senior writer at politico and author of the play book, an msnbc contributor, jake sherman is with us. we have a lot to get to this morning. >> lot to get to. joe biden tells backers to plea for a 2020 run. he's drumming up support. >> it's coming. >> like it's a go. >> i think it's about 95% of the way there. let's wait until he announces but he's almost there. >> he's almost there. >> an interesting story. it will be interesting to see how much cash he has coming out of the gate and where the cash comes from. >> uh-huh. >> that's what's so interesting. willie, maybe he can get some money from mike trout. >> oh, man, 12 years, $430 million. >> seems a little out of hand. >> i thought the manny machado deal was outrageous. of course, the bryce harper deal, that's the dumbest deal, one of the dumber deals in the

history of baseball. for people who don't know baseball, my, talk about why that deal is a bargain for the angels. >> the trout deal, yeah. >> all long-term deals are bad unless you're talking about possibly the greatest ball player since babe ruth. >> no doubt that he's a generational player, generational talent. had he waited to go into free agency in another year and a half, the bidding would have started around $6 million. yankees would have been all over him. >> best player in baseball at every age he has been in. probably could have given him the mvp every year he has been in the league. $430, a little bit under, he's probably underpaid at that. if you look out --

>> for all the money he's going to bring in? >> seven, eight years from now he could have gotten $50, $60 million a year. >> that is outrageous. >> he is the best player in baseball. i know that number sounds crazy. >> it does. >> but he deserves it. >> kristin, what do you think? are you as bored as i am? >> do you want the owners to keep the money? he brings people in. he wins games. i guess you can give all the money to the owners. that's sort of trumpian of you. let the players. let the players -- i mean, they're the ones doing the work. mike, though, one thing it does tell me, he will now be the greatest player, highest paid player to never be seen. she says it all the time. >> what? >> what's he doing in anaheim? >> what's he talking about? >> huge issue for the major league players association. they have a very marketable face of baseball. it's not in anaheim, california. >> no. >> you look at his twitter

following compared to lebron james or someone like that. this guy is a spectacular athlete. very few people know him. he doesn't lend himself to that, joe. he doesn't exactly go out of his way to be known, have portraits done of him. >> i like that about him, though. >> i do, too. >> he doesn't seek it out. he just plays. >> wow! i thought it would be on the front page. >> do you want to talk gators basketball, baseball or anything like that? >> football is my number one sport. although our baseball team is typically extremely good. uh-oh. >> speaking of football -- >> amika? >> i thought the mike trout thing would be on the front pages of the daily news and new york post. i guess i was wrong. anyway, chrkristin, football. go. apparent apparently, by the way, there's some deal where he will walk away with no charges? >> not just him. >> he's not going to take it

either. >> it's gross. >> admit guilt. >> they're saying admit guilt. >> any how we don't want to talk about that. but speaking of totally gross, let's talk about -- >> now let's go to john mccain. watch this. >> can you believe this president? >> no, i can't. >> seriously. take a look. >> mr. president, why are you attacking senator john mccain seven months after his death? >> i'm very unhappy he didn't repeal and replace obamacare, as you know. he campaigned on repealing and replacing obamacare for years. he got to a vote and said thumbs down. and our country would have saved $1 trillion. we would have had great health care. so, he campaigned. he told us hours before that he was going to repeal and replace and then for some reason -- i think i understand the reason -- he ended up going thumbs up. frankly, had we even known that, we could have gotten a vote because we would have gotten somebody else. i think that's disgraceful. i never was a fan of john mccain

and i never will be. >> what is -- >> first of all, we have to talk about -- it's a lie. what they were talking about was a skinny repeal of obamacare. probably would not have ultimately passed, would not have had enough votes for that. but even if it had, you're talking about one vote stacked, kristin against a lifetime of public service. john mccain. we all know the story. donald trump knows the story. one suspects he hates john mccain so much because of the courage he showed under fire shall refusing to leave, when he could, refusing to leave the hanoi hilton because he wasn't going to leave ahead of the other pows that were being tortured there. >> donald trump has been no fan of john mccain long before john mccain went thumbs up on the senate floor. >> right. >> the very early days of president trump's campaign involved him saying i prefer my war heroes be the ones that don't get captured and some

thought will this be the end of donald trump's presidential campaign? it turned out no. it turned out there was quite a lot of tolerance for folks within the republican party saying maybe john mccain is not my guy. one, it shows how much a party can change so quickly. >> right. >> john mccain had been the republican nominee in 2008 and yet it was completely fine for the republican nominee to be insulting him vigorously on the trail. and i think also donald trump has always just been frustrated that john mccain really gets accolades. he's beloved. he's viewed as the statesman and this hero and i think he's viewed by the broader public in a way that donald trump dois no viewed by the broader public. >> again donald trump as a public figure, he's an abhorrent example, an abhorrent public servant. as kristin suggested he

completely brainwashed an entire party. you look at what happened at cpac. they give speakers who attack the war hero standing ovations and i will tell you, i know rank and file republicans who call john mccain a, quote, traitor, which is disgusting. he is the opposite of that. while donald trump was playing ping pong and golf, you know, at some ivy league school, john mccain was putting it all on the line for his family. and here we are in 2019 and people that support donald trump -- how many deferments for bone spurs? >> five, i think, all together. >> and he can't remember which foot had them. >> calling john mccain a traitor. that is a sickness in the republican party. >> it's one thing for donald

trump to say the thing s he's going to say. as kristin said he has been saying them since july 2015. if you go back it was a significant day in american history because we all thought you can't say that about john mccain. you can be critical of his policy. you can be critical of the way he votes but you can't criticize the commitment to his country and the question of whether he's a hero. donald trump did it and not only got away with it, but his support went up. we know that's baked in. to your point we saw mitt romney come out but where are all the republicans who could say easily i didn't always agree with john mccain? >> but this is wrong. >> i don't like how he voted on a, b, c, and d but to suggest that john mccain is a traitor to america is outrageous. why is that hard to say? >> incredible. >> why is it difficult to say what mitt romney said yesterday? >> what would john mccain think of the fact that mitt romney can speak out against the

president's attack but lindsey graham, who affixed himself to john mccain for a decade, can't do the same, mike? >> what does that say about lindsey graham? what does that say about his character? >> nothing good. >> and what does it say, as willie just pointed out, as you mentioned a million times, joe, what does it say about various members of the republican party in the senate and the house who know that the president of the united states, the sitting president, is a friendless, empty vessel. he is a lonely man. he is a man alone. he is what he is. he's a liar. he's cheated. he has all of these stains on his soul that are public, that people know. and they say nothing. they say nothing. >> well, we're actually going to get to this next fascinating dynamic that is related to what you're talking about, mike.

>> somebody is saying something. >> exactly and there's a reason for this bafr which hehavior si which has ratcheted up. i think the michael cohen news is making him crazy. george conway, husband to the president's counselor, kellyanne conway, found himself on the receiving end of a presidential twitter takedown if that's what you want to call it. the president called conway a total loser, adding the commentary to a tweet from his re-election campaign manager, brad parscale, who claimed the president turned down conway for a job at the justice department and trump doesn't even know him. >> pretty good. two lies in one sentence. >> those tweets follow several by conway, questioning the

president's mental fitness, explaining his constant criticisms of trump to "the washington post." contrary to the claims in parscale's tweet, he decided not to work at justice department after the president offered him a position, heading the civil division. he cites trump's attacks and the firing of former fbi director james comey in early 2017 for his decision and speaking about special counsel robert mueller, conway tells the post he remembers hearing on the radio about mueller's appointment. quote, i'm thinking to myself, this guy is going to be at war with the justice department for the next two years. i'm not doing this. conway tells the paper he took to twitter earlier this week to question the president's mental health. in part, to avoid a conflict with his wife, quote, it is so maddening to watch the

mendacity, the incompetence. it's just maddening to watch. the tweeting is just the way to get it out of the way, off my chest and move on with my life. that's basically it, frankly so i don't end up screaming at her about it. >> of course, jake, he had done work for donald trump at trump tow tower. these people lie thinking they can say whatever they want to say and the facts will never get in their way. the facts always get in their way. what a fascinating dynamic between george conway and the president of the united states. >> if you put these two things together, the mccain incident and the conway incident, to me, it tells a larger story. again, as you mentioned, george conway did legal work for the president and was in talks about

a job and on the mccain angle trump said yesterday i know there was a lot of heat around what he was saying, acting quite angry but he said swrm called and said he was going to be for the health care bill. we know that's not how this went down, because john mccain, hours before the speech in the 2:00 to 3:00 neighborhood that day gave a press conference on live television with lindsey graham saying there's very little chance i'm going to be for this bill. so, again, those -- it just doesn't comport with the reality as we know it. when you put those two incidents together, it shows that there's a detachment from the facts as we know it. maybe the president knows something that is plainly not obvious to anybody else but it would seem unlikely. >> you could take judicial notice of any courtroom in the state of florida, kristin. how is it that people in my former party are able to listen

to this guy, support this guy when they tell lies? again, who said let's go to the tape? go to the videotape. let's go to the videotape. it's right there. >> there's an interesting pattern i've picked up in a variety of focus groups i do among republicans to hear how they're thinking about things. people don't usually know who they've been invited to sit with. they don't yet know they're in a room full of other people who think like them. the moment they figure out that they're inside a safe space with other republicans, they'll be more willing to criticize the president. i wish he would stop the tweeting. i wish he would knock it off. before that moment they're very hesitant to come out and say anything bad about him. they're saying i don't want to be the one attacking him to people who already don't like him. related to that, then, is they don't like it when it seems that a republican is criticizing the president because it's outside the family. it makes it seems like they're

trying to boost their own profile versus the president and i think that's why you're seeing a lot of these republicans sit silent. they don't want to get that blowback. that's why somebody like mitt romney may not care. >> how could you get blowback for defending john mccain against being -- >> it's such a clan. it's the same thing. democrats, during bill clinton's term, even before monica, we would be in the house. they would be trashing him nonstop. we would be at the house dining room. they would all be trashing him, nonstop. and then the lights would turn on, cameras would turn on. this is a vast right-wing conspiracy. basically saying this is a witch hunt. ken starr is an evil man, a pervert, this, that. i saw friends i had great respect for saying privately if he's lying about this, if he's

committing perjury, i'm going to have to vote to impeach. he would break through every barrier they would set up and they would still support him. this is important what you've told us. maybe it explains some polling that i don't quite understand, which will say 85% -- 234% of republicans support donald trump, right? then you have the next question. would you like donald trump to have a primary opponent? that name is 50, 60% in some states. i've never been able to square those. if 85% of republicans are all in for this guy and say they support them, why do over half in other states want an opponent? >> you have pointed out that the republican party is not 234% in for donald trump. they just don't like the idea when it's donald trump versus anyone on the outside, they may take the side of donald trump. >> donald trump versus nancy pell o pelosi, donald trump versus the press.

