>> all of our viewers can sign up for the newsletter. >> that does it for us on this thursday morning. i'm yasmin vossoughian alongside ayman mohyeldin and louis burgdorf. >> am i are happy to tell you that i am running for president of the united states. this moment of peril produces perhaps the greatest moment of promise for this country and for. >> in sight of it. >> former congressman beto o'rourke is in. just moments ago the texas democrat announced his bid for the white house with a

three-minute video and an invitation to el paso later this month for a campaign kickoff. welcome to "morning joe." it is thursday, march 13th. i'm alongside katty kay, white house reporter jonathan lemire, staff rattner and kimberly atkins. we've got a lot to cover this morning, including beto o'rourke's presidential bid. we'll talk to the author of the vanity fair profile that just dropped ahead of today's announcement. plus paul manafort's legal trouble went from bad to worse. new york wants a crack at him in a criminal case that the president cannot pardon away. >> also ahead, we'll talk about the college cheating scandal and

the staggering 750 families who may have been involved. plus matt whitaker has left the department of justice but some things he said to congress last month just aren't going away. it surrounds his comments with president trump about michael cohen. but we begin with former congressman beto o'rourke this morning officially joining the fe field of 2020 democratic candidates. his three-day trip will include visits to eight counties that voted for president obama in 2012 and chose donald trump in 2016. o'rourke, who najust narrowly lt his senate seat to -- said "i'm

just born to be in it and want to do everything i can." >> what do you think of this? >> you have to be a little bit impressed with his rollout, opening "morning joe" with his video, on the cover of vanity fair. he's on to iowa today. >> what do you think? >> beto o'rourke has sort of been made fun of himself about his road trip to find himself. he was impressive the call he gave ted cruz in the senate race. there's some suggesting that he seemed a little out of touch with this road trip. the vanity fair cover certainly

is impressive but the annie liebovitz is not usually how you win voters in the quad cities. he does have some sort of charisma. he has an it factor that i think a lot of democratic candidates we've soon so far, it n's not clear whether they do or not. while he has taken some criticism for not standing for much just yet, the idea of being a blank canvas, that worked for president obama. >> three-time congressman. you cannot take away from him he almost up ended an ibt senator in the state of texas as a democrat, losing by only 2.5% there. >> when you talk to the trump

camp, what he did for texas, they put that down to beto o'rourke having something the voters liked. i will say no woman candidate would have got away with this kind of a rollout. they would not have got away with going into the wood to finding themselves and ditching their spouse and children to find themselves, all of that will are forgot i don't know if they rally around him. democrats are looking for a star. they're locking for someone to e emerge as a star who excites and inspires them. >> we're waiting to see whether or not joe biden gets in. where does beto o'rourke fit into this big field? >> i think the, sightment among democrats about this growing fooled is absolutely true and there are people who are waiting

for joe biden. they see him as somebody who both knows how to talk to voters, knows how to connect with the very broad base that the democrats have but also brins that experience. and there are ors who are looking for something frsher, newer in terms of beto o'rourke. one thing that i find interesting are watching beto o'rourke more, especially those who are charismatic, who have come out and got i don't knowte attention and who are from red states. we have other folks like stacey abrams who may get in or mayrch pete who is coming from red state indiana, those are

democrats, and they're the folks making people nervous. >> so let's talk about money, steve. let talk about democratic donors. they've got a will the of choices. there are a will the of places they could put their money. what is the smart democratic money going to think about beto o'rourke? >> what's interesting about this cycle is the roll of online money and what it going to play in the cycle. in the past candidates have relied on the $2,600, $2,700 checks from folks in new york and stuff look that. sands are mad $6 million after his announcement, kamala harris raised something look -- like

$1.5 million after her announceme announcement. it's an unknown quality. he's kind of going down the abraham lincoln cam pan. it worked out okay for lincoln. we'll have to see whether beto can have a similar outcome. >> and also beto is from texas and texas -- sorry, i'm confusing my primary. never mind. >> let me ask you something that kimberly threw out there, which is the idea that texas could be in play in a presidential election. do you believe that's true or is that still fool's gold? >> it will be true. i don't know if it will be true in 2020. it will definitely be true in --

the democratic primary is on march 3rd. >> super tuesday. >> elizabeth warren was expected to do well in oklahoma. if he could do well meeting donors at small events, though none of the vants have been small so far. >> he's going to go for that centrist lane, a bit of pressure for joe bide. maybe pete is the one who suffers the most in terms of name recognition. >> potentially so. he has the ability to dwarf or candidates because of the name recognition. let remember, president trump had to go campaign there and hold a huge rally for ted cruz in the final days of that

election. and a few weeks ago the president was in el pass to push for the immigration plan, the money for the border wall and so on and beto held a duelling rally and had a similar crowd there. the wall, the national emergency is is going to play in the 2020 race. >> potential candidate eric swalwell said he would make his decision by the end of march and seth moulton will travel to iowa as he considers a 2020 bit. the massachusetts congressman is expected to make his decision in

the next eight weeks. you look at this feel l field, steve. we're going to hit 20 pretty soon. it the antithesis of 2016. good thing, bad thing. what do you make of it all? >> well, first of all, you've already got people dropping out before they get in. sherrod brown is looking around saying i don't know if there's enough oxygen in the room for me. and i think it early even by lincoln standards for him to try certainly like this. i think you're going to see the rich and the for. you're going to so a group of candidate who is have the attraction and the money and then you're going to see other who is die on the vine. it's time for the republican party to reckon with what it wants and let the best story win. >> that's the story of america.

you're going to see the rich and the poor. >> do you anybody see a backlash within the democrat being party to all the attention beto's got i don't know? a lot of people think he done deserve to be on the cover of "vanity fair." is there a backlash to that. can he be overrated? >> possibly. that's their job. that are going to try to take him down. i don't remember who said it last week, he said he lives in san francisco and there are more beto shines than there are 49ers t-shirts. to be fair to cruz, they don't do road signs but there was a lot of enthusiasm and prsins about it. i remember i participated in the "tribune" event and i was asked

on stage whether i thought beto would win and i said he was probably going to lose by 3 points. >> pretty close. >> yeah, it was a there three-point race. >> barack obama had that rock star feeling, was painted as a celebrity candidate. john mccain tried to say he was back in twice and he drown out everyone around him. there are other formidable democrats in this field which will grow as joe biden comes in as expected. beto o'rourke, people are drawn to him. >> the image is coming to the

press. it's not coming from voters who are still to take a look at him. all of us are thinking, ooh, it's a bit too much. >> kimberly. >> this time four years ago on the rab side, it was all about scott walker and jeb bush. it is so early. that is why i think you so a lot of candidates focusing on their timing. there is some fear if joe biden comes out early, that could be his height in terms of his polling numbers and slip from there. that's why other people like seth moulton is talking about a may timeline. i think may or june you'll see that second wave of people coming in trying to capture the nag's attention once the early entrants, once the shine has faded off of this many a little bit.

>> thi >> there were a lot of people in my world, no disrespect, rick, if there was anyone who would want to get out of senate is ted cruz. >> president trump would never be able to call him low energy beto, right? >> we'll see. beto o'rourke is in officially to the 2020 presidential campaign. now to paul manafort, who is facing seven and a half years in prison following a second sentencing hearing. a federal judge tacked on an additional three and a half years. he said the court, quote, i'm sorry for what i have done and all the activities that have gotten me here today. the judge responded, quote, saying i'm sorry i got caught is not call for length -- leniency.

here's what manafort's lead attorney had to say outside the courtroom. >> judge jackson conceded that there was absolutely no evidence of russian collusion in this case. that makes two courts have ruled no evidence of any collusion with any russians. >> traitor! >> i feel very badly for paul manafort. he worked for ronald reagan very successfully, worked for john mccain, bob dole and many others for many years. i feel very badly for him. >> will you pardon paul

manafort? >> i've not given that a thought on my mind. i do feel bad for him. >> prosecutors in manhattan announced new criminal charges had been filed against him. court documents show a manhattan grand jury has indicted manafort on 16 counts alleging a multi-million dollar mortgage fraud scheme. manhattan district attorney cyrus vance jr. said the indictment grew out of an investigation that began in march of 2017 when prosecutors began to look at loans manafort received from two banks. unlike the two federal cases that have resulted in prison time for manafort, president trump does not have the authority to parkedon manafort if he's convicted on these new charges. let's bring in ken delaney and legal analyst danny cevallos.

