tv Morning Joe MSNBC April 30, 2019 3:00am-6:00am PDT
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>> biden comes after this with a stature, a former vice president, so it allows him to mix him up with president trump a little more. >> i'm yasmin vossoughian. "morning joe" start right now. >> why didn't you deny calling the president a moron? >> you know, that's a really old question. >> you understand by not answering the question, some people thought you were confirming the story. >> i think i've answered the question. >> you think you've answered the question. >> i've answered the question. >> did you call the president a moron? >> i'm not going to answer that question. >> quote, "i wonder how he goes into work every day because deep in his heart he believes the president is a moron."
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we have the new yorker's dexter philkins and we'll hear more about that. good morning. welcome to "morning joe." it's wednesday, april -- tuesday, april 30th. we have the co-host and executive producer of "the circus," john heilemann, national correspondent for msnbc news, steve kornacki is with us and associate editor for "the washington post" and msnbc political analyst eugene robinson. good to have you all with us this morning. >> and, willie, it's great to have you here. we talked yesterday about "the avengers" and you had that great interview with jeremy rinner. who would have guessed count
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chocula and booberry getting killed off at the end. this is going to be huge. >> it already is huge. the biggest record opener was $600 million. this one doubled that is correct $1.2 billion avengers has made in its first weekend. i think it already the 17th highest grossing movie in the history of movies and it looks look it's going to become only the fifth movie to gross over $2 billion. it helps, all the hype helps, all the "avengers" fans help and my son, 9-year-old george, who sat in the front row in the
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corner because that's the only tickets that were available, loved it. >> boy, a three-hour movie that is action packed the entire way through. this was done very, very well. it's a fantastic swan song, especially for stan lee. beckham's a huge malcolm gladwelfare refogla gladwell fan. the beatles, 10,000 hours playing in just the most horrible conditions in hamburg. they go to hamburg, you know, four guys, they come back after 10,000 hours the beatles. and this is your favorite, bill gates, 10,000 hours of coding in high school. he becomes after 10,000 hours
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bill gates. well, our president, and i'm really proud about this, our president just hit that 10,000 milestone as well. while we were sleeping, willie, president trump has now made more than 10,000 lies, more than 10,000 false or misleading claims. the only question is, willie, what does he become now? impeached or autocrat for life? >> 10,000, i don't know what that grants him other than the presidency. 10,000 lies got him into the white house. perhaps they'll keep him there but perhaps not given what we've seen from joe biden in the polls in the last couple of days. >> oh, well let's get to all of that. go ahead, john. >> after 10,000 lies, you'd
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think he'd be really good at it. his lies are just as bad as they've always been. every one of them as transparent as the one before. he doesn't seem to be improving much. >> it's like going out to the driving range and swinging 10,000 times and topping the ball 10,000 tombimes. you would think after a while you would make good contact and drive the thing like 300 yards. but no. >> this is not a good thing. >> what's not a good thing, mika? >> all the lying. we have a lot of stories framing the story today. in his resignation letter, he -- like the time he showed a people of rosenstein behind bars with or enemies. >> you make the call. >> a new administration effort
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to burden refugees seeking asylum in america. >> one of the problems crossing the desert or crossing mexico, one of the real problems they have is they have so much cash in their pockets and in their jackets, it weighs them down. when you're thinking about people going to be able to pay a fee to have a refugee status extended to them, it's people from el salvador. >> and remember when the president extended this salute to a north korean officer? vladimir putin was placed in a similar situation during his summit yet opted against the courtesy. >> of course he did. because he loves america. >> we're going to bring in richard haas for the optics on that and several or big stories
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making headlines around the world. but first, new troubling poll numbers for president donald trump. >> they've been very bad since the mueller report was released, which of course the president after it had been released said he had done an honorable job. even though the president said robert mueller had done an honorable job, it hurt him. >> 55% say this would not vote for donald trump. furthermore one in sex republicans and nearly a third of self-described conservatives say they will not vote for trump, spelling trouble for the president's reelection bid. yet among those who rule out voting for trump, two-thirds saying they will wait to see who the democrat being opponent is.
