that's it for me on this hour of weekends. i'll see you all at noon weekend. now it's time for "up "with david gura. >> well, this is "up." now reporting on how jared kushner got the security clearance over the objections of career officials and the white house chief of staff. >> the president does have the authority to gifz a top secret security clearance to whoever he wants so why did they lie is the big question. >> house committee demands details by monday. with his testimony he guesses democrats the keys to the ding come, a ten course meal, you can pick your metaphor. >> pandora's opened not only in terms of witnesses but also potential crimes.

>> today president trump addresses conservatives at cpac has the president tries to walk back comments he made about who is responsible for otto warmbier's death. >> he seems to side with powerful men who are accused of moral transgressions. >> it is saturday, march the 2nd and we are trying to pinpoint exactly when president trump's second summit with kim jong un started to fall apart. >> even lunch was cancelled with the table already set. wow. you know something must have gone wrong when these two turned down lunch. >> up with me, a former senate leadership aide. christina is a professor at nyu. .

well, he rarely speaks in public but the president's son-in-law is in the spotlight under intense and deserved scrutiny this morning after a report in the "new york times" it was confirmed by other media outlets that president trump ordered the approval of a top security clearance for jared kushner despite concerns raised by chief of staff john kelly and now don mcgahn. his apry occasion was rejected by security specialists. the revelations have led the chair of the oversight committee to write a strongly worded letter to the white house dem d demanding answers by monday as he and his colleagues look for clearances for nine officials. cummings accuses the administration of stalling and failing to provide his committee with a single document or witness. i want to remind you of what he said about all this during an

interview with the yiemsz. >> i don't think i have the authority to do that. i'm not sure i do. but i wouldn't do it. i was never involved with his security. >> after that interview jared kushner's wife, ivanka trump also denied president trump had a hand in this. >> the president had no involvement pertaining to my clearance or my husband's clearance. >> so no special treatment. >> no. >> jared curb her wraps up a six-stop trip to the middle east. he met with the crown pruns and his questions linger about what jared kushner omitted on his first application for security clearance. letz me start with you. you filled out theeds forms before. you've been through this process as well. before we get into the lying side of things, why they're saying deferent things, talk about the implications of this. your reaction to how this process unfolded. >> let me say look, when you start this process you get a

long form that basically asks you to disclose your entire life, where you've lived, who you ooefz worked for, who your friends are, your finances. everything is in there. your whole life is just right there. and you can't -- as you're filling this out there are warnings on the document. i mean, you can't fill that out and not understand the gravity of what you're undertaking there. the job that's coming that this clearance will allow you to do, but then what a serious thing it would be to misrent those facts on that form and at any point in the process. and so this idea that you know, kushner had to revise his disclosures over and over again. because he was inexperienced or whatever, i don't buy it. i filled that thing out for the first time when i was 22 or something like that. it wasn't lost on me even as a young kid. i didn't know that what i was doing was extremely period. >> we are in a position where

we're looking at somebody in the administration who felt the need to write a memo. this happened with james comey. the fbi has done this a few times we ooefz learned. >> the news that's comes to light here as about the way he pushed back and the president overruling him. >> it's significant that the white house counsel wrote memos to the record saying i oppose this. i thought it was improper. here's why. they must really have felt very strongly that this was a breach of process that endangered the country in some way and that it made it really hard to govern. there's a reason these processes are in place. they're not just paperwork for the reasons evan said, they're there to protect the country, they're there to warn officials that they could be subject to compromise by foreign governments or foreign actors and you want to avoid that at your risk but by putting it on

paper they've created a paper trail that now will become the subject of a big fight presumably can congress that we're going to want to what it was to cause them to deny the son's security. >> about that, i mean, you look at the president saying time and time again he hires the best people. often in his estimation those are relatives of him. i mentioned jared kushner selling this peace plan that he's going to come up with. your reaction to that? why this guy, jared kushner is so important to the president that he would overturn these norms and make this happen. >> they are a criminal family. i think drth stands as such a larger vulgar figure. he's sustained by his family. and it's that there's -- this

sounds mean, but they're like an idiot family. they're profoundly private. they have no sense of a public interest. they see the work they're doing in the white house as focused on pursuing their private ends so because of that i think having people around him like that is really useful. it was an early moment, but i think they're a profoundly self-interested family and this is sort of -- the criminality of what we're seeing from the cohen hearings and the trump organization is part and parcel because that's an entire family that seems themselves only in their first interest. i've read the statements from abby lowell. >> so let's get into the lies

surrounding this as well. you have abby, a lawyer now saying i was unaware knowing any of this was going on. >> we were talking about this before and i always try to find a historical parallel to jared kushner and you really can't until you go to woodrow wilson. i may one of the strangest people on television talking about woodrow wilson, but you go back to his wife, first lady when president wilson was incapacitat incapacitated. that's the only parallel i can draw to this. you had him making these decisions, making decisions of state. making decisions that affect each and every one of us, the people who are watching here today on tv and no accountability whatsoever.

no congressional oversight. no president to reign them in. john kelly was the chief of staff, couldn't reign them in. that's fascinating to me that this president has created that kind of environment. it's the kind of campaign he ran. it's the kind of business he's run and the kind of white house he's done. reckless leadership. >> i saw a tweet after this story broke saying by the time we wake up tomorrow it will be a travesty. what does it say to you, we probe this so often how much ma divide has broken down between the legislative branch and the executive branch. there's a bit of outrage from congress but nothing has happened. >> it says to me that we don't have the separation of powers like we would like to see. we have more of that now that the democrats are in control of the house. and i think the true commitment to people like adam schiff and

so many others to make sure we hold the president accountable. it's not where it needs to be because you need republicans to come along too and that's what's missing. we saw this just this last week where we had a house resolution to halt the emergency declaration and only 13 republicans voted in favor of that resolution and that's something that would have passed unanimously had the president been a democrat. had this been president obama they would haved forthat unanimously. >> that's where we are right now. >> last question to you. kellyanne came out and said he has the authority to do this. this is the president's decision. he can make this decision. he can overrule john kelly, don mcgahn as he likes. that's within his purview. >> you had that information in

which you have her saying something different as well. >> there's the lying and total lack of strategy surrounding the lie. >> is it that they lie for practice and it gives us a clue of what to look for? he himself had already revoked the security clearance of a critic, former cia director john brennan so he knew he had the power to do it and it does raise the question of what it was that was the reason for the intelligence community and others and the white house chief of staff took the move saying the president's son-in-law shouldn't get a security clearance. there have been other times where presidents have had family members involved. i worked in the clinton white house where it actually wasn't so good for president clinton or hillary clinton that she played the roles on health care. it's really complicated when you have an advisor you can't

dismiss. there's a reason we have these norms and laws and i do think we need to find out not just did he have security clearance. jared kushner has done some good thing it is. we think he's done a good job on criminal justice reform but you don't need a security clearance for that. >> lying is almost a narcotic for trump. i wonder about the impulsive need too lie. it's almost as if the act of doing it is sort of suiting to him. it's as if he tells the story because it's who we wants to be, and it feels -- i say it's narcotic because there's a sense of no sense of the consequences. you want to do it regardless of the impact it had after wards and i wonder about that sort of lack of self-control. >> fit's the language of trump and of trump lying. it's the -- it's the bedrock foundation of everything that they do. business, government, et cetera.