we wondered whether or not the as soon as tenses would be consecutive or concurrent. . >> the answer to l they'll be concurrent or consecutive, the answer was yes. that's what judge jackson did was split the difference. the sentencing guideline called for concurrent sentences but on if the judge concluded this was relevant conduct with the prior sentence and ultimately the sentencing guidelines have been on advisory for the last 15 years so the judge doesn't have to follow the sentencing guidelines. shoo ex-- she exercised her judgment and he'll serve double

time and serves her sentence. >> what is he up to here? >> it's remarkable. he didn't just say there was no collusion. his lawyer said two judges have said there's no collusion. that's not what was said. it looks like paul manafort's team is playing for a pardon from the president. why else would they continue to stress this idea of no evidence of collusion when none of these cases were about collusion. what they were about as this judge made clear is that paul

manafort ran a ten-year fraud not only on the irs but for the american public. that's what the judge made clear yesterday, that we rely on people to register when they're representing foreign governments and lobbying in america as part of the transparency thatty used. he flouted that, chose to pay millions on the millions that were made and judge wilson said he had lived an otherwise blameless rife. she imposed a sentence which was not as long as the one judge ellis imposed. all told paul manafort will serve seven and a half years. he'll be 76 years old when he gets out. it's a pretty big chunk of time for a white collar case like

this. >> clearly paul manafort's team speaking directly to the white house, there was no collusion, no collusion. is the white house -- >> the judge also said facts matter. it seems the white house doesn't believe it. weep heard him yesterday echo that erroneous collusion -- conclusion that there was no collusion. i talked to rudy giuliani and he said the president's stance has been consistent, that they have talked about in broad strokes about the issue of a pardon but nothing would be decided until in was all over, that means the mueller probe. that we believe is coming to a conclusion in the next four weeks or so. there may be some movement on this soon. we heard the president say

yesterday "i haven't thought about this." that's not true. nothing has been promised yesterday yet, but it something the manafort team is clearly eyeing. it seems like every public roo lagss strategy and some of their legal strategy will be to end up with a pardon. >> i mentioned also that manafort's troubles are not over. manhattan district attorney handed down an indictment yesterday. what's the significance of that beyond the fact that the president cannot pardon manafort in that case? >> you're absolutely right. the president's pardon power is almost unlimited but it does not meet state crimes. however, there are two different kinds of double jeopardy that can apply. there's constitutional double jeopardy and new york has a separate statue that bars

successive prosecutions. the new york law looks at the facts. if the prosecution arises out of substantially different facts, it may be barred as an improper successive prosecution for the crime. on the other hand, the constitutional analysis is a little more technical. if you u look at the two different crimes and if each contains an element the other does not, then they're different under analysis and it does not violate double jeopardy. >> npr is reporting one of the most prom einent members of robt mueller's team is stepping down. >> that's what law enforcement and congressional officials have

been telling us for weeks. weisman led the arguments in court yesterday against manafort. there's a lot of speculation even if the mueller investigation is moving to a close that there may be more indictments coming. well, we've seen no evidence that the grand jury has even met since the roger stone indictment. the idea that weisman would leave the office with a major case hanging out there is hard to believe. he's the guy that steve le bannon who left a job teaching at universities and supposedly is going to go become it doing that. it's really difficult to imagine he would be leaving with major business unfinished. so we do expect a mueller report to be sent toover to the d.o.j.n

the next few weeks and we hope to learn about that on the day it happens. whatever he does, willie, congressional democrats will not be satisfied until they get every stitch of report that manafort has submitted. >> i agree with ken. these are actually light sentences. she gave him 43 months and the supposedly lenient judge gave 47 months. i think that actually works against him in terms archpardof pardon. the short are the seaser the se he had gotten 20 years, it would

have been much easier for the president to pardon him. coming up, pilots apparent lirp wrapparently wrestled for control against the plane's computer. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. joe." we'll be right back. >> pardoning manafort would be seen as a political disaster for the president. there may come a day down the road after the politics have changed that you'd want to consider an application for him like everybody else but now would be a disaster. t now would be a disaster. great news, liberty mutual customizes...

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secretary of transportation and to dennis mullenberg, ceo of boeing and they'll be available shortly after our conference today. they are all in agreement with the action. any plane currently in the air will go to its destination and thereafter be grounded until further notice. >> under mounting pressure, president trump announces the u.s. will ground all of boeing 737 max jets after sunday's crash of ethiopian airlines. the faa said it ordered the grounding after viewing satellite data that showed similarities after sunday's crash and the lion crash last year. boeing said "we are supporting this pro active step out of an abundance of caution."

the united states joins 42 other countries, including canada, which banned 737 max planes from its airspace yesterday morning. a combined 257 flights a day are flown on those jets. boeing plans to investigate how the faa previously certified the safety of these planes with richard blumenthal saying, "our nation should be leading, not lagging, in air safety." >> steve rattner, you are a pilot. is the 737 max jet a safe plan?

>> it is a safe plane. what happened is when they made the latest planes, they changed some systems around. when planes come out, they get stretched, they get better engines and technical improvements. when they went to the 737 max, they had to move the engine forward, which made the plane slightly more susceptible to stalling. it is one of the most serious things pilots train against. the lacrast crash we had in the united states last year ago in buffalo was a stall, different circumstances. in this case because the plane could stall more easily, they wrote the software, that if the system said we think we might stall, the plane would take over, force the plane down and

try to recover. the problem in the lion air crash was that the computer misread information and the plane was, in fact, not stalling, kept trying to push the nose up, pilots kept trying to pull the nose up and event lip it crashed. now, there is a way to override that in the cockpit but it was not well trained or fully trained to the pilots. the most important thing is boeing did not want this plane to constitute a new model, all the bielts have to go back to training. so boeing pushed hard to get the faa to approve it without requiring it to be a new model, so the amount of training that pilots had was somewhere between minimal and none. >> just to be clear, others planes doesn't have the problem

of moving forward. it does suggest this model has an issue that doesn't need to be there. why not just have thein gin further back so you doesn't have this smalling, u. >> first of all the difference in propensity of this plane to stall was quite small and they had the software fixed. what was missing was the pilots didn't know how to override it. there's a simple procedure in overriding it but they just weren't trained in it. this technology took its information from one sensor. in this con figuration, boeing made a decision if any of the sensors said we think the plane is going to stall, this whole system went into activation. that was part of the problem as

well. >> let's bring in former member of the ntsb kitty higgins. did the faa make the right call grounding these planes? >> i think they did out of an abundance of caution. i think the dit fro -- it did from the standpoint of the lion air and eiththiopian crash. it's a fact investigation. we'll see what comes out of the black box and data recorder, which have recently made their way to paris. so we've got a ways to go before we know exactly what happened. but i want to follow up on what steve owes point is, which is we will get to the cause of this

accident, but the more troubling aspect of this to me is that the pilots really didn't nope about this new software system and therefore weren't trained on it. there was one pilot who commented it was really an ipad training, which is not sufficient. automation is a blessing but it can also be a curse, particularly if the pilots aren't familiar with how it worked and can't handle it correctly. >> how do we get that level of training? is that on boeing? the faa? >> that's one of the things that will be looked at in terms of the hearings that congressman fazio is thinking about calling. boeing does not want this looked at be it's a remake but this

plane has been flying with a lot of success. i talked to a southwest pilot last night who has flown a number of these aircraft, a number of flights, and is very happy with it. we have to put all this in perspective and get to the bottom of what happened. given, we will learn what went wrong, why went wrong and what we need to do to fix it. >> kitty, you know the faa usually leads the world on whether or not to ground plane and the world kind of falls in behind as the faa has been the gold standard. are you surprised the rest of the world got out ahead of the faa and it took so long to get our administration there? >> again, grounding an aircraft is a very serious decision and you want to do it not just on.

emotion that comes out of an accident but based on the fact, whatever we can determine that might be the basis for grounding. the satellite data that the canadians used to make their decision also informed with what the but i also understand the decision out of an abundance of caution to put these flames on the board. jonathan you've done a bunch of reporting on the reach lagsship between the white house and boeing. boeing's ceo called the white house to reassure the president the plane was in fact safe. >> but this delay has shone a spotlight on the relationship between president trump and bow. he initially had a clash with

boeing about the korsst cost of their design. he talks to boston and petitioned him to not submit clap. and weep have the president going around the world, sees himself asissary of american business. just two weeks ago he was in vietnam and presided over a ceremony of these very planes that the vietnamese have purchased from boeing and stood there and suggested this was a model of american craftsmanship and enterprise. >> the last time we grounded a plane was the 787 dreamliner

which never crashed. >> as we go to break here, it was a terrible tragedy what happened with ethiopian airlines but just how safe is air travel today? >> technology is saving lives. if you look at this chart that alex just put up, this is around the world. every airline all around the world. if you get on one of those planes, your chances of having a fatal accident is less than one in a million. so it is very evident do you have more charts for me later? >> no, i was told no more charts today. >> oh! >> i think we're going to override alex's veto. vanity fair's exclusive interview with former congressman beto o'rourke, who

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as we reported, beto o'rourke has entered the 2020 presidential race. a new profile in "vanity fair" quotes him as saying, i want to be in it, man, i'm just born to be in it. joe, good morning, good to see you. i want to dig deep into this piece and talk about how it came to the. you're righting a piece about bro bro beto o'rourke, he was not participating about the piece until one day? >> yes. i figured i was five days reporting this, people weren't responding to me so i went to

his house. he was on the veranda on the phone. i waved him over. he came over and talked to me and said come in and meet the wife and kids. in a way i feel look i got real insight there because here he is not prepared. >> is it your impression he ever was considering not running for president? a lot of people thought the minute he almost beat ted cruz, he had decided that he should run for president. >> i think that he actually did -- there was a period of ambivalence for him. i think he had to think about what he could bring and also whether he had the fortitude. there was a lot of conversation he was having with himself whether he had this fire in the gut thing. at withone point he told me i t i just have to make the decision and it will come.