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75% of americans and 85% of registered votes are say they are certain to vote in the 2020 election, intended turnout levels typically only seen in the closing days of a presidential contest. >> so it is one thing to run as a challenger. it is easy to run as a challenger. i once ran as a challenger and it's just easy. you're shooting cat fish in a barrel. it quite another thing to run for reelection. politicians always want to be close to 50%. here we have donald trump's re-elected, a solid 29% nationally in this poll. you've got in wisconsin his reelected 31, in pennsylvania where joe biden was yesterday, also down in the 30s. i understand everybody in the mainstream media because they miss it the first time thinks that donald trump has some magic
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voodoo spell he's going to sprinkle in the last days of the campaign, i know it early. i also know people do not get reelected with 31% reelects. politicians, dog catchers don't. so donald trump in wisconsin, in michigan, in pennsylvania and that's the whol game for him, he's got to figure out a way to get that 31% reelect up and it ant going to happen as long as he's going out throwing these verbal grenades the way he continues doing. >> one of the things that makes the situation so daunting for the president -- he has enormous asset on he is side. he's raising a ton money, he got the beg plane, he's probably in the going to have a soarious primary o opponent on the other hand, not only is his reelect number as bad as it is in a lot of places, it bad set against
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what the president rightly says is a strong economy. it's not going to get a lot stronger between now and november of 2020. if anything it likely to weaken. been even if it holds, that information is now priced into the stock. he's sitting in the mid 30s in states where they've seen the good economy in the past two and a half years. so it takes a lot of work to have reelect numbers as low as the president's against the back drop of strong macro economic numbers and trends. so no one -- i think it's right that the person media not be dismissive and say this is a forgone conclusion, we should be wary about making predictions. we should not understate the dwre of call ng that he -- the data from stit to state where
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who stand. it an so let look at the new poll, the national number shows joe biden with a healthy lead. but also information as we go inside the african-american voters and young voters. >> they've been did, you see him moving up to 36% there. th thatoverall if talk about the democratic electorate, extremely high favorable score. one thing that i think is a potential read of this is that there that liked him a lot. they thought there had been false starts in the past, the guy is going to be 78 yours old,
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is he actually going within yes, i'm here, this is real, i'm running. a front-runner sitting in the mid to high 30s versus sitting and we start looking at number like this going forward, this is a different polling profile for him. ras and jend are. o does bide i don't know pole bernie sanders women? look there are a lot of bernie
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sanders at 20%, and kamala harris at 10%. we'll get into some of the or cross tags but has to almost across the board are really strong numbers for joe biden. >> wow. >> we haveamhad yamiche on the about a week ago and she pointed out the most important subgroup among democrats, black women. i said last week beware of the blue check marks, beware of the elites in washington and the elites in l.a. and the leets in new york that are driving the discussion on social media. it is in the democratic primary black women who are the back bone of the democratic.
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they made such a huge difference electing doug jones. he should stay right where he is. i'm sure he's feeling good about that. but the fact that joe biden is doing well among black women, that's extraordinarily important because that's a group that bernie sanders has not done well with, did not do well with four years ago, and that's going to be a real challenge for pete buttigieg. so for biden, that's great news. >> let's look at some of the youngs are voters. bernie sanders has the lead there at 36%, joe biden at 23%, a 13-point spread at the top, everybody else well behind. and among older voters, at 65 plus, you have joe biden at 38%. >> buttigieg at 11 and really at
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about 45 yoors old, about 50 years old, you really start seeing sanders' support tack a hit. biden has struggled more when get under 45 and particularly the youngest possible group right there, but one of realities of the democrat being party is it may there are still an awful lot of 45-plusses in the democratic party. >> and, joe, he was looking really good in pittsburgh yesterday at a rally. >> i was surprised how well he did. >> let's take a look. >> donald trump is the only president who has decided not to represent the whole country. the president has his base. we need a president who works for all americans, and we can afford this.
