threatening everyone democratic to vote on impeachment. the pressure for them to do something to impeach donald trump is pretty enormous. all i can tell you if it worked out as well for you as it did for republicans, good luck. >> that is glindsey graham 20 years apart. democrats control the house. good morning. welcome to "morning joe". it is wednesday, march 6th. joe is off. he's still with his family preparing for his mother's funeral. he should be back tomorrow. along with willie and me we have mike barnicle. washington anchor for bbc world news america katty kay. msnbc political contributor rick tyler. and former chief of staff at the cia and department of defense nbc news national security analyst jeremy bash. we got so much to get to this morning including new developments in two areas that have shattered the trump presidency from the start.

the mueller probe and trump's tax returns. the latest on the democrats push to get their hands on both. plus remember when jim mattis quit the administration over the president's troop withdrawals? well now president trump says he's quote 100% on board with keeping american forces in syria. so what changed? we'll also dig into bernie sanders loyalty pledge to democrats. ran paul suggestion that a whole bunch of other republicans are ready to break with the white house on the border wall emergency. and also this happened. north korea pursuing the rapid rebuilding of a long range rocket site. those talks didn't go too well. willie we begin with new polling that find more americans than not belief the president is engaged in criminal activity. >> yeah. good morning. when asked by the quinnipiac university poll did president trump commit crimes before becoming president 64% of voters

say yes the president did, only 24% say he did not. on whether trump committed crimes after becoming president, 45% say yes, 43% say no. in the poll taken from friday through monday voters say they are more likely to belief the president's former lawyer michael cohen at 50% versus 35% who believe trump. and 58% believe congress should do more to investigate cohen's claims about president trump's unethical and illegal behavior. 35% disagree. near lie six in ten voters, 59% are against congress beginning impeachment proceedings against the president. rick tyler let's start with you and some of those numbers. those are a reflex obviously from the american people about what they've seen in the last week or so particularly from michael cohen in that open hearing on wednesday and the way they feel about his testimony.

look like most americans believe his word versus the president. >> not that michael cohen is to be trusted and somehow a paragon of virtual of a sudden. they see donald trump and michael cohen and frankly a lot of people that donald trump has and continues to surround himself with as people who are at odds with the truth. what they see in michael cohen is that he has -- he is acting repenna repentant. he's trying to clear the record. in some sense clear his name. knows he'll go to jail for lying. he produced documents during the hearing. it's really sort of -- it's shocking when you believe that almost two-thirds of the country believe that donald trump committed crimes before he was president and nearly half believe that he committed crimes as president. that's just extraordinary revelation about the way the american people feel about their

president. >> meanwhile a top lawmaker on the house ways and means committee say democrats plan to formally demand president trump's tax returns in about two weeks. congressman told reports house democrats intend to seek a decades worth of trump's personal tax returns from the treasury department. the congressman said yesterday we're almost ready to go. the chairman will be ready in two weeks to send his letter and i volunteered to deliver it. a 1924 law allows the head of congress' tax committees to examine anyone's confidential tax filings. experts say lawmakers could also vote to make those returns publicly available. donald trump was asked about the democrats sweeping new probe of his presidency yesterday. here what he said. >> the witch-hunt continues. the fact is that i guess we got

81 letters. there was no collusion. it was a hoax. there was nothing. and they want to do that instead of getting legislation passed. 81 people or organizes got letters. it's a disgrace. it's a disgrace to our country. i'm not surprised it's happening. basically they started the campaign. so the campaign begins. president obama, from what they tell me, was under a similar kind of a thing. didn't give one letter, didn't do anything. they didn't give one letter of the request. many requests were made. they didn't give a letter. >> jerry bash he seems not happy with that. maybe a little shell shocked. maybe not. is there any scenario in which the president could say no i'm not going to give you this information? >> i think the president could resist under executive privilege and possibly under the doctrine of withholding classified information. this will be a dogfight for a long time. when 81 people or organizations

receive congressional letters that's kind of the most mild form of oversight. that's just step one. of course the committee can subpoena individuals, subpoena documents, put people under oath. people could be granted limited immuneilty for testimony so congress has a number of investigative tools. >> mika, if you look at those numbers we put up earlier. the quinnipiac polling. despite all we side american people believe michael cohen's testimony versus what they heard from president trump you still have 60% say pump the brakes on impeachment. you heard that from nancy pelosi. it's a message we continue to hear from some democrats. let's follow the facts. what do you make of that number? >> two things. it's two separate tracks we're talking about here. one, the staggering numbers from the quinnipiac poll, 64% of americans seem to believe that the president committed criminal acts prior to his presidency.

nearly half of the people poll believed he committed criminal acts during his presidency. you remember, i remember, most americans remember richard nixon standing up in a press conference and saying i am not a crook. now we have a majority of americans believing that donald trump is a crook and he's the sitting president of the united states and this is part of the legacy that he's building as president, sort of getting people immunized to shock and disbelief. we go on with our day -- most of americans go on with their day when 60% of americans or majority of americans believe he's a crook. that's staggering. the other track of the story is the common sense of americans on impeachment. you know, impeachment is the death penalty. look at it that way. most americans, i think, are looking at this thing, let's let this thing play out. let's see the mueller report. let see what's in it. let's understand it.

let's comprehend it and then move forward on impeachment. impeachment is a political process. therefore you get several members of congress on both sides of the capital, house and senate saying hey let's do impeachment now. no let's wait. >> these investigations are reaching all corners of president trump's life. nbc news now learned new york state regulators are investigating the trump organization's insurance practices. a source with direct knowledge of the matter tells nbc news a subpoena has been issued to the trump organization's insurance company as part of an investigation into the policies and claims tied to trump's namesake firm. the move by the new york state department of financial services adds to the growing scrutiny facing the trump organization. during michael cohen's public testimony to congress last week the president's former fixer was asked about donald trump's family business practices when it came to insurance. here what he said. >> to your knowledge, did the

president ever provide inflated assets to an insurance company? >> yes. >> who else knows that the president did this? >> allen weisselberg, rob lieberman. >> katty kay, michael cohen's testimony has launched investigations in the house, in various communities and now we're seeing in the state of new york based on what michael cohen testified to last wednesday. now a new investigation here into the trump organization's insurance. >> yeah. congresswoman alexandria occasio-cortez clearly was asking that. she was from new york. she was asking with the new york prosecutors in mind. it was very direct. one of the best bits of the interrogation because it led specifically to this line of questioning and now opened this avenue for prosecutors in new york to get ahold of those insurance records. what we got now, we got the trump administration, the trump white house, the trump inauguration committee, the trump organization, the trump

insurance practices, all of it being under investigation. democrats still weighing up, having to weigh up as mike of suggesting earlier the political cost that they are looking to rush to impeachment of any kind that they promised they would do for their voters is enact some oversight. this is what they are doing. >> then this, a new report claims president trump pressured his high ranking aides to grant a security clearance to his daughter senior white house adviser ivanka trump against their realmations. three people familiar with the matter tells cnn that the president pushed then chief of staff john kelly and white house console don mcgahn to make the decision on his daughter and son-in-law jared kushner so it did not appear as if he was intervening in the clearance process. after kelly and mcgahn allegedly refused, trump granted them their security clearances which is within his power, but countered to public denials from

both trump and his daughter. nbc has not independently confirmed this report. cnn says it's conceivable ivanka trump was unaware of both problems raised during her background check and her father's involvement in it. the white house said it does not comment on security clearances. but the trump administration could soon be facing a house subpoena on its security clearance decisions. this after the white house rejected the oversight committee's latest request for documents on the process which house democrats have been seeking for months. chairman elijah cummings indicated on friday that his next step will be to send a subpoena. white house counsel replied that such a measure would be without legal support. clearly premature. and suggests a breach of the constitutionally required accommodation process.

instead he offered to let the committee review documents and get a briefing. elijah cummings rejected the idea that congress doesn't have the authority to get the documents, stating the white hou house's argument denies the separation of powers. jeremy bash, if the oversight committee wants to know why two people got a security clearance when it seems that many were very concerned about it and those two people are directly related to the president, one is his daughter, what would be the white house's ability to stop that process and hand over all the information about the security clearances? >> well they could try to fight but at the end of the day the white house will lose because congress does have authority and does have the power to review security practices within the executive branch. that's after all what gave rise under republican rule then chairman trey gowdy's efforts to look at hillary clinton's e-mail

p procedures. there's precedent for it. it's offensive by the president and his team to say that we can do whatever we want with respect to security clearances and we don't have to tell anybody about it, in fact we can lie about it. if they were happy and proud of the decision why did they mislead the american people. >> jeremy, can you speak to how serious the level of clearance we're talking about here is and how important the process is especially when you had the cia, for example, raising red flags about jared kushner, perhaps, being compromised because of some of his business entanglements overseas? >> what makes it serious these are two individuals jared and ivanka who has proximity to the oval office, proximity to the president. they are around classified information all day long. now i have a down in my own mind why ivanka needs access to

classified information. jared kushner i can understand. he's doing diplomacy. he needs to see what our intelligence agencies are saying about those dynamics. ivanka i'm not so sure. >> now to the latest concerning north korea. it's like a fire hose of news this morning. at the news conference following the collapse of the hanoi summit president trump revealed a promise that kim jong-un made to him. >> kim promised me last night, regardless, he won't do testing of rockets and nuclear, not doing testing. so, you know, i trust him. i take him at his word. i hope that's true. in the meantime we'll be talking. >> taking him amount his word he might be making an idiot of him. a new analysis commercial satellite imagery taken on saturday, two days after trump's remarks reveals that north korea is pursuing the rapid rebuilding of a long-range rocket site.

the site, north korea's only operational space launch facility has been used in the past for satellite launches, which use similar technology to what is needed for intercontinental ballistic missiles. researchers add the recent activity at the site including the rebuilding of a rocket engine test stand is consistent with preparations for another test. and indicates that north korea's nuclear ballistic missile capability may have passed the developmental stage. north korea began to disassemble parts of the site last summer. never finish. it's the same facility kim told trump he would shutter following the singapore summit. joining us now is the reporter who broke this story for nbc, courtney. the president said that he took him at his word and everything was going to be stopped.