donald trump versus kamala harris. >> exactly. and i think that's why when you see donald trump criticizing, say, george conway, the charge he levels that he's a loser. he's try iing to make a name fo himself by coming after me. he's trying to make a name for himself by being the guy that criticizes me. that's one of the worst charges you can level within sort of the republican electorate, that someone is trying to go against the president to make themselves look good. >> mike? >> kristen, do you ever pose the question to these conflicted republicans in these focus groups, what is more important to you, being an american citizen or being a republican? >> if i asked that, people would all say it's being an american citizen. if i had a dollar for the number of times in focus groups people of all parties say i don't vote the party. i vote the person. people don't think of themselves as partisan. but what i do think is that you have a lot -- this is something that came up last time i was on the show. they quite like some of the policies that the president has advanced. and as a result, anybody who seems like they're standing in his way or criticizing them,

they get a lot of pushback. that's why someone like a lindsey graham, i assume privately he does not like what the president is saying. does he want to get into a fight with trump or sit silent and get policies passed? >> they would get the same answer that the democrats would have given in the late '90s. democrats time and time again saying if he has committed perjury, i'm done with him. pat moynahan said i'm going to vote for impeachment. well, he didn't. none of them did. so again it's a tribal thing. but it is -- i'm just wondering on capitol hill -- i suspect you hear the same thing off the record from a lot of republicans that i heard from democrats during clinton's impeachment. >> yeah. 100%. and i think that universe of people who are willing to even say it off the record has gotten

smaller because the house republican conference, now the core of the republican party is the bulk of the house republican and, frankly, senate republicans at this point. the moderates and the nontrump folks, the people who were more skeptical of trump were swept out of office in what can only be described as a wave and those who are left are really the really tight trump allies, and that's kind of the reality of it. when your primary, political hurdle is a primary challenge from the right it's where you have to be. it's self preservation. it's the only option at this point. but i think that's fair to say, that people are -- get tired with him. it's gotten just baked into the cake at this point. and for all -- you could say a lot about people like paul ryan, but at times he did speak out against him. it wasn't enough for a lot of people but there were times that he did. there's nobody who will anymore really. >> go back to the national emergency vote last week. we looked down that list of

republicans who claim to be constitutional conservatives. we're willing to hand over the power of appropriation to the president of the united states. tom tillis in north carolina, people have said publicly i will primary you if you vote against the president of the united states. >> tom tillis wrote an op-ed. >> then flipped on it, ben sasse and others. >> harvard law school or something? >> i mean come on. come on. tom, come on. >> also roy blunt got disinvited from a republican dinner after voting to reject the president's emergency declaration in missouri. >> that's such a terrible, terrible -- what? are you kidding me? that's like a good day. >> roy, here is the deal. you're welcome at our house any time. >> and you don't have to go to that dinner. you're in good shape. that's a punishment? >> these questions are at the heart of the cynicism. >> all the chick-fil-a he wants.

i love it myself but we'll give you honey mustard. >> lots to get to, including why the president is acting so strange? barbecue actually. >> i was at the atlanta airport the other day, fresh out of the -- >> willie, why is the president acting so strange? >> you don't get that up north. >> no, you don't. one other thing about president trump denying his relationship with george conway and the way he feels about him, "new york times" reported recently that steve mnuchin's wedding, donald trump went up to george conway and said good move turning down that job at the justice department. you don't want to work for a weak leader like jeff sessions. >> oh, lord. >> that's a "new york times" report. >> why is he acting this way? >> obviously lies. >> he does. he lies all the time. telling the truth would be better. >> or -- >> this is a story you were referring to earlier. >> what a burger i haven't had a what a brger in for --

>> had one of those in austin, texas, a week ago. >> have you really? >> yeah. >> i love in and out burgers. i need a what a burger. >> you would like it. i know you. you would like it. mika, here is your story. ready? >> yes. >> made public the search warrants executed on the president's former personal attorney michael cohen. >> here we go. >> it reveals aides were investigating cohen for nine months before the raid, obtaining the search warrant in july 2017 for cohen's e-mail account. the document show the investigation initially was focused on his taxi business and bank fraud. it's unclear how that then morphed into the hush money payments to cover up the president's alleged affairs with two women. that part of the search warrant which led to co-n's conviction on campaign finance violations is redacted, suggesting it could remain part of an ongoing

investigation. the redacted section could be protecting the rights of uncharged third parties and one of those uncharged individuals could be the president, who has already been implicated in the campaign finance violations in which cohen has pleaded guilty. >> so, kristen, question related to that. did you eat what a burger in florida? >> i don't eat what a bufrger. i was more of a mcdonald's. >> crystal? >> it wasn't until i got to d.c. that i discovered feev g eed fi >> not the same thing as what a burger. anyway, jonathan hurley told us months ago -- i'll ask the real question. >> that was a real question. >> that was the realest question i've ever asked. john had yourley told us when the southern district of new york case first came out, he said then forget mueller. he said everybody is looking at mueller. this southern district of new york case is going to cause

donald trump the greatest threat, he said and it may be an existential threat not only to his presidency but his freedom. it sure is looking that way. isn't it? >> the difference he points out there is between the political and legal consequences. whatever report bob mueller produces that he provides to the attorney general will, in some way, shape or form, we don't yet know, perhaps become public. and at that point it will become a political document. house of representatives will decide what is contained in here or the other things we're learning through other investigations enough to warrant preceding with impeachment? impeachment is a political question, people taking a vote in congress. the southern district of new york, this is legal. it doesn't matter the case you make on twitter or what your job approval is, anything like that. those calculations are not factoring in. i think that's right, that impeachment as a political question, and as nancy pelosi as

has said, she has take ten off the table. the legal consequences are much more -- >> you think that's what's upsetting? >> i think it could be it, why he's acting so strange. boeing hurdles to get its fleet of 737 max airplanes back in the air. >> no, thank you. >> yeah. >> no, thank you. i will drive. >> it has been grounded following a pair of deadly crashes overseas. even if the faa signs off on a software fix by the end of the month, regulators in europe say they will keep the jets on the tarmac until they complete a separate review. >> so, do you -- did you guys read about the indonesian flight the day before it crashed? >> yes. >> the pilot that was in the jump seat, the plane started to go down and he told them, no, no, turn off the engine that's pushing down the nose. do this. do that. saved them that day. >> yes. >> next day it crashes. >> you get the sense from not

just the story that mika just referred us to but from reading the whole body of stories leading up to today's story is there's so much more in this story we don't know. the lax regulations, lax inspections by the faa. we don't know what the internal knowledge at boeing really was. there's going to be a whole lot more to this story. >> trump had a close relationship with boeing. they pushed those planes out. they didn't provide pilots add equate training and we saw with the indonesian flight the difference between a pilot who was trained properly and these other pilots that were not trained to -- this glitch in the 737. he knew immediately what to do. told them to do a couple of things and the flight stayed in the air. "the new york times" is painting a portrait of the lives cut short by a gunman's hate in new zealand. at least 50 people were killed in two mosques. the victims ranged in age from a

3-year-old separated from his parents to a 78-year-old father of nine, who walked with a cane and had been married for 50 years. the dallas morning news has staggering images of flooding across the midwest, disaster declaration, including nearly 70% of nebraska. rising waters are taking a heavy toll on agriculture there. for more on that, let's bring in bill karins. bill? >> our first billion dollar weather disaster this year when you factor in the agriculture lost. the planting season this year will be significantly delayed and waiting for the land to dry up and get the water out of there. 258 river gauges in flood stage, missouri river, mississippi and through portions of the midwest. it will be a very slow process all spring long. the next storm of concern is coming up the east coast. mostly a rain event. i say mostly because northern

new england will get snow out of this. moving into eastern north carolina during the day today. fast forward. 5:00 p.m. this evening, heavy rain in eastern north carolina arriving in norfolk. the rain will slide northwards up the coast. washington, d.c. you wake up to rain tomorrow morning. 5:00 p.m. thursday morning, heavy rain, new york city, philly, d.c., baltimore. windy conditions thursday afternoon. keep that in mind for your travel plans. friday the storm exits but brings snow to northern new england and enough snow you'll do shoveling out there in new york state, vermont and through areas of new hampshire. about that flooding, it's going to continue. there's still a lot of snow that has to melt in the northern plains. they're thinking it will be one to two months before that heads down the mississippi. the story's not over. >> bill, keep us posted. >> do you follow at devin nunes

cow? >> this is sad. >> he launched a lawsuit against twitter. i wonder who gave him that idea? who loves to sue for no reason? interesting. any how, his new -- this twitter account has gone viral. >> eat more chicken. >> i wish people who were attacking me would tell jokes that were that funny. cow puns. as good as it gets. like a chick-fil-a commercial. this could be big. mayor pete buttigieg will be here on set. i see a lot of talk about him, like i really like this guy, from credible folks on twitter who are just noticing him. we're going to go deep and see what we can get out of this candidate. >> i wish people would say that

about us. >> people don't like us. they have a gig at the cutting room in new york city april 17th. it's always so much fun. willie, will you dance with me? mike, will you dance with me? >> i'm a dancing fool. >> richard haas cuts a rug. >> kristen is going to come up and sing. >> 7:00. what's the date? what's the date? >> tim barnicle played backup for you. >> you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. 'll be righ. this is your invitation to exhilaration. this is the invitation to lexus sales event. lease the 2019 is 300 for $329 a month for 36 months. now thru march 31st. experience amazing at your lexus dealer.

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devin nunes' mom. this is a real quote. the other account he's going after is called devin nunes cow. this is hard-core slander that got nunes running to his lawyer. devin's boots are full of manure. he's utterly worthless. crazy part of all of it, reporter from the washington post dug this up and he wrote last congress devin nunes encouraged a bill called the frivolous lawsuit act. >> he's mad because people are making fun of him. >> that's such a frivolous lawsuit. there should be a law against that. >> exactly. >> house intelligence committee. he has filed a $250 million lawsuit against twitter and

parody accounts with the names devin nunes mom and devin nunes cow. also being sued for her tweets, spoke with chris hayes about what's in the lawsuit. >> this is a tweet that's literally just a headline from the fresno bee, his hometown paper and the headline is a yacht, cocaine prostitutes, winery partly owned by nunes and you tweet that with all caps, holy crap, which is what he is trying to sue you for. the first amendment and safe spaces and the snowflakes on campus who don't like any counterveiling ideas, what do you think about a sitting member of congress suing a person over a mean tweet? >> i'm a libertarian republican and i believe extremely strongly in the bill of rights and in our constitution, all of it. not just parts of it.

all of it. that includes the first amendment. the reason that the framers put that in place is specifically to protect the ability of citizens to criticize their government. >> first of all, this is such a frivolous lawsuit. you can go back to the late 1980s. remember when jerry falwell sued larry flint for a parody, saying that -- suggesting that falwell and his mother had sex in an outhouse? that was absolutely abhorrent. yet the supreme court of the united states protected that because it was a parody. and devin nunes has a lawyer that's actually allowing him to bring this case forward over a cow joke? seriously. >> a twitter account. >> this is such a frivolous lawsuit, it should be thrown out and he should be forced to pay attorneys' fees. >> we ought not to be surprised. he has had a frivolous career.

we were talking about it off air. he was chairman of the house intelligence committee, allowed it to run roughshod over common sense by then speaker of the house paul ryan. he has done incredible damage to the prestige of that committee as well as is an affront to common sense. >> all right. so the lawsuit has set off some social media stampede with the account for devin nunes cow, just 75 followers to more than 340,000 as of 6:30 this morning. don't follow devin nunes cow or go ahead and follow it and make up fiefb accounts and make it follow devin nunes cow. >> the streisand effect, where people are aware of. it's a long story but there was a photograph of her house in malibu and she demanded that the photograph be taken down and she put up this big fight and a lawsuit. nobody knew where her house was until she filed the lawsuit. >> exactly.

>> not many people knew about nunes cow. now everybody knows. you won't get it thrown out. you won't get your $250 million. and it should be said -- not to tie everything back to the president but he believes the fcc should look into snl and, quote, do something about it. >> this is a counterproductive lawsuit. how many of us would have heard about devin nunes' cow had he not filed? if it is deemed frivolous, it's the sort of thing that will still chill some speech that if you are someone going out there, thinking about criticizing someone, even if the lawsuit is going to get dismissed, at least it's going to be a somewhat expensive legal headache to get it to go away and do you want the hassle? it's the sort of thing where i don't think the intent is to get $250 million. it's to scare people away. >> is he spending his own money?