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we can do this. >> folks, everybody knows who donald trump is, and i believe, i believe and hope they know who we are. we have to let them know who we are. we democrats and we independents who have the same view have to choose hope over fear, unity over division and maybe most importantly truth over lies. truth over lies. [ cheers and applause ] >> gene robinson, it's hopeful in a candidate on the democratic side to see someone with the experience, with that whole obama era hope, as well as, you know, what biden is bringing to the table in his performance right now, i think some of us were leaning in and watching and seeing how he was doing, hoping that he looked as good as he did. i thought he sounded great and
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was hitting all the notes. >> you know, i agree. you look at those numbers, the potting profile is a i think those numbers are not great for bernie sanders and are pretty awful for the rest of the field getting into the meat of the campaign. everything that was said about support of black women is true and really important in a democratic primary process. and what biden has is a kind of stature as a former vice president, the association with president obama of course. one thing democratic primary voters are going to be doing, i think, is picturing the potential democratic candidate standing on a debate stage across from donald trump. and what's that going to look like? how is that going to play, how is that going to work? and so far i think biden is
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reassuring now, it's a long campaign. it's joe biden. we won't make any. >> it will surprise you about when kenny rogers sang about the gambler he was not thinking of donald trump. donald trump has the worst poker face. he was talking about joe biden being in and he understands this year will be all about pennsylvania, pennsylvania, pennsylvania, and he has drawn the worst card in joe biden if he wants to went pennsylvania.
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>> well, joe, talking about a poker face, it's really hard to maintain a poke are face with your competition when tweet out exactly what you think. i found it very telling that president trump was -- he was definitely unnerved by the union support that joe biden enlisted yesterday and was ripping into union leadership as taking money from the rank and file and he still maintains his support. but i thought that that shows that joe biden has definitely gotten under his skin and that the way joe biden is going about attacking him, not directly head on but references the lies and the lack of moral character and definitely making donald trump part of his case for defeating him, that the character of the man does matter, has been effective and has got i don't know in donald trump's head. >> you know, john heilemann, we
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say it's early, it's early, it's early, said it three times, it is early. that said joe biden does look at least in the polls that we're seeing right now, biden does look like a guy that if he keeps it in the middle of the road is going to be in pretty good shape. you look at the rest of the field after bernie and, boy, it falls off so quickly. which it's not like somebody that introduced themselves to america six weeks ago sand now polling at 4% or 5% is going to have a magical moment on the debate stage with 20 people. >> it a challenge and size of the field is going to make it harder. the size of the field makes it harder for a lot of these very talented, very promising first
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rool chal be for jeremiah wright r raothat proved fatal to hip in. but i think what these numbers so as well as are the issues that have faebed yoo the voters anyway are ready to look forward and not back. >> yeah, not listening to that at all. the fbi says it received a tip about an onmourners gathered yesterday at the funeral for 60-year-old laura gilbert kncgo
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stan was shot in the hand during the attack. he published a defiant op-ed in the "new york times" detailing the hair oing if retribution for the shootings at new zealand's mosques last month. a 26-year-old is accused of providing support to terrorists. ne say he took delivery of what he thought was a live bomb. chus and at.