>> we're very short on time. i have to get in ear on this. there's a lot of focus on kushner's clearance. does he have one? is it top secret? does he have the special compartment information. >> the highest level. >> the real sentive stuff. >> no, he does not have that. >> and he shouldn't have a clearance either. what reports, what assessments does he have access to and then what's happening to that information because we know foreign countries are targeting kushner. but the real issue here is not actually the information that he may be able to read in these rorlts b ror reports, but it's the fact that kushner is in the white house and he is is the president's son-in-law. thatsa why these foreign countries are going after him because he's very vulnerable

gifzing h gi, the dismissal that he receives from more seasoned officials, all of that makes him vulnerable and regardless, he's in the white house, he has access to what he thinks this is. all right. when we come back why after michael cohen's testimony remain reluctant to use the i word. >> i don't believe you can believe much of what this guy says. >> i think this was the first step in the impeachment plans. t step in the impeachment plans. ss and elbow grease. the official truck of getting to work, and getting to work. it's the official truck of homecoming, and coming home. the all new chevy silverado. just announced! 0% financing for 72 months on this all-new silverado has been extended for chevy truck month.

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[ sighing ] ♪ oh my momma she gave me ♪ these feathered breaths ♪ ♪ oh my momma check in from afar with remote access. and have professional monitoring backing you up with xfinity home. demo in an xfinity store, call, or go online today. >> you at the time are personally opposed to the death penalty. >> i've been my entire life and i still am. >> would you commit to choosing a woman as your vice presidential running mate? >> you know i'll be looking to women first. >> do you have views on whether

or not u.s. troops should be in syria? it doesn't give you a way to talk to people who might be more conservative than you are right now. >> the fact of the matter is this is the first unofficial hearing of the impeachment process x whether you want to call it that or not that's what history is going to show this. >> we heard from michael cohen what might be the most damaging testimony for our president since john dean testified against president nixon during the watergate hearings. >> cohen's testimony this week before three congressional committees drawing comparisons to former white house counsel gave during the watergate hearings. his testimony was broadcast nationwide on all three major tv net works. dean weighing in on the parallels this morning and a brand new op ed saying quote, i was surprised to see the number of people to support my account.

the mafia's code has no flourish in public service. however it was different what what we saw this week. dean who served as president nixon's white house counsel reluctantly implicated nixon over five days of testimony detailing nixon's involvement and his own. >> did you tell him anything about your involvement in watergate. >> yes, sir, i did and i had on previous occasions to tell him that i felt that i was involved in an obstruction of justice, particularly after he had told me that i should report to him and made the comment to me that those two were principles. that stuck in my mind so clearly maybe he didn't understand what i was doing. >> you had a man there

testifying, a photographic memory. how good is the analogy? >> well, there's a strong analogy and that is the first time since john dean that an insider to a president has gone in public under oath and testified about a range of illegalities on national television. that is a really big deal and you never had that in other can scandals like that. john dean was forced by circumstances but so was michael cohen. neither of them would have done it without an fbi raid or two. but dean focused just on the facts of what he was saying but there's one parallel that we don't see in retrospect. people didn't know whether to believe john dean at the time. his recollections were very detailed but a lot of people said no, it's not true. the white house said it's not true. it was only when later witnesses came out and in that case the almost absurd dramatic device of there being tapes.

there's ed that we don't know about that will tell us whether or not -- some of the real revelations that trump knew about the russian hacking -- their wikileaks beforehand that he discussed hush money payments just like don dean in the evil office. those are things that can be documented in other ways too. >> you look at this op ed and john dean is coming, there's a lot of discomfort who's going to testify against a position. you have other tendencies of those two presidents as well. your sense of the parallels here and what can you gauge accurately the important of what happens it took time for us to reckon with the importance of how quickly it was to do that. >> i think, you know, there's a way in which hearings malter for a lot of reasons. they matter because they're

public events and they are there to kind of shine a light on -- for the public and to educate the public so i think the amount of time it takes for the hearing to absorb into the public conversation takes a little bit of time but i think it's really important in order to talk about -- these are the most two most criminal white houses we've had. so given the criminalities of these two administrations i think it's important for the public to understand the depths of this personality. so this does a great job. if and when you get to impeachment, you have to bring along that it's an important civic educational moment but the other day what i was thinking about with dean versus cohen, the add min strafk traffic in

retaliation. making that reference to like -- i find it ironic that he is's in vietnam. so i'm not sure how that plays to the foreplay, but because we're living in an administration that is so deeply personalized its politics it's par for the course. >> we played a clip talking about how he sees this as the first step in an impeachment process. i want to get your sense of that as well. i saw an interesting line that we're getting to a point where the window was closing on impeachment. as we approach 2020 there's going to be a point at which removal of the president is going to be left to those who go to the ballot box in 2020. there's some thinking i gather from democrats that this is more useful, having hearings like this, allowing persons to hear from these vuindividuals direct.

>> there's too much frivolous talk about impeachment. it's a political test. it's a constitutional check when there is wrong doing. there is certainly some evidence of wrong doing or seemingly some evidence should investigate. i think there's too much frivolous talk about it what i'd rather focus on is michael cohen sat at the foot of this president for the last 20 some odd years. this is who surrounded him with. what does that say about the judgment of our president? what does that say about his gut instincts about people, that this is the type of person that he has lead with. i take no excitement from having cohen on my side because that guy is going to jail and by the way, he probably wouldn't have done that if donald trump would have -- would have, you know,

pardoned him. so i have a hard time with the optics of all of this and with the -- you know, the strange bedfellows and alliances that have been built because of this. i cannot believe that our president that we've elected a president that takes league with people like this. >> i want to come back to you in just a moment. dualing narratives. and the latest on what may have motivated the president to hold that second summit despite what many of his aides advised. advis.

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you always have to be prepared to walk. i could have signed an agreement and you people would have said what a terrible thing you did. no, you have to be prepared to walk. >> eager to score a foreign policy win at his second summit, president trump walked away empty handed. at a news conference, mike pompeo tried to spark an optimistic turn. >> the progress put us in position to get a really good outcome. i hope we'll do so in the weeks ahead. >> but what happens in the next few weeks or months is unclear.