what happened? >> reporter: so you know what's critical to remember here. this is a satellite launching fast, but remember that uses the same basic technology as what north korea could use for a three stage intercontinental ballistic missile one that's capable of hitting the united states. so president trump throughout this whole diplomatic push that's gone on for little over a year with north korea, the consistent talking point is north korea is not testing missiles, not testing a nuke any more. despite the fact they are not launching these missiles there's no indications they have stopped the actual testing of their program. they stopped, you know, continuing to work on the research and development of their ballistic missile and their nuclear program. what's concerning about this report which comes from the amazing analysts and researchers at beyond parallel, a group that is associated with a d.c. based defense think tank, what they

are saying here is that while this facility seemed to have been lying dormant for several months after the hanoi summit last week there now seems to be some new activity and while it may not necessarily show there's a test that's imminent it shows they are working in a direct, moving in a direction that could mean they are preparing, you know, to begin testing again. >> so, courtney, is this the facility that after the last summit in june, excuse me the first summit between the two men in singapore, is that the one president trump claimed he got kim jong-un to close. his quote was i asked him to close it up, he said he'll close it up. is this the same facility? >> reporter: no. this is one of the problems that came out of the singapore summit. at the time remember we kept talking about how there weren't a lot of specifics. the declaration that two leaders signed was sort of vague. what we saw after that summit in june was north korea did close

some facilities or some of the -- they shuttered some things they are doing at the facility. this is bayed on the west coast of north korea and this is where they were claiming they were launching satellites into space. since that time there has been some talk of maybe some low level activity, maybe vehicles driving around and whatnot. but there hadn't been anything definitive until these photos that were just taken on march 2nd. within about 48 hours of the hanoi summit breaking down, these photos, these commercial satellite imagery came forward which shows what appears to be very clear indications that there's now activity at the site again, including things that could be consistent with, you know what we used to see north korean do prior to a missile test. >> jeremy, off of courtney's reporting there, the president used the magic words. we just heard them a few moments ago speaking about kim. he said i trust him. yet is there within the

intelligence community the realization the one development from both meetings the president has had with kim is that it's been an extraordinary success for kim in the sense that it has elevated him on the international stage and we got nothing? >> well i think, mike, it's fair to say our intelligent community professionals predicted we would get nothing. if you recall dan coats testified in open session before the senate intelligence committee that north korea would not give up their wmd programs. that's what led the president to say the intelligence chiefs were naive and stupid and behavioral he disagreed with their analysis. of course their analysis was dead on. the president walked into the summit in hanoi and the north koreans said we're not closing down facilities, we're not giving up our enrichment, our launch facilities, we're not going to do all the things we said we might do and president trump had nowhere to go so he

had to leave. of course we're praising him for walking away from a horrible deal. but, in fact, the entire thing was foretold and foresaw by our intelligence chiefs if only our president had listened. >> one of the things i would be interested in asking about is what would happen if they were to restart testing? one of the upsides of the whole process of negotiation we had for the past year is that there hasn't been testing. something the japanese were thrilled about. they felt these rockets coming across. there hasn't been testing since the singapore summit and there's been an achievement from the white house to get this absence of testing. do you think from the intelligence we're getting from parallel, these photographs, the north koreans are moving in the direction of testing? do we know that from they photographs? what happens if the north koreans do resume testing? >> reporter: it's not definitive enough to say these photos are proof that they will begin testing again.

so, for years, especially throughout 2016 and 2017 when north korea really ramped up a lot of its missile launches and tests there would always be these indications, when it was a liquid fueled launch and the intelligence would see a missile on the launch pad, they would see them fueling it up. we would get a sense a test was coming. nothing like that is happening at this point. it's just this renewed activity at a site that's capable of launching. one of the problems that we had throughout the course of this entire diplomatic back and forth between president trump and kim jong-un in north korea they are two very unpredictable leaders. hard to say that if they were to begin testing what would happen. it seems reasonable to assume that if north korea were to test a missile that would mean launching off a missile, that it would lead to an escalation as we saw in 2017 where after a launch we would hear president trump with this very fiery rhetoric, you know, everything from little rocket man to bragging about the size of their

nuclear buttons that they have on the desk. it stands to reason, there has been a recent de-escalation on the u.s. military side by announcing that the two major large scale exercises that are held every spring are disconed. they are not going to hold them any more. but it stands to reason it would be yet another escalation in the rhetoric and then potentially in action. >> thank you very much. great job. appreciate it. still ahead on "morning joe," mike bloomberg bows out. he takes him out out of the running for the 2020 presidential race. a rift in the house after comme comments by congresswoman omar. you're watching "morning joe". we'll be right back. g "morning . we'll be right back. last years' ad campaign was a success for choicehotels.com badda book. badda boom. this year, we're taking it up a notch.

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security secretary mcconneknee nielsen is heading to capitol hill. she's expected to face questions from democrats regarding president trump's national emergency declaration and immigration strategy, including family separations. it comes as new government figures reveal that despite the trump administration's policies, migrant border crossings have hit record highs. last month more than 76,000 undocumented immigrants crossed the southern border either at legal port of entry or apprehended between ports of entry. that's the highest total for february in 12 years. and the highest single month total since trump was elected. however, it is not an overall record as border crossings were consistently over 100,000 before 2008 and were higher than

200,000 per month in 2000 under president bill clinton. the "new york times" reports that more than 50,000 adults are currently in i.c.e. custody, the highest number ever. meanwhile the senate has until next friday to take up a vote on a house passed declaration disapproving of president trump's emergency order to fund the border wall. and the president told senator lindsey graham he's upset with republican defections while ran paul is growing optimistic about the message opponents will send to the white house. >> here's what the president and i talked about for an hour and a half today. that he's disappointed that he's not able to convince republicans that this is an emergency. >> i think there will be about ten republicans, at least six beyond the four that are going to vote for it have told me they will. it could be higher than that. what i keep telling them if we can get to a high enough number maybe somebody can run over to

the white house and say this could be worse, this could be 65, 67. i know that's very optimistic. it might be only 57 to 60 but that's still a lot of die sent and rebuke that could be avoided if the president would rescind the emergency part. >> rick tyler, two questions. first of all, secretary kirstjen nielsen has been tough to watch on this issue as it pertains to the numbers of those crossing the border versus the facts over time, and also trying to explain these family separations. i can't imagine what she could do at this point to help the president. i don't understand the relationship and why he keeps putting her out there. if you have anything to add to that let me know. otherwise what's behind these republican defections? >> well, i would hope that the republicans can see that this is an overreach by the president. i do thing at the root of it, mika, that the law giving the

president this extraordinary power, which is a power to declare an emergency, he is probably within his power to do that, but that's a problem that the congress has to fix. . on the border itself, remember most of the illegal immigration that was occurring from the southern border came from mexico. that's no longer the case. what's happening is central american countries like honduras, elevator salvador and guatemala, these countries are experiencing extraordinary murder rates, extraordinary crime rates, drug cartels, and they are coming with their families. these are not single illegal immigrants, these are people who are seeking legitimate asylum by and large and that's what's accounting for the increased numbers. the worry the increased numbers will play into donald trump's argument that there's some sort of invasion going on at the southern border. but these numbers, while significant, they are not nearly as high as they were and of a different nature than they have been in the past.

>> jeremy bash, rick tyler leads me my question to you, does this number, 76,103 in february, people taken into custody at the border, double, more than double than in february of 2018 year-over-year, does that not help president trump make his case, flawed as it may be that there's a crisis at the border. >> it could cut both ways. on one hand his efforts on the border which he claims are already under way are not working. i can argue it around flat. overall the claim of an emergency is unfounded. really the question is will a concrete wall or steel slat wall solve the problem and none of the experts that you've talked to, that i have talked to believe it will. >> the central american countries rick just mentioned, el salvador, guatemala, honduras, it's interesting to note how we define terrorism differently, depending where it occurs. several of these countries

specifically, honduras and guatemala are dealing with internal terrorism and that's the principle result of this flow of human being, largely families, not individuals the way it was 10, 12 years ago towards the texas border, to get into this country. yet it's not just this administration, the trump administration that has reacted with indifference to the political and criminal problems in the countries, it goes back several years. and this might be just a situation where we are unable to do anything because we let it go on for so long within the country themselves. >> every person that studies migration pattern, whether it's from africa to europe or from central america to north america comes up with the same conclusion. you have to deal with the source of problem. you have to deal with why guatemala, el salvador, honduras places people are willing to risk their lives to flee those countries for some very uncertain possibility of getting

into the united states. without aid programs, opportunity programs for those three countries we're never really going fix that. one interesting thing that's happened recently in those countries recently they have very high murder rates, yes. but in the last couple of months those murder rates as far as i understand have been told have actually come down slightly. yet coinciding with this this surge in violence, surge in people getting across the border here. most people think are actually economic migrants, not necessarily people fleeing for security which will make them ineligible for asylum even if they do get through the procession. it's a very complex picture. the trick is to look at what's happening there in central america and not just say this is a border issue. >> all right. still ahead it's not just the president's tax returns that have been hidden from public view. there's new reporting about how his academic record was buried