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>> let ask our services a we're going be watching the jt kwm whether this man arrested for plotting a terrorist attack and the killing of poochl just like the coast guard lieutenant in a plo. and nancy pelosi and chuck schumer and the democrat running against donald trump and members of the media, it will be fascinating fnl does have a catch-and-release program for domestic terrorists. donald trump is so weak and soft on crime that he actually had a guy that had this incredible
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stockpile of wpons -- was. >> >> over 70 people in norway and donald trump is so week, so flaccid, that he actually allowed this dem we'll see if the same this evening happens in san diego and whether the just that is, i got to say, barack obama, george w. bush, they be personal and of course donald
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trump wants you to think that's his justice department. make no mistake, somebody who wanted to assassinate nancy pelosi, the speaker of the house, kirsten gillibrand, they're out of jail had you let's see if you're just as weak -- this is one of the most liberal catch-and-release programs i've ever seen in my life. >> all right. and finally, john singleton, the first african-american and youngest ever to receive a best director oscar nomination has died. the director and screenwriter behind 90s classics "boys in the hood" and "poetic justice" was taken off life support by his family yesterday as tributes poured in. singleton, who had problems with hypertension, had been unresponsive following a stroke. singleton's critical and commercial success expanded
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beyond film directing episodes of "empire," "billions" and "30 for 30 "o and "american crime story," co-producing the fx series "snowfall, which was filming its third season this month. john singleton was 51 years old. >> and, willie, how sad. john singleton extraordinarily gifted. i still remember seeing "boys in the hood" the first time and being so moved by it. it was such a tragic story but just extraordinary and, my god, it really captured a moment in time like few other movies do. >> it was about i don't think black men and john singleton was historic. it's not an overstatement to say
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that. he was the first african-american ever to be nominated as best director at the academy awards. he was 24 years old at the time, the youngest director ever nominated. he made "boys in the hood" just out of usc. he was just out of college. >> wasn't it lawrence fishburn? >> lawrence fishburn played the father. it took him to be together. for that to be john singleton as's first movie and then went on to "poetic justice", "higher learning" and "rosewood." >> he was such a prodigy right out of school and produces a classic with a cast that is a dream cast. look at where those actors are
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now. but what he did for the culture really was exposing the inner lives of people whose inner lives had not really been portrayed very much on screen at all. and it was a humanizing mission in a way. it was very important. he was a ground breaking director, will be sorely missed in hollywood. >> still ahead on "morning joe," more poll numbers including from battleground new hampshire, it's elizabeth warren's back yard. but is she catching on? and bernie sanders's new attack saying he's worried they're going to win. >> we're already soaked and now we have a storm system coming over the top of texas, kansas,
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arkansas, 21 million people are at risk, including tornadoes and we'll do it all over again tomorrow, dallas all the way to soluti st. louis, 18 million people at risk. some areas could pick up, this area of pink, widespread four inches, maybe six to seven inches of rain. $ quad cities are expecting a top five all-time flood in mississippi. we're going to have a lot of water issues in the middle of the country. anyone traveling on the east coast, early rain in the northeast that's exiting but at least you're going to be 82 warm degrees out this afternoon. new york city saw light rain overnight. that should lead to a mostly dry day. all the problems in the middle of the country. you're watching "morning joe."
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♪ ♪ here'sshow me making it. like. oh! i got one. the best of amy poehler. amy, maybe we could use the voice remote to search for something that you're not in. show me parks and rec. from netflix to prime video to live tv, xfinity lets you find your favorites with the emmy award-winning x1 voice remote.