>> i wonder who is funding this. i know he's not paying his lawyer by the -- >> by 9:00 a.m., let's try to get to 500,000 followers, devin nunes cow. >> so what are you going to be doing on the hill today, jake? what are you looking for? >> on top of the playbook today, you allude d to it, joe biden i increasingly showing signs he's going to get in. mark putnam was at joe biden's childhood home in scranton, scouting the location. so, that is a pretty firm sign that putnam has done work for barack obama, the draft biden movement, is one of the more creative ad minds in the party. it's very clear that he might be involved in what might become the biden presidential campaign. what we keep hearing is a couple weeks away but we've been hearing that for many months now. in my view, put this together with the wall street journal story that has biden calling all of his political allies, asking

for money and saying he's likely to get in. those two data points show that biden is getting very close to joining this increasingly large field. although, a lot of people that i talk to in d.c. on capitol hill say that he needs to do it soon. this field is taking shape. the issues are taking shape and he's not part of it. >> jake sherman, thank you very much. his new book co-written with his political colleague is entitled the hill to die on. the battle for congress and the future of trump's america. it's out in two weeks. >> by the way, new cnn poll came out yesterday that biden at 28, sanders at 20 and a surprise third place finish, which we'll tell you about next block. >> coming up, the latest developments on 2020, including a notable jump for one democrat in that new poll. in that new poll ♪

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>> no you don't. >> i have to talk about it. >> yes. >> seriously. >> no, you're out of order. this whole -- you're all out of order. by the way, dog day afternoon. did fredo -- he was pacino's sidekick. >> yes, he was. >> i saw them. >> the godfather.

>> you like those. >> really liked them. a lot. >> i warned her. okay, let's watch three. honey, we can't do that. >> okay. come on. >> she kept pushing me. >> we're on. >> kept pushing me. we can't. i said i promise you don't want this to happen. i will put this on but in ten minutes it will look like an abc made for tv movie. and sure enough we did. >> you watched it? >> after ten minutes she said turn it off. i got a better idea for you. let's watch "apocalypse now." let's talk about martin sheen quickly. "apocalypse now." >> incredible. >> i get it now. >> i've seen it 100 times but i have not -- martin sheen. >> very young harrison ford. >> yes. >> and, of course, a guy -- can i say who you have a krsh crush? >> yes. >> she would not have marry immediate if robert duval ever

crossed her path. >> smells like victory. >> that's horrible. horrible. >> can i tell the kids at home? is this all right? >> no. you've got to stop soon. >> watch "tender mercies," robert duval. >> moving on. a new poll says that republicans are more energized about turning out to vote in 2020. cnn/ssrs poll shows 57% of republicans are extremely enthusiastic about voting in next year's presidential election while only 46% of democrats and 26% of independents are. this, as 56% of democrats say they have a strong chance of beating president trump is more important to them in a nominee than sharing their position on issues, which is just 35% preferring that. the poll shows joe biden leading with 28%. bernie sanders at 20%. kamala harris at 12%, jumping eight points from early december.

meanwhile, beto o'rourke gets 11% in this poll. >> by the way, he is going to apologize for that. >> for his rise in the polls? >> for many ahead of any women or people of color. >> stop. be nice. >> no. beto will apologize. he will talk about this is another example of white privilege and i apologize for that. and also i accidentally cast my shadow on a cat yesterday afternoon. >> this poll, which began on the day he entered the race, getting a two-point bump from december. 51% of democrats feel biden -- >> we've now gone into the totally meaningless part. >> okay. >> can we go back to the screen of the full poll there? willie, what do you see there? what jumps out at you? >> i see -- >> biden hasn't jumped in. >> the guy at the top of the race has not jumped in yet. i'm interested to see what happens when he actually does jump in and we dig into him as a

candidate. kamala harris, that group of senators, cory booker, elizabeth warren, amy klobuchar as well. looks like she's separating a little bit. all of this with the caveat we're 18 months away from the election, of course. i think beto o'rourke, if you looked at twitter, if you looked at the resistance and progressives, they didn't like what he did in his first week. i think let's leave it to the public. >> yep. >> he will get a lot more serious questions about policy which he hasn't really answered yet and we'll see where he stands. >> all right. >> i see a potential huge and debilitating split in the democratic party in that poll between the progressives on the left and the moderates choosing to beat trump as their number one priority with joe biden. but the rest of that field is basically on the left. >> i'll disagree with you a little bit. i think what you see -- i think this disagreement between the progressives and the moderates over policy will be secondary to who can beat trump. i actually think that for many

of those progressives, they'll be willing to say you don't have to be there on medicare for all. you don't have to be there on green new deal. will you beat donald trump? that is the number one policy priority of a lot of progressives. the divide between the moderates and progressives will be narrowed if someone can say i can take donald trump. >> do you know what's interesting, joe, elizabeth warren has, by far, the most specific -- >> message. >> -- and policy goals. >> and jumped in first. >> i would tell a candidate to do. >> do you know what i see? bernie sanders at number two. and holding strong. everyone discounts him in the media. there's this sort of chuckle that comes with his name and yet there he is. there he stands. here he is again. >> willie, i see one person on that list that i can tell you today would beat donald trump. who is it? who would you think it is? >> i see two, possibly three.

>> who do you think it is? >> kamala harris. >> john kerry. >> john kerry. >> for all the reasons i told you i would be worried. he has done it in '88, 2008. he doesn't like raising money. think about all of those things. go back to john kerry's one shot in 2004, running against a sitting president, right after 9/11, right after the beginning of, at that time, a popular war. john kerry raised tons of money. he knows how to do it. joe biden doesn't. john kerry likes raise iing mon. joe biden doesn't like to do it. john kerry came within 80,000 votes in ohio of being the next president of the united states. again, a couple of years after 9/11 in the middle of a war, john kerry, if he ran, would win. that's all i'm going to say. that's all i'm going to say. >> pretty interesting that you say that. >> he would be the 46th president of the united states if he announced today he was running. and nobody could stop him. >> i have a very, very

sophisticated observer of american politics, who you both know very well. i was out with him last week. we were walking around and he was looking at the field and he said to me, do you know who has the best chance of doing this and he's not in it. i said no, who? he said john kerry. >> okay. there you go. >> i thought i was alone. >> phil grifton told me to organized the show. >> he's not up yet. >> we're going to break now and after the break we'll have tom bevin of real clear politics. >> bob costa has a book written about him. it's crazy. there's pete. us as people.

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wow, look at the beautiful sunrise in washington, d.c. 56 past the hour. joining us now, publisher of real clear politics, tom bechlt vin, columnist and political

analyst jeff greenford joins the table as well. >> let's start with tom. when we go to jeff he'll be like, blah, blah. >> what? >> 40 years ahead of the election. what are we talking about? we know he's going to say that. >> no, he's not. >> tom, let's talk about a number that jumped out on the cnn poll yesterday to me, and that was engagement by both parties, pretty good predictor usually. look how excited democrats were about the 2008 election even the year before. you can say the same thing about republicans 2016. this poll shows that republicans are actually more engaged and enthusiastic about the 2020 presidential election than democrats. anything that we should take away from that? >> no. i think we'll see those numbers fluctuate throughout the year. it's an encouraging sign for donald trump that republicans are at least at the moment fired up. but i suspect, look, in the end democrats will be fired up. i agree with what kristen said earlier. i think the democratic base,

they will get behind whoever the nominee is, regardless of any idiosyncrasies on policies and will be fired up to beat donald trump in 2020. if republicans are that fired up is the question, and independents is the other question in particular in the midwestern states that will decide this election, where do they fall and what are their concerns? right now it's the economy. we'll see if that holds up or not. >> let put up the poll again. jeff, obviously, i think it's going to change a great deal. we always talk about in 2007 when the show first started we spent the summer looking at polls that talked about how rudy giuliani was going to be facing off against hillary clinton. the one real surprise in this poll for me, though, is elizabeth warren, who i think has done everything you would tell a candidate, at least i would tell a candidate to do. get a message. go out there, drive home. >> connect with people. >> drive it home. connect with people. >> love it. >> she has done that, with a

great deal of enthusiasm and yet she does not seem to be raising the money or seeing the early rise that some of the other candidates are getting. any thoughts on why that might be? >> i know this is going to come as a shock to all of us here but the great majority of folks out there are not yet focused on the fact that 18 months from now there will be an election. >> so you got that out of the way. >> i disagree with that. >> there's a point about this. she has time. >> sure, she has time. >> that's why these numbers don't resonate with me much. i think you're right about her. i think she's putting out a much more specific, a much more detailed notion of how you turn this vague, new green deal into some policies. we'll have a first debate, when, in may? >> june. >> okay. when all 215 candidates get up.

they'll each have six seconds. she has the chance to say look, if you're serious about changing the country, you're going to come with me. and that's why i think the numbers right now -- yeah, you're right. i say this because i think it's true. right now beto o'rourke is getting more attention for having almost won a senate race than elizabeth warren has for her years in the senate. what are you -- go ahead. i'm sorry. >> i think 18 months out usually, you're right. i do think people are thinking about it. two things. anecdotally, i bet elizabeth warren has a different story. i think all of her town halls and all of her events are packed to the gils. i'll check but that's what i was hearing from her campaign. and, secondly, people care about beating trump. i think they watch the news and the democratic field deeply concerned about who can do it. and i don't think it's the same

18 months out attitude. >> i'm in the minority. >> it makes you sound much smarter. >> no, you're not in the minority. >> the question for the democratic party, they do have to start figuring out now is just how serious are they going to be about offering an alternative? i think they're still wounded by the fact that in 2016 every democrat i knew thought they were going to win. there's no contest here. the question was going to be how badly. i assume at this point they've learned their lesson. i assume at this point the democratic party is thinking or people who care about this say look, that's job one. one more quick thing on the table? >> uh-huh. >> i don't know to what extent bernie sanders' supporters are going to be content if in 2020 with the new rules empowering super delegates on a second

ballot, i don't know whether or not this thing becomes a train wreck, whether or not you're going to have a postconvention -- talk about it going at it in advance, a post-convention, okay, let's go out and beat trump. i think the bitterness that could result from a knockdown, dragout fight, given sanders supporters -- i know it's early but that's a blinking red light for me if you're a democrat worried about beating trump. >> i watched elizabeth warren's town hall on cnn. that is a woman who knows exactly what she believes. she has been living it her entire life, her entire career. you don't have to agree with everything she's done but it's clear what she stands for. even though it's early, i succeed that poi concede that point, jeff, in a neighboring poll in massachusetts she was way behind bernie and joe biden. that's where she's known, people

know who she is and what she stands for. >> this is where mika is completely right. people are tuned in. democratic voters are figuring out who is the best to beat trump and elizabeth warren has gone toe to toe with trump over the dna test, pocahontas and it did not work out for her. they think she would be good as a commander in chief but don't know if she can beat trump. >> long way to go, tom, 18 months away but i would separate some of these numbers. elizabeth warren in new hampshire, they know elizabeth warren in new hampshire. so if she's not running away with it or if she's not neck and neck with bernie at the top, that raises some questions. secondly, the beto number, i don't know that it means anything. like right now, he's at 11% after getting just the craziest press accolades for a launch that we've seen. but this is a guy that may

wander into a cornfield in iowa and start doing yoga. >> nothing wrong with yoga. >> nothing wrong with yoga at all. i'm just saying some of these things are premature. i want to ask you about joe biden, though. biden doesn't have a history of performing well in presidential races. in fact, the first one ended pretty badly. what are you seeing in the polls? what do you think about biden's launch? >> he's about 29.5% in our real clear politics average. it's hard to see joe biden hanging on to 30% of the electorate in a 15-person race throughout the course of this campaign. i suspect he will be at his high water mark the day he announces and it will be somewhat downhill from there. to your original point, joe, the last couple of polls we've seen the field separate into the top

five, it's biden, bernie, kamala harris, beto o'rourke, and elizabeth warren and sort of everybody else. and that's going to fluctuate over time. one of the folks -- you'll have him on your show shortly, mayor pete, who is making waves on the ground. he reminds me a little bit of mike huckabee who had good, early performances. it wasn't until he hit that debate stage that really catapulted him into the next level. the debate is in june. there's no reason to think had an mayor pete won't perform well and could really enhance his prospects based on that. there's going to be a lot that will happen between now and then. i wouldn't count anybody in or count anybody out. >> let me ask you about biden. he has trouble raising money. he doesn't like raising money. he has never raised money on the web. how does he explain that he's not going to get barack obama's endorsement? >> right. which is why i think you're going to know a lot more with this first debate. let me tell you what i was just

thinking of as you were talking. i'm going way back, that's what i do. it's 1980. john anderson on the strength of one line in one tee bait, how are you going to cut tacks and the deficit? you do it with mirrors. suddenly he became the truth teller and for a time was running even with carter and reagan in the polls. i really think given the enormous size of this field and the fact that so many people are relatively unknown, you could be looking at that june debate and there could be this one moment where one of these people, maybe it's mayor pete, maybe it's joe biden, if he's in by then. i'm assuming he will be. hit something and resonate. and in the chaos of all this noise and coverage of numbers, one moment where a guy steps out, or a woman steps out and hits a resonate note, that could reshape the entire race. >> what do you think of john kerry, the possibility of john kerry running? >> you know, sure.

mike grevel just said he may come into this race, the alaskan senator. i understand your theory. i'm hard pressed to figure out what he brings to the race that the 16 others don't. what's the unique selling proposition, as madison avenue says? >> he has been there. he knows how to win. he knows how to run a presidential race. he knows how to win certainly a democratic primary, wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania. and he knows how to raise money. i don't know. we may not get to test that proposition if joe biden jumps in the race. >> he's young by comparison, right? >> he certainly is sharper than a lot of people in the field. >> so if you're touting john kerry, why aren't you touting al gore who actually won the popular vote? >> there you go. >> i'm just asking.