>> he found it on the road trip. >> which i know some people -- there was some criticism that this was like, oh, he doesn't have a job, he's like a white dude on a road trip and there's this sort of privilege question about him and you hear a lot of this on twitter. >> the point i raised about how a woman would never have got i don't know away with it. his wife saw that and she was insulted because she thousand it implied she couldn't look after the kids. it's more that a woman in that position doesn't have the latitude to do things that are a bit whacky. they have a very nair other path to success at the top and they have to play very straight. one thing that's interesting is how he dealt with the failure of losing. he says they were convinced despite the polls that they were going to win. i'm always interested in how

candidates deal with failure and -- >> he was genuinely, you know, and when he won a race for congress from 2012, he also experienced a depression afterwards. everyone told me he went into this funk because he's such an adrenaline campaigner. he's famous for knocking on doors. so he had that same thing, but he actually loss so it was genui genuine, his depression. he worked his way out of it and here we are. is it really true that you can't do what he's doing? i don't know. but, you know. >> joe, kimberly atkins has a question for you. >> hi there, joe. you quipped about him being a

white dude on the road. how does he overcome the fact that he himself is a, quote unquote, white dude. he's talked about the grip of power resting within might men in politics. how does he get over that? >> he can't overcome being a white man. i asked him direct. maybe that's your biggest problem that you're a white man in a party that is not seeking that. he said i understand that. the best i can do is i want to make my team to represent the country, to be diverse. he recognizes that the current without is not representative of the country and he would try to change that in terms of his team. so that's the best he can do, i

suppose. >> some of the criticism is people aren't sure of what he stands for, that he's a blank canvas. is he aware of that criticism? >> absolutely. >> how is he going to sell the vot voters on, hey, i'm not just a charismatic guy, here's what i believe in. first of all, he's a canny guy. he sees himself as somebody who can split the difference between the bernie sanders grass roots and the joe biden. that's why these two candidates are a little bit scared of him. sanders was the first out of door to try to drop a dime on him when these presidential talks started because he sees him as a threat, because he wants to basically thread the needle here. whether he can do that, how he can do that, we're about to find out. but when he was a congressman,

his thing was that he would work with republicans. and some left wing democrats don't look that. in fact, his record shows that he did sponsor bills with the republican from texas. so he sees that as an asset. we'll see if he can kind of in terms of his policy prescriptions come up with a balance that makes everybody happy. he's going to have to define himself on the fly. >> i have to take a break. can you stick around a bit? >> absolutely. >> the president up and tweeting this morning. he appears to be warning about his own party blocking his emergency declaration for a bored a border wall. red a border wall.

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we can ensure that every single american can see a doctor and be well enough to live to their full potential, and all of us, wherever you live, can acknowledge that if immigration is a problem, it's the best possible problem for this country to have and we should ensure there are lawful paths to work to be with family and to flee persecution. we can listen to and lift up

rural america. we can work on real justice reform and confront the hard truths of slavery and segregation and suppression in these united states of america. >> beto o'rourke is officially in the race. welcome back to "morning joe." it's thursday, march 14th. joe and mika have the morning off. i'm willie geist alongside katty kay, jonathan lemire, and joining the conversation at moveon.org corine jean pierre and susan page. jean, your initial impressions,

beto o'rourke joining a big field of democrats. where does he fit in? >> i have to say this. i'm sure john cornyn is very happy that beto has decided to run for president and not against him. beto in 2018 or during the midterm ran a very impressive race. he did something that was really hard to do. he got the democratic base energized in texas, a ruby red state, and by doing that, he also helped flip some seats in the state. so the question now is can he scale the grass roots energy that he was able to get, the $7 million he was able to raise, can he scale that to a national level and where will that take him? and we have to remember, the last person i think, a president that was able to go from house to president, was garfield, was president garfield. that was 135 years ago.

so this is not going to be easy for him. there's a difference from running a senate race from running a presidential race and he's now going to be under a microscope. his record is going to be under a microscope and he has to put forth what his vision for this country is go to be. >> he's a three-term former congressman from texas and eight years ago was on the el paso city council, now running for president of the united states. but as we've been saying all morning, put up a heck of a fight by ted cruz, lost by 2 1/2 points in a red state. >> i don't think the comparison is with garfield, as appealing as that might be, i think the comparison is with barack obama and the run-up to the 2008 presidential campaign. you talked about who does beto o'rourke challenge, does he threaten to overshadow? that's going to be an issue for some of the newer, fresher,

younger faces but i think he's primarily a challenge to joe biden in the same way hillary clinton was a challenger to bill clinton in 2008. he offers the fresh over the familiar. it's not a guarantee that he succeeds but he certainly has the platform to have the opportunity to succeed in making his case against much more experienced contenders. >> maybe the obama team is picking up on what susan said because they seem to like what they see in beto o'rourke. at what point does he have to be going from this guy -- at what point does he have to translate that into this is what i'm going to deliver for the american people, beto o'rourke means x in

terms of how your life is going to get better? >> he ran that entire senate race without defining himself too much. his political definition is going to come together in this primary and i think that the degree to which he can maybe avoid being pinned down is going to be the degree to which he can succeed in many ways. >> you talked to him in the piece about the green new deal, you ask about alexandria ocasio-cortez. where does he put himself on that spectrum. >> he paid a lot of lip service to those people. i think he wanted to put in with them but at the same time he wants to say i can go to rural america and connect potentially with republican voters, with people in the center. he wants to have it both ways.

can he have it both ways? we'll find out. >> and unlike some of the other would-be candidates, he's willing to describe himself as a capitalist. >> that's right. he was a capitalist. he was aowner. >> so are some other capitalists that doesn't want to be capitalists anymore. >> that's right. >> i think he thinks all the good ideas are coming from the grass roots and he wants to bring them to the center. that's broadly what he wants to do. how he does it is going to be a whole cam papaigncampaign. >> first of all, i don't understand why he didn't announce on oprah. do you have any insight on that? >> he didn't have his campaign together and he was genuinely --

it was february 1, i believe, that he said he stayed up late with his wife and they decided they were going to do this. >> the most important question in any campaign is going to happen to him today. a reporter is going to come up to him and say what are you running on? what is your rationale? what do you think his answer to that going to be? >> i think he's going to stay with soaring rhetoric. he's going to stick to that, talk about the issues that democrats want to hear about health care and climate change and the economy, but i think he's going to try to keep it broad because that's where he retains his power. that's where he draws energy, from this big soaring rhetoric. that's an obama trait. >> so much of his past race, some of the energy around hem is also who he was running against,

ted cruz, the idea that he's despised by people around the country. but he's running against other democrats that people like. how does he combat that? >> he said i'll stay positive. i don't like being negative. his sole story about seeing bernie sanders in his race against hillary and his critique had been don't tell me you're against trump, tell me what you're for. again, kind of barack obamaish kind of outlook in how to deal with things. i think that it's -- we're going to see something new here for him. he's going to have to contend with this could get pretty blood here here the next six months and how he copes with in a, i'll be curious. >> you're a campaign guy. he wanted it alling to

authentic. can he translate that on to at national stage or is he going to have to become a more vengsal candidate? his use of social media has got him from zero to 100 in terms of name recognition. can he break the rules in other ways and -- >> he ran a very conventional cam pan. he has raw political talent. the thing about conventional campaigns, polling and data, if you use polling correctly, it just tells you how to say what you believe better, not what to say that you have don't believe. that's a very important distinction. you can have the best data in the world but if you don't have a message, it won't help you. data is great for getting whatever message you have for the right people out. he will have to use some kind of

polling research. >> this "vanity fair" article proves he'll get his share of attention. >> one of the reasons he made it into the national scene back in the midterm election is because of those viral moments. i heard someone talk about the nfl kneeling moment that went viral. so beto o'rourke does have raw talent and he finds those moments and is able to really take it to the next level. nafs the thing that was very impressive about him during the midterm election. i worked on both obama campaigns. yeah, he has that raw talent, he is very kind of obama-esque.