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all right. now to some other stories making headlines. president trump is stepping up efforts to address the issue of veterans suicide. the president signed an executive order yesterday creating a cabinet level task force that will develop a national road map for suicide prevention using state and federal resources. the task force will be led by veterans affairs secretary. the most recent data from va show veteran suicides are estimated about 20 a day anded is rates for veterans between 18 and 24 have been rising over the past decade. it's very good to see an emphasis on that. the effects of president trump and republicans 2017 tax cuts

continue to be felt as new figures reveal the federal budget deficit surged. 77% in just the first four months of 2019. according to the treasury department the deficit for the budget year which began back in october came in at just over $310 billion. that compared to just under $176 billion during the same period a year ago. the jump in the deficit is a result of the 2017 tax cuts by the president and the gop along with an increase in government spending. and donald trump has long since boasted about his academic prowess. but there's one thing the public has not seen and that's his school records. "the washington post" reports that in 2011 the private high school donald trump attended of tasked with hiding his school files. the request came after trump had openly challenged barack obama to show his own records to prove

that he had not been a terrible student. the new york military academy's former head master recounts that superintendent came to me in a panic, because he had been accosted by prominent wealthy alumni of the school who are mr. trump's friends and wanted to keep his records secret. the revelation comes after michael cohen's explosive testimony where he admitted to strong arming a number of schools trump attended in an effort to conceal his grades and s.a.t. scores. willie geist, i don't know about you, my grades were spotty and not always great and my father always made a point of reading the teacher comments at family events. i don't know. we're pretty transparent. >> i wasn't put through any of that. i wanted my grades suppressed. i didn't know that was an option. director of polling at the institute of politics at harvard university and also with us

former political writer and columnist ron fourney. great to see you. mike wants to talk to you about the tigers. we'll talk about that an instant. how are people viewing the american dream and the government's role in the economy. let's start first of all you ask the question for you personally is the american dream alive and well. 27% say that's the case. alive but under athlete. 37% say that. one threat but there's hope. 28%. and i'm happy to say only 7% of americans say the dream is dead. >> yes. i think the headline is the american dream is not dead yet. 27%, a quarter believe it's alive and well. but i think 2020 campaign will be a referendum on the next year the degree to which government will engage with the economy to restore the promise of the

american dream for current gren ration and generations to come. >> how does this break out? you spend a lot of time in polling talking to younger voters and younger american. do younger americans see that dream as being more one threat than older americans? >> older americans, baby boomers surprisingly are actually more concerned about the future of younger americans than younger americans. but younger americans are more concerned about the state of capitalism. so overall there's more pessimism about the future than there is about the current moment today. but i think the big message of this is that they believe capitalism as we know it is severely broken and needs to be reformed in some significant way. >> we've seen some polling not from you but from other that have suggested younger voters are giving sort of a look to socialism and we've heard that from young congressmen and women, this freshman class, some of them describe themselves as a democratic socialist.

51% have positive feelings towards socialism, only 45% have positive feelings towards capitalism. >> we conducted several polling. what we showed in our last poll more people learned about socialism those numbers went down. the more we shared information about capitalism numbers went up. that's the bigger point. the way in which capitalism is being practiced today. that's not being effective. overall we look at the overall electorate 18 plus. 50% or so think the system is okay or needs to be further deregulated. america is split. but younger people who overwhelmingly believe the system is broken and we need more government control of thing like health care, education, housing and that sort of thing. >> once you read the history book socialism is less appealing. >> ron you live in a real city. you stan in line for coffee.

you pay for parking. all the things normal americans do. one of the things that john's polling has picked up is that the democratic primary voters are not nearly as far left as maybe people in the party, some candidates running for president might think. what's your assessment on the ground in detroit, michigan about where we are as democratic primary voters? >> i think in detroit and even outside of detroit in the great state of michigan most voters are closer to the center than professional democrats, professional republicans would like us to believe. i would like to ask john, if i could, john, as you know, i've been studying your numbers and writing about it for 20 years. you guys do a remarkable job by understanding where the country is going. if young people generally don't believe in capitalism what do they believe in and how could the numbers you're talking b-how are they going to shape the democratic primary? >> first of all, i think young people want to modernize the way in which they think about

capitalism. there are elements of a democratic socialist agenda that resonate with young people. for example medicare for all. issues related to access to education and commune college. those are part of a democratic socialist agenda. on the other hand they are part of the mainstream democratic party now. it's about modernizing capitalism and remembering an important part of the american dream is this pursuit of happiness. the ability to work hard and have a happy, flexible life is something that young people are calling for. when we look at the democratic primary don't forget yb who is much closer to the middle than anyone else has a consistent lead in every state and national poll which is further indication about people wanting to return to something more familiar. change but also something more familiar as well at this important point of our history. >> john, it's katty kay here in washington. to what extent do you think 2008 and the financial crash is playing out in the numbers that you're seeing and the degree to

which people who are coming of age today have really ever known a time of austerity and financial recession. i want to know whether 2008 isn't a bigger driver of these different trends than people thought of? >> i think it's incredibly significant driver. we look at the millennial generation, the largest generation in the history of america, two parts of it. first part came of age before the recession. after the wars and were part of the obama movement. second part came of age during that recession saw members of their own family and community lose things. therefore they have a different definition of the american dream and pursuit of happiness is a very important part of that. that's why bernie sanners resonating so well in 2016 and elements of his message continue to resonate well but not every voter in the democratic primary will be a millennial. there's a balance between both sides of that generation, both sides of the electorate.

>> all right, thank you very much. still ahead, senate democrat chris murphy and senate republican james lankford join the conversation. as we go to break a story that caught our eye from the new haven register, a terminally ill connecticut man who is in the end stages of cystic fibrosis received a call from the commander-in-chief yesterday. the 44-year-old said getting the chance to speak with the president was a big item to scratch off his bucket list. "morning joe" will be right back. >> hey. i just saw a picture of you. >> you're giving me high honors. i look like [ bleep ] >> how are you doing? >> it's going. you know what i mean. >> you're a champ. you're fighting it? >> that's what the irish do, right? >> yeah, that's what the irish do. you better believe it. you bette.

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>> former new york city mayor michael bloomberg has opted not to run for president next year. the "new york times" reports that advisors to bloomberg concluded that he would have a narrow path to the nomination. that would all but disappear if former vice president joe biden decides to run. in an op-ed bloomberg explained his decision writing it's essential that we nominate a democrat who will be in the strongest position to defeat donald trump and bring our country back together. we cannot allow the primary process to drag the party to an extreme that would diminish our chances in the general election and translate into four more years. bloomberg is expected to be heavily involved in the general election organizing and financing opposition to trump and to his point, ron, if biden decides not to run who will be the center left main players who can accomplish what bloomberg is

concerned about? >> well, we have a couple of governors who are talking about and in some cases have gotten in the race. the governor from colorado could take that space. i think it's interesting what happened yesterday, mika, because this is a good development i think for the democrats. mike bloomberg i don't think had a very good chance of winning the nomination because of where the party is going. he's now going to be able to instead of spending his money running in vain for the presidency, he can help democrats defeat donald trump. my guess is it will be hard from somebody from the center to win a nomination in a party that's moving quick to the left. >> all right. but jeremy bash, one thing these candidates have to do is break through all the news about the investigations going on. that could be tough to navigate. >> that's right. mika, when a president doesn't control both chambers of congress as the situation we're now in, what happens? first, you see a lot of

oversight, aggressive oversight. we're now entering the golden age of oversight with house democrats and 81 letter requests going out to individuals around the trump orbit. second presidents turn to foreign policy. here we had the first major foreign policy failure of the president's second two years of his term and i think our troops and military and our intelligence professionals will be on high alert in the pacific-asia region in the aftermath of hanoi. >> a lot they can focus there. thank you both for being on. coming up the state of new york wastes no time following up on the leads michael cohen offered to the house oversight committee now going after the trump organization's insurance records. plus new evidence that north korea may be preparing for new missile tests despite kim jong-un telling donald trump other wise just last week. nbc's andrea mitchell will join us with that reporting ahead. morning joe is back in a moment. .

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house dems. this spring brace yourself. subpoenas are coming. "shame of thrones." the final season? >> welcome back to "morning joe". it is wednesday, march 6th. joe is out for one more day preparing for his mother's funeral along with willie and me we have msnbc contributor mike barnicle. washington anchor for bbc world news america katty kay. republican communications strategist and msnbc political contributor, rick tyler and joining the conversation white house correspondent for pbs news hour, former justice department spokesman, matt miller is with us. and anchor and managing editor for i24 news david shuster is with us this morning. we begin with new polling that finds more americans than not believe the president engaged in

criminal activity. when asked by the quinnipiac university poll did president trump commit crimes before becoming president, 64% of voters say yes. yes, de. 24% say he did not. on whether trump committed crimes after becoming president, 45% say, yes. 43% say no. in the poll taken from friday through monday, voters say they are more likely to believe the president's former lawyer michael cohen. 50% over 35% who believe trump. and 58% believe congress should do more to investigate cohen's claims about president trump's unethical and illegal behavior. 35% disagree. nearly six in ten voters, 59% are against congress beginning impeachment proceedings against the president. cohen is scheduled to appear at another private session of the house intelligence committee today and david shuster or

willie you can take to it david, i understand there might be new reporting on exactly what they want to ask the former fixer of the president michael cohen. he's been talking a lot to congress. >> he certainly has. his testimony last wednesday, the testimony over the course of three days has opened up new investigations including a new one over the trump organize agencies insurance here in the state of new york. david, if we go back and look at that one poll it's an extraordinary number. the american public by a margin of 50% to 35%, by 15% percentage points believes the word of president trump's former hatchet man and convicted liar, a man who has lied before congress and a man going to jail for a couple of years main over the word of the president of the u.n. >> michael cohen publicly testified that the president engaged in obstruction of justice, tax fraud, campaign finance violations. i24 news we understand that why

cohen has been subpoenaed back today is because he was dangled a subpoena sometime between 2017 when he lied to congress about the moscow real estate deal and then in the spring of 2018 when the fbi raided his office. during that period if there were conversations between white house lawyers own behalf of the president saying look if you continue to stand by the testimony we fed you to congress, there might be a pardon for you at the end. that's why you have lawmakers at the end of last week and this came up at the end of his testimony saying we need to follow up on this and find out whether or not the president engaged in perjury or obstruction of justice. >> again different bodies following leads laid out by michael cohen last week. we have the public testimony there were two other hearings. we're seeing congress and as i said other agencies here in the state of new york taking bits of his testimony and opening new investigations. >> there are incredible leads follow. you have the leads he generated that he mentioned about the president's business practices not only new york regulators

following that but there was a report the week before last that the southern district is looking into trump's practices. and then this question of obstruction of justice. one of the most intriguing things he said in that hearing sometime after the raid of his office and his apartment around two months later he had a conversation with the president but couldn't discuss that conversation because it's still under investigation. very intriguing. whether it was about pardons or something else. clearly investigators have an interest in. this question about pardons is one the justice department will have a hard time ignoring. they have to look into it. we know his attorney in a conversation or a series of conversations sound very similar to this conversation that rudy giuliani had with steve ryan, cohen's lawyer, dangled pardon in front of paul manafort and mike flynn back in 2017. those would unquestionably be