>> i think john kerry has stayed far more engaged. he is constantly going across the globe. i just think he would be a tougher challenge for donald trump on the debate stage. >> you know, the fact that that's, i guess, plausible is why i retreat back to the thing you were making fun of with me. >> i wasn't making fun of you. >> it's okay. >> you were making fun of us. >> that's fine. you were giving my line before i got on the show. you save me a lot of energy. it's like if dempsey had beaten joe louis at this point. >> we're ten months away. >> right. >> a lifetime in politics. >> let's bring in nbc news capitol hill correspondent and host of kasie d.c., kasie hunt. lara trump was asked about the president's low approval rating

among women. >> what is the gop and the trump campaign specifically going to do to reach out and get that bigger female vote? >> well, you know, i always say that the president, i don't think, needs to do much more than what he has done. he doesn't need to go out and appeal to people. you look at fact that this country is safer under donald trump, that people are more prosperous, including women. >> wall street journal/nbc news poll, approval rating for women of president trump's career performance is at 38%, 61% disapprove. men he has still got, 54% approve. >> i always said that i don't think the polls fully reflect the sentiment in this country. a lot of women are nervous to say they're a trump supporter of they might not like all of his tweets or agree with every single thing that he does but at the end of the day i think they know he'll keep this country safe and prosperous. >> at least 38% of them do.

>> kasie, what's going on there? >> the president can't get re-elected with those numbers with women. it's not possible. we saw what happened in 2018. women energized to run against him and, you know, women got out to vote and voted against him pretty overwhelmingly. and i think that says a lot. i don't think you heard a lot of legitimate strategy there from lara trump in terms of how to shift the winds here. i also -- i'm just not convinced that -- mika, i'm interested to know what you think about this. do you really think that donald trump can change how women feel about him? i mean, there is the economy x factor, right? if it continues to do well, i think that will solidify his numbers kind of across the board, but i feel like most women i talk to certainly in both parties, and voters out on the trail, they have a pretty

strong opinion of him. and i don't really see a lot of room for shifting on it. >> no. i've -- a lot of my friends who are republicans have left the party because of trump, who are woman. i watched it in real time. it's unbelievable. >> i will say when we have people, friends that get together, we have found a lot more women, lifelong republicans -- >> outspoken, too. >> -- are very outspoken about it. people who say i identify myself as a mom, a wife, a christian and a republican, in that order. number four is gone now. and so there is a real problem with women. and, of course, we saw that in 2018. but in 2020, kristen, of course, the voting, populous expands a great deal and it's not as white. it's not as old and it's not as conservative. is it? >> right. that's why to lara trump's

point, she doesn't necessarily trust the polls and maybe some women aren't confessing that they like trump. look, there's reason to question polls for sure. >> oh, yeah. >> i'm a pollster. i would never tell someone believe every poll you see blindly. but we have another data point and that's the 2018 midterms. there, it's not just the poll. it's results. women in droves said no, we want a different direction. and the president has got to turn that around if he wants to be able to put back together the coalition he did last time. he will not be running against hillary clinton. he will not have the advantage of voters who say anybody but her. i think this administration talks a lot about the economic numbers that women have done quite well under what they say is the trump recovery. they speak a lot about how they believe women ought to be voting for trump because of the economy. the economy hasn't been enough. women have been doing pretty well under the trump economy but it's not being reflected in those numbers. he needs to do something about

tone and the other pieces about what he's doing with the presidency. you can't just talk about the economic numbers and think you're suddenly going to boost that standing. >> it certainly wasn't enough for the president in 2018. and, tom, jump in, if you will, on the gender gap. there's always been a gender gap for republicans. this one, though, is so pronounced, that if donald trump was in the low 30s, say the mid 30s with women, what's his pathway to victory in 2020? >> the gender gap was over 20 points. women do not vote as a monolith. you start slicing and dicing the electorate and married white women in places like ohio, pennsylvania, and michigan that's where trump has to make his case. right now, trump's only case -- he's saying it to women, to minorities, is that it's the economy and the economy is better under me and my

presidency. and, you know, unemployment is low for his ppanics, african-americans and women and, therefore, you should vote for me. that did not carry the day in 2018. the economy will not be as good in 2020 as it was in 2018. the only difference between the two, his name will be on the ballot versus 2018. that's not insignificant but not enough to get him over the finish line. >> those numbers are not good. i haven't seen the cross tabs on race but the president got pretty well wiped out by women in 2016, he lost 12 points by women but won white women. it will be interesting to see how they view him right now. >> when you look at these national numbers if we learned anything from 2016, it's why don't you look at what's happening in some of these key states? he is under water in the key electoral states as he is national nationally, it's not entirely impossible that within 2020 he will lose by 5 million votes, it will all come from california and new york and we won't know much. one thing i will say about this, it is true that given the

econo economy, the president's numbers, given what we thought we knew about how this works is pretty darn low. if we're hearing the notion that the tax cuts were a sugar rush, that we won't have 3% growth next year, that his most loyal supporters in the farm belt are still going to be clobbered by these tariffs, then you're talking about a situation where it's really hard to see how he, even with the electoral college, how he can pull this off. i do remember again in philadelphia, every democrat i talked to said look at the women. 55% of the electorate, there's no way that trump can win. all these assertions. and this is your turf. which is why i don't mind when joe gently chastises me for saying -- we haven't even gone to the iowa caucuses yet. >> it's a three-hour show. we've got time. >> gently chastising you.

tom, you tweeted gdp growth likely to slow sharply through 2020 and most economists say that. he may even be looking at numbers that are worse than when he ran in 2016 and then have to face the reagan misery index. i want to ask you about a couple of states. florida was the bellwether. it looks like wisconsin is the bellwether right now. how is trumpism faring in wisconsin? >> we just had a piece by phil wegman on wisconsin. he interviewed scott walker, ron johnson, all the big republican politicos and they are worried, but they're putting up sort of a strong face. they know they're in for a huge battle in 2020, especially given what happened there in 2018. and they know wisconsin is ground zero. and so they're doing their best to prepare, knowing that wisconsin is going to be pivotal in the 2020 race. so, wisconsin is -- right now

trump not where he was, obviously, in 2016, but it's still very much up for grabs. you mentioned florida, joe. the best thing that trump has going for him in florida is ron desantis right now. >> can you believe it? first of all who at this table thought -- >> no, not me. >> -- that ron desantis, we would be talking about what a great job ron desantis was doing in florida and talking about the way we are about virginia. tom, ron desantis, democrats, republicans, environmentalists, they're all talking about how this guy is doing a good job. he made a clown of himself in those 30-second ads. it ends up he was just playing for the cheap seat there in donald trump. this guy may actually know how to govern. >> it certainly looks that way. he has the highest approval of any governor of florida in the

past 15 years. >> it's crazy. >> what in the world. >> he's getting stuff done and people are responding to it for sure. >> that's fantastic. thank god. so i want to ask about another state that's always fascinated me. people say you know, taxes are going low. yeah, like in 30 years, yeah, in 20 years. is texas going blue? what's with 40% approval rating in texas? i will never believe texas is going blue until i see it up on the map. i just don't believe it. but donald trump has -- >> weirder things have happened. >> -- such low approval ratings in texas for a republican. what's going on there? >> that's a good question. i mean, look, i agree with you. i don't think texas is going blue any time soon, even with trump. the question for trump really is how is he going to do among hispanics. he did better among his ppanics

than romney did in 2016 and his approval rating among hispanics is not awful. it's certainly not as bad as it is with african-americans. but, again, he is definitely -- there are more democrats in texas than there have been in the past. and he's under water with independents in texas and other places around the country. that's probably what's driving his numbers down. that doesn't necessarily mean texas is going blue in 2020. >> joe? >> i quickly remember in 2002, this dream ticket, it's like the big bands are coming back. we hear this every cycle. i'm with you. i will believe this when i see it. >> kasie? >> joe, yeah. my sense -- i covered a couple of different house races in 2018 in texas that sent a couple of different messages but one of those people was dan crenshaw, a republican. he is a conservative republican, but he had a lot of trouble talking about donald trump when i pressed him on those questions. why? he was in a suburban district.

sometimes we forget that texas is full of suburbs, and the lesson in 2018 is that the suburbs were turning against trump. the other piece of this, i think, on the democratic side as well is that texans have a different experience with immigrant communities than some of the other states that don't deal with it every day. you know, if you listen to how texas politicians have historically talked about dealing with these issues of immigration, they've often been very open. they've talked about integrating their schools. they have a lot of commerce across the border. they're much more comfortable with it sometimes than people whose communities aren't as diverse. you're seeing that play into this as well. >> you were talking about a blinking red light for democrats. now that we've talked about this and kasie brings up the dallas suburbs, blinking red light for me for republicans in texas was a good friend of mine, pete sessions, getting defeated. pete ran the nrcc. that guy was in -- pretrump,

that was as safe a republican seat you could have and he got swept out. the suburbs, man. by the way, look at iowa. des moines. >> oklahoma city. red state suburbs believed like blue state suburbs. >> crazier things happened. >> how is donald trump going to win iowa with all those republicans around des moines abandoning him? >> tom bevan, kasie hunt, kristen anderson, joe greenfield. >> mayor pete buttigieg is standing by. is standing by. ♪ - [woman] with shark's duo clean, i don't just clean, i deep clean carpets and floors, so i got this. yep, this too, and this, please. even long hair and pet hair are no problem,