so i think he'll take that and put that into his presidential run. i don't see him going negative. i see him just really taking a visionary kind of look. and on the pollsters and consultants, i think the norms of political politics have kind of been broken. look at what trump did in 2016. things are just different, especially with social media and, as i said, these variety rahal moments. so i think he has a really good shot. the question is can he sustain it? will it last past six months. that's going to be the truth. >> and susan page, what we've been talking about is fund-raising for beto o'rourke. he'll now step into the national field of big donors like steve rattner over here. >> no offense, steve, beto

o'rourke doesn't need your check. >> no but -- >> he has so many small donors. and the great thing about small donors, it is a renewable resource. it's like using solar energy. you can go back to it again and again and again because these donors have not maxed out. i think if he's got a challenge, it's to prove that there some meat there, what you have done. at look 6:01 i got an e-mail from the rnc that his biggest experience is that he department get elected. -- didn't get elected. he's going to have to prove he can deliver on getting elected. >> money is not going to be his problem, it's going to be his advantage. it's going to be people like

sanders and people bleich elizabeth warren and the others are not going to raise enough money to get it iowa. >> the quote, man, eem just born to be in it. what does he men about and i had sort of boxed him in, tell me what you're going to do, tell me what you're going to do. finally, when he let himself california moo that whatever you get a camera on this guy, he has this charisma, that was that moment where he felt he had some kind of destiny. he has that gleam in his eye. evan smith of the "texas fr

tribune" said it like a jesus christ superstar kind of thing seeing him. we'll see how long that lasts. >> and we'll see the criticism, susan page laying that out. he just that, a celebrity some people are not going to want to call jesus christ super. >> joe haguen, thanks so much for your time. now to form are trump campaign foreman sense tensing hearing. manafort told the courtroom, quote, i'm sorry for what i have

done, for all the ak thafts have gotten us here today. the judge responded, quote, saying i'm sorry i got caught is not an insprieriiring reason fo leniency, saying the question of whether there was or wasn't any coordination of conspiracy with the presidential campaign and russia was not presented in this case. therefo therefore, there's no evidence of in collusion -- trait are!

. >> prosecutors announced new charges filed against paul manafort. a manhattan grand jury has indicted him on 16 counts. the indictment grew out of an investigation that began in march of 2017 when prosecutors began to look at lons manafort received from two banks. president trump does not the authority to pardon him if he's con vubd glen ki-- convicted. glen, let me begin with you.

you were inside the courtroom for that sentencing. what's your impression of the sentence handed down by judge jackson? >> willie, watching it in realtime and listening to what was about 30 to 40 minutes of judge jackson's prepared statement before she imposed sentenci sentencing, i was really quite pleased and even proud at the way she took down every single argument that both manafort and his defense team has been making over the history of his case. i do think, to answer your question, there was a little bit of a disconnect after she went scorched earth, sort of refuting all of his claims about, among other things, that this case be a referendum on no collusion and paul manafort living an otherwise blameless life, she really took him to task about what she saw him do during the course of this trial. and how she viewed his criminal conduct.

she even took down his claims of solitary confinement, right down to his claim he was suffering from gout and gave what i, as a former prosecutor, see as a pretty lenient sentence. 60 months on the conspiracy count with 30 of those monies running together with part of the sentence that judge ellis imposed in and on the witness tampering, she planed her rationale saying you can tamper with a witness by biebiribing t threatening them or you can simply ask them to lie for you. paul manafort did the latter. she saw it as a less aggravated form of witness tampering. when he was facing upwards of 24

years overall in both cases and he walks away with 7 1/2 years, still nothing to sneeze at in the federal bureau of prisons but overall i felt it was a bit of a lenient in lenientin manaf attorneys go out on the courthouse step and say there was no conclusion sounding like the what did you make of that? what are his attorneys doing there sp. >> maybe i am forever naive but lawyers are officers of the court. weep are ethically bound not that stand on courthouse steps and tell blatant lies. when i heard judge jackson say pointedly and repeatedly this case has nothing to do with

collusion and said it's basically nonsense and it factually inaccurate because the mueller probe is not yet wrapped up so much we don't know what he will say about collusion. she virtually announced i don't want to hear anymore about this no collusion nonsense and then the defense attorney waubs -- walks outside and said two courts have ruled there is no collusion. there were appropriation testers shouting him down and actually providing people with an accurate account of what went on in the krocourtroom. i found that to be, in a word, despicable. >> let's talk about these charges in new york. what do they do for paul manafort in terms of his sen

sentencing or any pardon from the president. >> these are pardon proof. so president trump could conceivably eliminate the 7 1/2 year federal sentence imposed yesterday but he can't touch the potential 25-plus years in state prison that manafort now faces under the 16-wount -- count indictment. >> let's talk about the timing of this yesterday. the charges dropped minutes after what happened in d.c. and virginia. >> itthe michael cohen case cam

from mueller's office. i'm not surprised there's some level of coordination. just because there may be coordination doesn't mean there aren't legitimate state crimes to be prosecuted there. as i said, the state crimes aren't subject to a pardon. to me this is why the lawyers for manafort need to be careful what they're asking for when they go out on the courthouse steps and do this performance art with alternate facts, they're raising the ire of federal judges and not to mention state judges. >> as we anticipate how he's going to be farming out pieces of stuff he has found to state and formal vaegss in a are going to be vetted or perhaps product?

>> that's right. these cases can be adopted state and federal prosecutors and other jurisdictions. i think manafort's best argument would be double jeopardy, that there's a fifth amendment violation he can't be tried twice for the same crime. he's admitted to most, if not all of these facts already, in a federal courtroom. i think ultimately the states and other federal jurisdictions will prevail on those claims. i think there's a lot of trouble ahead for paul manafort. >> still ahead on "morning joe o ", it did not take the college cheating scandal to talk talking about privilege. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. joe." we'll be right back. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - [woman] with shark's duo clean, i don't just clean,

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welcome back to "morning joe." beautiful live picture of the sun coming up over washington this morning. it's almost 7:30 here on the east coast. the college prep consultant at the scenter of the scandal has admitted to helping more than 750 families. now colleges and universities entangled in the scandal are looking into the role students may have played. the university of california los angeles, ucla, warned yesterday it might punish current students whose applications were tainted, including potentially revoking their admissions and the university of california added it will revoke any current

applicants connected to the scheme. prominent business executives have been future on leave after companies learned of their alleged involvement in the scandal. actress lori loughlin is accused of lying to get her daughters into college. and good morning.

i'm starting to think there might be something to your thesis for living in america. this is almost a parody of what you describe in your work and your books. what do you think this story tells us about america? >> i think what's so extraordinary is the idea that america is rigged in favor of wealthy and powerful people has become common place in many ways. that rigging is a generalized rigging. there's a lot of systems in american life that allow all of the wealthy and powerful to benefit. the way we fund public schools, where the nicer the house you have, the better public school you get, that's a form of rigging and any number of things that give all wealthy people a

d distinct advantage. but these people weren't satisfied with shared rigging. they wanted private bottle service rigging just for them with a guarantee, over and above the rigging that everybody else benefits from. in the indictment, the singer guy, these care terharacters ar important, they offer this amazing and throw pollogical henc lens. you have to understand that this kind of thing is operating in so many domains of our public life. while we have the president's associates day by day, pleading

guilty to crimes. we have facebook, which is not a -- one of the principle ma manycorruption in many ways is becoming the central theme of american life in 2019. >> debra, you've come at this with a different point of view as the founder of harlem village academies. we seen the competitiveness of getting kids into college. what did you think of the story? >> i bring an educator's perspective. what i thought of it is the emptiness that kids feel during this whole rat race of high school to college admissions. it's really a crisis of the soul, i think. as a country, we need to really rethink what our definition of

achievement is. a country's education system reflects its values and that produces -- what kind of people do we want to produce, you know, people who are looking to give something to the world or just looking to climb a lad are to be successful? you wonder why so many kids are on anti-depress ents, are unhappy and struggling and don't even understand the idea that college is actually an opportunity to find your calling, to search for truth, to study liberal arts, to ground your life. so the emptiness comes from checking a bunch of boxes on your way through high school, making sure you take the right a.p. and not enjoying any of it along the way. >> yes, enjoyment but also the fulfillment that comes from building a life of meaning. you know. and i tell my kids in harlem

exactly the same thing that i've told my own three kids. study because it's what's fascinating to you. find what your calling is, explore the world. the grades will come because you'll work hard because you're studying what you love. so what life is about and what we want our children across this country to understand is that life is about finding a way to contribute to the world in whatever way you were meant to. it's not about what can i get and how can i beat everybody else in this zero sum game. the testing industry, and it is a multi-billion dollar industry, is very much connected to this. there a lot of people who benefit from kids competing against each other. >> that's the important part of this, too, is that endless pursuit of the s.a.t. score. >> and the parents are obsessed with the branding are economic

institutions but what i think is is particularly galling i'm actually going to go off to fiji. she's taking opportunity, that place she was given is now a place that does not go to somebody else who does not have those kind of contacts. >> some things are zero sum. >> some things are zero sum. ands that the problem -- >> i love the work that you do in harlem and what breaks my heart is some of the same wealthy people who out of the goodness of their hearts probably give your schools money and give good causes like this money, the charity by the way they use to do this bribery was itself a charity in service of disadvantaged youth. some of the same people while doing that and making sure it's public known it revealed that

they were working behind the scenes to make sure there were certain seats at certain universities could never compete for. no matter how hard they worked or how bright, that seat was blocked up. so the two actress es the most important fish enshared in this whol gool but more importantly, one of the leaders of this nuchlt of new capitalism. we have these criticisms of capitalism but you have people saying let's start change inside. $2 billion for impact investing, investing that's going to help communities while helping others and it now turns out that bill mc.