>> we'll so fit happens. it might be sooner, it might not be for a long time. i would hope it would be soon, but it may not be for a long time. >> his answer to another question at that news conference gave us new insight into president trump's commitment to resolving the north korea issue. >> all my life i've heard that the toughest of all deals when they talk about all deals, the toughest of all deals would ded be peace between israel and the palestinians. we'll see what happens. >> mr. trump will not be yaerning for another summit any too many soon. it's either back to the fire and fury of 2017 or the defacto acceptance of north korea.

>> sue, i want to get your sense of where things go from here going back to the comments of mike paempt ompeo. is there a path forward as you see it walking away from this summit? >> i think it's going to be difficult because now they're at the highest level and we don't have any kind of agreement on anything. eight months after singapore. they're talking about south korea, u.s. extended nuclear umbrella. our troop brens and when we are talking denuclearization we're talking about north korea program. we don't have a time loourn. we don't even have a base here to even go forward so they're going to try to meet at a working level to move this forward but i think it's going to be difficult to meet any time

soon. i think two leaders really wildly misjudged each other. >> when you look at all of this, talking about something at a lower level, diplomats talking, that has been a great difficulty throughout all of this. how optimistic are you that there will be some sort of conversation no matter how robust going forward here among people at the lower level. >> i wouldn't be surprised if there is a conversation going on at the lower level. president trump has stepped all over his experts but now he really depends on him to move it forward at all or for them to be dialog. he can't go back in and have another meeting like this. this is the situation like that. i think the president is actually -- he wants a deal, a robust full deal but he's -- he's willing to accept the status quo because he's -- he's a show president and all he

really wants is he said going into these negotiations. we're in no rush, we just don't want there to be any more testing and so kim jong un says well, great, i'm going to continue to advance my programs and that's great. so we'll go along that way and we'll muddle through with these sanctions which aren't as heavy as they were and i think the president will accept that because he can say look, there's no more testing, we have made progress, that's fine but north korea is continuing to advance its missile and nuclear weapon programs and that's terrible for our country. >> i played that clip there of him talking about the middle east and i think the night of the summit he was talking about another deal. this kind of work takes commitment and effort and i wonder if you see any indication on the heels of this second summit that the president is willing to put in the time and effort to do that.

he wants the big reward at the end, but le's learning i would hope, that these things take effort and they take time. >> no, i think he learned. this is why he misjudged kim too. he thought kim came because of maximum pressure policy but honestly, they came in negotiating table because his own cartoon musician. >> i think he's realized tnobel peace prize. vietnam at least won before they pursued this economic path. north korea has to deal with rival south korea that's freer, richer, more democratic. >> so i'm concerned that president trump with the coin testimony, fueler investigation, everything that he's now going to be distracted with all of

this and not going to return to north carolina. there is going to be working out negotiation. my point is, are we going to achieve this big denuclearization? it's not going to happen. >> great to see you. joining us here. >> follow the house democrats a list from krarkts from trump world that he thinks. and is scott hannity trying to score a deal of his own. >> he said to me at least a dodsdod dozen times that he made the decision on the payments and he didn't tell you. >> yeah, he did. he didn't tell you. >> yeah, he did. tailored recommendations, tax-efficient investing strategies, and a dedicated advisor to help you grow and protect your wealth. fidelity wealth management.

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seen it but he's going to declare a national emergency simultaneously. do you think that's the right plan? >> no, i do not. i think declaring a national emergency is not good for the president to do. as you know, we started sending letters to deutsche bank last year, but now that i'm chairing that committee and the democrats are in charge of the house they have said they will cooperate. deutsche bank is the bank he's been dealing with. >> chair of the house financial services committee making good on what she promised saying that she is going to focus on the campaign's finances. since the dam has burt open with new leads for the democrats to investigate. six committees in congress are investigating a piece of trump's

life before the presidency. michael cohen, quote, set a very rich table. he continues, we're now looking at a ten-course meal. more from cohen next week and then it will question felix satyr who has close ties to trump tower moscow. >> i was at that time with allen weisselberg. the bottom signature i believe is allen weisselberg. allen weisselberg. that's signed by allen weisselberg. >> that same came up more than 30 times during the course of that hearing. joel, let me start with you and get your reaction to what ground work has made here. let's use the bread crumbs trail here. michael cohen is throwing these out here. what do these committees go after for?

>> well, weisselberg. >> you follow the money, weisselberg clearly knows, i mean, forgive the metaphor, he knows where the bodies are buried even more than cohen. i think democrats have a responsibility here and here's why. i don't think the public likes investigations just for the heck of investigations. i think police want investigations that make sense. when i hear jared conly with that quote about that ten-course meal i think democrats need to say you were elected to hold this president accountable. that's what we're going to do. for two years the trump administration ran for an unaccounted for criminal organization. i like that term essentially and now we are here to kind of establish some law & order. i think democrats should focus on that. they have to be careful with that power. >> michael, you agree with that, is it a bad metaphor?

>> it's not a great metaphor, i think you're exactly right. accountability is not partisan payback. it's the constitutional responsibility and it is in fact what the public expects. corrupti corruption, the democrats need to do this in a way that ties it to government policies that people don't like and that ties it to repudiation of a government ought to be about and we're seeing something interesting this week. the very first bill, hr 1 that the house democrats put forward is an array of ethics, campaign finance reform and voting rights proposals and it part of the message. we're going to try to do something about it and it will be an election issue, the vast panoply of clep to --

>> i was going to bring that up really quickly. i don't hear any of the 20/20 folks. i can't monitor everything that they say, but i don't see any of these candidates focusing on this as their main organizing points. they're talking about corruption of big banks, et cetera, they are not talking about russia and that's telling to me because there's something in the polling that says that's not the way to go. >> the congressman from maryland saying committees are zeroing in on the moscow project, the influence of other foreign actors like saudi arabia. i think a challenge for all of us during the course of this entire investigation is taking a step back. >> i think the challenge is our system was set up to hold potentially foulable politicians accountab accountable.