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show me the best of amy poehler, again. this time around... now that's simple, easy, awesome. experience the entertainment you love on x1. access netflix, prime video, youtube and more, all with the sound of your voice. click, call or visit a store today. . joining us now, "boston globe" political reporter james pindall. he's out with a new piece showing joe biden leading in new hampshire. tell us all about it. >> it's fascinating. on one level you save here's another poll that joe biden is winning but look who else is right behind him. this is a state where joe biden is 8 points ahead of bernie sanders. bernie sanders, of course, won the new hampshire primary in
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2016 with 60% of the vote and here he is now at 12% and right on his heels is the mayor of south bend, indiana. then you couple that with the fourth place, and elizabeth warren who is now in fourth place does not win the new hampshire primary, her argument gets very, very difficult as to how she proceeds in the future. history suggests any time a person from massachusetts or new england in general runs in the new hampshire primary, they have a lot of advantages and are expected to do quite well. the fact that she's in noufourt and struggling is a story and bernie is losing momentum in the one key state he thought he had locked down. >> first of all, of course the red sox won last night. >> how about that! >> beat the a's but finally,
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finally came through. i think it's safe to say they are due and this is a numbers game. >> whenever we have bases loaded, i assume we're going to strand them and we didn't last night so this is good. >> didn't last night. i think the big headline coming out of this poll, a lot of people would say elizabeth warren, but we've been surprised around the set for quite some time now that she's not taken off the wave we thought she would take off. i've got to say for me the big are surprise in this poll is what you said. yes, this is home field advantage for elizabeth warren, but this is the heart and soul of bernie sanders' camcampaign. he is next door to new hampshire and the vermont senator has dominated this state over the
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past four years. to watch biden go ahead of him in this early poll, yes, i know, means that people who were all in for bernie at least during this snapshot in time have moved away from him and jumped over to bide i don't know. -- biden. >> or jumped over to somewhere else. independent voters can vote in either the republican or the democratic primary. they make up 41% of voters in new hampshire. so they're not an insignificant chunk and that group is favoring biden. fuel be biden's rise, we're nine months away from where we expect the new hampshire primary to take place is that bide i don't know -- biden is crushing registered democrats and independence. if you look at a second question we ask, who do you think is most likely to defeat trump.
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that's where the gaps get really big. but i think the other story in this poll is that unlike other early primary states, we're beginning to see some definition. there are haves and have notes in this poll. if you take the top four folks here in this race, this particular poll, biden, sanders, buttigieg and warren, they add up to 53% of the electorate. of the 24 people we polled, 14 don't even get to 1%. so we're beginning to see some forming here of what a tier would look like. this is not happening in iowa, which is much more widespread, of course bernie and biden seem to have their own lane in iowa. and we had a story this week talking about how nevada is still the wild, wild west and no one has anyone advantages. so we begin to see structure here, which also creates questions. if anyone is going to take out
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biden, maybe it begins in a place like new hampshire wash, you do have strong front-runners. if you are not in that, say, top tier, if i want to include folks like kamala harris and beto o'rourke or further down like cory booker, it's going to be hard to get to that top tier because only a quarter of the electorate is decided and you need a big chunk to get to that top tear. >> and in iowa, it's pretty brutal. you've got to go caucus for somebody else in iowa and nen you -- then you go over to new hampshire and if you're not above 5%, it's the end of the road for you. do you see like i see new hampshire being a fire wall for bernie sanders and if that fire
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wall collapses for sanders, he's going to have a hell of a hard time turning south to south carolina and the rest of the southern states. >> the question with sanders, too, is we've been trying to measure how much and where is his core base, the folks that are absolutely for him as opposed to not being with him because they were against hillary in 2016. and then there's the question of can he take that base and compete for the nomination. the sanders scenario that's been out there if there is one to compete for the nomination absolutely relies on strength in those first two states. he didn't win iowa in 2016. he came as close to winning iowa without actually winning iowa as you a can in 2016. that was a razor thin margin that hillary clinton won those caucuses. nevada was close. it was in south carolina where it started to fall apart for sanders. the idea for 2020 has been
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you've got to replicate that strength you showed in the early stage and you've got to hope that the democratic party has moved in a way so that the array of candidates are against you are a little bit different than they were with hillary clinton, they start to look at you and say, okay, this looks like a winner, this looks like a bandwagon, i can be comfortable joining it. if you're not winning new hampshire, if you're not winning a state you beat hillary clinton in by 20-plus minutes to 2016, i don't see that happening. >> let go to which democrat has the best chance of beating president trump? let's say you're a voter in new hampshire, iowa or south carolina, you look at this group of candidates and up say we're all somewhere between within the same space on the issues, we may have different ways of getting to expanding medicare for more people or attacking more