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a business owner always goes beyond what people expect. that's why we built the nation's largest gig-speed network along with complete reliability. then went beyond. beyond clumsy dials-in's and pins. to one-touch conference calls. beyond traditional tv. to tv on any device. beyond low-res surveillance video. to crystal clear hd video monitoring from anywhere. gig-fueled apps that exceed expectations. comcast business. beyond fast. all right. welcome back to "morning joe." 26 past the hour. joining us now, democratic mayor of south bend, indiana, pete

buttigieg, author of the book titled "shortest way home." mayor pete on saturday announced that he has met the donor threshold required to compete in the first democratic presidential debate. >> very exciting, mayor pete. >> wow! >> to show you how excited we are, we've all learned to speak norwegian. so tell me this story. seriously, this is like out of sherlock, have you ever seen sherlock? >> can't say i have. >> he's a little busy, joe. >> sherlock and his brother learn languages. >> yeah. >> you read a book, you like it and okay i'm going to learn. >> a friend of mine gave me this book, really good book. the kind of book when you're in your mid 20s, it's the book you need, i thought i would like to read more of this guy's stuff. >> after you read the book did

you have an existential crisis and drive across america? >> no comment. no, it's the kind of book be for when you're in that kind of mood. >> wait, that guy was in his mid 40s. you were in your mid 20s. go ahead. >> mid 30s. >> so i wanted to read the authors works. that was the only one of his that had been translated and i had been studying arabic in college and after that. it turns out norwegian for an english speaker is a lot easier to learn than arabic. >> that's what willie was telling us. >> time and again. a little rusty but fluent at one time. >> i picked up a book. when i was living in chicago i was going to a church that was set up by immigrants and they would do the services in norwegian. i picked up an ear for it. we're backstage at south by southwest about a week and a

half ago. and fascinating person introduces me to this norwegian journalist who is there. you don't get a lot of chances to use norwegian. as a general rule they speak english better than we do. i thought this is great. little rusty but i'll try out my norwegian on her. >> it worked? >> yeah, it was great. yeah. >> you talked about going to a norwegian church. your cnn town hall meeting, great, just a great townhall meeting. you talked a little bit about your faith. tell us about your faith. >> i'm episcopalian. our church is in south bend. it takes seriously its role as an urban faith community, views itself as being the life of the city. that's what i was looking for when i was looking for a church home. i think of this national political process going on, i think it's important for candidates at least to have the

option to talk about our faith. don't get me wrong. i believe strongly in the separation of church and state. i think anybody in this process needs to demonstrate how they will represent people of any faith, people of no faith, but i also think the time has come to reclaim faith as a theme. you know, the idea that the only way a religious person could enter politics is through the prism of the religious right, i don't think that makes sense. >> so barack obama said he accepted jesus christ as his personal savior. do you? >> yes but there's so much more to it than these kind of questions that get put up as litmus test questions about faith. what does it mean in your life to try to live in what i was taught in catholic school, even though i'm not catholic, the idea of the imitation of christ, right ♪ idea that when god comes among us, you see service. you see humbling. you see foot washing. feet are gross. >> right. >> when god comes among us, you see this ultimate expression.

>> leadership. the first shall be last and the last shall be first. >> and what could be more different than what we're seeing in washington right now often with some people who view themselves as religious on the right, cheering it on. >> did you face, in your church or in your faith experience any discrimination while you were growing up in church? >> the church we belong to has been incredibly welcoming. we had our wedding there. i didn't experience that. certainly the opposite at st. james. going to catholic school, you experience those tensions. a lot of people are wondering where they fit. either because of who they are, if you're in the lgbtq community like i am. it lets people know they're not alone when they look at faith that teaches us to look out for

others, humble ourselves, take care of the immigrant and the sex worker. literally, jesus spends his time with sex workers, leppers. and we have this totally warped idea of what christianity ought to be like that's in the public sphere which is mostly about exclusion, which is the last thing that i imbibe when i take in scripture in church sl let me ask you questions. i asked john hickenlooper 12 times. hopefully i can ask you one time. do you consider yourself a catalyst? >> yeah. >> boom, that was ease. >> i so easy. >> what reforms -- what would be the top reform if you're the president of the united states, what reform do you think is needed most badly for american capitalism, which has done an extraordinary job through the years, pulling people out of poverty, as has capitalism worldwide but it needs to be reformed.

what's the top reform? >> the biggest problem with capitalism is the way that it has become entwined with power. the next president needs to immediately get to work on tuning up and improving our democracy, getting money out of politics, for example. that may not sound like a problem with capitalism. you might be expecting to hear about the s. encht c. and anti-trust. i have ideas on that, too, but most important to stop capitalism from -- not even capitalism but stop business in the ever-expanding growth of the biggest businesses from basically taking over our government. it's regulatory capture that is the biggest problem. if you want to know what it's like witho like, capitalism without democracy, look at russia. so we can move past whether

citizens united was decided correctly and move on to how we make sure that a constitution is set up so it doesn't allow that in the first place and it's one of the reasons we need to establish a more consistent rule of law. capitalism doesn't even work for the business community properly when you don't have the rule of law as well. >> mr. mayor, you have impressed a lot of people over the last month or so with your resume first, harvard, oxford, volunteering for service in afghanistan and the way you're answering questions today. but what i also hear from a lot of people is i like the guy. he's incredibly impressive when i see him on tv. i saw him in that town hall but man the mayor of a town for 100,000 people known for its football team, i'm not sure that he's ready to command the largest army on the face of the earth. how do you answer that question? >> i'm one of the few people in this conversation who actually has experience in the military. >> not just the military question but to be the leader of the free world more broadly, jumping from the mayor of the south bend of indiana.

>> let's be honest, it's a tremendous leap for anybody, that's something audacious to the point of being obscene. yet what we have is 45 people, mortals, who have gone into that office, some better than others with the experience they had and the aptitude they had to be able to lead this nation. you know, i think what's most important right now is the kind of person who is walking in there. are they the kind of person who understands how to take advice? are they the kind of person who understands when you need to move from the listening phase, where you acknowledge you might be wrong, to the phase where you made a decision and need to implement that? the mayor of any size needs to do this. it's more conventional. people have an easier time swallowing the idea of someone who has marinaded in washington, you can be a very senior u.s. senator and in your life never managed more than 100 people. this is an executive position that requires executive

experience. >> isn't one of the lessons of donald trump is that there is value in having relationships and knowing how the senate works and knowing the speaker of the house and the majority leader and people you can make deals with? >> you have to understand how to manage congress just like i have to manage the legislative body that passes my budgets back home. we want something completely different. we want washington to start looking like our best run cities and towns, not the other way around. i'm very worried that we've taken as a given because we've continued to look to people who are, in many ways, creatures of that order that has established itself in washington. we accept things that are completely unacceptable. we accept the fact that in our so-called democracy the person who gets the most votes doesn't necessarily get to be president. we accept the fact that many of our fellow citizens in d.c. don't have the same political representation as the rest of us. we accept the fact that the policies that the vast majority of people want to see happen,

universal background checks, 80% of republicans believe it's the right thing to do and congress can't make it happen. there's clearly something wrong not only with the outcomes in congress but the set of assumptions around them. part of how this president got to where he is is that the american people have had enough. i don't like the way that was expressed in the terms of this president getting elected but the idea that we can return to the norms and re-establish the way things were done before this president comes along, in the midwest where i come from voted to burn the house down because they believe the entire system has failed them. turning back to try to do more of the same makes us worse off in terms of the causes of which this presidency has -- >> more specific follow-ups but i know we have to take a break. >> we're going to let this conversation breathe and bring mayor pete back. much more with mayor pete buttigieg after a quick break. everyone's got to listen to mom.

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come on. is that all you've got? >> daddy? >> you are such a big boy. i'm so proud of you. >> that is 9-year-old lucas and his dad, staff sergeant rob who came home a few days earlier than his son expected. look at that. staff sergeant was serving in jordan and southern syria. that is one of the best ones i've ever seen. that is so sweet. >> let's talk about the military

and what's been asked of them. >> afghan veterans. >> since 2002. people being pulled away from their families three, four, five, six, seven times. a sort of rotation that would have been unthinkable before september 11th. what do we do to take better care of our men and women in uniform? do you think -- do you agree with donald trump that we need to start bringing troops home from syria and from afghanistan and from across the world? >> a few things. first of all, one remarkable thing we saw a few days ago was vote vets, progressive veteran organization and a conservative veterans organization coming together to say we've got to put an end to the forever wars and congress needs to reassert its war powers. the reality is that this isn't just a story of presidents exerting more executive

authority but congress not wanting to get mixed up in that. right now we have troops around the world. east africa, based on an authorization for use of military force that goes back to dealing with 9/11. you could be out old enough to enlist today and not have been even alive for 9/11. >> the afghanistan war is ending. it's not even should it end, will it end? will it end well or will it end badly? the american left, the american right, the taliban for that matter and the afghan government is that the u.s. presence needs to end. how are we going to do it is the question. the thing that makes me nervous about qatar right now is that the afghan government is being left to decide. the last thing we want to have happen is some kind of outcome. >> what's your timeframe for removing all american troops from afghanistan? >> this depends on the dynamics

that are being negotiated and what's on the ground. let's say it's got to be a hell of a lot quicker than it is now. i thought i was among the last troops in afghanistan when i left. that was five years ago. >> what about syria? >> some kind of intelligence or operations capability for the simple purpose of making sure that american liefbs are not at risk. by the way, this idea that the threat is gone, that isis is completely defeated is not something that security exper s experts -- not everything is fine over there. >> having troops over there to check the russians, iranians, syrians, would we have that in your administration? >> some kind of very limited counterterrorism presence that involves special ops i can get on board with. the idea that we'll have an open-ended commitment, mobilize

ground troops out there or the idea that we don't have a policy -- remember, the president said we're getting out completely now, then suddenly no, we're not. we literally don't have a policy. >> right. >> the next president is going to have to establish a bar, a much higher bar for what it takes to do these kinds of operations. >> finally, north carolina, donald tru -- north korea, it seems that donald trump is moving toward getting nuclear weapons off the peninsula. >> here is something that was encouraging over the very messy and, i think, not terribly productive process we've had with north korea. one thing was important and interesting. the doctrine has generally been that we have to achieve denuclearization first. that's our table stakes and then we can begin talking about peace. now, with this dialogue going on, we're beginning to say maybe we start moving toward peace on the peninsula as the pathway to denuclearization. >> is that the removal of u.s. troops? >> eventually it's got to lead to that. technically, we're still at war

over there. that's got to come to an end. >> is that a trade you would make, removing u.s. troops from the korean peninsula, if north korea has a verifiable denucl r denuclearization? >> there's got to be more to it than that, but peace and stability on the nuclear peninsula is our goal. if we can have that and denuclearization, there is benefit to americans and koreans to having some kind of presence there. it's not getting out any kind of bases. we have to have forward projection capability. but we're learning right now there's an opportunity for peace but the president has no strategy. >> let's get back to christ. he never saw color. he never saw class. he had faith that people would do the right thing and pray that people would do the right thing to others. i've not heard you speak about our problems with both class and

color in this country. they are significant. they are deep. they are historical. talk about that. >> well, i'm the mayor of a twe diverse community and largely low-income community. people may not know about this because they only know about notre dame. we're 45% nonwhite. we have a lot of racial diversity and economic diversity. per capita income is just over 25,000 bucks right now. an industrial city that saw our economy completely transform over the last 50 years. the most important job of an elected leader -- i came to this the hard way because i'm a policy guy. i came out of the business world. i thought, you know, things that you can count, things you can measure, policy. that matters. of course it does. the most important job of an elected leader is to call people to their highest values and to bring them together and that's particularly important when it comes to things like racial divisions among us. what we have right now is leadership, if you can call it

that, that exploits those divisions, that uses race to divide us within, among other things, the middle class and the working class. and that is unbelievably harmful at a moment when people of color, in particular, in this country, are feeling more and more under attack and more and more marginalized. and you've got people in the majority who are better off. the party's commitments to racial justice and social justice need to animate our policies. a lot of it also goes back to the way our leaders talk about what made our country the way it is and how we benefit from our amazing diversity. >> where would you place on a scale of important things that you as president would have to address the diminishing importance of community in this country, sense of community? >> it's huge. it's huge. first of all, it's one of the reasons why we need to look at national service. it can be voluntary but at the

very least let's create more opportunities for people to have a service year after high school. that builds community. one of the experiences i had in the military was coming to learn and trust people radically different from me in their politics, race and generation but you learn to trust each other with your life. you shouldn't have to go to war to get that kind of experience. in a deeper sense, the loss of community is one of the biggest consequences of automation and artificial intelligence. used to be you got a lot of community from the workplace because you knew you would have a lifelong relationship with a single employer, whether you were a blue collar worker at a production facility and your spouses get to know each other through the union picnics or a white collar worker at a cpa firm and you and your spouses get to know each other at the firm dinners. that model is fading away. people in my generation are likely to change careers more often than our parents change

jobs. and this has serious consequences for understanding of community, where we fit in. and there are very ugly things that will move in to fill the void if we've lost that sense o used to come from the workplace. white identity politics, extremism come in. things like the worst forms of nationalism come in. when we could actually be building out the best forms of nationalism, which is which when you rally people around a sense of are identity that we're building each other up. when community, even in the literal sense of the city how they fit into the world. tons of team in south bend come and go from various occupations. i don't even know what they do for a living but are incredibly important in the community because of the role they play in the arts or in activism or in some so way. we have to celebrate that, build it up. i don't know if that's a liberal or conservative idea but i strongly believe needs support at the national level. >> a very large field of democrats. a sense of what defines you from

the rest of the pack, you're at a podium a long line of democrats on a stage. you have 30 seconds to introduce yourself. what's the message of your campaign. >> look, the liedreality, my fas the message. we need generational change. more voices stepping up from a generation that has so much at stake in the decisioned made now. when i get to 2054, when i get to the age of a president. this is about an era. decisions made in our politics now decide how the next 20, 30, or 40 years will go. >> is joe biden, bernie sanders, too old to be president? >> it's not my place to say whether anybody else ought to the president. you'll see older candidates voting for younger candidates, younger candidates voting for older candidates. and that's good. >> i could always say, shocked. i thought older people would leith me.