>> founding fathers didn't think of this. >> they didn't think we would do this poor. this level of corruption i think does test the system in a sense that you're going to have multiple hearings. i think the task is how do you set up awe -- you need to talk about the fact that taxes on the just onerous but taxes are how we decide what we value. >> it's a policy making tool. >> to say this is the kind of role we want to build in common and this is how reallocate resources so when these people engage in tax fraud it allows us not to do care. a narrative tell a story about civic accountability but they're

doing their constitutional duty can look like assault because we're dealing with a fundamentally criminal administration. >> oz a as you watched what happened in that hearing room this week you saw how republicans approached it and behaved. what does that tell you about democrats' power to shape this not to be a partisan inquiry. you see the posture that republicans took in that hearing. what does it tell you about the difficulty they're going to face going forward setting up an impartial investigation in these matters. >> though don't have a lot of cooperation from republicans in the house. certainly the opposite of that. but you know, i find that dynamic so interesting and i agree with a lot of the comments that have just been made especially about the need to proceed, let's stay focused there but to leave aside the metaphors. but we can't ignore the politics

of this either and i can tell you from my experience in the house, the politics are the following. these investigations are going to be a gift that keeps on giving for a long time to the democratic party. and even though presidential kabd dates on the democratic side may not be talking about this, these investigations paint an accurate picture of the criminal administration and the republicans, so they would be -- and this is going to go on for the rest of the trump presidency appropriately. the republicans would be wise to say okay, president is a weight around our ankles. we need to get him out of here because our political prospects are damaged by this, but instead they're playing right into it and not cooperating, not doing their constitutional responsibility and therefore playing right into this political trap. and -- and they're walking into it willfully and they -- it's just such a mistake, the long-term best thing to do is

say okay, this mr. president is a problem for us, let's move on. >> there have been other scandals and other hearings and it's often been political, not a new thing, but usually the defender of whoever the president is, furrows their brow. this reality show stunt like stuff but i would say also that the democrats need to find a way to do as good a job as they can in investigating using committee counsel, the lawyers to ask questions, not repeating themselves over and over again. this was better than the benghazi hearings were. >> coming up here, he is off and running or is he? more speculations for beto o'rourke as he is making an announcement. s he is making an

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senator bernie sanders kicks off his campaign today with a rally. joe biden and beto o'rourke, although they have been dropping hints in recent days, o'rourke has teased he's made a decision, but he has declined to say what he's made a decision about. christina, i'm going to turn to you first. amy and i have made a decision about how we can best serve our country. we are excited to share it with everyone soon. this has been a lock tease. >> yes. >> many weeks, many months long. >> just make a choice, don't hammer it up for any longer. >> tlgs there was a context in which he was running against ted cruz. and in the context of this larger pool of other progressives coming out of the house, i'm never not holding a

position like being a senator, a governor, a mayor. he got such grassroots support harkens well for him. >> how big of a deal is it that he doesn't like -- someone recently asked if he's a progressive, he said i'm a capitalist. how big a problem is that going to be, him not categorizing it? >> the way i think about this, the ncaa tournament is coming soon. you have four brackets, electability, base, charisma and independents bracket. i think beto is the number one seed in the charisma bracket. beto has shown that he can create a movement. he can galvanize people. he had lebron james wearing his hat, a guy who works in a different state who has no idea about texas politics wearing his hat.

now, can he convert that to coalition building and to vote? that's the question he has to answer. but i would say this about beto. just in terms of the labels question and also, too, thinking about whether it's his time, we're beyond that. your time is today. chris christie tried to wait for his time, okay? barack obama did not try to wait for his time. we've learned that your time is the time when you're called upon by the voters. it's beto's time. >> one of the things about that that i think is interesting, on the one hand, i totally agree, you have to jump into the moment. when he talked about immigration, he was deeply nondefensive. he's proud of being in solidarity from immigrants. and i think he got a lot of moral power from being nondefensive. what's interesting now is when he's talking about capitalism, his relationship to wall street, all these larger policy issues, he suddenly is starting to sound sort of defensive. and the very strengths he had

are different. he said i'm trying to think about the relationship between democracy and capitalism. it wasn't just i'm a capitalist. it's what is is the relationship we want to have today between democracy and companialism? that's the question he want to ask. >> one of the things that's interesting is he did so well in texas, in some ways with ideas and positions that were not what you would expect to do well because they seemed to flow genuinely from him. there's a hunger, i think, in the democratic party both for new thinking and for smart thinking. and a lot of people are excited about the new ideas, about the big ideas, but they no longer get the sense that the party is driving itself into its own tea party rut. so i think what i'm especially excited about is what is the debate going to be on ideas, on policies, on what's the next generation? trump, as we've discussed, has for better or worse recreated the republican party as a nativive party, as a

protectionist party, as an i would say an openly more racist party in some ways. what is the rethinking that's happening on the democratic side? and there are a lot of strong and good personalities, but i want to know what they're going to be standing for. >> that debate is coming up in june. thank you very much for joining me here in new york. tomorrow, my guests tomorrow include alexi m hammond, elliott williams and pete dominic. and michael cohen giving new voice to the sleaze and legalese we've been hearing for years now. that's coming up next. years now. that's coming up next. -family recipe. can i see it? no. new philadelphia dips. so good, you'll take all the credit.

this is "up." i'm david gura. something changed this week when it comes to the russia investigation. for months, almost every development and revelation has been something we have read about in filings and court transcripts, in scoops and on background. by and large, they have happened off camera. in many cases, we haven't heard directly from the men and women involved. on wednesday, some 16 million viewers tuned in to watch president trump's former attorney, michael cohen, deliver explosive testimony before the house oversight reform committee and to answer questions about his former boss, now the president of the united states. he gave a voice to some of what

we've read about and he provided context. for example, last month, robert mueller detailed the connections between roger stone, wikileaks and the trump campaign in a criminal indictment. >> from today's indictment, quote, during the summer of 2016, stone spoke to is she trump campaign officials about organization one, that's wikileaks, and information it might have had that would be damaging to the clinton campaign opinio . >> i was in mr. trump's office when his secretary announced that mr. stone was on the phone. and mr. stone told his that in a couple of days there would be a massive number of e-mails that would damage hillary clinton's campaign. mr. trump responded by stating something to the effect, wouldn't that be great. michael cohen elaborated on the moscow project plans to build a trump tower in moscow. in this plea agreement last november. >> on cohen discussed the status

and progress of the moscow project with individual one, president trump, on more than the three occasions. >> there were at least half a dozen times between the caucus in iowa in january 2016 and the end of june when he would ask me, how is it going in russia referring to the moscow tower project? >> cohen claimed to the mt. and he briefed family members of individual one within the company about the project. >> who are the family members that you briefed on the trump tower/moscow project? >> don trump jr. and ivanka trump. >> michael cohen confirmed hush money payments in august indicating president trump to buy the silence of storm daniels and karen mcdougall. one of the reimbursements has the president's signature.