criminal acts if they were offered in exchange for silencing a witness. even more so than some of the other obstructive acts that the president has taken. >> matt, speaking of the justice department, we're now at the stage where there's almost a weekly frenzy, political and media frenzy over the mueller report. oh, it's about to be launched. oh, it will be imminently released. there seems to be a sense maybe out there in the larger general public that once the mueller report is released, it's like it's released to the "new york times" and it's going to be on the front page. talk about the mechanics of the release. what happens when bob mueller gives his report to the attorney general? >> it's a good question because the attorney general can really set this up however he wants. all the regulars say that at the end of his investigation mueller has to submit a report to the attorney general. now that could mean he submit as report and the attorney general takes his time and reviews it and decides what to release, whether it may be redacting

certain portions of mueller's report, writing his own. i has a suspicion it won't happen that way. they know it's politically risky to get that document and let it sit there for weeks and there will be leaks. they've known it's coming for some time. rod rosenstein has known it's coming. it wouldn't surprise me if they got a very near final draft of the report. so there's some seamless transmission where it goes from mueller to the department of justice and then very quickly, some version of it or some new version of it that is built off the mueller report is transmitted to congress or the public. it's entirely up to the attorney general, though. he can do it however he wants. i think the bigger question is after this initial dissemination what does congress do to follow up not only to get the report but all the underlying evidence which i think they are entitled to. >> donald trump was asked about the democrats sweeping new probe of his presidency yesterday.

>> the witch-hunt is on. the fact is, i guess we got 81 letters. there was no collusion. it was hoax. there was nothing. and they want to do that instead of getting legislation passed. 81 people or organizations got letters. it's a disgrace. it's a disgrace to our country. i'm not surprised it's happening. basically they started the campaign. so the campaign begins. president obama, from what they tell me, was under a similar kind of a thing. didn't give one letter. they didn't anything. they didn't give one letter of the request. many requests were made. they didn't give a letter. >> the "new york times" fact checked that last statement the president made yesterday and had declared it false. the paper reports that trump is wrong, that his predecessor did not turn over any documents at all and the congressional

investigation into solendra, investigators obtained over 300,000 pages of documents from the white house, federal agencies and solendra and its counsel. they note while president obama asserted executive privilege over some 1300 documents related to the congressional investigation into operation fast and furious, quote, congressional investigators obtained more than 10,000 pages of additional material. meanwhile, the house select committee investigation on benghazi obtain 75,000 participation of new material including 1450 pages from the white house and the "times" points out that during investigations into claims that the internal revenue service improperly targeted conservative groups seeking tax exempt status, a bipartisan senate report stated the white house provide a quote limited number of documents while the tax agency provided 1.3 million

pages of material. so the president was lying. we haven't even gotten to roger stone and that story. but let's stay with the president. is it possible the president could just simply not comply with all these requests coming his way from congress and from oversight? >> well, white house official tell me that they are going to do whatever legally they have to do which is really them hinting that subpoenas are going to have to be issued for this white house to comply with some of these document requests. so the idea is that they are going to claim executive privilege over and over again and going to point to other administrations and say they all claimed executive privilege. the issue, of course, is as you just stated and as the "new york times" reports the obama administration gave over documents and gave republicans all sorts of issues, so i think -- >> if they issue the subpoena

does the president then have to, is he compelled to give up documents and answer questions, or can this just go on forever? >> i think -- >> because he doesn't want to do it. >> that's where we'll get into the courts. this will ultimately be decided by judges not the white house counsel or by congress because the white house is going to claim that they have executive privilege and everyone i talked to at the white house says they see this as harassment, they see this as the president laying out -- they tell me the president laid out his stance on this the day after the mid-term elections if democrats want to investigate me they are going to have to -- they won't be able to work with me on anything else and i'll say that's harassments. as a result this president is pushing back because he's not used to a congress doing oversight. >> rick tyler, democrats are doing exactly what they promised to do in lead up to the mid-term elections. if they got power they would look into the president's life. as president.

before he became president. i had personal life. his business life. are the next 18 months, the rest of the president's first term as we go election day next year, is it just going to be consumed by investigations and document requests? is this going to be where we are as a country? is this a state of play that we're constantly one investigation here? >> it sounds like it, willie. i'm not sure why the president wants to compare his scandal record with that of barack obama, our previous president. i don't think it will hold up very well. in the polling we've been talking about all morning, when you look at the fact almost two-thirds of the country does not want to impeach the president they are saying look do your oversight. we want you to do your oversight. but don't overreach. and any one investigation or letters of inquiry may be justified. i don't know. i don't have a way to measure that. if we're consumed as you say for the next two years there's a

danger that people just become so exhausted by the process that they somehow -- they want it to be over one way or the other. so i think the democrats have to explain very carefully to the american people why they are requesting documents, what their lines of inquiry are, what specifically they are investigating so it doesn't play into donald trump's strongest hand which is saying look, this is all a witch00. because if it looks like they are just requesting documents to try to find something, that's going to look like a witch00. they need to carefully explain why they are requesting these documents and. what the line of inquiry are. >> david, rick just mentioned it's a fact that much of the country is exhausted from all of this and turned off to a lot of it. but within the white house, the level of exhaustion must be such that you pray that there's not a legitimate international crisis that the president of the united states has to deal with because, first of all, the white house

staff has been so thinned out by departures and the level of exhaustion dealing with these daily horrendous details they have to deal with regarding the president's perhaps criminal behavior. what's going on within the white house? >> mike, that's a good point because there are people inside the white house who as much as they may say publicly it's the democrats fault, the public is tire of this investigation of donald trump, people inside the white house off camera will tell you, look, we realize we have a commander-in-chief who is stirring much of this, causing many of his own problems, seems to be digging this hole even deeper. one thing they point out where they believe why the president's approval ratings continue to go up is because of that point you mentioned. so many people when donald trump was first elected this guy will start world war iii. there's been no new war. there's been essentially withdrawal of troops. not as if the united states is in engaged in a hot new conflict and the economy is good. the american people are look yes

maybe he doesn't tell the truth, maybe there's reasons to investigate him but as far as what most people are concerned about their daily lives, the economy, whether the united states is in some sort of foreign conflict they are not bothered by donald trump and that's why you see in the polling that his approval rating is up between 45% and 48%. >> now to the latest concerning north korea. a new analysis of commercial satellite imagery taken on saturday, just two days after trump's remarks reveals that north korea is pursuing the rapid rebuilding of a long-range rocket site possibly in preparation for a new test. let's bring in nbc news chief correspondent and host of mit "andrea mitchell reports," andrea mitchell. what happened? he said he and kim were doing so well together. this is one area where the president had confidence that things were not moving in the wrong direction. >> reporter: i want does seem that this is troubling, alarming and comes despite those promises

from kim jong-un to president trump in hanoi, mika. experts say this commercial satellite image taken 48 hours after the collapse of the hanoi summit shows north korea is rebuilding a site for a long-raining missile banned by the u.n., a missile that could reach all the way to the west coast of the u.s., even as far as denver or chicago. contrary to what president trump says kim jong-un told him at the summit. >> chairman kim promised me last night, regardless he's not going to do testing of rockets and nuclear, not going to do testing. so, you know, i trust him and i take him at his word. i hope that's true. >> reporter: for months the site appeared to be shut down but two days after the summit new signs of activity. a vertical test negotiate, a testing stand, a crane, movement on the railway for transporting a missile indicating north korea may be get ready to test for the

first time in 15 months according to the authors of a new report. >> they basically opened the shutters. the shelters are exposing the missile pad. this is not random maintenance activity. this is activity designed to send a message. >> reporter: all this raising questions about why president trump keeps praising kim. >> he's quite a guy and quite a character, and i think our relationship is very strong. >> reporter: while the test site was being rebuilt the president was also giving kim a big concession. cancelling annual joint u.s. military exercises this spring with south korea. the pentagon has long viewed them as critical to maintaining readiness. and asked to respond to our report, sarah huckabee sanders said we never comment on intelligence. north korea is clearly a growing challenge for the president despite national security officials denying that the summit was a failure. john bolton in an interview last night said if they do not dismantle as promised the

president would consider, actually increase the economic sanction, toughen the sanctions instead of lifting them as kim jong-un wants. but there's been a division certainly between john bolton's tougher line and the president's willingness to quote trust but shall we say not verify. >> incredible turn of events. and incredible information coming forward. we know you'll be following that. andrea, i want to get your take on the politics at the moment and tissue of oversight with this presidency, especially given the fact that you covered the clinton presidency and dealt with a lot of these issues and confronted these questions. first of all can congress be stopped from getting access to donald trump's tax returns and what's your take on the many, many requests for documents? >> reporter: well, it's clearly a case where there have been many, many precedents in past administrations. republican as well as democratic

where congressional oversight when you have divided government have taken place. documents like these have been requested. they haven't been forced to the subpoena stage. elijah cummings and adam schiff will demand these and demand it in court. the question is timeliness. the inti occasion from white house counsel yesterday and today they won't comply and take it to the courts. as we all know so many of these federal judges now are new appointees. most incredible success from the republican senate has been in confirming more than 100 new federal judges. so it's a very large percentage now. there's another piece of this that has not been reported, but i'm talking to senators, you know, democratic senators are confirming to me that they are no longer getting what has always been the senate protocol that no matter who is in charge, which political party there's something called a blue slip where the senators from a state

get sort of veto power, informal veto power over judicial nominations. that's not taking place. mitch mcconnell and republicans are no longer conferring with their democratic colleagues about these nominations. >> federal judges tend to have a mine of their own so they don't necessarily go trump's way just because trump wants them to go his way. >> yeah. potentially even supreme court justices, right? we've seen over the past they can have a mine of their own. justice roberts also having his say on thing that surprised people recently. andrea, i wonder what your reporting is showing on nancy pelosi and the process of these investigations, the impeachment question. how she's managing to keep kind of the people in the party who are pushing faster on impeachment in line with those who are saying let's keep it slow we don't want to be the party seen as overreach at this point. >> that's a continuing tension in the democratic party. as long as you see these chairs,

jerry nadler, elijah cummings and, of course, adam schiff being as aggressive as they are i think they can calm down that push for impeachment because the bottom line they all know that politically it's toxic for the democrats to be that aggressive at least until the mueller report. i think everybody is waiting for the mueller report. if william barr doesn't show some transparency and indicate what he's getting from mueller in some fashion there will be increasing pressure for them to move ahead and jump the gun to impeachment. pelosi doesn't want to do it. she's holding the line. right now she has other problems to deal with. delaying until tomorrow this resolution over the comments, the controversial comments biomarch, the freshman congresswoman from minnesota, and the whole conflict, generational as well among democrats as to how tough to be and pressure from the republicans to really make this

a very tough vote for writing the resolution, they had to amend it last night. >> comments by the congresswoman are not the first comments. what's behind that do you think? where does that stand, he as nancy pelosi is trying to sort of keep the congress moving forward on a high level and yet they keep sort of tripping up on comments or missteps, especially this congresswoman. what happened here? >> reporter: well she believes this, and she was -- she's stepping into a new role, these freshman, a number of them are stepping into a new role and don't fully understand all the dynamics, and she certainly stepped right into it by, in essence, repeating a trope whether you can be committed to supporting israel and international relations and whether that questions your allegiance to the united states.