>> so i actually know bill quite a bit. he has led an exceptional life than in every or respect. it's inexplicable to me how this happened. but -- >> but what if it's not inexplicab inexplicable. that's why we need to go deeper. >> we need the explanation. it's inexplicable at the moment to me. >> there as a lawsuit against harvard by asian students saying they've been discriminated against via inclusivity and so feel about a they work incredibly hard and this issue, as with -- this is about race

and that makes people uncomfortable. who is going to get the advantage, who is going to go to jail. the system being rigged economically, right, it starts so much earlier than getting into college. it starts in nursery school and kindergarten. >> i have a "new york times" story from 2002, the chairman of city group rigging the system to get his two daughters into nursery school. 2002, those daughters would now be applying to college so we've come full circle. >> right. and the way the education is financed is fundamentally eckhardless of where they live and their parents can afford to

live. what would really fix it is if we had a lottery and the folks who control everything would mack sure that the funding, teachs are got paid double and triple. >> so this is a window into one case that we know about. the thing that's true, though, is that since the beginning of time, wealthy people have been able to put their thumb on the scale of colleges. maybe it's $10 million to the school and we'll put your name on a building and your kid gets in with wink and a nod. >> this was on the different level, the scam that we have been reading about and listening to these last couple of days,

which is clearly insane and infuriatin infuriating. but, yes, there are legal ways that the rich and the wealthy have had a leg up. they've had a foot in the door by giving donations, by buying buildings. and unfortunately what this does is it hurts people of color, poor people. they are left behind. yeah, the system is broken, the clem process is broken and we need to start focusing on the legal ways of how this is happening. when this story broke two days ago, i heard from so many of my friends who are people of color who said you know what? this gives me some sort of vindication. because so many times we're in class, whether it's an ivy league school or some sort of private institution and and i

think we need to folks or than but on the legal side of thanksgiving as well. >> think about tack a picture of your daughter on a rowing machine. >> willie, if i could add one thing about the testing culture, right. we need a next generation of assessments in this country. kids need to be able to sit down and write because writing reflects your best thinking, on the spot rather than go through the wealthy kids get editors to edit their college essays, which is absurd but that's what happens. the way we think about the system is to also connect it to what's the educational infrastructure in relation to somehow kids are tested. >> well, it's by definition

unfair. everyone's taken the d.a.t. score, there are a group of people. >> or just some dude taking the test for you. >> or you could tack the and that every parent tries to goat go in and business. >> doctor, thanks for being here and thanks for all the great a that work gnaw do. >> beto o'rourke officials announces his president dns cam pan and know we'll go live , that's next on "morning joe." that's next on "morning joe. fight cancer.

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just hours after the announcement this morning that he is joinings democratic presidential field, congressman beto o'rourke is kicking off a three-day road trip across iowa today. joining us, garrett haake. good morning. what is the strategy here? what's beto thinking? >> reporter: he's going to start

in a remote part of the state here, the southeast corner of iowa, hitting voters who voted for obama in 2012 in a lot of these counties and all of these counties in this corner of the state flipped to donald trump in 2016. this is part of what the o'rourke campaign wants to do, they want to find new voters, a lot like they did in texas, talking to people who isn't seen a democratic candidate for any office in a long time and trying to to bring folks out of the woodwork. >> fobs here in iowa are pretty used to talking to their candidates. the hope is get him out doing things he likes to do best, they can just start making those connections. >> susan page has a question for

you. >> southeast iowa is not remote. uzbekistan is not remote. southeast iowa is the middle of the country. >> touched a nerve, garrett, touched a nerve. >> i drove two and a half hours from the closest airport to get here. we can agree to disagree. >> that's nothing. you've been spending time with other candidates as well. when you talk to voters in iowa and they've been turning out in big numbers for different democratic candidates, what do they say they really want to see? what are going to say? >> bernie sanders has remarkable staying power with his core voters when you talk to them, but the issue set is completely

different. in 2016 we went almost that entire campaign without a really serious discuss of climate change, for example. that comes up in conversations all the time with going to see paradigm shift in terms of the issues that we're talking about and it's safe to say they may not be the same issues as we get close to the end of this thing. we're 600 days out till the 2020 election. >> but only 11 month to the caucuses. garrett, in lee county the booming metropolis of lee county as susan page points out. beto makes his announcement just this morning. long expected. what do you think of his place in this field? >> it's so interesting, totally in light of the conversation we were just having. by his -- his statement this morning was we have three crisis that are interconnected. economic, democratic and the

clima climate he wants to take those on. what's interesting is they have powerful villains behind them. powerful corporations. you've got corrupt systems that are behind those issues and beto only wants to be positive. he doesn't like being negative. he doesn't like naming villains. it's all about what you're for and so the question hovering over beto is, can he actually deliver against those issues if he wants to be just relentlessly positive? when you have a problem of fox's -- while actually very having a theory of what's going on in american life and who he need to actually dislodge to help people on the things he cares about. >> a dift time to float above it all. >> he's going to be asked the tough questions. there are going to be debates, the press and he's going to have

to answer the questions of what he stands for. >> there is no way he could go through debates with donald trump not by constantly taking the high road. heesz goi he's going to get in the fight. >> beto down at 5%. thanks so much. susan page, thank you as well. still ahead on "morning joe," two of the other big store is we'll discuss, the grounding of boeing's trouble jet liners and the on joigoing brexit in the u it's all ahead on "morning joe." "

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this morning. paul manafort's lead attorney claims a federal judge conceded there was no evidence of collusion in his case but that is not what the judge said. we'll check the transcripts. plus, house majority leader steny hoyer and angus king will be our guests and beto is in.

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amy and i are happy to share with you that i'm running to serve you as the next president of the united states of america. this is a defining moment of truth for this country and for every single one of us. the challenges that we face right now, the interconnected

crises in our economy, democracy and climate have never been greater. in other words, this moment of peril produces perhaps the greatest moment of promise for this country and for everyone inside of it. >> former congressman beto o'rourke is in. the texas democrat announced his bid for the white house with a three-minute video and an invitation to el paso later this month for a campaign kickoff. welcome to "morning joe." it is thursday, march 14th. joe and mika have the day off. white house reporter for the associated press, jonathan la mere and "morning joe" economist and an msnbc contributor, kimberly adkins. officially joining the field of

democratic candidates. he heads to iowa. his campaign noting his three-day trip will include three counties that chose donald trump in 2016. he narrowly last his u.s. senate race last year to ted cruz, also profiled in vanity fair. he tells the magazine, i'm born to be in it and i want to do everything i humanly can for this country at this moment. so rick tyler, this has been a long time coming. we've gone through the long road trip. he was in his funk, now he's out of his funk and now running for president. what do you think of his chances? >> there's an enormous amount of enthusiasm around beto o'rourke. i think he could be atrablgtive to the -- attractive to the middle. opening "morning joe" with his video. he's on the cover of vanity fair.

if i were on the beto team i'd be pretty happy so far. >> jonathan, what do you think? >> it's duodifferent things. beto a roark has been made fun of with this road trip for himself and find the country that he has taken. he was impressive in his very close call he gave ted cruz in the senate race. there was a lot of enthusiasm for him around the country. you know, there are some suggesting that he seemed a little out of touch with this road trip. you know, the vanity fair cover is impressive but the photo shoot, that's not how you win the voters in the quad cities but at the same time what he has and has displayed, he has an it factor that i think a lot of democratic candidates we've seen so far, it's not clear whether they do or not. he possesses that electricity that will excite people and

while he is taking some criticism for not standing for much just yet, that idea of being a blank canvas, that work for barack obama. >> eight years removed from the city council but you cannot take away from him that he lost only about 2 and a half points in texas. >> when you see people othe trump cam, they're noer vous for this for that exact reason. the run that he gave his money in texas, in a state that they didn't think they were going to have problems in, they put that down to beto o'rourke having something that voters like and they're nervous about him and of course his fund raising capacity. no woman candidate would have got away with this kind of a rollout. they would not have gotten away with going into the woods.

