, it is like a pitcher. you know, first time in the big leagues, you never know until you put the ball in their hand and they go up on the mound and you see how they respond to it. you never know. we have no idea. >> past performance is just that. it's past performance at aaa. this is the major leagues. you never know who is going to fail fast or succeed quickly. you don't know. >> still ahead, president trump just tweeted about the 16 cities, including california, that are suing over his emergency declaration on the border wall. they are, in fact, states that are suing, but he's not watching, so he won't correct that. and we'll run through their arguments straight ahead. their states. and we want to mention that next wednesday, check joe's band at the cutting room in new york city. >> did we figure out what

zeppelin song we're going to play for you? >> i think my voice is more suited for the end of that song. >> that will come after you host "hardball". >> don't go! let's by hardball. >> stone cold. let's play hardball! >> we need to have you tape it a couple hours ahead of him. >> but that was pretty good. i like what you did. yes, lean in. >> lean in to the camera. >> one more time. are you ready? >> don't go! >> i see the lean. >> save it for tonight. >> i have known chris for years. here is what you have to do. you have to have both hands like that. lean into the camera and into, "treason"! hardball. >> break it down. >> he's so cute. all right. you're watching "morning joe."

we'll be right back. we'll be right back. go to break. >> and from the state of verm t vermont, senator bernie sanders. [ applause ] >> hello, hello, hello. enough with the hellos, let's do this. >> senator sanders, how are you? >> i'm good. i'm hungry, but i'm good. and now if you don't mind, i'm going to dial it right up to a ten. >> go right ahead. >> we're doomed! we need a revolution. millions of people on the streets. and we got to do something. and we got to do it now! ♪ let me be by myself ♪ in the evenin' breeze,

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filed a lawsuit to keep the president from using an emergency declaration to redirect federal funds for his border wall. the lawsuit led by the state of california accuses the president of violating the separation of powers, stating, quote, congress made clear that funding could not be used to build president trump's proposed border wall. the lawsuit also cites the president's own words from friday's news conference when he said congress provided more than enough money for border security. >> i went through congress. i made a deal. i got almost $1.4 billion when i wasn't supposed to get one dollar. not one dollar. well, i got $1.4 billion, but i'm not happy wit. i also got billions and billions of dollars for other things, port of entries, lots of different things, purchase of drug equipment, more than we were even requesting.

in fact, the primary fight was over the wall. everything else we have so much, as i said, i don't know what to do with it we have so much money. but on the wall they skimped. i was successful in that sense, but i want to do it faster. i could do the wall over a longer period of time. i didn't need to do this, but i'd rather do it much faster. >> yeah. you heard that in realtime. you said that, really? the lawsuit was filed in the northern district of california, meaning any appeal would be heard by the ninth circuit, which last year blocked the president's asylum ban. >> so convenient for the president. pretend that everything ends with the ninth circuit, just like democrats didn't like the fact that, you know, texas would always hear cases and then stop the part of obamacare, that part about obamacare, but it ends up in the supreme court at the end of the day.

how in the world? i cannot see a see the supreme court does not rule this to be an unkconstitutional reach. >> especially now that the president ruled this a discretion. it is like walking into the emergency room and saying, listen, i don't really need to be here, but i'd like to talk to someone. >> and steven miller didn't help the case. >> and never does. >> never does, fox does. but basically compare this to a foreign war in texas is ridiculous. if this were one of the great threats facing the united states of america, if this were an emergency, then of course when the intel chiefs came and gave their threat assessment, they would have mentioned it. but they don't mention it. they still don't mention it. and you have the acting secretary of defense saying, yeah, i'm not so sure. >> had he mentioned it, he

wouldn't have listened anyway because we know he doesn't listen to his briefings. this is aimed right at the base, creating that sense of urgency. but i wonder if the republicans are actually relieved by this to say, you know, we passed the bill. he gets it off our plate. they kick it up to the courts. that way it's somebody else's problem, eventually gets shot down and the president declares a win taken away from him by the bad courts, the bill goes through and life goes on. this is no way to run a government. >> this was the plan all along. we're not going to give him the money because when we republicans were in charge we didn't want to give him a dime because we all have quotes where we saw the wall is a stupid, stupid idea. so let's do this. we'll just pass a little bit of money. then he could declare his little national emergency. >> yeah. >> the courts can rule it unconstitutional. but the government is open. so we're not going to lose another 5 or 10 points in our