now that said, she herself has been the subject of racist protests, west virginia there were signs against her suggesting that she was somehow linked to 9/11 because she's muslim. there have been anti-muslim, you know, terrible comments as well. that's how they were trying to combine that into the resolution that was written about the anti-semitism. look this also comes after pittsburgh, after growing anti-semitism. you hear this from the southern law project, excuse me i'm forgetting the name of the group in the south which tracks anti-semitism and other racist and ethnic slurs around the country. this has been a terrible period with the rise of anti-semitism shins charlottesville and you see a lack of leadership in the white house speaking out against this. >> southern poverty law center. andrea, thank you so much. we'll be watching. andrea mitchell reports at noon

eastern here on msnbc. david shuster thank you as well. good to have you on. matt miller good to have you. stay with us. still ahead on this morning joe the administration just briefed senators on the murder of jamal khashoggi and it's safe to say chris murphy of not impressed with what he heard. what's next in the push to hold saudi arabia responsible for killing a "washington post" columnist? it's kind of hard when jared kushner is meeting with mbs and ignoring it. it's almost impossible. we'll ask, though, the connecticut democrat joins us straight ahead on "morning joe". . we humans are strange creatures. other species avoid pain and struggle. we actually... seek it out. other species do difficult things

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connecticut. senator, good morning. always good to have you with us. i want to start with the briefing that was supposed to be a classified briefing, an update from the administration with you and other senators about the murder of jamal khashoggi, the former "washington post" columnist. what did you get out of that briefing and has any progress been made in the administration in terms of assigning direct blame to who is responsible? >> we got nothing out of this briefing. we have all sorts of classified briefings in which we're told nothing that's classified. this was amongst them. there was no member of the intelligence community at the briefing. so there were a lot of folks who couldn't give us any information. one thing we did get out of the briefing is confirmation the administration doesn't plan to comply with the human rights law that says when congress asks for a finding on the culpability of an individual act, the president has to tell us whether there was a human rights violation or not. the president will not do that when it comes to the saudi crown prince mohammad bin salman and whether he was involved in the

khashoggi murder. i think we know for certain he's not going to comply with that law. so we have to take matters into our own hands. at this point the administration is not going to apply any consequences to saudi arabia for the way in which they murdered and dismembered jamal khashoggi and we have to. there's bipartisan agreement today finally that we have to take some steps with or without the president. >> senator, in fact, jared kushner, the president's son-in-law and senior adviser met with the crown prince just last week. did you get any indication in your briefing that he confronted the crown prince with the evidence that points to saudi arabia and perhaps the crown prince himself ordering the murder of jamal khashoggi? >> we were briefed by two people who had no idea what the white house was doing with respect to their relationship with saudi arabia. i think it's pretty amazing that in the face of this gross violation of human rights, this assault on an american resident, that it's the united states officials that are going to

saudi arabia. nobody from saudi arabia is coming here to ask forgiveness. today there's another american resident in captivity, somebody protesting women's right in saudi arabia, a virginia resident who has been electrocuted while in captivity in saudi arabia. this just isn't a one time deal. saudi arabia is cracking down on political dissidents and the administration is cheering that which means they will do more of it. >> what's your best guess, not a guess an informed judgment you made based on intelligence and people you talked to as to why president trump and his administration give the benefit of the doubt to the crown prince in this matter? >> at some point you have to believe the evidence that's in front of your eyes. the president has been pretty clear that he and his family make a lot of money off of the saudis. and i don't have any other explanation for why the president seems to have this

bizarre policy towards saudi arabia in which he makes it took as if we're the junior partner. this idea that if we were to sanctions saudi arabia they would go to russia is ridiculous. while i don't have a smoke gun in front of me telling me the president is doing this for more qu quid progas quo for horse rentals in his apartment buildings. >> "new york times" reporter members of the administration very high up had very serious concerns about giving jared kushner a security clearance and that president trump pushed it through. that's number one. number two, he has no experience in foreign policy, none, zero. and yet he's being tasked with fixing the middle east. and number three, he's meeting

with mbs alone while the president is off with kim jong-un. and there's no question raised? no issue, no information about questions about the murder of a "washington post" reporter and you adding there's a virginia resident right now in saudi custody that's being tortured potentially and jared kushner what exactly is he doing for the american people and for american interests with the crown prince at this time, at this moment in history? what could he be doing with them that's helpful to america and not helpful to trump's personal financial interests? >> you have asked the operative question. and that is part of the reason why it's so important for the united states congress and the american people to get a full picture of the president's and president's family financial picture whether through the emolument clause or through subpoenas. we can answer that question better what jared kushner is

doing in saudi arabia over and over again, what he's doing on these private phone calls with mohammad bin salman if we know more about the trump family's financial interests. whatever this is also during a period of time in which all sorts of other things are going wrong in the middle east. this rupture between saudi arabia and qatar. continued disaster of the yemen war. it's not as if there's any piece of the u.s.-saudi relationship going well today. . what on earth these meetings are about is hard to figure out given the fact that everything seems to be upside down with the saudis and they seem to be proudly crowing about their relationship with the united states. >> senator, you mentioned what's going on in the middle east. you got syria. you have benjamin netanyahu under threat of indictment in israel. war in yemen. very few people mention internally what's going on in egypt what's at the point of rupture. i have a simple basic mechanical question for you.

with regard to saudi arabia. with regard to the royal family in riyadh. with regard to jared kushner. you're in the minority in the senate. is it possible for you to issue a subpoena to people like jared kushner to get them to sit in front of you and answer under oath questions that you might have? >> so it is not possible for us to do that in the minority. but it is certainly possible for the house of representatives to do that. and i would hope that they would move forward on doing some serious oversight over american foreign policy, because certainly we have these big questions as to what's motivating our policy in saudi arabia. the same is true for our long standing issues with trump's russia policy. is there financial explanations for that bizarre positioning as well? we can issue that subpoena as members of the minority. i don't think the republicans in charge of the senate are interested in confronting the president that directly but the house can certainly do that.

>> senator, you describe this idea that you go into these briefings and aren't getting a lot of information from the white house. the white house rejecting documents request. what strategy do you think democrats in particular in congress should take to get more answers out of the white house and do you think people around the president people who aren't working at the white house who can't claim executive privilege what should congress do to press those people for ans? >> one of the things they can do is demand these hearings be in public than classified. if the american people so you how little information we're getting there would be more general outrage and more conversation amongst people like you. you have to rely on us to report that we're not getting anything useful. we don't have to wait for the president. we don't have to wait for more information. we can pass sanctions on saudi arabia or on mohammad bin salman. we can pull the united states out of the war inside yemen. we can pass a resolution saying

the president cannot engage in preemptive military action against iran without congressional authorization. i also don't think we should be too obsessive about information when we can move forward with the powers that we have, that we're not exercising currently. >> senator chris murphy, democrat of connecticut. thanks so much for your time as always. we appreciate it. matt miller last thought from you here on the sweeping investigations we've been talking about today. you heard senator murphy saying there are a lot of trails that demonstrate need to go down. >> a lot of trails to follow. when you see senator murphy talking about, the scandals involving this administration is not the corruption scandals involving the president but also policy scandals involving a number of agencies inside the government. one of the most interesting things he said, the president and this administration are flori flagrantly flouting the law. they are required to say whether

an overseas official violated the law and should be subject to sanctions. they are openly thumbing their nose at that. republicans as serious as they are for holding the saudis accountable for the khashoggi situation they won't hold the president accountable. it will fall to the democrats in the house. we get so focused on this president. there's scandals hiding inside in every agency from foreign affairs to housing to banking. >> my question to senator murphy what do you think the odds are that jared kushner confronted the crown price about this? >> yeah. >> matt miller thank you very much. still ahead with the federal deficit ballooning one republican lawmaker is taking a look at where the government could save tax gorse. senator james lankford with the annual fumble report. that's next on "morning joe". hear those words...