it was actually the younger people. the older people, they resented me said you're too young to do this when i was 29. it was the older people who said you've got the energy, the fight. i'm going to send you there. fight for me. >> we had the expect same experience. when i was 29 runs for mayor we had just money money to do one poll. tested my attributes, if you knew pete was in the navy would you be more pllikely to vote fo him? the older the voter, me being 29 was a positive. ip see it in the faces go to new hampshire, a lot of young students interested excited a d about the idea somebody younger stepping up. people my parents' age of a part of those really interested in this. this goes back to where we need to go policy wise but i think totally and historically thinking about the changing coming to our country and the

fact as for our city the big challenge for our country is mastering these changes instead of pretending we can stop them and rewind them. generational leadership in contribute to that. >> a couple minutes less. prem nenlt i prominent issues that came up in the conversation. we'll get into more when you're here next. consider adding seats to the supreme court. >> if it's a structure that depolice sid depoliticizes the supreme court. the question isn't just conservative, i think it is. the question, how do we structure it in a way it's not going to be an apocalyptic ideological battle everybody time there's a vacancy. interested in a potential model of 15 justices but five are chosen by democrats five by republicans. >> you could see expanding the supreme court? >> if in a way that when

depoliticize it. just a matter of adding people, what's to stop conservatives from doing the same thing again. >> and getting rid of the electoral college. >> absolutely. has to go. >> medicare for all. >> yes, however, any politician who allows that phrase to escape their lips toot have some account how to get there. talking about a pathway i would call medicare for all who want it. idea, make some flavor aware as a public option, let people buy in. if people like me are right, more widespread, a natural pathway towards a single payer or medicare for all environment. >> do you support reparations for slavery? >> i haven't seen a proposal for a cash transfer that people would be able to come together around and view as fair. but i absolutely believe that we need to have some kind of accounting for the persistence racial inequities today there by design because of part and present racism. so it means our policies and policy interventions on anything

from criminal justice to housing need to be designed in such a way they're targeting those areas in our economy and our society where racial inequity largely driven by slavery, not something from the past but reinforced by present racial attitudes where those are most persistent. >> do you support no buy, no fly. on a terror watch list you cannot purchase a gun? >> yes. the whole idea of our framework for gun safety is to make sure people who are a clear and present threat can't get access to these weapons. >> as you know, some on the terror watch list are there for no good reason's should they have their second amendment rights denied? >> we can improve the system and make sure that -- of all the problems with american safety, people who have been flagged as a terrorist threat, not able to get a gun in time because the flag might have been unsffair i not the biggest problem in

america. >> listen to the conversation we're having, a sense where we're at as opposed to, right here, the president tweeted, that george conway often referred to as mr. kellyanne conway by those who know him is very jealous of his wife's success and ang gray thry that his help didn't give him the job he wanted. i barely know him. take a look. a stone cold loser and husband from hell. >> what? >> so will you be tweeting like that which you're president, mayor pete? >> all right. what do you think of the trout deal? are you a baseball fan? you don't have to be a baseball fan. >> we got to go. real quick that sum of money is -- >> a lot. >> more than the -- we got about a $300 million budget, cops firefighters. i'm thinking how many vacant houses we could deal with and redo our entire sewer system. a huge problem for us.

>> mayor pete buttigieg. great to have you on. i'm sorry to dirty it up with the president's tweets. >> call whenever you want. you've got our number. >> good luck. we're be right back with much more on "morning joe." -so much of our future is ahead of us.

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this is beyond wifi, this is xfi. simple. easy. awesome. xfinity, the future of awesome. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is wednesday march 20th. along with joe, willie and me we have msnbc contributor mike bashic'll. columni barnacle and senior writer at politico and co-author of "the playbook" jake sherman and a lot to get to this morning. >> a lot to talk about. >> the president just -- >> joe biden tells backers to plan for a 2020 run as he's drumming up support. >> it's coming. >> looks like it's a go. >> 95% of the way there. you know? wait until he announces but he's almost there. >> almost there. >> interesting story. going to be interesting to see

how much cash he has coming out of the gate and where the cash coming from. >> so interesting, willie gets money from mike trout. man. 12 years, $430 million. >> a lot. a little out of hand. >> and the manny deal, outrageous. of course, the bryce harper deal for a guy that's hit, had 100 r.b.i.s and one of the dumbest deems in the history of baseball. for people who don't know baseball, mike, talk about why that deal is a bargain for the angels. >> the trout deal, yeah. >> because all long-term deem are bad unless you're talking about possibly the greatest ball player since babe ruth. >> or certainly the greatest ball player since willie mays and mickey mantle. he is a generational player, a generational talent and if he had waited to go into free

agency in another year or year and a half he would -- the bidding would have started around $600 million. the yankees would have been all over him, willie. >> yeah. he's 27 years old. the best player in basketbaebal his age every year in the major leagues. probably could have given him an mvp every year in the league. >> wanted or -- >> $430 million or a little under. he's probably underpaid at that, because if you look out seven, eight years into the deal -- for all the money he'll bring in seven, eight years from now could have gotten $50 million, $ 0 milli 60 million a year. that number sounds crazy. >> it does. >> but he's worth t. what do you think? are you as bored as i am? >> do you want owners to keep the money? because he brings people in, he wins games. i guess you can give all the money to the owners. i mean, that's sort of trumpian of you, but let the players --

let the players -- i mean, they're the ones doing the work. but, mike, though, one thing mika does tell me, he will now be the -- the greatest player, highest paid player to never be seen. says it all the sometime. what's he doing in anaheim? >> what's he talking about? >> that's a huge issue for the major league players association. they have a very marketable face of baseball. it's not in anaheim, california. >> no. >> you look at his twitter following compared to lebron james or somebody like that. a spectacular athlete, few people know him but he doesn't lend himself to that. doesn't exactly go out of his way to be known, have portraits don of him and be in newspapers arrangements that. >> i like that about him. doesn't seek out. just plays. >> wow. i thought it would be on the front page. >> you want to call it gaugers basketball, baseball orring in like that? >> football is my number one

sport. and being a gator, but although our baseball team is typically, extremely -- >> speaking of football. >> mika -- >> i thought the mike trout thing would be on the front pages of the "daily news" and the "new york post." anyway, kristen, go. it's football. football. apparently, by the way, some sort of deal where he's going to walk away with no charges? >> not just him. about 17 -- >> he's not going to take it either. >> it's gross. >> admit guilt. >> good. >> admit guilt they're saying. >> ah. anyhow -- speaking of totally gross, let's talk about -- >> hot topics! now go to john mccain. >> can you believe this president? take a look. no, seriously. take a look. >> mr. president, why are you attacking senator john mccain seven months after his death. >> i'm very unhappy he didn't repeal and replace obamacare as you know. he campaigned on repealing and

replacing obamacare for years and then got to a vote and he said thumbs down, and our country would have saved a trillion dollars and we would have had great health care. so he campaigned. he told us hours before that he was going to repeal and replace and then for some reason i think i understand the reason he ended up going thumbs up, and frankly, were he even known that we would have gotten a vote because we could have gotten somebody else. that's disgraceful plus other things. i was never a fan of john mccain and i never will be. >> what is -- he's not -- >> first of all, we have to talk about this. it's a lie. what they were talking about was a skinny repeal. of obamacare. probably would not have ultimately passed. would not have had enough votes for that, but even if it had you're talking about one vote stacked, kristen, against a lifetime of public service, john mccain. we all know the story. donald trump knows the story. one suspects that's why he hates john mccain so much because of

the courage he showed under fire. refusing to leave, when he could. refusing to leave the hanoi hilton, because he wasn't going to leave ahead of the other p.o.w.s being tortured there. >> donald trump has been no fan of john mccain long before john mccain went thumbs up on the senate floor. the very early days of trump's presidential campaign involved him saying, you know, i prefer my war heroes be the ones that don't get captured. and this was a big controversy and folks thought, will this be the end of trump's presidential campaign and it turned out no. that there was quite a lot of tolerance for folks within the republican party saying, well, maybe john mccain's not my guy. i think it really, one, shows just how much a party can change so quickly. john mccain had been the republican nominee in 2008, and yet it was completely fine for the republican nominee to be insulting him vigorously on the trail. i think also donald trump has always just been frustrated that john mccain really gets

accolades. he's beloved, viewed as the statesman and hero and i think he's viewed by the broader public in a way that the broader public does not view donald trump and i think he covets that. >> willie, disturbing to me, at this point, again, it's for donald trump as a public figure, he's about abohorrent example o a public servant but he's also as kristen suggested completely brainwashed the entire party. you look what happened at cpac, and they give speakers who attack the war heroes standing ovations, and i will tell you, i know rank and file republicans who call john mccain a "traitor." a traitor. which is just disgusting. he's just the opposite of that, while donald trump was, you know, getting ds and playing

ping-pong and golf, you know, at some ivy league school, john mccain was putting it all on the line for his family and here we are in 2019 and people that support donald trump -- how many deferments for bone spurs? >> five i think all together. >> and can't remember which foot had them. >> calling john mccain a trait sir a sickness in the republican party. >> no question about it. one thing for donald trump to say the things he's going to say. as kristen said, saying them since july of 2015. if you go back a significant day in american history, hate to say it. we thought you can't say that about john mccain. be critical of his policy, critical of the way he votes but the can't criticize his commitment to the country and the question whether or not he's a hero. donald trump did it, got away with it and his support went up. to your point, we saw mitt

romney come out very critical but where areal other republicans i can't always agree with john mccain but to question his heroism and commitment to the country, to suggest that john mccain is a traitor to america is outrageous. why is that hard to say? >> incredible. >> i still don't know why it's difficult to say what mitt romney said yesterday. >> and what does john mccain's family think? what would john mccain think of the fact that mitt romney can speak out against the president's attack but lindsey graham, who affixed himself to john mccain for a decade can't do the same, mike? >> what does that say about lindsey graham? what does that say about his character? >> nothing good. >> and what does it say as willie just pointed out add you've mentioned a million times joe, what does it say about various members of the republican party in the senate, in the house who know that the president of the united states, the sitting president, is a

friendless, empty vessel. he's a lonely man. he's man alone. he is what he is. he's a liar. he's cheated. he has all of these stains on his soul that are public, that people know, and they say nothing. they say nothing. >> president trump isn't just ratcheting up his feud with the late senator john mccain. george conway, husband of kellyanne conway found himself on the receiving end of a presidential twitter takedown, if that's what you want to call it the president called conway a total loser aden commentary to a tweet from his re-election campaign manager brad parscal claiming the president turned down conway for a job at the justice department and trump doesn't even know him. >> pretty good. two lies in one sentence. >> those tweets.