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aggressively the question of climate change but we all have the same goals. what i want most of all, as a voter, is that joe biden answers that more definitively. >> he's made of point of marking his contrast with donald trump and staking in the ground that he opposes donald trump, that he isn't necessarily just running on issues that, he's also running against donald trump. and that's been in contrast to really the rest of the field who some have been pretty hands off in their criticism with trump and have tried to stay very issues focused and turning out a will the of policy. >> in is the one place where it's too early to say really matters. they've not seen any of them on the debate stage. if that's what you care bshs who
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can take on trump, you have to be able to imagine them standing on stage next to trump and most democratic voters have never seen any of these candidates perform on stage in a combat role. >> i said except for biden and sanders. >> no, john, they have seen bide i don't kno biden! hey, james, get the sox winning! >> we had the patriots win the super bowl, the sox win the world series and we still have the bruins and the celtics in the playoffs. we have some good going on here. >> you know what -- >> everyone loves new england as a result. >> when you're talking about teams or than the red sox, i heard womp, womp, womp --
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>> and liverpool -- >> and my son cares -- >> joe, you're on tv. >> i just wanted joe to know they have seen biden before, man. you know, in their mom's basement with the cheatos and their underwear. i do that to my kids all the time. >> this is the guy who was coaching a game last night with his son, jack, playing his heart out, played so well, i've never seen anything like it and joe's like "joey," calls him his oldest son's name. >> i did not call him my oldest son's name while he was running around the bases. i did not do that. so jack gets to third base and
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looks up at me, the third base coach and he goes, "i'm jack." >> how many times have you been ejected this season? >> i've been coaching for 25 years. when i was coaching at pensacola catholic high school -- >> oh, look at the team. they are so cute! this team is adorable. i can't even stand it. >> one of my better coaching stories, willie, was when i was coaching just out of college at pensacola catholic high school, i went back to my alma mater. i didn't like a play that the ref called and i just started going, you know when they used to have folding signs, i went from one to another just kicking them. >> i'm shocked to hear that. >> and the athletic director came up to me and he whispered
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to me, "coach, coach, all the nuns up there they're looking at you and though don't like it." i looked up at the nuns. you know what they did? they did not like the call either. but i have learned to control myself, willie, in my old age. >> and his name is jack. >> last year in new canaan, oh, my god -- >> a little too intense. >> they kicked me out of the game, i put on a fake mustache, sat in the dugout. >> we're going to go around the world with richard haas, including new comments by the fbi director on the russian election interference. plus the bizarre discovery of this russian spy whale found off the arctic coast. >> the whales are spying against us now, too? i'm sure donald trump will invite him to the white house. >> and we'll talk about the
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new york city officials closed two more schools for failure to comply with vaccination orders as the measles outbreak hits a new record. 704 across 22 states. it's the largest number of cases reported in the u.s. since 1994, and according to the cdc, about half of those affected are children under the age of 5. there have been also 66 reported hospitalizations, a third of them with onset pneumonia. now, the cdc is urgently calling for patients to get their children vaccinated and suggesting that adults born
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before 1989 interesti 1989, int booster. they are trying more aggressive numbers at home under quarantine after potential exposure to the virus in lecture tals. dr. dave what's going on? what's reason for this outbrac in. >> this is this critical there, hold in years, there's two-fold causes here. one happened early in 2018 when a lot of visitors from europe and israel and ukraine and a couple other countries brought the virus back into the united states, but, secondly, we had have these growing pockets of unvaccinated people. so if you have the virus come
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into a community and there are little pools of people who are not vak but, hasn't, look at this map. now the it was in the past difficult us a accepts where virus actually floats in the air. so in airplanes prp pfrm. >> so the people who have had measle shot because i got a couple tkss, people asking look does it war off? and we just read that report that that are now advise booz
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shots. s that not o. >> well, there's two ways. first, go two immune saugs shots give you 7% ffrp it not so much that. it whether you ever became truly inmun used in first place. if pfrm, the back scene predominantly is safe. s that what doctors say. willie geist, to you. >> last week during a discussion with counsel on foreign relations, pieb director christopher wray maligned
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>>. we're not doing in to thereto i don't know his hold on russian political pu permanent he'll keep doing it. with. one, we don't want to make it easy. i'd put. pnl ffrmt do you think we're not doing that right now? >> from what i can tell, he's worried about -- his ratings have gone down because of hits economic policies. i would say let's put more pressure on him. >> i didn't understand after the invasion of ukraine several years ago, barack obama didn't
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say we're going to start doing military exercises in pole land and we're going to keep them up until we humiliate domestically and i'm going to keep making it too uncomfort be for you stay here, but putin always seems to get a free hand whether he's going into 2018, 214, why because we're so far had check legislatically. why doesn't we do that? >> woof wp f but i take your point joe.