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had i have waited a day, i would have had stage iv cancer. planned parenthood saved my life. text titlex to 22422 to learn more. federal dollars going to a book on russian wine, and a marachi apprenticeship program. the highlights of the federal fumbles report. the study highlights waste and

inefficiency in government spending while intending to spark broader debate on finding solutions to rein in the debt. the author of that report republican senator james lankford of oklahoma. incredible list. we'll get to that in just a moment. but first of all, rand paul says he'll be voting for repeal of the president's emergency declaration. he says there will be other republicans. will you be one of them? >> i'm still waiting for the documentation, actually from the white house. the white house is supposed to give us the information on the military side of what they are asking for and we've yet to receive that yet. we got to look at the documentation on the legal aspects and where they take those fund from. they have three funds they are pulling from. two are non-emergency. one is an emergency declaration on the finances and when we get the details on that. >> the details reveal -- this

is -- do you believe this is an emergency to be declared? >> there is a serious problem there. and whether you call it an emergency or a crisis or as president obama called it a humanitarian crisis, there's a problem and it's families and it's individuals that are rushing at the border in very, very high numbers. so we got to be able to find a way to manage this. >> they are coming in higher numbers now for certain reasons, but the numbers actually over time have been going down, as you know, sir. >> well it depends on where you take them from. >> yes. but if you call it a problem, there are a lot of problems that the government works on. is this an emergency that deserves emergency funds? >> so that's what we're waiting to be able to get the declaration. there are three accounts that the white house has asked for those dollars. two of those accounts there's statutory authority. there's no emergency requirement that's at the die creation of

the executive branch. treasury asset forfeiture fund. drug interdiction. the third one is military construction opinion that's the only one that would require emergency action and we've not seen the documentation on that one yet. i'll wait to get that. i wish the house would have waited until the documentation came out to vote on it so they know what they are voting on. we haven't seen it yet. >> what in these documents would tell you that this is an emergency that deserves federal emergency dollars? >> depends, again on the account that they are taking it from and where that is actually documented in law that they can use it. the white house has said they have statutory authority. they got to show us what that statutory is. the other two areas there's no doubt they have statutory authority on. that's about $4.5 billion of those dollars. no reason to doubt. again clear plain language. >> what would play into your decision? wouldn't you be concerned that the democrats could deem something a quote emergency and

i know you keep talking about different funds that it might come from. i'm asking you if this is an emergency that deserves an emergency fund, a declaration of emergency that you would support that? and would you be concerned about if you don't think it's an emergency, you just that's problem, as you just said earlier, sir, would you be concerned that democrats would take a problem and call it an emergency as well? >> sure it would. that's why these statutory authorities are incredibly important. if you're trying to stretch the statutory authority for what the request that's always an issue. if you call this an emergency, a crisis, a problem, whatever it is, the word that you use. we have more people crossing the border right now as family units and as children in the first five moves this year than we had all of last year or the year before or the year before. enormous rush at our border of children and as "the washington post" has done a story on,

coyote's halloween smugglers are advertising a discount if you bring a child now to be able to cross the border illegally because it's easier to get people across the border with a child than as a single adult male coming. so they have adoptions now when they can pick up a child from that area and say i'll take your child to america to actually go get educated because it's cheaper if we can split the cost of transiting. we're talking real human trafficking of children that's unrelated to these adults. many are related to adults. they may be uncles or cousins but many are unrelated that are moving because it's cheaper. we have to address that humanitarian charisma. this is growing. >> i just don't know what a wall does for anything you just said. i'll look forward to hearing how you vote on this. i feel like we're speaking a different language. i mean we're talk about a wall and you're talk about things that have nothing to do with the

wall. >> so in areas where there's a wall you don't have this issue. they are crossing in between border areas. you need additional security. you have to have. addition technology. in some areas, urban areas especially you have to have some kind of a barrier there. most of the border will never have a wall. but you need layers of security. there are multiple layers of security of people and process you have to get through. we'll have that at the border as well. >> all right. we'll leave it there. the federal fumbles report which is the annual collection of examples of waste, what's at the top of the list? >> so we actually detail what the problem is and try to lay this out. $22 trillion in total debt right now that we're never going to get on top of until we have real economic growth and sustained economic growth and until we pay attention to it. unfortunately in the congress and across most of the country no one is talking about debt and deficit. it's dropped off the map.

i try to be able to highlight some process issues. this is our fourth time to release a report. previous reports we outlined $800 billion in waste we can save money in the long term. this report we focus more on the process areas. how do you fix the budget process. how do we stop government shutdowns. government shutdowns waste money. so we have a solution. figure out how to get to a budget process that works on saving money not just on spending money. there are a few examples as you mentioned a report on studying on russia wines. i can understand why the wine industry would pay for that, but why taxpayers should pay for that? >> senator, it's willie geist. you pointed to the most recent shutdown. it was a colossal waste of time and money and colossal pain placed on a lot of government employees in this country.

you introduced legislation. can you actually stop a government shutdown? can you create legislation that says he'll no longer have these in our country? >> there is. government shutdowns are not new. these go back decades and decades. a democratic senator from new hampshire, we have presented a solution. a lot of people say if you cut off pay of members of congress that will solve it. i smile and say you should meet some members of congress they are multi-millionaires. their pay is a rounding error compared to other checks they get. the main thing you can put on pressure no one leaves until the work is done. you can't leave while there is working to be done. when we went into shutdown mode, everybody left for christmas. we need mandatory quorum calls. do that for senate and staff. also the office of budget.

you have a continuing resolution in the meantime to be able to make sure you hold federal workers harmless and hold american people harmless. put the pressure on where the pressure needs to be. >> nature, are you a conservative? >> yes, sir, i am. >> the republican party was always the party broadly speaking of cutting taxes and limiting government. i appreciate you carry on the tradition of the waste book. that's great with the fumbles book. but what is the distinction going to be between the republican party and democratic party, the republicans used to call the democratic the tax and spend party. but if the republicans and democrats are going be the same on ever growing and increasing budgets and deficits what's the future of the republican party or how do you defend president trump's administration and the republican party if we are just continuing 77% increase in deficit spending? where does it ♪ >> that's why i raise this not as a partisan book.

you'll find many examples both democratic and republican. there's many bipartisan solutions to it. this is an american issue. we have to have economic growth and i've had a lot of folks push back and say the tax cuts that happened last year contributed to the deficit. deficit but the facts are coming out different. the numbers for fy 17 and 18 were in, tax revenue went up $14 billion last year. if we don't have economic activity then you have growing amounts of social safety nets. snap program, unemployment assistance. so we have to make sure we're taking care of people by growing the economy, but you also have to deal with spending right now and no one is talking about the spending issue so i'm trying to raise it to say we have to address this. >> i agree and there is

incredible things on this list. if the president gets billions for the border wall, isn't that a federal fumble? it's not like the wall prevents what everyone is talking about on the border. if you give him the money. is that a good use of federal money? >> some people say it is economic growth and opportunities that want to come in. i think we should spend more money on land ports and entries. you will see a segs on tction o book dealing with work i have is as. we should know who is coming into the country and allow treatment immigration. we have half a million people every day that cross the southern border legally. and we lose track on that, in

the port of entry. half a million people every day legally cross that border. we have a lot of transit that's not illegal, we should identify who they are, where they're going, why they're not using a legal port of entry as well as fixing our basic security. >> senator james langford, thank you so much for being on the show. his fourth an federal fumbles is out now. and documents related to jared kushner's security clearance are out now. "morning joe" is coming right back.

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talking to potential campaign managers for 2020. he reportedly spoke to someone about doing it, and the decision has not been made yet. and long time senator bernie sander signed a pledge declaring himself a member of the democratic party, at least during the presidential race. sanders who is seeking the democratic nomination for president in 2020 pledged he would seek the presidency as a democrat and govern has a democrat if elected. it is part of a new rule from the democratic national committee that requires all candidates to sign the promise a and it is a move that several of

sanders supporters don't like. does this affect his base? i would assume it is purely to clean things up this time around. >> it is the dnc saying if you're going to come to our party you will sign the pledge and play by our rules. what people really want to see is a pledge from all of the nominees to say they will support whoever the democratic nominee is. that means that bernie has to say if bernie or joe biden gets it they would support them. but it is interesting to see bernie sanders come to the idea that he has to run and declare himself because he loves the idea of being an independent. >> still ahead, donald trump says that michael cohen lied about everything except no collusion. will the treasury department

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the point i'm trying to make is you don't have to be brake light of a crime to lose this job in a constitutional republic if this job determines your conduct as a public official is clearly out of bounds in your role, because i'm paempeachmentt about punishment. it is about cleansing the office. impeachment is about restoring honor and integrity to the office. >> i remember they were saying that we were pushing too hard on clinton and it blew up in our face. the amount of pressure on them to do something to impeach

president trump is pretty enormous, and all i can tell them is if it works out as well for you as republicans, good luck. >> that is lindsey dpram, to years apart as a republican now sitting in the oval office while democrats control the house. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." joe is off one more morning. still with his family preparing for his mother's funeral. he should be back tomorrow. along with willie and me, we have the washington anchor, rick tyler. and former chief of staff, and nbc news jeremy bash. we have so many new

developments. the mueller probe and trump's tax returns. the push to get hands on both. president trump says he is now on board with keeping kroops in syria, and then we'll get to benny sanders pledge to democrats, and rand paul suggestion that's a lot of republicans are ready to break with the party on the border wall emergency. and north korea rebuilding the long-range rocket site. we start with new polling that finds more americans than not believe that the president is ende engaged in criminal activity. >> ye, when asked if the president committed crimes

before becoming president, 64% say yes. whether or not trump committed crimes after becoming president, 45% say yes, 43% say no. in the poll taken friday to monday, more people say they likely to believe michael cohen at 50% versus 35% for donald trump. and 58% believe that congress should do more to investigate claims about cohen's claims of et call and illegal behavior. cohen is schedules to appear in another prooisivate session of house intelligence committee today. let's start with you and some of those networks. nose are a reflection from the american people about what they have seen from the last week or so, particularfully that open hearing on wednesday and the way they feel about his testimony. and it looks like more americans

believe his word versus that of the president. >> yeah, it is not that michael cohen is to be trusted and is a paradigm of virtue all of a sudden, they just see donald trump and michael cohen, and many of the people that donald trump continues to surround himself with is people that believe something different from the truth. he is acting repetant. she clearing his name. he knows he is going to jail for lying. he produced documents in the hearing and it is really thoking when you knee two thirds of the country believe he committed crimes before he was president and half believe he committed crimes as president.