follow several by conway questioning the president's mental fitness. conway is speaking ot on the whole matter explaining his constance criticisms of trump 20 the "washington post" saying con treer the claims in parscalp tweet he decided no to the work at the justice department after the president offered him the position heading the civil division. he cites trump's attacks against the department's leaders and firing of former fbi director james comey in early 2017 for his decision and speaking about special counsel robert mueller, conway tells the "post" he remembers hearing on the radio about mueller's appointment. "i'm thinking to myself this guy is going to be at war with the just it department for the next two years, i'm not doing this." conway tells the paper he took to twitter earlier in the week to question the president's mendel health infoort avoid a conflict with his wife, it is so maddening to watch the mendacity

and incompetence. maddening to watch. tweeting is just wayy to get it out of the way, get it off my chest and move on with my life that day. that's basically it. frankly, it's so i don't end up screaming at her about it. despite all of the attacks against george conway in 2006 donald trump sent conway a glowing letter praising his skills as a lawyer. >> because, of course, jake, he had done work for donald trump at trump tower. again, this is these people lie. thinking that -- that they can just say whatever they want to say, and the facts will never get in the their way. the facts always get in their way. but this is, though, what a fascinating dynamic between george conway and the president of the united states? >> if you put these two things together, the mccain incident and the conway incident, to me it tells a larger story, because he, again, as you mentioned,

george conway was, did legal work for the president and was in talks about a job, and on the john mccain angle trump said yesterday, i know there was a lot of heat around what he was saying. he was acting quite angry but he said john mccain called and said he was going to be for the health care bill. so we know that, that's not how this went down, because john mccain hours before the speech in the 2:00 to 3:00 neighborhood that day gave a press conference on live television with lindsey graham saying, there's very little chance i'm going to be for this bill. so, again -- it just doesn't comport with the reality as we know it. so when you put those two incidents together, it shows that there's a detachment at least from at least the facts as we know it, maybe the president knows something that is plainly not obvious to anybody else but it would seem unlikely. still ahead on "morning joe," president trump often uses twitter to talk authors too

criticize them thereby upping their book sales. doing the same thing, suing a twitter troll whose number of followers just surged. why he's trying to take a cow to court. >> take a cow down. >> next on "morning joe." - [woman] with my shark, i deep clean messes like this. this and even this. but i don't have to clean this, because the self-cleaning brush roll removes hair, while i clean. - [announcer] shark, the vacuum that deep cleans, now cleans itself. [zara larsson - "wow"] ♪ ♪ baby i'm not even in a gown ♪ and the only thing u have to say is wow ♪ ♪ make you're jaw drop drop say oh my drop drop drop ♪ ♪ make u say oh my god my drop drop ♪ ♪ make you're jaw drop make u say oh my god ♪ ♪ and you never felt this type of emotion ♪ ♪ make you're jaw drop drop say oh my drop drop drop ♪

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pastor time to mooove him to prison. maybe the crazy part of all of it, a reporter from the "washington post" dug this up. he wrote last congress devin nunes co-sponsored a bill called the discourages frivolous lawsuit act and now he's suing a cow. >> ah, he's so mad, because people are making fun of him. >> hmm. >> congressman devin nunes, top republican in the house -- >> such a frivolous lawsuit. unbelievable. >> he feels deeply about it. >> they should make a law against that. >> exactly. >> the house intelligence committee filed a $250 million lawsuit against twitter, and parody accounts with the names devin nunes mom and devin nunes cow. last night the republican strategist also sued for her sweets spoke with chris hayes about what's in the lawsuit. >> this is a tweet that's literally just a headline from the fresno bee, home town paper,

event done at a winery. headline, a yacht cocaine prostitutes partly owned by nunes sued. you tweet that with all caps what he is trying to sue you for. given how much talk we've had particularly from conservatives about the first amendment and safe spaces and the snowflakes on campus who don't like any countervailing ideas, what do you think about a sitting congressman suing over a mean tweet? >> i'm a libertarian republican and believe extremely strongly in the bill of rights and in our constitution, all of it. not just parts of it. all of it. that includes the first amendment. the reason the framers put that in place is specifically to protect the ability of citizens to criticize their government. >> first of all, this is such a frivolous lawsuit. go back to the late 1980s. remember when jerry falwell sued

larry flint for a parody saying that, suggesting that falwell and his mother had had sex in an out house? absolutely abhorrent and yet the supreme court of the united states protected that because it was a parody. and devin nunes has a lawyer that's actually allowing him to bring this case forward over a cow joke? i mean, seriously. >> a twitter account. >> this is such a frivolous lawsuit it should be thrown out and he should be forced to pay attorneys' fees. >> joe, we ought not to be surprised. he's had a frivolous career. chairman of the house committee and aloud to run roughshod over common sense speaker of the house paul ryan's done incredible damage to the prestige of that committee as well as an affront to common sense. >> all right. so the lawsuit has set off a social media stampede with the account for devin nunes cow

going from just 7,500 followers earlier in the week to more than 304,000. so don't follow devin nunes cow or go ahead and follow it and then make up five twitter accounts and make it follow devin nunes cow, anything you want. >> and his mom. >> something called the streisand effect people are aware of where, it's a long story. there was a photograph of her house i think in malibu and she demanded that the photograph be taken down and put up this big fight and put in a lawsuit. nobody knew where he house was until she had a lawsuit and everybody knew where he house was. not many people knew about nunes' cow and now everybody knows. the lawsuit will get thrown out. you won't get your $250 million and it should be said, no the to tie everything back to the president, but this is right out of donald trump's playbook. he watches "snl," doesn't like what they say about him and believes the fcc should look into "snl" and do something about it.

>> how many of us would have heard an nunes' cow if not for this lawsuit? and having to pay $250 million, it's the sort of thing be that will chill some speech that if you are someone going out there thinking about criticizing someone, even if the lawsuit's going to get dismissed it's going to be at least a somewhat expensive legal headache to get it to go away. do you want the hassle? it's the sort of thing where i don't think the intent is actually to get $250 million. it's to scare people away from -- >> is he spending his own money on this? >> i wonder who's funding this? >> yeah. >> all right. >> because i know he's not paying his lawyer -- >> by 9:00 try to get to 500,000 followers desch-i s devin nunes could john kerry take another shot at the white house? that's next on "morning joe." - [woman] with my shark, i deep clean messes like this.

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welcome back to "morning joe." a weather update for you. start in the middle of the

country. could update you the next two to three weeks how long it will take for the richers to come down. every time it rains gets worse. 248 locations are above flood stage and the purple lines still the areas in the major flooding. again, just going to take a long, long time. still more snow to melt, too, in areas of north and south dakota and minnesota. the big weather story of the day today, storm forming off north carolina. not a big deal now but heavy rain will head up the east coast. significant travel delays. start this evening, 5:00 p.m. heavy rain moving in around norfolk, virginia beach. overnight the storm slides up the coast. wake up tomorrow morning with a slow, soggy, chilly, raw commute. windy conditions, too, along the coast. by thursday evening, heavy rain, philadelphia to new york city heading towards hartford and d.c. in the rain. airport delays into thursday. and slides to the north. yes, still march. still snows in northern portions of new england. expecting three to six inches in areas of north new york, vermont

and new hampshire. used to it. keeps the ski areas open a little longer. maybe even for spring break. we continue to update the story in the midwest. flooding concerns aren't going anywhere and in areas could get worse going through april. back to you. coming up, joe writes in the "washington post," i disagreed with obama but what trump has done makes those differences insignificant. we'll read from his new column next on "morning joe." - [woman] with my shark, i deep clean messes like this.

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i was asked, have i ever seen the climate like this before and i said, no, i have not. but i have studied about climates like this, and i am reminded, i reminded folks then that adolf hitler was elected

chancellor of germany, and he went about the business of business dreaddread -- discredi institutions to allow anybody to discredit the press, discredit the military to discredit our leadership both in the congress and outside. we are asking for dire consequences, and i think it's time for the congress, house and senate to grow spines and do what it necessary to protect this democracy. this man and his family are the greatest threats to democracy of my lifetime. >> that was third ranking house democrat south carolina congressman james clyburn yesterday speaking about comments he made just before donald trump's rise to the white house. meanwhile, another battle that continues to play out last hour

i read president trump's latest tweet aimed at george conway. it was nuts. just -- he's -- he wrote this -- george con waway often reared ts mr. kellyanne conway is jealous of his wife's success, angry, didn't get a job, barely know him. at the end says he's a stone cold loser and husband from hell. conway who raised repeated concerns about the president's mental health and "narcissistic personality disorder" responded. simply writing this -- you are nuts. okay. joining us now, vice president and director of governance studies as the brookings institution darell west. he is author of the forthcoming book entitled "divided." the last time i interviewed you

was -- >> 2000. it's 19 years. this is unfairants that's how old i am. >> but nice to be back with you. >> good to have you back. also with us, "vice news tonight," shauna thomas. i put a scarf on you. >> cool. >> and for the women's news website bustle, alycia menendez. good to have you all. >> follow-up interview 19 years in the making, but actually, it's a great year to actually reference. >> a great book. >> because 2000 obviously was a year of division. you had the recount two years before that you had impeachment. three years before that you had a government shutdown. i mean, we've been divided for quite some time. i always, when people talk about how divided we are now i always say, well, there was that -- i think it was a cnn poll that showed something like majority of democrats believed that

george w. bush was in on 9/11. in 2006. so this is nothing new. though it has been sort of ginned up to a new level whamplts i write in the begiin . grew up in a dairy form in ohio. conservative family. talk political science at brown university. liberal university and lived among both liberal and conservatives tribes and then my immediate family has a very unique history in the sense my two sisters are christians who support president trump. my brother and i are more liberal. we don't support president trump. so family reunions always are very interesting. >> always. >> trust me. >> always very interesting. so where did this begin? was it vietnam? was it '68? was it bourque, what was it? >> all of those thing. when you think about how we got to this point of a highly polarized america and the comments, you are nuts, that

kind of epit miomizes that thin. in the book i talk about the history from reagan to trump, and as you go from president to president, there's more extremism, more polarization, more hyperpartisanship and i saw it in my family as we have, because the book is based on 40 years of conversations and so it's interesting just to kind of see how we got to this point in american politics. >> there's no question we've built to this, but would you agree there's something uniquely terrible about the moment we're in right now? >> it is. i mean, it's not the first time in american history highly polarized. 1790 s, 1890s, civil war exampl of that. trump elevated things to a new height or a new low just because of the divisive rhetoric. the extreme policies that he has undertaken. insulting opponents. the problem now is you can't really just 2kdiffer with someby on the issues.

we see our opponents as enemies and that's really dangerous for american democracy. >> bring it down to what's happening on the ground. on the campaign trail. shauna, you're looking at iowa voters. is that what they're talking about? >> no the talking about division. and nick moremore ers-of- -- mo spent days in iowa asking questions. it's about immigration which can hint at the division, and also questions about -- >> absolutely. >> -- the things we're not hearing about is russia. we're not really hearing people talk about that, but in the end one of the things that he has seen is that over and over again people will be at kirsten gillibrand's event and come out and talk to evan and then talk about joe biden. because everyone is looking to see what is joe going to do? and one guy in davenport specifically said after seeing cory booker.