michael cohen's testimony gives democratic lawmaker aes road map for future hearings. he provided them with a long list of individuals who may have more insight into potential crimes committed by donald trump or the trump organization. >> allen weiselberg, david pecker, larry levine or dillon howard. ron lieberman. don trump jr. and ivanka trump. >> lawmakers equally listening, taking notes. >> president trump's former business associate will testify before his committee in open session on march 14th. as we timely hear from some of these individuals, a big question remains will public testimony shift public opinion? robert blizzard said public opinion of mr. trump had proved remarkably fixed over time. he dismissed the possibility that mr. cohen would shift

opinion on either the right or the left. michael fuchs, adviser to secretary of state hillary clinton, joyce vance is a former u.s. attorney, now msnbc contributor. sally cohen, author of the boom "the opposite of hate." joyce, i want to start with you in this conseat, that we're seeing new life breathed into these documents. you have spent your career going over them, writing them and reading them, as well. what kind of a difference does this make to the case being laid out? >> it makes a difference to the public because prosecutors conduct their investigations in private. as we know, robert mueller has been particularly good about keeping any sort of leak whatsoever from happening. indictments are filed or when someone pleased guilty. but with cohen for the first time, we got this broad glimpse

of the specifics of the evidence and the credibility of the evidence in this portion of the case. we saw the manafort trial, but that didn't really involve the president. this really does. so i think it brings home to the american people just how good the quality of the evidence prosecutors have is. >> on the credibility of the witness, that was something republicans hammered over and over again during the course of that hearing. talk a bit about that, how you process what michael cohen had to say, bringing to bear all that we know about this background, how he acted, what he did for president trump? >> well, look, michael cohen clearly is a liar. he's going to jail for lying. but there's a check. he's got the receipts to show what some of the wrongdoing that he is talking about. so i think it makes his allegations very credible here. just because he is a liar and he's clearly not a good guy, he's done a lot of very bad things in his career and he owned up to that, it doesn't

mean a lot of the things he's saying are lies. and i think that a number of the points during his testimony where he tried to shoot down some of the allegations that some of the members of congress were trying to make against president trump actually upped his credibility. it showed that he was not willing to say everything out there is true, but he was very, very specific on the things that were true. >> sally, i imagine you tuned in for this. >> did it live up to the promise? how has it moved the needle on this? >> i think democrats are wrong to overplay their hand. >> don't pour the butter in the popcorn. >> some day if he does write a

book, it says something. if you're like, look at all the awful, dirty, corrupt dishonest things that he said we did. well, he was the chief counsel for donald trump and i don't think -- the other thing, honestly, watching the hearings, i don't think people understand how much michael cohen loved donald trump. my interactions with him, he loved him. and it was walmost like seeing lover scorned. and it finally, all the truth and all the resentment, all the baggage, you know, that was some emotional but also ultimately i think very damning testimony he provided. >> were you looking at it as a discreet thing? for trump, this has been a behind the scenes probe with sensational yet intermental revelations. now it's about to become a consistent and public process, at best a nuisance, at worst a threat to his office.

what does it portend what we saw this morning? >> i'm still getting over the lovers visual, but we'll work with that. >> you're welcome. >> but, yeah, i think that for me is one of the more interesting pieces here is how donald trump processes all of this. the one thing that trump is very keen on is control. and he controls his universe. he is the central portion of anything that happens around him. so there is nothing that happens in trump tower without his knowledge. there is nothing that goes on in the white house without his knowledge. he doesn't have an effective chief of staff right now. he doesn't have an effective communications director. >> he doesn't have a chief of staff, period. >> right. because he is both of those things all at once. so that sense of control is paramount. as i watched cohen talk, what i realized was this was the moment where donald trump no longer had control. because someone who was so in

love with him, so close to him who would take a bullet from him, in the end, not so much. and i think that's a revelation for trump. and i think the closeness of this coming in, the legal stuff that joyce touches on, yes, the paper, the mounds of paper and the processes there. and he feels he can bat that back. but when it gets personal the way you saw it with cohen, that's when you realize he doesn't have as much control as he would like to have over this process. >> dovetail it with robert mueller's investigation, dovetail this. there are these ten things that we can talk about and there are things we can't talk about. we saw that eroded pretty quickly. some of these topics were seen as taboos. how do you look at them in comment, what we saw on wednesday, what we're going to see, or what is going to leak out from the testimony that we gave to the intelligence committees. >> sure. here is why that happens. prosecutors, when they have criminal cases in action, do not want to see their evidence leak out. there is some technical legal

reasons, legal things like the fact that it's a federal crime to leak grand jury information. so there is that. but really, what you want to do as a prosecutor, is get to the evend of your case, make decisions about who to indict without any external exposure. that can cause witnesses to clamp down. evidence can disappear. when the bad guys realize what direction you're going. so i assume that prosecutors work closely with the hill. and look, not to put too fine of a point on it, but a lot of the hill staffers are people who have a connection to some of the prosecution offices. so i assume that there's a very good level of communication and they're making sure that the congressional inquiry, which needs to happen which is about oversight, doesn't interfere in any way with the prosecution. >> you expected andrew weisman, his colleagues in the office had this on tv, they were watching it. what i'm saying here is could this have provided them with more information or do you think what was covered on wednesday is stuff that they well know by this point? >> i assume that they knew everything, but they probably had a nice plate of doughnuts with them, as well.

>> michael, where do things go from here? there was that long list of names we assembled here. as i said, we've got hearings now set up in house intelligence. there's great interest in getting allen weiselberg on the hill. we'll see how much effort that takes. how much coordination do you think there is on the democratic side? >> i think it is abundantly clear that the house of trump is a house of cards. when he was elected president, the first card at the bottom of the pile got pulled away and ever since then, the rest of it, everything he has done throughout his entire career are now coming out. so this is obviously a very big revelation, a series of revelations with michael cohen here, but it is only going to get worse. i think we need to recognize that while everyone knew donald trump before he was elected president, very, very few people knew anything about any of these wrongdoings, right? so it's only been the last 18, 24 months, a little more that

this information has been coming out. the more it comes out over the coming months and years, the more i think it is going to change the public's view of the president. >> sally, i want to get back to this notion of giving voice to this president. there is that reporting a few months back about the president referring to some countries at s-hole countries. we read about that. we didn't hear him say it. now you have somebody who was a proxy for this president saying that not using the abbreviated form i just used here on tv. it was in congress. it was a radical thing to hear. it was jarring to hear. so beyond just the legal stuff, giving voice to what we've seen reported, does that stand to change how the public perceives this president? >> i mean, unfortunately, no. let's just be like, completely and depressingly honest, which is that you had half the country, i think, which thankfully, rightfully, saw the president as flirting with if

not sympathetic to white nationalism and a sort of xenophobic anti-immigrant, anti-islam racist set of beliefs already based not on his words, but far more importantly on his actions, who he condemned, who he allied himself with, his policies, etcetera. and this is confirmation of that. unfortunately, the opposite also seems the be true, which is there was a set of the country, a large segment, unfortunately, that was willing to overlook evidence after evidence after evidence of the president's, you know, racially hateful antagonistic nationalistic vial ugly actions. and hearing what he said or didn't say, i'm afraid, isn't going to make them look any more closely at, you know, the real evidence here. >> michael steele, last question to you. i want to get your perspective on how republicans handled this and what it's going to say about how they're going to handle

these hearings going forward. he said you had jim jordan acting like the buy at the post in the basketball game. they were all eager to throw the ball back to make the play in the end. when you look at what they talked about, how they approached it from that perspective of who was asking the questions, what does that tell you? >> they are desperate to protect the president at all costs. look, at a certain point when you're all in, you're all in. you're up to your neck and -- >> but not explicitly. that was what was so curious about it. they were eager to protect him by attacking michael cohen, but they weren't protecting the president himself. >> and that's where i was going to go next. that's the irony here. it wasn't like they laid out a defense and pushed back on the narrative that cohen put out there. not that they had their own explanation for the $35,000 check. and stormy daniels and all of that. they basically focused, zeroed in on him and made him the target. so the idea was to take him down and thereby maybe help trump.