approval ratings. and then when the supreme court overturns it, which they will, then donald can attack the united states supreme court and federal judges during his campaign. >> yeah. it is totally cynical. you know, it is amazing, really. i mean, you know, i'm not a republican. i've never been a republican. but i did think the republican party stood for something. and it stands for nothing now. it stands for nothing except naked self-interest and cowering fear of donald trump and his hold over the republican base. and so the fact that senators like, you know, the former lindsey graham and others are actually cheering this on, something they know is unconstitutional. they know it's wrong. they know it is destructive. and yet they are cheering it on just so they can kind of get

passed it is really ridiculous. there is going to be historical accounting for those who refuse to stand up to this president. and i can't wait. >> coming up on "morning joe," the democrats running for president have been quick to weigh in on just about everything, including claims from an actor that he was assaulted by trump supporters in chicago. we'll talk about what the candidates are saying now as that story goes in a different direction. that is next on "morning joe." i landed.

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new revelations in the case involved the alleged attack on "empire" actor jussie smollett. kamala harris called the attack an attempted modern day lynching. here is what she said about that tweet yesterday. >> which tweet? >> about saying it is a modern day lynching. >> sorry. >> jussie smollet.

>> okay. so i will say this about that case. i think the facts are still unfolding, and i'm very concerned about, obviously -- >> can we just say it? because that's what we used to do on this show. can we just say it. >> okay. i don't know if i want to. >> just talk about first instincts. >> okay. >> she looked like she actually didn't know about the tweet and like she was looking around at a staff member going, did we tweet that out? i'm not making any excuses for her whatsoever. it's -- the buck stops with her. i'm just saying you can look at somebody. and, mike, it looked like she didn't even know that tweet was going out there. >> i got to say, though, you are correct. >> it's her responsibility. >> we don't know. >> she did as well as you can do with that moment, the turn to

get more time and the laugh. >> are you kidding me, we tweeted that? >> as a former senate staffer, i would really like to not throw the staff under the bus. the senator was asked a question, and she asks the staff. >> do you think these candidates are tweeting th24/7. no. stop. if you have people tweeting for you, it is not helpful, and something like that will happen. and she did tweet that. she's going to have to completely roll it back and take ownership for that because we don't know what happened. just like with many other cases we're talking about in this country where there are allegations. that's what they are, accusations. we don't know what happened. and this is a problem. everyone thinks mob rule is where we're going to go. it's not going to work in the elections. it's not going to work for democrats. this is what trump wants. >> we saw this during brett

kavanaugh, how mob rule worked and worked for a lot of other democrats in middle america. people still support due process. let's get all the facts first and then we'll pass judgment. >> get the facts first. i mean, there is a lesson to be learned here, which one of the lessons, you know, maybe this is an old journalist lesson. but when there is a story of an incident that has every detail possible that's just perfect and just fitting, you know, if it sounds too pat, it is. and that's just the fact. and, so, you know, i think you have to reserve the kind of judgment that goes on, you know, that goes out to modern day lynching, goes all the way there, until you learn some facts. and as we learn facts, it doesn't sound like that. >> it is interesting from an old, grizzled vet to another

old, grizzled vet. >> here we go. >> but, mike, it is so funny. off camera you said the same thing that gene just said on camera, which was the old reporter in you said, this is all too neat. >> yeah, yeah. >> we don't know. >> and again we still don't know. and perhaps -- >> absolutely, absolutely. >> there were guys running around at 15 below zero carrying bleach in downtown chicago. >> listen, your best bet is to -- not everybody can do this, but go to the ground. you talk to the cops. you see what was going on. and to see about what other ramifications there are in the story that's been told, which could absolutely be legitimate, could absolutely be as it was told. >> as a somewhat less kriz grizzled --

>> you're frigrizzled, man. >> twitter makes everybody believe they must know what's happening right now. coming up, so far there is only one republican, former governor william weld joins us to talk about his primary challenge of the president. "morning joe" is back in a moment. cal: we saved our money and now, we get to spend it - our way.