cory booker's great. joe biden reminds me of obama. reminds me of a time when there was a little bit more civility, even though, like, let's not pretend that everything was civil for years ago or anything like that, but that has been one of the things that strikes me. >> and alycia, you have a question for darell, but jumping on looking at the democratic side and how candidates, or someone who decides to go up against trump on the republican side, can address these issues head-on, because it seems like trump's winning the day? >> it's so interesting when i hear you talk about voters in iowa deferring to biden. sounds to me like an electability argument. iowa voters saying, in sis great. need someone to beat trump. >> sort of the same thing. >> why it's confusing for me you have biden not out on the trail, not out on the trail yet but touting his progressive bone feedese as though he believes that's the way he'll win progressive voters. pick up on something about you said about immigration. had i read your book i struggle

with the concept of political tribalism, because on one hand i realize that the polarization we have now is not working. on the other hand i sometimes worry that's a term we use to paper over differences. such as the extreme demographic shift that is happening in this country, and so i wonder how you square this polarization with the fact that it's happening at a moment when minorities in this country have more power politically than they've ever had before? >> i mean, race is certainly a big part of the polarization story. as you suggest by about 2044 america is going to become a majority minority nation. what we're seeing now is the leadup to the chaos, the dissatisfaction, people who don't like that demographic in the future and also a combination of geography and economics, because my metro puigs at brookings did a study and found 15% of american counties now generate 64% of gdp. basically all the economic activity is on the east coast.

the west coast a few metropolitan areas in between. a lot of america is left behind. trump is absolutely right on that point. they're unhappy. they supported trump and they have, supported him as he pursued extreme policies that has contributed to the polarization. >> joe has a column in the "washington post" number one on the site. heavily read. >> huge. >> no, because it touches on what we're seeing happening here and how troubled so many are. i disagreed with obama but what trump has done makes those differences insignificant. he writes in part this -- last week's slaughter of muslims in new zealand was allegedly committed by a fascist who claimed to draw inspiration from president trump, among others. it was the latest in a long line of tragedies that our president failed to clearly condemn. after the 2017 riots in charlottesville trump proclaimed immoral equivalence between neo-nazis and their opponents. following the killing in

christchurch, dismissed white supremacy limited to a few troublemakers with very serious problems. why any policy differences i had with obama now seem so insignificant. americans who still have faith in the upward arc of martin luther king's moral universe should be grateful for obama's presidency and the way his election exposed the white racism that is still at large in our land. if changing the constitution and re-electing obama two more times would break the fever that ravages trump's washington i would cheerfully passage that constitutional amendment slap a hope and change sticker on my shirt and race to the nearest voting booth to support the man historians will remember at the most significant president since abraham lincoln. >> i had to wait until my aunt passed away to write that, and my dad. up in heaven going, what the hell? what the hell? >> up against the reality of

what really exists in america now. >> well, so -- >> it's been exposed. >> so glad you all brought up the fact we are going to be a non-white country. majority non-white country, because i think everything that's happening right now can be explained by that. i really do. and barack obama's coalition in 2008 really was the coalition of the future. it's just taken -- >> some parts of that coalition thought barack obama's election meant that, like, racism was over in the united states. >> right. >> clearly your column shows racism is not over. clearly, what we're seeing is racism is not over but i think the question is, have we missed the boat on trying to bring the country together? i mean, the united states didn't do, like, a truth and reconciliation commission like south africa did, which is a different situation and had a majority -- population, but how -- is there any way to credibly have that conversation? especially if you have a

president who doesn't, who doesn't really seem to think words matter. don't you need someone at that level to lead such a conversation? >> i have an optimistic last chapter in the sense that -- >> do i got to get all the way to the end? >> skip the first eight chapters and read chapter nine. year route we face major challengeses polarization is deeply rooted but we shouldn't give up and think there's nothing we can do, because we have to analyze the root causes of polarization, the loss of economic opportunity, the fact that education is so expensive. my mother was an employee at the university that i attended. my tuition was $150. >> unemployment, though, so disturbing about the racism that's out there right now. and you're exactly right. say in the column, we all, most of us, fooled ourselves into believing that the first black man being elected ever in a majority white country meant we were moving past the scourge of slavery and dread scott and everything else, but right now this is happening with

unemployment below 4%. all of this is happening with a very strong economy, and still this racial unrest is bubbling up and the president is using his racism. >> the problem is -- national unemployment is 3.8% but there are big parts of america not sharing in that prosperity. there are no jobs no future. the children are having to go to the cities just to find employment and so there's a deep bitterness out there from all of those people who feel like they're left behind. they don't like the status quo. they're angry. my sisters when i talk with them support trump because they don't like the status quo. either in terms of values or economics. so it's really a combination of those things. >> they like trump's status quo? i'm asking my family members this, pretending like i'm asking your family members. there's a horse in the hospital!

>> john mulaney joke. >> why did you open up the door? to the hospital and let a horse in! because it was running inefficiently. right? >> have you seen that? >> i have seen that. >> anybody that wants to understand the trump presidency, john mulaney, radio city. there's a horse in the hospital. >> america's a country that likes to think of itself as always moving forward and as shauna says, the election of barack obama represented even to people who didn't vote for him recognized the history of that moment and we are moving forward again. joe write for donald trump's campaign pump the brakes a little bit. make america great again, pull back to some of the places we were. >> part of what's so interesting as i read your piece i think both about the rhetoric we're seeing now and i think there are those who hope the 2020 democratic hopefuls will be able to counter that rhetoric, where i think you see some of the most interesting movement on the democratic side is that their policies are speaking even louder than the words

themselves. pr right? i recently interviews elizabeth warren about her universal child care policy and asked whether or not undocument the families would be included in the policy. gave me a one-word answer. yes. astounding. the type of thing four years, eight years ago you might have heard someone hemming and hawing over and to here her be definitive shows reparations. the fact the democratic field is talking about racial inequality in iowa. it shows you they are trying to make a policy shift that does more than offer platitudes. >> you're right about joe biden. he can't come in to the race, apologize that i supported the crime bill. i apologize that i was against bussing. i apologize that, for this. i apologize for that. >> does he ignore it? what you think? >> no. i've changed. we've all changed. um improved. get better. >> evolved. >> the crime bill was stupid.

why i say poupport this. we all make mistakes. >> gillibrand spoke done a 180 on immigration. she knew she had to set stra straight, time as a prosecutor some of the decisions she made. so yeah. >> beto grappling about he walked on the left side of the street instead of the right side. he's very sorry about it. annie liebovitz has this photo of him walking across the street. >> you want to see something. >> can we talk about that for a second? that was insane. this guy wanders out into the middle of the country, it's like what's my name. he writes it. he's got this annie liebovitz -- i'm sorry, somebody help me out. >> there's a question about beto o'rourke. he has to deal with his record. to your point about biden, he is going to have to talk about the votes he took in congress and how that cop ports with the very

progressive vision he is putting out there. >> what did you think of that launch? >> it struck me as odd to choose the cover with annie liebovitz to decide to go to iowa for the first time. like less man of the people. if that's what he wanted to do and that was his lunch, it made you talk about it. >> i'll give you something to talk about as we go to break. my phone has been exploding since the interview with pete beauty chich. republicans, democrats, network executives can, everybody wants to know about him. that was a breakout from hearing his thoughts on the world, on this country. i think other candidates like maybe the one we were just talking about might want to get a clue. the new book is "divided politics, divided nation," hyper conflict in the trump era on sale next tuesday. >> can we have you back here in 2038? >> absolutely. i hope we don't have to wait. >> come back next week.

>> in thank you both for being with us. which nation is the happiest country in the world? it's not this one. we'll be back in two minutes. on. we'll be back in two minutes - [woman] with my shark, i deep clean messes like this. this and even this. but i don't have to clean this, because the self-cleaning brush roll removes hair, while i clean. - [announcer] shark, the vacuum that deep cleans, now cleans itself.

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earth. here at 30 rock in new york city, professor at columbia university, economist dr. jeffrey sachs and managing director of the eurasia group. dr. sachs is here with the results of the world happiness report. is it new york city? the united states of america? >> it is right around here. >> where is it? >> we do the countries and didn't dob new york city. >> it's not usa? >> it's just again finland, second year in a row followed by denmark, norway and iceland. what are you doing? >> sweden comes in seventh. so it is the northern european countries. they're doing good things. we fall again another year, another decline in the united states. there is unhappiness. >> switzerland, sweden, northern europe. what have they got that we don't? >> they have maternity, paternity leave. >> they take care of each other.

everybody has health care. everybody has vacation time. everybody has. >> everyone's pretty and looks happy. >> they are happy and they have lots of vacation time and they have a good work life balance. it's good. and we should learn something interesting that because we keep going down in the rankings. we had another decline. you can see it's been down, down, down. and this is not good for us. >> so dr. sachs, do you agree though, these are great countries, small countries. it would be difficult to scale what they're doing to a country of 330 million people? >> well, there are 18 countries ahead of us right now. >> i'm talking about inlafinlan norway. >> they're basically taking the anxiety out of life, the countries that make sure everyone has the decencies of life that they can afford education, they can afford health care, they have vacation time. that's what the 18 countries

ahead of the united states are accomplishing. and what i write about in this year's report which is online world happiness.report, is that the united states is also suffering from an explosion of anxiety problems that we have epidemics. we know we have the opioid epidemic, extraordinarily serious, suicide rates going up, we have depressive orders going up. happiness can be a heavy subject when you don't have it. that's what's happening in this country. >> wow. >> so obviously had, a lot of americans are concerned about how the united states is faring on the global stage? we obsess about russia, and yet, the situation with china is fairly bleak, as well. and over the next 20 years, obviously, there will be more. >> whatever way the trade talks go, and i believe they'll be in agreement, the long-term trajectory of u.s./china

relations is gradually downward. we're in an idea logical struggle because china has gone from soft acceptable author tearnism to hard. it's not just trump who is anti-china for similar reasons on the democratic progressive left. even liberal hawks centrists who would staff a biden garden, for instance, have become harder line towards china. >> it's interesting i'll talk to very liberal businessmen and women who will -- who loath trump but as an side will whisper china has been getting away with murder for 20 years. >> there's the big thing which is that schooin absolutely committed and obsessed to pushing it the u.s. navy and air force away from the asian mainland out of the south and east china sea and the pentagon, air force and navy for cultural and historical reasons in addition to policy reasons are

absolutely committed not to bundle. >> is it worth a fight in the would we let chinese cruisers be going around the caribbean? >> a war with the u.s. and china would do something that all the wars in the middle east over the last 20 years have not done. it would absolutely devastate world markets and would affect middle classes. all over the globe. the goal of u.s. policy, whoever is president, has to be to keep the new cold war with china from going hot. >> how do we do that? we have common interests that have shown, but like for instance even this trade war has not been a bargain for american farmers but it's really hurt the chinese economy, as well. so what's our common path forward? >> i think the most basic point is china is in economically rising and successful country. we don't need a cold war. we need normal releases. europe is doing it differently

from us. they just issued a report that said look, we have a lot of issues but this is a business relationship. we've got areas where we need to cooperate. they're not talking as we are these days enemy, enemy, enemy. i think that's a terrible mistake because we get really riled up in this country. we talk ourselves into cold wars we don't need. we have to be careful about that. >> robert, there is already a cold war in the cyber domain with regular daily, weekly hackings of the u.s. navy, ship maintenance records and on and on and on. >> and both directions. >> yes, absolutely. >> but this is where we have to get things under control rather than just assuming that this is a cold war. >> quickly, the president said again last week we're getting billions and billions in our coffers from the tariffs. that's not how tariffs work. what is the end game for the united states? >> i think the trump administration has to be very, very careful that it doesn't let

trade tensions it migrate to military tensions. because the u.s./china relationship is an organic relationship that we shouldn't let be driven by a fetish with the south china sea or trade. >> thank you both. i just have to do one quick check before we close the show. twitter connecticut at devin cow facing a lawsuit from congressman devin nunes. when our producers it collected in this morning, 297,000, now it's up to 340,000 followers. that does it for us this morning. stephanie rhule picks up coverage right now. >> thanks so much. i'm not devin nunes cow. i'm stephanie rhule. this morning i'm starting with a war of words. president trump's tweet storm from over the weekend goes from online to real life as he spars with the media, threatens to investigate tech giants for collusion and oncega