but here is the problem. the way the country reads it is what matters. and the way the country read it, i believe, was you are willing to overlook and forgive everything this man does, everyone who is associated with him. if they're not aligned with trump, you're going to take them out on behalf of trump and that's going to have a consequence at the most central place the republicans don't want it to have a consequence and that's the ballot box. that was 2018. that was a walk in the park compared to what the republicans are going to go through in 2020 when they not only have a significant number of seats up in the senate, which is why you see mitch mcconnell walking around with this fog in his eyes like oh, my god. what do i do now? but the white house itself, the country is geared up on both sides and this will be a battle royal and i don't think the republicans helped themselves. >> you have a delicious and

dainty doughnut. when we come back, new details on the lengths the president went to to ensure his son-in-law got a top secret clearance and the fallout from that. clearance and the fallout from that guys do whatever it takes to deal with shave irritation. so, we re-imagined the razor with the new gillette skinguard. it has a unique guard between the blades. that's designed to reduce irritation during the shave. because we believe all men deserve a razor just for them. the best a man can get. gillette.

welcome back to "up." new concerns this morning about the president's son-in-law, jared kushner, president trump ordered the top security

clearance for his son-in-law despite objections from members of the senior administration. jared kushner and his wife, ivanka are denying the allegations. congressman elijah cummings blasted the white house in a letter asking for answers by monday. jared kushner was present at that trump tower meeting with the russians and reportedly wanted a back channel to the kremlin during the transition. michael steele, i'm going to go to you first on this. a story like this drops and you expect a certain kind of commensurate reaction from members of congress. we have not seen that. what does that tell you about politics in d.c. today? >> well, it goes back to what i said before. among republicans, they're not going to do anything to put themselves sideways with the administration. there have been those, whoever, who have been advising along the

way how to avoid some of these pit falls and to sort of deal with them when they arise. but here is the rub on this. this didn't have to happen. the president has a wide berth here. >> this is a kellyanne conway argument. >> he can do this. so there is no reason, one, to lie about it. but more importantly, because he can do it, there was no reason for them not to get it done right. but it goes to what was happening at the transition, was happening at the time. they pulled out a lot of the traditional mechanisms that helped incoming administrations avoid these types of problems. that was what chris christie was doing when he was heading up transition. i worked with chris christie on that part of the transition. i know from how those pieces were put together, you know, kushner kicked all of that out and he got caught in his own trap. and here they are. so now this is going to come back and bite them. he should not have the clearance because the cia doesn't think he

should have the clearance and their reasons for that. but they ignored all that. republicans on the hill will be quiet. democrats will want to investigate. we're back in that pit about this is how the teams line up. >> when you talk about national security in this sense, this shouldn't be something where there is a deep divide between democrats and republicans. >> david, what is in those doughnut us that you're eating? everything is partisan now. there's so much sad irony, emphasis on sad and emphasis on irony, and look, this is happening at the exact same time that donald trump is overreact to go a fake security crisis he manufactured at the border while actively overlooking a real security crisis in his own son-in-law. and the fact that it's, to be honest, as a sort of lifelong liberal democrat, to be on the side of a sort of defending and even championing the findings of the cia and the fbi against

republicans who now suddenly want to attack and dmeeemean la enforcement. >> joyce, last question to you. a buddy of mine s who happens to be an extent u.s. attorney, i sat down for his background interview. 20 questions. you're meeting with a former fbi official. you're going to answer these questions. there is great import to them. back to michael's point, there is a baked in cavalierness that is astounding, that he could make those mistakes on those initial forms. but this could proceed as it has. >> it's incredible to anyone who has ever been through a background process. your friend who wants to be a prosecutor, that's the first step. and that's actually what the president was able to do for kushner was to get the white house office that grants that basic level of clearance, he was

able to get them to do it. the cia, though, didn't break. and kushner does not have sci access, which is a much higher level of clearance. it is hard, i think. i get tired of playing this parlor game called what if obama did it, but it's really interesting to think what would have happened if obama had done this? there would have been an uproar for both sides. security clearances are for real. it's not just an arbitrary sort of a burden is. they're granted for a real reason. and this signals a lack of commitment in this administration to keeping the american people safe. >> we will leave it there and come back here in just a moment. otto warmbier's family calling out the president for his warmness to jim congress union. his warmness to jim congress union. this is the story of john smith.

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president putin, he just said it's not russia. president putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today. >> i just spoke with the king of saudi arabia who denies any knowledge of what took place with regard to, as he said, his saudi arabian citizens.

i've asked and he firmly denied that. >> i don't believe he knew about it. he felt badly about it. i did speak to him. he knew the case very well, but he knew it later. he tells me that he didn't know about it and i will take him at his word. >> president trump has a history of taking authoritarians at their word. this week, president trump absolved kim jong-un for the imprisonment, injury and subsequent death of otto warmbier. warmbier was held captive for more than a year in north korea allegedly after trying to steal a political poster. yesterday hesitate parents issued this statement. we have been respectful during this summit process. now we must speak out. kim and his evil regime are responsible for the death of our season, tot to. kim and his evil regime are responsible for unimaginable rulety and no amount of diplomacy will erase that. mike, asia was part of your

brief when you were at the state department. i want you to react. what happened there? that remarkable exchange between david at "the washington post" and the president on this issue. he didn't take many questions from american journalists. >> as a foreign policy person and as an american, this is one of the saddest as specs of the trump presidency is watching the president of the united states stand up there, not just in hanoi, but again and again and again as we just saw, the president of the united states standing up to defend dictators. but, unfortunately, it's not that much of a surprise. i mean, president trump acts like a dictator at home and so he -- it's not a surprise that he frankly would want to cozy up to a lot of these dictators. but the amount that it undermines america in the world is striking. there's a recent poll that just came out this past week that shows for the first time people around the world see china's leadership in the world as more beneficial than american

leadership. >> a shame. joe, i'm going to turn to you on this point. we spoke after that pretty conference concluded early in the morning on thursday. what does that exchange tell but this whole ordeal, what took place in hanoi? i would start going into this summit. victor cha said human rights has to be in the conversation if you're talking about economic opportunity for north korea. president trump was had about this when he was on the ground in hanoi. are you going to talk about human rights? yes, he said, everything is on the table. your reaction to what his comments and otto warmbier and the whole thing. >> human rights is not an issue with this president. it's not included in any of his discussions, any of his agreements. we cannot trust a single word that donald trump said in hanoi. we don't know what was in the deal that he supposedly walked away from or whether, in fact, he did walk away from it. it becomes more obvious when he starts to talk about things we know.