>> meanwhile a top lawmaker on the house ways and means committee say they are formally demanding president trump's tax returns in about two weeks. one congressman said that house democrats want to seek a decades worth of donald trump's tax returns from the treasury department. the congressman said yesterday "we're almost ready to go." >> a 1924 law allows the committee to examine anyone's tax filings. they could also vote to make the returns publicly available. donald trump was asked about the sweeping new probe of his presidency yesterday and here is what he said. >> i guess we got 81 letters.

there was no collusion. that was a hoax. there was no anything. and they want to do that instead of getting legislation pass. 81 people or organizations got letters. it's a disgraduation, it's a disgraduation to our country. i'm not surprised it is happening. they started a campaign and it begins. president obama from what they tell me was under a similar kind of thing, they didn't give one letter of the request. >> he seems not happy with that, is there any scenario that the president will say no, i'm not going to give you this investigation? >> i think he could resist under the doctrine, but this will be a dog fight for a long time, and

when 81 people of organizations get letters, that is a mild form of oversight. they could also subpoena people. congress has a number of tools, and i think we're just seeing the beginning here m eerksika. >> if you look look at the numbers from earlier. the american public believes michael cohen's testimony, you still have 60% of americans sayi saying pump the breaks on impeachment. it is a message we have continued to hear from democrats. what do you make of that number? >> well, two things, willie. i think it is two separate tracks here. 64% of americans seem to believe the president committed criminal acts prior to his presidency. nearly half of the people polled

believe he committed criminal acts during his presidency. you remember, i remember, most americans remember richard nixon standing up in a press conference saying i'm not a crook. now we have a majority of americans believing that donald trump is a crook. a sitle president of the united states. and this is part of the legacy that he is building as president. sort of snooneutering the count. we go on with our day normally, and 64% of americans believe he is a crook. let's -- impeachment is the death penalty. look at it that way, most americans are looking at this saying let's let this play out. let's look at the mueller report, let's see what is in it.

and then we could be for impeachment. impeachment is also a political process. you get several pmembers of the house and senate saying let's do impeachment now. no no, let's wait. >> in the tentacles of these investigations, reaching all corners of the president's life, we now learned that new york state regulators are investigating the trump organization's insurance practices. a source with direct knowledge says a subpoena has been issued. the move by the new york state department of financial services adds to the growing scrutiny fai facing the trump organization. the president's former fixer was asked about the family business practices when it came to insurance. >> to your knowledge did the

president provide inflated assets to an insurance company. >> yes. >> who else knows the president did this. >> w eerkseiselberg. >> so it launched more investigations in the house, and now we're seeing in the state of new york, based on what michael cohen stephed to last wednesday, now a new investigation here into the trump organization's insurance. >> yeah, and the congresswoman was asking that, she from new york. she was asking with the new york prosecutors in mind. one of the best bits, i think, of the interrogation. now it opened up this avenue for prosecutors in newark. we have the trump foundation, the trump organization. the trump inaugural committee, and now the trump insurance

practices all of it being under investigation and democrats still having to weigh up the political cost of looking like they're rushing to impeachment of any kind against what they prommed they would do. this is what they said they would do and it's what they're doing. >> and a new report dlclaims president trump pressured his high ranking aides to grant security laerns to his daughter. three people familiar with the matter tell cnn that the president pushed then chief of staff john kelly and white house council don mcgann to make the decision on his daughter and son-in-law jared kushner so it didn't appear he was intervening after they allegedly refused, trump granted them security

clearances which is in their power but counter to public denies. nbc has not independently confirmed this. it is eafeasible that she was unaware of both problems raised in her background check and her father's involvement in it. the trump administration could soon be facing a house subpoena on their security clearance. this is after the latest request for documents on the process. house democrats have been seeking them for months. chairman elijah cummings has been indicating that his next step will be to accept a subpoena. they replied that such a measure would be without legal support, clearly premature, and suggests a breech of the constitutionally required accommodation process. instead he offered to let the

committee review documents and get a briefing cummings rejected the idea that they don't have the authority for the argument. decades of presidents before this committee, and just plain common sense. jeremy bash, if they want to know why two people got a security clearance when it seem that's many were very concerned about it, and they're directly related to the president, one his is daughter what is the white house's ability to stop that process and hand over althouall of the information. >> i think at the end of the day the white house will lose. that is what gave rise to the republicans then chairman trey goudy's efforts. and her up on the hill for eight

hours testifying on that and others. there is precedent, and i think is kind of offensive by the president and his team to say question do whatever we want with respect to security clearances, but question lie about it. if they were so happy and proud, why did they mislead people about what they were doing. >> still ahead, an important story for national security. nbc news reporting that north korea is rebuilding a missile test sight and thattivity picked up after the hanoi humt last week. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. "morning jo" we'll be right back. our everyday diet is very acidic. it can cause damage to the enamel. with the new pronamel repair toothpaste we can help actively repair enamel in its weakened state. it's innovative. with pronamel repair, more minerals are able to enter deep into the enamel surface.

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a business owner always goes beyond what people expect. that's why we built the nation's largest gig-speed network along with complete reliability. then went beyond. beyond clumsy dials-in's and pins. to one-touch conference calls. beyond traditional tv. to tv on any device. beyond low-res surveillance video. to crystal clear hd video monitoring from anywhere. gig-fueled apps that exceed expectations. comcast business. beyond fast. now to the latest concerning north korea. at the news conference following the collapse of the hanoi summit, president trump revealed a promise that kim jong un made

to him. >> kim promised me last night regardless he will not do testing of rockets and nuclear, not going to do testing. i trust him and i take him at his word, i hope that is true, and in the meantime we'll be talking. >> a new analysis of commercial satellite imagery taken saturday reveals that korea is rapidly rebuilding a long-range missile site. it has been used in the past for satellite launches. researchers sad the rebuilding of a rocket engine test stand,

and say that it may have past the develop mmental stage. it is believed to be the same facility that kim told trump he would shutter following the singapore summit. joining us now is courtney kuby. the president said he took the leader at his word and what happened? >> this is a satellite launching facility, but that is the same basic technology for a three stage intercontinental baa lis take missile. throughout this whole diplomatic push, the consistent talking point is that north korea is not

testing missiles. they agreed they will not test. they're not launching these missiles but there are no indications they have stopped the testing of their program. that they stopped continuing to work on the research and development of the missiles and the program. what comes from researchers and analysts, a dc based defense think tank, what they're saying here is that while this facility seemed to be lying dormant for several decades, now there seems to be new activity. there is not a test that is imminent, but they're moving in a direction that could mean they're preparing to begin testing again. >> jeremy, off of courtney's reporting there, the president

used some magic words that we just heard a few moments ago speaking about kim. he said i trust him. is there in the intelligence between the realization that the one development from both meetings that the president had with kim is that it has been extraordinary success for kim in the sense that it elevated him on the international stage and we got nothing? well i think, mike, question predict getting nothing. in okay session, north korea likely would not give up their wmd programs and that is what lead the president to say that the chiefs were naive and stupid and he disagreed with their analysis. and the process was dead on. the north koreans said we're not

giving up our facilities, our plutonium production. we're not going to do the things we said we might do. so the president had to leave. we're parading him from walking away from a horrible deal, but it was all foretold. >> secretary kirstin neilson said we never had a policy for family separation. she will like i will be asked about that when she testifies again later today. we'll get a update on the border next on "morning joe." next on "morning joe."

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later today homeland security secretary kristin neilson will be going to capitol hill. she is expected to face questions from democrats regarding president trump's national emergency declaration and immigration strategy including family separation. it comes as new government

figures reveal that despite the trump administration policies migrant border crossings have faced record high. last month more than 76,000 immigrants clorossed the southe border or they were apprehended between ports of entry. that is the highest total for february in 12 years and the highest single month total since trump was elected. however it is not a overall record as border crossings were consistently over 100,000 before 2008. the "new york times" reports that more than 50,000 adults are currently in i.c.e. custody, the highest number ever. meanwhile the senate has until next friday to take up a vote on a house passed declaration disapproved of president trump's order to fund the border wall

and the president told senator linds lindsey graham that he is upset about republican defections, and rand paul is talking about what he will send to the withouhite . >> he is disappointed he cannot convince republicans this is an emergency. >> i think there will be probably ten republicans at least six beyond the four that will vote for it. and it could be higher than that. i keep telling them if question get to a high enough number, maybe someone could run over to the white house and say they it could be 65 or 68. it is still a lot of descendents if the president would just rescind the emergency part. >> rick tyler, two questions, first of all secretary neilson has been tough to watch on this

issue as it pertains to the numbers of those crossing the border and the facts overtime and trying to explain the family separations. i can't imagine what she could do. i don't understand the relationship and why he keeps putting her out there. if you have anything to add to that let me know, otherwise what is behind those republican defectio defections? >>. >> i hope the republicans can see this is a overreach by the president. i think at the root of it the law giving the president this extraordinary power, the power to declare an emergency, he is probably within his power to do that most of the illegal immigration those countries are

experiencing extraordinary murder rates, crime rates, druk cartels, and they're coming with their families. this is not single -- my worry is that there is some sort of invasion, but as you point's these numbers while significant are not nearly as high as they were and they're of a different nature they have been in the past. >> that leads me to my question to you, does this number welcome in february. people taken into the discuss in border, more than double, does that not help president trump make his case as flawed as it may be, that there is a crisis at the border.