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all right. >> and they had a history. >> i think they did. they were chatting up. >> joining us now 2016 vice presidential nominee for the libertarian party, william weld. he announced an exploratory committee to challenge trump in the 2020 republican primary. what has brought you to this point? who has inspired you to do this again? >> i don't think the guy down there in washington is getting the job done. i don't think he's paying attention. i'll give you just one example.

we do face a national emergency in this country, and it's not building a 200 mile long berlin wall. it is the fact that because of technology developments, we're going to lose 25% of all the jobs that now exist in the united states because of artificial intelligence, robotics, drones, machine learning, autonomous vehicles. but there will be replacement jobs created, and they're mostly on the technical side, and we've got to as a country make sure those displaced workers can get those technical skills. that will take some federal leadership. >> you're saying this is a protest. can you win? >> yeah. look back to 2016. the unthinking became the inevitable twice. first in the republican primary and then in the general election. and if you look back over the last 20, 30 years, people say,

how can someone who is nowhere two years out possibly get elected president of the united states. i got four words for you. clinton, carter, obama and trump. two years out, those guys, no one had ever heard of them. >> 75%, 80% of republicans still support donald trump. so what is your pitch to new hampshire republicans? >> well, that's one voter at a time. new hampshire voters like to be able to touch and feel their candidates, and it is easy for me to get there. i think i will probably be spending more time there than other candidates. but i'm just going to play it straight. i think the current president is target-rich environment and, you know, he has to ask people now to put up with his antics for another six years. that's a long time. >> mike? >> so how do you go about convincing people when joe just pointed out the numbers. they're staggering in terms of

support for the incumbent president right now. how do you go about trying to explain or explain to people how at one level his presidency is so dangerous to the security of this country? >> oh, the foreign policy is just awful. he goes out of his way to court despots and autocrats. his favorite guy is vladimir putin and kim in north korea. he also says, what a great, strong kid. he iced his uncle. he even iced his own brother. he loves a guy in the philippines who personally shoots suspected drug dealers. i think if you put the president under and said wouldn't you prefer to have in primary and no election, he would say yes, a thousand times yes. he might blurt it out. >> might. >> so you have talked about jobs

being one of your job issues. what other issues are you going to be running on? >> it's not everybody's dish of tea, but i think climate change is an enormous issue. it is going to melt the snow on the white mountains. you know, it is going to melt all the mountain glaciers around the world. there are hundreds of millions of people who depend on mountain glaciers as their own source of water. it will rearrange the coastline of everybody, including the united states. and to just say breezily this is a hoax and i'm not going to do anything about it and i will make sure the united states contributes nothing by contributing to the paris climate accords, that is irresponsible. the science is not iffy on this stuff. >> republicans aren't moved by that issue. are you going out to educate the problem? >> i'm going to keep saying what i'm saying. and, you know, in my boom

president trump is not a conservative. he's not a conservative on conservation. it was teddy roosevelt that brought in these environmental policies through the republican party. another huge issue is debt and the deficit. they say the president is fixing to cast his first veto on his made up national emergency about the wall. >> right. >> that means he hasn't vetoed a single dollar of spending a trillion dollars of year of extra debt. >> so the republicans -- >> unfair to the younger generation. >> when republicans run washington, they have had a shameful record on the deficit, on debt, on spending. what will you do if you were the republican president of the united states, 46th president of the united states? what will you do to bring down the deficit? >> well, the first two items of business in washington are cut spending and cut taxes. cutting spending comes first. i did cut spending in

massachusetts year over year. i was rated the most fiscally conservative governor in the united states, actually tied the mike sullivan in wyoming who was a conservative players. but we were the only a players. you can't say that about anybody in washington right now. it doesn't hurt the economy, which i'm sure the president says he needs the deficit to sometimeula y sometime you late the economy. >> hearing a republican talk about climate change, starting there, but i'm thinking about the place that the republican party is in right now. it's in kind of a weird place. there is a place, and then there is the republicans on capitol hill who are struggling to find their voice. my question is, how do you win in the primary? i mean, how do you breakthrough? >> it is an exercise in persuasion. but i associate the alleged base with people who felt diseven

franchised that they lost their jobs. okay. if they see what i was just discussing happening, all the technology cal developments and they're losing their jobs outright and the president is doing nothing about it. he's doing nothing about it because he's too busy with his political slogans and let's build the wall and demonize other countries and their religions. >> how do you get the jobs back? >> you give the skill sets to the displaced workers and make sure they could get them without having to take two years off and pay two years commission at a community college. i'm not saying make college free for everybody. we need a g.i. bill for those displaced workers. we need a g.i. bill for them to make sure they don't take it in the neck again. >> all right. former governor william weld. thank you very much. it is great to see you. >> thank you, governor. good luck. >> up next, the dea agent who led the man hunt for el chapo.