we know about otto warmbier. we know that he was deliberately, brutally kept prisoner in north korea. we know that he's an innocent american. we know that the north koreans lied about the treatment they gave him. yet the president is covering up for kim jong-un. yes, it's a big prison system in north korea. yes, there are thousands of innocents, but there are thousands of americans. it is inconceivable that kim jong-un did not know about and condone this treatment. so unfortunately we're in the situation where we have a president that routinely and inexplicably lies about some of the most basic facts to americans and that's why i believe congress has to have hearings about what went on in hanoi, what was actually in the deal, the papers the president said he could have signed. what is john bolton's role in all of this.

did he knife a deal at the last minute? we don't know the answers to any of these questions. >> michael steele, this is the recurring theme of the hour. that is where is the outrage from congress? we did hear a few commenting on this when approached for interviews on capitol hill. but again, we're talking about what's commensurate to what has happened here. it's astonishing that we haven't heard more. >> but it isn't. it really isn't. and it's sad to say that. as you were just speaking, i was thinking about what struck me was donald trump is to these dictators around the world what the republicans are to donald trump. they give -- he gives them cover as these republicans on the hill gives him cover. so this is sort of symbiosis here that exists in this trump environment in which you wind up protecting and doing the bidding on behalf of the wrong people.

and for trump, it's all about the deal. it's all transactional. he thinks he's getting something that's personal or beneficial to himself. so going out and talking about the warmbier family and mr. warmbier in a way that may upset that particular apple cart for him, he's not inclined to do. because in his world view, whatever he's looking to gain out of this relationship with kim jong-un, which has absolutely, i think, nothing to do with national interests with, but more about his own particular interests, he's not going do upset that. and we've seen it time and time again, whether it's with the saudi prince, whether it's with putin, and now kim jong-un. this president has a one-person agenda and he's the only person on that agenda. and so if there's the death of an american citizen, the death of two american citizens that we're talking about here in each of these cases, the president does not have a voice for it. just doesn't. >> joe, thank you very much for taking the time.

appreciate talking to you after that summit today, as well. >> thank you. up next, donald trump is set to take the stage at sea-tac in a few hours, but he may find he's not necessarily the center of attention. the breakout star, next. of attention the breakout star, next.

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the democrats have gone bat crap crazy. >> democrats are embracing the

same tired economic theories that have im positivished nations and stifled the liberties of millions over the past century. that system is socialism. >> socialism, front and center at this year's cpac. the conservative political action conference. in years past, speakers spent a lot of time talking about house speaker nancy pelosi and president barack obama. now it is congresswoman alexandria causio-cortez. >> that is why she as introduced the green new deal which is -- it's a watermelon. green on the outside, deep, deep red communist on the inside. they want to take your pickup truck. they want to rebuild your home. they want to take away your hamburgers. this is what stalin tremt about, but never achieved.

>> dr. gorka. the conference coming on the heels of former trump fixer michael cohen's testimony this week. >> responsible for your silliness because i did the same thing that you're doing now. for ten years. i protected mr. trump for ten years. and i can only warn people, the more people that follow mr. trump, as i did blindly, are going to suffer the same consequences that i'm suffering. michael steele, we have to go to you first. you have a history with cpac. >> oh, boy, do i ever. >> we don't have to get deep boo that. but let's talk about the rhetoric and what we're seeing shaping up here. you've seen republicans making this effort to push or portray the left as going farther left still. >> but i would -- i think there's some validity to that. i really do.

i think that there is -- there has been a capturing of the democratic voice by a portion of the democratic base, which is this progressive starter with bernie sanders. it is the progressive more far left to use that term wing of the party. and that's fine. but the question is, look at who got elected in november 2018. cortez was not the predominapredominant voice elected. there were moderate democrats who won the majority of those seats that are now in the house. so about you have a headline where she's threatening centrists in her party to make a list, first off, that's not how you come into this game. you're going to need those same members at some point to get your new green deal passed.

>> number two, you have this elevation of democratic socialism. i don't know if that's something you -- >> let sally respond. she's done it facially over the last few minutes. >> who knows what -- >> who knows. you're on the list. >> i'm old enough to remember when barack obama was called a socialist. and if barack obama who was by no means -- he wasn't even a progressive democrat. so no with but the point is, it's a long standing attack. point number two, and this is fundamentally important, i think the democratic party is realigning with the true central part of this country. >> he had power consistently to the right of the country and democrats have felt embarrassed,

ashamed or afraid to stand up with the vat majority of american people. they want higher taxes on the corporations and the rich. the vast majority of the american people want a green new deal. the vast majority of the american people want medicare for all, want access to safe and legal abortion. >> if they did, andrew gillum would be the governor of florida and stacey abrams would be the governor of georgia. >> wait. >> no, i'm not -- >> some other issues at play in georgia, as well. >> the candidates who won in the midterms in 2018 were more likely to have run on medicare for all and tax -- like that's -- this is the core of the country. >> joyce has this plan in birmingham. >> so it's really interesting, right? i think sometimes when we're in new york or washington, we forget that there's this entire rest of the country. sometimes fondly referred to as fly over country or the deep south. and things play very differently. and what i'll say is, although i

can it's true that there is still bastians of conservatism in the south, the emergence of women candidates, the emergence of people openly calling themselves progressives. are they a majority? they're no place close. but the fact that they can speak up in public again is a very interesting development. and i think sally's right when she talk bes the center of the country and how far right the republicans pulled. democrats aren't polling far left. >> mike, there's the center of the country, there's the center of the party, as well, and there was that effort that mitch mcconnell made. he said we're going to bring the green new deal up for a vote as a challenge. chuck schumer, the leader of the democrats in the senate welcoming that. what do you make of the way the establishmentarians in the party are reckoning with or dealing

with what you're seeing farther left? >> to michael's point about the aaoc trying to change the rules, i think she's begin to go change the game. she, just as a couple of months is a freshman member of congress probably has more power and more influence that any freshman that i can think of. so she has the ability to change the debate. you see that with a number of her lines of questioning and michael cohen and hearings going viral very, very quickly. there is a serious advantage to be a had here. the republicans, conservatives, cpac and elsewhere are moving so far to the right on the fringe here, screaming socialism, this is like mccarthyism. they're looking at venezuela and they're finding out democrats want to make america like

venezuela. that is terrifying. >> come back here in just a moment with a shake-up already in his you presidential bid, bernie sanders is hours away from laushing his campaign in brooklyn. we're going to go live to my home borough as burny hopes a personal touch can get him across the finish line. s a personal touch can get him across the finish line what?! i'm here to steal your car because, well, that's my job. what? what?? what?! (laughing) what?? what?! what?! [crash] what?! haha, it happens. and if you've got cut-rate car insurance, paying for this could feel like getting robbed twice. so get allstate... and be better protected from mayhem... like me. ♪ you're smart,eat you already knew that. but it's also great for finding the perfect used car. you'll see what a fair price is and you can connect with a truecar certified dealer. now you're even smarter. this is truecar.