>> it could cut both ways. his efforts on the border he says are on the way. but i think overall the claim of an emergency is unfounded. and really the question is will a concrete wall or a steel slat wall solve the problem, and none of the experts that we have talked to believe it will. >> bernie sanders is declaring himself a member of the democratic party, at least in the presidential race. we'll talk to a senator that was at the rally over the weekend. "morning joe" is coming right back. "morning joe" cisoming right back great news, liberty mutual customizes-

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joining us now a member of the house oversight committee, s s he is also a cochair of the

bernie sanders campaign. i think your questions elicit more significant answers of the day. did the president direct chance actions in conspiracy with allen weiselberg. michael cohen answered that question. the southern district was looking into it because michael cohen believes there is investigation and he should not have discussed it. it showed that the president may be most vulnerable to the experience on financial fraud. the book is about final fraud. so we need to pay very close

tension to what is happening in the southern district of new york. >> and it was as president trump, not candidate trump, that some of those checks were found. >> yeah, they're worrying about how he would pay off meekle cohen for his first year of presidency. he had smoking gun documents. there is questionest about allen weiselberg's signature. if we call them in we'll get a lot of corroborating evidence that this was a criminal conspiracy. a financial fraud happening in the first year of the president's term in office. >> do you expect to see allen weiselberg or trump in front of your committee? >> i do, allen weiselberg, as i

understand it has immunity. here is why it is important for them to come before congress. the american people need to understand the facts. we need to make sure they understand everything that was going on. same with donald trump junior and erik trump. they need to talk about these payments that were not for legal services, and let the american people decide. >> congressman, the house is scheduled to take a vote on anti-semitism and anti-semitism resolution. in the wake of representative omar's statements in the last few weeks. a, when is that vote schedules, and b, the "new york times" story today about the generational difference in views that some of the younger members

of the how towards what representative omar said. what is your view on what will take place and your view on the disruption? >> i think the vote will be tomorrow. we want to make sure the resolution condemns all types of hate. that it is prod in test scope. i don't think representative -- broad in it's scope. i don't think representative omar meant harm by what she said. i think there has been a pile on and we should move on and condemn all types of hate. >> she has some members in the progtive movement, some of the newer members, do you think the fact that many of them have not been involved in politics has anything to do with their views

towards what representative omar said? >> i think they're con flatflat what she said with her opinion on the relationship with israel. i also believe that representative omar and others have a complete right to criticize that relationship and make whatever argument they want. but that is very different than comments that may be hurtful to the juish american community and then may have certain anti-semitism stereo types. i think we could say that congresswoman omar has right to make comments but she should not be speaking in the way she did. >> was it anti-semitic? >> i think that one was. >> the one about foreign

allegiances. i was porn in philadelphia. i have one loyalty not united states. we're a nation not based on blood but ideas. that said, look, she has faced extraordinary islamophobia. other members of congress may misspeak and not know, she apologized, let's move on and look at the extraordinary part of this. we have muslim americans. maybe this is an opportunity to look at all different perspectives and come out in a better way to have peace. we should look as a strength. >> and another come woman saying she wants the language to be specific as well. let me ask you about documents

in the current clearances. they are allowed to do them. whatever the intelligence community told him, what are they hoping to get out of these documents then. >> i have worked with them on issues of modernizing our websites, but why are we giving him a national security clearance over middle east peace? we know that he is briefed on saudi arabia who is responsible for a brutal bombing campaign in yemen? this is our not partisan? what we're saying is there

should not be having access to sensitive information. >> i want to ask you about bernie sanders, it was reported in the 2016 campaign there was a gender a wage gap. did you think he dealt with that among the base that he will have better control over his campaign and was that part of the shake up for the last campaign structure? >> i think there was mistakes made in the last campaign. i said there has to be zero tolerance for any sexual harassment. there is new leadership involved, they're more diverse. and they will have far better policies. i know that is a highest priority. i will say that he had democratic values for his whole life. he opposed the war in iraq.

he has been fighting for unions it is a time when americans want chance and they're questioning the status quo. >> one of the national co-chairs of bernie sanders campaign. coming up, a federal judge slamming roger stone over his book. s book (client's voice) remember that degree you got in taxation?

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johnson's® choose gentle. company's merger with sprint on the heels of a new report that t-mobile upped spending at one of president trump's properties. citing a letter from t-mobile to congressional democrats, the company admits it increased the amount of business it did at the press's washington, d.c. hotel after the merger was revealed. >> executives at t-mobile spent about $195,000 at the property the post writes that the company says before news of the deal broke, only two top officials ever had stayed at trump's the paper reported in january that the day after the merger's announcement, nine of t-mobile's top executives were scheduled to check into the hotel. since then "the post" citing

internal documents reports that t-mobile executives had reserved ated least 52 nights at the hot. the company's uptick in spending there comes as the merger with sprint is being considered by the justice department and the fcc. the ceos of t-mobile and sprint will be among those testifying to the house anti-trust subcommittee next week. >> roger stone is in hot water again with the judge overseeing his trial as a rut of the republicly indication of one of his nebooks. judgef amy berman jackson orded stone yesterday to explain why he thinks the new introduction in the book does not violate her strict gagte order preventing h from making public statements about his trial. in the re-reece release of his book, e "the myth of russian collusion," he writes he finds himself on "crooked special prosecutor robert mueller's hit list because the deep state

liberals want to pressure me toe testify against my good friend." referring to donald trump. stone'sal lawyers made no menti of the book when she issued the new gag order and he waited till public sales where is imminent to i inform the court of the publication. the judge ordered stone to file a report by there monday on his efforts to come into compliance with her gag order which she says should interactions with the book areas publisher when stone became aware the book was available. let's turn to a new book entitled "the lessons of tragedy, state craft and world order." visiting scholar at the university of of sydney, charles edell and the distinguish the profess esh of global affairs in the school of advanced international studies hal brands. good to seencio you both. charms, one of the premises of

the book you say americans have lost their sense of tragedy. what does that mean exactly? >> well, it means that we have forgotten for a long time why it is we do the things we do. americans are very right to ask the vequestion, why do we have loins over seas and care where far away places, why do we keep our economy open when at times it comesat at the short-term disadvantage to american workers.er the answer is to prevent very bad things from happening. as we've grown the distance between the last time we had a real bucking of the real international system, the reasons for america's engagement with the world seem to have faded from memory at just the wrong time. >> we'ree talking about traged in the context of foreign affairs and international relations, not domestic tragedy which we will unfortunately have by the day. >> right. when we talk about tragedy, catastrophic breakdowns of the international system. things punctuated by the war

between the largest powers, cat class mick human suffering. this is actually more the norm than the exception in human affairs. the ancient greeks through early modern why you were to the 20th century, these break downs occurred with some frequency and frequent been catastrophic in their effects. have toef struggle constantly t prevent this from happening. >> charles, this book and others, but this book specifically raises the question of what americans know and appreciate about their own history. you can talk about greek history but today, i mean, one of the fiercest opponents of understanding our historyen are things like this and our attention thspan. how do we combat that? how do we link history and reality todayis and what histor demands of us today with all these obstacles? >> you're preaching to the choir

because you're talking to two historians kihere. part of the charge of how we recover this and the hope is that you recover this without having to relive it, is through better education. you know, we constantly decry the lack of civics education and om some of the effects on american society. part is thinking through the history,in making sure we have in front of ourselves and actually i think to answer your question t directly, it's political leadership. political leadership starting at the very top is what you really need to instill this in americans. >> political leadership. so let's ask this 37 do you think donald trump knows the impact and meaning and formulation of the marshall plan? >> i very much doubtl it. the argument we make in the book, although the book is not primarily area about president trump is that you can see in the president ase complete absence any sort of tragic sensibility, a complete absence that the reason the international system

has become more prosperous, safer, more pedemocratic, and t united states has become more influential isbe precisely becae of these exertions the uns made over the course of generations. if you back away from that and start attacking those policies you're likely to get a return to all the bad things that traditionally attended internationalio affairs as well. >> i was just wondering whether this ist just an american affliction or we're seeing this in europe, as well and the real issue is human memory. i wassu spending the holidays wh my parents who are 85 and 88, limbed through the second world war in the uk. my mother said have you forgotten so quickly. we have nazis effectively back in germ, far right groups in italy, hungary, czech republic taking power again. is this what happens when generations pass on. we can't carry on keeping tragedy with us of that nature

for so long, and as we have children, our children forget and their children forget and this is almost bound to happen, isn't it? >> yeah,ou i think there is a generational change element to this in the sense that it's hard to identify a political leader today whose tomorrowtive experience was during word war even the cold war. so as these experiences get farther and farther removed from our memories, it's harder to remember whether the united states or elsewhere, why it's so important to defend the international system we've built over the course of decades. >> i'd like to add though, that the point why we have greek warriors on the front, the point that we actually talk about the greeks ae little bit is a litt history lesson. it is about america. the ancient greeks, the most high an chiving civilization, there was a puzzle. did they put tragedy at the core of civillation. they hadil the citizens watch theater and the point was to

scare the crap out of them to propel them to take actions to make collective sacrifices to do what had to be done to stave off tragedy. >> it's a fascinating book, the lessons of tragedy, state craft and world order. charles and hal, thank you both. >> thanks for having us on. rick tyler, we've got some news cross krg the wire. the trade deficit here. despite the policies put in place by president trump has ballooned to h more than $800 billion. a ten-year high. >> americans like to buy, we're a wealthy country and like to buy things from foreign nations. that will igcontinue. the americans it are the ones paying the price on the tariffs. i hope we can get this chinese tariff trade problem solved because that's going to be good for consumers and the economy. we would benefit from trade and should go back to being a free trade country. >> catty kay, $891.2 billion

merchandise trade deficit, the largest in the nation's history reports the commerce department today. >> the dollar is high at the moment. that gives americans purchasing power. they're feeling some of the effect of tariffs in consumer goods from china. there are economists who would argue the president shouldn't be so fixated whether america is running a trade deficit and look broadly at the trading relationship with other countries. >> every day, we talking about this in one way or another, but the lessons of tragedy by hal and charles, they're here today, andy' you wonder, you know, do really know who we are as a country a anymore. are people, young children in grad school anddr high school getting the history lesson that would tell them who we were and who we are today. i don't think so. >> that's part of what the guys speak to, civics education and where we're, falling down in tt case. we're seeing it one of the examples they point to is nato.

the president saying we're getting ripped off. it's just a financial transaction and not a union of nations that stood since world war ii. that doesto it for us this morning. stephanie rhule picks up coverage right now. >> thanks so much. good morning. i'm stephanie rhule. i am back and guess holes is. backs for more seconds just donald trump's former lawyer and fixer michael cohen is back behind closed doors. he is on capitol hill today as democrats use last week's testimony ase a launching pad investigate president trump's administration, his campaign, and his businesses. but the white house is saying thanks, but no thanks. completely stonewalling any and all requests for documents. >> want to do that instead of getting legislation passed. 81 people or organizations got letters. it's a disgrace. it's a disgrace to our country. >> and o back to stage one. first reported by nbc news, new photos reveal he north koreaing is pursuing "rapid rebuilding of

a long