wouldn't have gotten away with that. all of that will be forgotten if he is the democrat. and they're looking for somebody to emerge who's a star and inspires them. could be him. >> another name on this list in the democratic field. we're now waiting to see whether or not joe biden will get in. where does beto o'rourke fit into this big field? >> yeah, i mean, i think right now the excitement within among democrats about this growing field is absolutely true and there are people who are waiting for joe biden. they see him as somebody who both knows how to talk to voters, knows how to connect with the very broad base that the democrats have, but also brings that experience and there are others who are looking for something fresh -- fresher, newer in that case in terms of beto o'rourke. one thing that i find interesting is republicans are

watching beto o'rourke more as well as other potential democrats, especially those who are charismatic, who have come out and gotten a lot of attention and who are from red states. we heard nancy pelosi that democrats are eyeing texas and that is on their map now. we have other folks like stacy abrams who may get in or pete who is coming from indiana. these are state republicans eyeing the biggest threat to donald trump because the conservative group has started running ards against o'rourke before he got into the ads. >> this is before he announced he was even in the race. so let's talk about money, steve. let's talk about demi craocrati donors. what is the smart democratic money going to think about beto o'rourke? >> what's different about this

cycle and different from other cycles is the role on online money and what it's going to play in this cycle. candidates have relied on the individual max checks from people in new york and places like that. but what we've seen in the last cycle and we're seeing it happening now is this upsurge in campaign giving. kamala harris raised something like a million and a half after her announcement. beto has this online fund raising capability and that could give him the chance to be competitive in iowa, new hampshire and places like that. he's a bit -- you know, it's an unknown quality. he's going down the abraham lincoln game. lose in the senate and decide to run for president. it worked out okay for lincoln. >> i hope we don't have a similar -- >> no, i know. >> the one thing that also beto is from texas and texas goes

on -- well, sorry, i'm confusing my primary. never mind. >> let me ask you something that kimberly threw out there which is texas could be in play. second only to california. do you believe that's true or is that still fool's gold? >> it will be true. i don't know if it will be true in 2020. it will definitely be true in six years from now. >> does beto o'rourke change that to though? does he put it in play? >> i think he could put it in ply. i'm thinking about the democratic primary, i think it's on march 3rd. along with oklahoma and massachusetts so he may take -- because elizabeth warren was expected to do well in oklahoma. but he's from a neighboring state. if he could do well in the first three states which are all retail politics states. although none of the events have been very small so far which has been quite amazing because there's an enormous amount of

enthusiasm on the democratic side. >> let's go to the other candidates too. he's going to go for that bit of pressure for joe biden. mayor pete i think is the one that suffers the most in terms of name recognition but a similar kind of style i think he has to beto o'rourke. >> he has the ability to dwarf some of the other candidates. he also put enough of a scare in texas. president trump had to campaign and hold a huge rally for ted cruz in the final weeks of that election. also let's remember just a few weeks ago the president was in el paso, held a rally to push for the immigration plan and to call for the border wall, for the money for the border wall and so on and beto held a duelling rally and drew a similar crowd there and clearly his presence, he's going to highlight the role of immigration, the wall, the national emergency is going to play in the 2020 race. >> a couple other names to tell

you about. congressman eric swalwell hinted at his bid on twitter yesterday as he weighs whether to jump into the democratic primary field. he replied to trump's make america great again tweet with i'm working on it, stay tuned. he said he would make his decision by the end of march and moulton will travel to the state later this month to meet with democratic activists and leaders. the massachusetts congressman expected to make his decision in the next eight weeks. so you look at this field, i mean, we're going to hit 20 pretty soon. it's what democrats had in 2016 where there was a coronation with one challenger and bernie sanders. what do you make of it all? >> you've got people dropping out before they get in in the sense of sherrod brown sort of looking around and saying i'm not there's enough oxygen in

this room for me. moulton hoozas a great future. i think it's early even by lincoln stand or ards i think it's early for him to try sting like this. i think you'll have a group of candidates who have the money and some who will die on the vine. but all in all, i think it's a good time. it's time for the democratic party to come to a reckoning with what it wants and let the best man or woman to win. >> you're going to see the rich and the poor in this race. >> does anyone see a backlash within the democratic party to all the attention that beto has gotten and a lot of people think he doesn't deserve all the attention he's gotten. maybe he doesn't deserve a growing profile written of him. can he be overrated, rick? >> possibly.

they're going to try to take him down, but i don't remember who said it last week. i think it was jim in san francisco, there are more beto signs than there are 49ers t-shirts. when i was in texas during the senate race, you know, you just go up and down -- you see beto signs everywhere. cruz, they don't do road signs, but there was a lot of -- there was just a lot of presence about it and i remember i was participating in the tribune event and i was asked on stage whether i thought beto was would win and i said he was probably going to lose by 3 points and i got booed. >> pretty close. >> yeah. >> we've seen it work the last couple of times. president obama was certainly -- he had that rock star feeling. john mccain tried to say he was back in 2008 and just a couple years ago we had an equally

crowded republican field. donald trump just sort of drowned out everyone around him. there are also other democrats in this field but o'rourke comes in with those institutional advantages and people are going to be drawn to him. you can see him jump out to a lead here. >> he has charisma. that's not going to go away. the moment of the criticism of wow, this is all too much and the bobby kennedy, vanity fair image is coming from the political insiders. it's not coming from voters. i think this is us thinking oh, that's a little too much. >> can i make one point too, remember this time four years ago on the republican side it was about all scott walker and jeb bush. it is so early and that is why i think you see a lot of candidates focusing on their timing. there is some fear that if joe

biden comes out early that could be his height in terms of his polling numbers and slip from there. that's like other folks like moulton is talking about more of a may timeframe about making his decision, letting this first wave get over with and i think come may or june you'll see that second wave of people coming in trying to capture the nation's attention once these early entrants have sort of -- the shine has faded off of them a little bit. >> coming up, not one, not two, but now three cases. new york is joining washington and virginia in bringing criminal charges against paul manafort. we'll break down the latest legal trouble for president trump's former campaign chairman still ahead. but first bill karins has a look at the forecast. >> have you seen these pictures of the enormous wind storms in the middle of the country? amarillo, 18 wheeler versus 80-mile-per-hour winds, that wasn't even close. not injured thankfully but there

were numerous rollovers of 18 wheelers and further to the north we still had wind gusts to 70 to 80 miles per hour. in colorado springs a kind gust of 95 miles per hour. so let's see what we're dealing with now. the storm is right over the top of omaha. still have blizzard conditions in the plains. thunderstorms erupted in arkansas and louisiana. maybe some isolated tornados. careful today. those storms will make their way to nashville, indianapolis, lexington and cincinnati. and the winds still very strong. 70 million people under a high wind warning. a lot of bumpy flights today and more delays and cancellations. we still have to watch out for some flooding from additional rainfall and snow melt later today. so the middle of the country, that's where all the travel is, beautiful weather.

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oh, it won't do that. welp, someone should. just say "teach me more" into your voice remote and see how you can have an even better x1 experience. simple. easy. awesome. now to former trump campaign chairman paul manafort who's facing 7 and a half years in prison following a second sentencing hearing. a federal judge tacked on an additional three and a half years. manafort told the courtroom quote, i'm sorry for what i have done and all the activities that have gotten us here today. the judge responded saying i'm sorry got caught is not an inspiring call for lean yen say. the judge also chided manafort's lawyers to use the charges in the case to try to disprove collusion between the trump campaign and russian efforts to influence the 2016 election saying quote, the question of

whether there was or was not any coordination or conspiracy or any collusion between anyone associated with the presidential campaign and anyone in russia was not presented in this case period. therefore, it was not resolved one way or the other by this case. but here's what manafort's lead attorney had to say outside the courtroom. >> judge jackson conceded that there was absolutely no evidence of any russian collusion in this case. so that makes two courts -- two courts have ruled no evidence of any collusion with russia. >> i feel very badly for paul manafort and yeah, he worked for ronald reagan successfully. he worked for john mccain. he worked for bob dole and many others for many years and i feel badly for him. i think it's a very sad situation. >> do you pardon paul manafort? >> i have not even given it a thought as of this moment. it's not something that's right now on my mind.

i do feel badly for paul manafort. >> but his legal troubles don't stop there. prosecutors in manhattan announced new criminal charges had been filed against him. court documents show a manhattan grand jury has indicted manafort on 16 counts alleging a multimillion dollar mortgage fraud scheme. manhattan district attorney says the indictment grew out of an investigation that began in march of 2017 when prosecutors began to look at loans manafort received from two banks. unlike the two federal cases that have resulted in prison time, president trump does not have the authority to pardon manafort if he's convicted on these new charges. let's bring in msnbc national news roert and legal analyst. so much to get to. danny, let me start with you. first we talked yesterday at this time we wondered whether or not the sentences would be

consecutive or concurrent. what do you make of judge jackson's decision yesterday? >> the answer to whether they would be concurrent or consecutive was apparently yes. federal judges have considerable authority in when or not to impose a concurrent, consecutive or a partially concurrent sentence and that's exactly what judge jackson did was split the difference. the sentencing guidelines called for concurrent sentences, but only if the judge concluded that this was relevant conduct with the prior sentence. and ultimately the sentencing guidelines have been only advisory for the last 15 years, so she doesn't have to follow the guidelines. she meted out a sentence that she thought was appropriate. >> so for the second time in a week, paul manafort's attorney leaves the courtroom after a sentencing, goes on the courtroom steps and says there was no collusion.