>> and on tomorrow's show, former acting fbi director andrew mccabe will be our guest. morning joe is back in a moment. you should be mad at airports. excuse me, where is gate 87? you should be mad at non-seasoned travelers. and they took my toothpaste away. and you should be mad at people who take unnecessary risks. how dare you, he's my emotional support snake. but you're not mad,

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we have tremendous amounts of drugs flowing into our country. they say it all comes through the port of entry.

it's wrong. it's wrong. it's all a lie. they say walls don't work. walls work 100%. a big majority of the big drugs, the big drug loads don't go through ports of entry. they can't go through ports of entry. you can't take big loads because you have people. we have some very capable people, the border patrol, law enforcement looking. >> president trump claims that drugs do not flow through our ports, but our next guest says that a border wall do little to stop the flow of illegal drugs into the country. joining us now former dea special agent in charge jack riley, the author of new book "drug warrior". >> so, jack, we have to ask first. bradley, did you go to bradley? >> i did. i'm a proud alum. >> fantastic. >> well done. >> so talk about this 30 year hunt, man hunt for el chapo.

talk about what was the big lesson of that. what was the big idea to pass down the dea agents today? >> the key is to go after the biggest and the top and to attack the oranganization at evy level you can. i think that's really important. i will tell you ten years ago chapo was banking on the fact that the good guys weren't talking to each other. we weren't sharing information. we weren't connecting the dots, and we are now. so we've come a long way. >> what changed that? >> the realization that going after the guy on the street corner is not going to stop the organization itself. and we also learned quite a bit when we dealt with our friends in columbia and the cartels. >> where are the drugs all coming in from? donald trump says not legal ports of entry. >> absolutely. >> does a 90% number sound right? >> i think it is. it does not make sense for the

cartels, a guy like chapo guzman to take it through isolated on wall areas. it just doesn't. if you can move through the ports of entry in concealed compartments in any type of vehicle you can and then once you clear that check point, you are right on the interstate going down the road. >> how do you stop that? how do we do a better job of stopping that? >> i'm a big proponent of increased technology and manpower at the ports of entry. you only got to look three weeks ago where we had the largest fentanyl seizure in cvp history. we never gotten that. right now we're probably going that about 30% of the time the vehicle is coming across. >> how much can china help us? >> the government is talking about how the government got so mesh pressure they cut down that and stop that.

can they do the same with fentanyl and other drugs? >> the one thing about fentanyl we need to understand is it's being produced in mexico. you know, there is no growing season to fentanyl. it's laboratory synthetic heroin, so the cost benefit of producing and trafficking in fentanyl is unbelievable. if you look at what happened to the east coast in the last couple of years, places like new hampshire, years ago, joe, we would seize heroin somewhat cut with fentanyl. now we're seeing fentanyl cut with heroin. that's how it's taken over. >> what do we do about the fact that we are an incredible drug consuming country. whenever you mention let's deal with it by spending more money on treatment facilities, people seem to pull back and say, junkies leave them alone. no treatment facilities there, stuff like?

>> we have to work on the way we educate. i'm not talking about sending uniformed policemen into a third grade elementary class. i'm talking about targeting the people that are at risk, our young adults, college, high school and professional adults that find themselves in the grip of addiction that want treatment but it's not available. treatment has to be made available to those that need it. i'm not talking about repeat offenders, bad guys, drug dealers. let that take place in our correction institution. i'm talking about making it available for everybody. >> does the wall do anything to help keep drugs from coming into the country? >> in my opinion, no. i think the guy in the white house thinks that a load of cocaine comes in on, you know, the backpack of an illegal alien doing the breaststroke across the rio grand. it just simply doesn't happen that way. >> the book is "drug warrior." thank you so much and good luck. >> my honor. thank you. one final thought for the

morning. >> bernie sanders, what is the race going to look like with him in now? >> it's jump ball right now. again, it is like picking a fantasy baseball team. they haven't taken the field yet. people are going to hit 300. some will be gone by may 1st. >> that does it for us this morning. stephanie picks up the coverage right now. >> thanks. a lot to cover this morning starting with breaking news. bernie sanders launching his second campaign for president this morning, joining an increasely crowded field of democratic contenders. >> we're going to win. we are going to also launch what i think is unprecedented. that is a grass roots movement, john, to lay the ground work for transforming the economic and political life of this country. >> and on the clock, deputy ag rod rosenstein is set to leave the justice department in weeks, leading to speculation that the mueller investigation might also wrap up within t