i that's the retirement plan.e, with my annuity, i know there is a guarantee. it's for my family, its for my self, its for my future. annuities can provide protected income for life. learn more at retire your risk dot org. this is "up." senator bernie sanders launching his campaign today with a rally at brooklyn college. 11 democrats now in the race

making it harder for sanders to differentiate himself in a diverse crowd 06 candidates. beth is in brooklyn. it's been snowing all morning. it looks like it's subsided some. you're going to chicago tomorrow, so you'll have more cold tomorrow. what are you expecting to hear from the senator in brooklyn? >> reporter: from your home borough, it is pretty snowy here. hopefully by the time they let the crowd in, it's going to be nice and calm and the snow will have diminished. what we'll hear basically is bernie 2.0. he's got to stand out in a way that he didn't in 2016 because he's in this much bigger field than when he was competing against hillary clinton in 2016 and many of the other people in the field have adopted his message. so what he's trying to do is add a little bio to his story now. he didn't talk that much about his family in 2016 or his upbringing and he's doing that now here. he grew up close by here in a small apartment. he's going to talk about that and talk about attending brooklyn college here for one

year and he's going to draw contrast with president trump most notably. he's going to say, i did not have a mom and dad who gave me millions of dollars to build luxury skyscrapers and casinos and country clubs. i did not come from a family that had the power to go on television to entertain people by telling workers, you're fired. i came from a family who knew all too well, the frightening power employers can have over everyday workers. so he's going to draw very direct contrast with president trump. obviously not drawing a contrast with any of the other democrats in the field. he's talking about taking the fight right to contrast right to trump. >> thank you very much, beth. appreciate it. sally, let me turn to you first. this is a wagon to which you hitched your star. i was struck by something that beth said there that he's going to add a little bio. the bio is integral to that.

what do you make of the fact that that's the way that reremodels himself is by talking about who he is? >> stop for a second. regardless of what i think about bernie sanders running again, you know, what i and a lot of progressive democrats the kerns we had in 2016 was, wow, how nice it is to finally have a choice. it's not a choice of lesser evils of this centrist and that centrist, and this corporate establishment democrat versus that corporate establish democrat was to actually have a choice. what's incredible about this cycle, about 2020 is you've got multiple choices -- >> including corporate. >> if you want some corporate centrist democrats, come on joe biden! you want progressives, you want candidates who are new to finding a more populist progressive, you want candidates who talk powerfully on issues of race -- you've got choices.

i think that is incredibly powerful and i think it makes it, frankly, a harder landscape for bernie sanders, among the baggage he's already bringing from some of the bad ways he handled himself in the last race. >> bernie's sitting on $10 million and nobody else is. bernie had a list coming is 2 million rank and file donors. he had a third more to that. there's still within the party, i think, a good vibe for bernie sanders. i like the fact he's coming out on bio and sort of re-establishing himself and that's the break from the 2016 sort of meme and all of that. again, you're absolutely right, sally, it's a very different playing field right now with a whole different look of youthful, inexperienced national players. the question -- i mean -- >> they're more experienced than the guy you ran in 2016.

>> i didn't run him. that was not my choice. trust me. i got that. but that's the point. i think that's really the point of where the country is. how much do they weigh the experience? how much do they weigh for a joe biden and for a bernie sanders and maybe a few others, how do they weigh all of that? at the end of the day you still got to beat donald trump and this crop, that's not happening right now. >> i keep going back to our southern correspondent and legal analyst, there's been so much made among the bernie camp in how he's changed in his approach to the south. this is not as big a hurdle as it was. >> you know, the problem that bernie faces is if the label of socialism applies to aoc at cpac, that's the label that he's picked up in the deep south. it's a big hurdle, but there's a strong indivisible movement. maybe he gets traction.

if the trump presidency has taught the people in the middle anything is that experience counts and expertise counts and although this vision of an outsider is sometimes very appealing as a game changer, i think the mood at least in the deep south will be we want a good manager, someone who knows how to run an executive branch. >> we were talking about the moment in politics, michael: is this bernie's moment? is he capturing any sort of moment here? >> to sally's point before, i think it's fantastic that we have a very large and growing by the day really great democratic candidates running for president. i think one of the things actually we've missed over the last week or so is jay inslee announcing that he's going to run for president. >> on climate change. >> and i think that's exactly what is important here. there's a lot of talk over the next 18 months or so about the politics within the party and so forth and so on, but this is going to be a substantive debate and i love jay inslee getting out there and making this

presidential campaign about the, frankly, biggest crisis that we face in the coming years and decades. that is the kind of debate that this party needs to be having. >> great to have all of you here on this stage. appreciate it. thank you all very much. we'll be right back with "a.m. joy" on msnbc. one third of our classic crust is made with cauliflower but that's not stopping anyone o, that's good!

i found a companyeans to who believes in me.rt. they look out for me. and they help me grow my career. at comcast it's my job to constantly monitor our network, prevent problems, and to help provide the most reliable service possible. my name is tanya, i work at the network operations center for comcast. we're working to make things simple, easy and awesome. that does it for me. thank you very much for watching. "a.m. joy" starts right now.

>> we have in the audience a special person who's worked very hard who married very well, it's my daughter ivanka. i stole her husband. he is so great. if you can't produce peace in the middle east, nobody can. okay? all my life, i've been hearing that's the toughest deal in the world to make and i've seen it, but i have a feeling that jared is going to do a great job. >> all righty. good morning. welcome to "a.m. joy." that was the first kind of strange thing we heard about jared kushner. donald trump's son-in-law at the time of trump's inauguration. namely that trump was putting kushner who has zero foreign policy experience in charge of solving the crisis in the middle east. next, we learned about 666 5th avenue, the billion dollars headache that kushner created for his family's real estate business for which he owed a lot