having nothing to do with what was just settled in the courtroom behind them as judge jackson pointed out. that case was also not about collusion. what's he up to here? >> it was remarkable. he didn't say there was no collusion. he said two courts have ruled there's no evidence of collusion. that is such a bald faced misstatement that it almost could not be sort of him just misspeaking there, because you know, that is completely at odds with what he was just told by the judge in the courtroom an hour before and he did it twice and so i think it's no surprise therefore, that the manhattan d.a. felt compelled to move forward with a case because it looks like paul manafort's team is playing for a pardon from the president. why else would they continue to stress this idea of no evidence of collusion when flun none of cases were about collusion. what this judge makes clear is that paul manafort ran a

ten-year fraud not just on the irs but the american public. you know, we rely on people to register when they're representing foreign governments and lobbying in america as part of the transparency that we use to -- for our democracy and manafort flouted that. he chose not to register. he chose to evade taxes on the millions he was paid and the judge made all that clear as opposed to judge ellis in virginia who said that paul manafort had lived an otherwise blameless life. for various reasons she imposed a sentence that was not even as long as the one that judge ellis imposed which was controversial. but all told, paul manafort is going to do 7 and a half years. he'll get some time knocked off. he'll be 76 years old when he gets out. that's a big chunk of time for a white collar case like this. coming up, the house majority leader steny hoyer is

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welcome back to "morning joe." joining us now house majority leader steny hoyer of maryland.

we've got a ton of questions for you this morning but want to start with the breaking news. one of your former house colleagues, beto o'rourke announcing he's officially in the race to become the democratic nominee for president. what do you make of it? >> well, he did very well in the senate race and raised a lot of money from throughout the country. much of it online so i think he is not only a very able individual but obviously has a broad net work of support. we have a lot of very good candidates in the race and we'll see what happens over the next number of months. >> do you think beto would make a good president of the united states sf. >> i think beto would be certainly a good president of the united states. i think we have a lot of candidates who would be good presidents of the united states and certainly there's not one of them that wouldn't be an extraordinary improvement over the incumbent. >> how do you measure a three congressman's record when it comes to delivering people to people that will make their

lives better? he's got tons of charisma, a massive social media presence. he's going to raise a lot of money, but when it comes to deliverables how will people measure him? >> i think how he develops the campaign, how he communicates with the american people. and i think so much of a vote for president is promise, obviously that's how trump was elected. and people thought he might make it better. so i think it depends upon how he connects. i think that depends on every president, how they connect with the american people and do the american people believe they can achieve the objectives they set forth. i think there's going to be a lot of similarity in the objectives which we've talked about in the last campaign. we talked about jobs. we talked about health care and bringing costs down and we talked about reforms which we just adopted in hr 1 and i think that connected with the american people and they felt concerned about that and they wanted to

give us the opportunity to do that. i think that will be the same judgment that the american people will make with respect to our presidential candidates. >> i'm not sure mr. o'rourke is going to love the comparison with mr. trump and winning on the basis of promise alone. he's got to have something more hasn't he? we elected a celebrity of president who managed to wow the crowds and had a huge amount of charisma and then the deliverables were not there. >> the analogy i was making -- i understand what you're saying. >> i'm sure he does too. >> yeah, do the people believe you can do what you say you're going to do and i think frankly in trump's case i think there was a betting on the come. they thought things needed to be better for them and their families and they said this guy may do it. i think they found out that he hasn't done it, but i think that every presidential candidate will offer a vision and platform for the future and it will

depend upon whether the american people believe a, it's a good platform and b, that they can accomplish it and they believe them. i think that's going to be the test of not only for beto o'rourke who is really engaging individual. it's hard to dislike beto. i think he comes across in a positive sense and i think that's what we saw in the senate race in texas and i think probably what we'll see in the presidential race but there are a lot of really good people and oolot of visions much of which are the same in terms of objectives and so much of the test is going to be, is can they get there and do i agree with him? >> the mueller report we keep hearing is due any moment here so everybody can eye roll right now, but if the report is redacted in some way or wasn't shared with the congress, do you have any plans to figure out how to make that report public? >> well, the the answer to the last question is yes, the people

deserve to see it we're working on a resolution on the floor today in a few hours which will urge the report to be made public. a lot of republican senators and house members have said exactly the same thing, obviously there's been a lot of work that's gone into this report. the american people ought to see it to the extent that it can be released and when i say that, there may be security elements that would dictate that they're not released but we think the overwhelming majority of the report ought to be released. the american people need to be able to make a judgment as to what the findings tell them and then we'll take it from there. >> speaker pelosi this week made clear that she did not favor moving to impeach president trump saying among other things that he wasn't worth it. two questions to you on that. first, do you agree with her, but more than that, we know there are some members of the democratic house who don't agree with her. how do you pacify them if they want to proceed with impeachment? >> well, first of all, i

essentially agree with speaker pelosi. first of all, i think, you know, we need to have a lot more information and we're going to get a lot more information. we talked about the mueller report. the southern district of new york are doing investigations so we'll have a lot more information that will be produced over the next coming months but speaker pelosi's point was absolutely true. if we pursued impeachment, unless we have extraordinary evidence that demands we're going to do that we're going to suck all the air out of the ageneral do that we said to the american people we were going to follow. job creation, economic growth, decent wages and secondly that we were going to focus on health care and making sure it was oi fordable. quality health care was available to all americans and we brought costs down and then we would also reform the government, make it more

transparent, more open, more honest. we just passed hr 1 which accomplished that objective but we need to focus on jobs. we need to focus on health care. we're having hearings now and legislation to come to the floor and if we pursued impeachment we're going to suck all the air out of the energy of focusing on the american people and i think that's what the speaker had in mind and i think she's right. with respect to members who feel differently, they -- they have offered resolutions in the past. we've had votes on them and the majority of democrats have felt that the public wasn't there and we didn't have the information that we needed to pursue it and so they decided not to and that's how it will dispose of it in the future. >> to your point, with so much focus all the time on president trump i think some wonder if anything else is getting done in the congress and it is in fact you and other house democrats have put forth the equality act.

what does that seek to do, congressman? >> well, the equality act seeks to make sure that all people irrespective of sexual orientation are treated equally for all purposes. for jobs, for housing, for accommodations, for service in the united states armed forces. we think that when we said in the declaration of independence we hold these true to be sel self-evident it applies to every american and it seeks to make sure that is not only a concept but also the law and we'll be considering that probably in may. >> and how congressman, does that apply to the united states military given the trump administration's recent announce mott of transgender people in the military? >> it will apply to the military and transgender will have to be treated equally with every other individual. obviously on any kind of

discrimination based upon factors which are not relevant to doing a job. >> always good to have you on the show. thanks for being here. >> thank you. coming up next on "morning joe," back in 2017, ari melber reported presidential pardons might not end the prosecutions related to russia. now new york is going after paul manafort and there is nothing that president trump can do about. that ari joins our conversation along with senate or angus king next on "morning joe." angus ki next on "morning joe."

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i was on capitol hill yesterday with productive discussions with many of the senators who are looking to address the crisis and address border security. but i told them and i'll tell all of you, a vote against the president's emergency declaration is a vote against border security. a vote against the president's emergency declaration is a vote to deny the humanitarian and security crisis at our southern

border. >> that's mike pence yesterday on his efforts to persuade republican senators not to vote in favor of a resolution that would terminate president trump's emergency declaration on the border wall. the senate set to vote on that bill later today and poised to hand the president a public rebuke the matter. the measure is expected to pass with senator mike lee of utah to announce support of the bill. joining us now, a member of the intelligence and armed services committee, angus king of maine, also with us host of the beat on msnbc ari melber. senator, i'll start with you. is our math right there? are you going to pass this through the senate today? >> i believe so although it's hard to say and the republicans are putting on a full court press for sure. the vice president was here yesterday and by the way, i have to take issue. this is not a choice between border security and the wall. i mean, everybody's for border

security. i don't know anyone in congress who's not for border security. we've all voted for it. we all voted a lot of money for it but we want smart border security. the problem at the border is asylum seekers who come to ports of entry. they're not swimming across the rio grande. and you've got a heavy rainstorm in atlanta and you're going to give everybody in boston umbrellas. they don't relate and it's infuriating to hear this characterized this as you're for open borders or you're for the president's wall. that's nonsense and i'm tired of hearing that argument. and by the way, this is not really -- it's about the wall of course and it's about border security but it's really about the constitution. are we going -- is congress going to give the power to this president and every future president to say well, you didn't give me the money i wanted and therefore i'm going to call it an emergency and do it myself. that just shreds article 1 of

the constitution. it's congress abdicating its responsibility. we considered the president's request, said no and he's doing it anyway and for my republican colleagues who are, you know, strong on the constitution, this just doesn't pass the straight face test. >> what's interesting is some of those republicans have made the case you just made. rand paul said yes i think we need tougher border security but i'm not willing to give up the power of appropriations to the president to do it. if this does pass today, this resolution passes through the senate, the president will veto that so is your vote today anything more than symbolic and getting people on the record for this issue? >> i think it's important legally. in the congress repeals -- disas of this action, clearly this whole thing is going to end up in court and it will be one more piece of evidence that the court will have to look at and say look, congress explicitly said

don't do this and it really undermines the president's case so i think it's important from that point of view but i think it's also important to goin othe record and test us and who knows, if there is a veto there's going to be a lot more discussion. i know there's been a huge amount of debate within the republican caucus on this issue and i think the vote today is much more than merely symbolic and here's another thing i got to tell you that is under my skin just in the last hour. we've been trying to find out who's on the list. the president is going to take $3.5 billion out of military construction projects to do this. they're refusing to tell us where that's coming from, but i just saw a tweet from a republican senator who said well, i'm going to vote for it because i've been reassured that none of it is coming from my state. that's unacceptable. i'm going to be cross examining the active secretary of defense in about an hour and you can bet

i'm going to ask him that question. secretary shanahan, if you're listening get ready because i want the list. >> you say you don't looirn like this repeated argument from the white house, the wall equals border security. but the onus is on you, isn't it? he's allowed to say that. the onus is on democrats to come back with a better response, to counter message and i'm just wondering why the democrats have let the white house and the president get away in repeating this in a way that people believe he's right. >> we know that about this white house and the facts really don't matter. i mean, 40% for example of the undocumented immigrants in america are here overstaying visas. that has nothing to do with the wall. and by the way, i think there are places where a wall is perfectly appropriate. i've seen it and there are places where it works but the idea of just building where the president has decided he wants to because he wants to maintain

a campaign promise, it's just not -- it's not a good expenditure of the taxpayers' money. we ought to be focusing on the ports of entry where most of the drugs are coming through. we ought to be dealing more with the question of these people coming from central america. we ought to be dealing with the countries in central america to try to figure out why are people escaping from those terribly dangerous countries and coming to our country. get to the root cause of it rather than trying to contain t it with a huge fence. >> let's turn to paul manafort. yesterday sentenced for the second time in a week to more time by a federal judge. 43 additional months but right after that an indictment happenhanded down by a manhattan district attorney. >> this is a complete game changing inflection point in the mueller probe. i'm not sure it's sunk in. there's a lot of other important things also happening in the nation. but basically, donald trump woke

up yesterday with the idea that he could pardon anyone caught up in the mueller probe and he was right. and he went to bed yesterday unable to pardon the person who's gotten the heavier sentence in the mueller probe, campaign chairman number one, the person tied to russians in all sorts of ways, can't pardon him. >> why not? >> these charges in new york are unpardonable. the donald trump administration has no ability to pardon state charges. also importantly and relatedly has no oversight over this prosecutor. so with doj just like yesterday, can chairman was going back over whether there was meddling in the federal probes, donald trump may have used that power but he has power to oversee those prosecutors in the doj. if donald trump calls up this d.a. in new york, the only thing they're going to do is hit record, gather evidence and move right on. he has no role, no oversight, no

hiring and firing authority. no federal pardon power whatsoever. so if paul manafort was lying to mueller even after he got his plea for a reason to protect anyone or to hide things that are embarrassing or anything we don't know, none of that will be rewarded by donald trump in knonew york because he doesn't control this. so bob mueller has many powers. he has become a batmanesque figure to some people and i think he has done a good job. but this is a power bob mueller doesn't have, this is a check mate to the pardon power. and as you said in your tease, this is something we first broke in august of 2017 that while presidents have this big federal pardon power, mueller could have a check mate backed up by prosecutors around country. what you saw was a massive show of force while manafort's team was walking out of the courtroom here in new york and i think it could be a name changer.

>> and senator, first of all on ari's point about paul manafort, we are expecting the mueller report soon. wanted to know your anticipation as to when the congress will get a look at it. and i also wanted to turn to the other rebuke that the senate is delivering to the president which was on authorizing the conflict between saudi arabia and yemen, which in fact depending on the type table may end up being the first veto that the president ends up issuing. you can explain the rationale behind do you feel like some of your republican colleagues are finally standing up to the white house? >> i'd just are say congress is doing what they are supposed do which is respond to these problems and make the kind of decisions that they believe are important. here again this is a question for 50 years or maybe 150 years congress has gradually creedede

powers to the president. what happened yesterday 00 ton the floor of the senate was congress finally saying no, we've never authorized this activity, we think it is bad for america, bad for the region to be involved. and we're going to say no. and i think -- i have to admire my republican colleagues for standing up to the white house and doing what they know is right. and i should mention about the wall, this isn't -- the republican s had total control f the congress for two years and never did anything about the wall either. do you know why? the dirty little secret is they are not all that enthusiastic about it. this is the president's priority and that is what whis happening here today. >> senator, thanks for your time. i want to ask when manafort's attorney again coming out on the courtroom steps and talking about collusion, something that was not on the table in the courtroom as judge jackson made clear. what are they doing here by talking about no company?

>> this was fascinating. paul manafort had the book thrown at him yesterday for a bunch of felons including post indictment instruction. that is mafia gangster type stuff. a lot of people when they get indicted they get scared and most people don't commit new crimes post indictment. paul manafort did. judge jackson rebuked him for that. and what was his defense? talking about something he's not even accused of legally which was the collusion defense. mr. downing said that, it looked like an appeal for a pardon. he was fact checked in real time protestors including one holding a sign up that said this is a sign. always an interesting protest sign. and so it was in that way bizarre scene but a smackdown to that claim when you are arguing for something that is not before the judge, it raises the question why. and that seemed like an appeal for a pardon and it reraises the question of collusion.

and remember, mueller is not done, so we'll see. >> and again that was a lie that manafort's attorney told, collusion was not settled in either of the cases. >> he claimed the judges ruled on collusion. they did not. at a narrow level it is true in addition to note that paul manafort was not indicted on a can company klu collusion conspiracy. >> all right. we'll be watching the beat. and coming up next, boeing trying to limit the fallout after one of its airliners was grounded across the world. fisher investments tailors portfolios to your goals and needs. some only call when they have something to sell. fisher calls regularly so you stay informed. and while some advisors are happy to earn commissions whether you do well or not. fisher investments fees are structured so we do better when you do better. maybe that's why most of our clients come from other money managers.

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♪ welcome back. willie has abandoned us, he had to run across the street for the "today" show. the markets, let's look at those. we're watching aerospace and boeing after the faa yesterday joined most of the rest of the world in ordering all boeing 737 max jets be grounded. let's bring in sara eisen. what impact is this having on boeing? >> certainly the boeing fallout continues, the stock under pressure again today. the reason the faa grounded the planes is because they got new data yesterday, new refined satellite data that showed a very similar track between the ethiopia airplane and the lion air crash that happened just a few months earlier.

for boeing, there are questions about whether this will impact the order book. there are about 370 plus of these jetliners that are in service so far. there are also questions about liabilities and whether boeing will have to compensate airlines like norwegian which has already demanded that for getting these planes out of service. and of course how long this will last. boeing has slid even days in a row. last more than $25 billion in market cap. and an update on brexit, there is another vote today. this time british politicians will be voting on whether to delay the deadline for brexit, whether they would crash out of the eu. march 29 is that day. it is just about two weeks away. yesterday politicians voighted that they didn't want to leave the eu wrought a deal, they don't want a no deal crash out which would face tariffs and economic consequences, but they don't have a deal on the table, so they will have to figure

something out. still as tod disaster. back to you. >> she explained it so brilliantly. i have no idea what is going on with brexit. i won't pretends that i do. that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage. >> and we begin this morning with some breaking news in politics. after months of speculation, beto o'rourke announces that he is officially running for president. >> this moment of peril produces perhaps the greatest moment of promise for this country and for everyone inside of it. >> the former congressman in iowa this morning to begin a three day swing as he joins an already packed field of democratic candidates. seven years and counting. minutes after paul manafort was sentenced to an additional 3 1/2 years in jail, new york prosecutors indict him on a total of 16 counts of fraud and conspiracy. charges that the president will be unable to pardon. and grounded, president trump and the