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we have a societies that totally predicated on the use of all this technology but, again, if we give russian a free ride. pcht because he knows the been fit outthe cost $ sfrnlt norwegian expert believe they have captured a white beluga while that is actually a russian spy. what's going on sfrchl and what does that even man? you're at a loss for words. >> oh, my god. >> why couldn't up use, put on
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animals or fish or anything, whales, different types of sonar -- >> lasers. >> what about whales with lasers? i want freaking lasers. >> i don't know what happened to this conversation. >> it's hard to get the whale to do that. >> i got you. >> let move from whales to china. tell me, over the past two years, the threat from china, does it continue to increase? obviously donald trump has made much of the fact that he's standing up to china on bd many. >> let's take one step back. here we are talking about russia and china. when the cold warrened, we thought we entered into a new year of history and suddenly we're at the center of rmt the
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way they're going ahead with 5g, their economic power, their military power. so china is the first country that's come along that is in a position to challenge the united states across the board in the geographic sense but also in the economic and technical logical sense. this is something kwaul tightively different for us. how are we going to found on the one pb we've yet to figure this one out. >> all right. so wrich ard, joe biden held hits first official 2020 rally yesterday. we're going to show you some clips and get your response to biden and what type of leader he would be. but, mika, boy, he hit the
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campaign trail yesterday and it was strong. >> i was impressed. i was hopeful. he had a lot of energy, talked about rebuilding america's middle class and he certainly did not shy away from taking on president trump. take look. >> brum is on prz has his base. we need a president who works for all for example, everybody knows who drpt is. and i blow and hope -- we have to let them know who we are. we democrats and we independent
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and pab most. ultimately talking about goodness. so still with us we have former aide to the george wncht bush and state department, elise jordan. john heilemann. boost", column iist. >> reporter: and coast of k.c.d.c. >>. we believe me would be? >> full disclosure, i first then senator biden in 1974 when he was a relatively new member of the senate foreign relations
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committee and afs young staffer. so i've known him now for almost half a century. i would say -- i mean this as a compliment as you expect someone who works on the council foreign relations, she's a member the statute and think he recognizes american predictability and reliability and essentially looks at the last 40, 50 years and say, sure, we've made some mistakes but on balance this country's prosperity, it's who what he would say is a more familiar, recognizable and in his point of view successful
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had some doubts, wonderi nunsme yp. f snchl slowly unravels or whether he builds from here and builds up. he start, though, in a commanding position. and it just puts onus on him. the is if he can build from here and go forward, he could be the front-runner from pillar to post. but the question really is going to be performance and how those other candidates knocked bernie sanders, who is a phone commander, but we know with do one think.
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n rick san toreup, newt gingrich, psh you had jeb bush in pb frnlt so being the front-runner was in some ways kind of a curse for him. he was the target temperature at the opinion opinion and why the jsh bush was a beloved f and has been for almost 50 years. >> i know, i don't want to sort of overstate or jump ahead but i feel like joe biden j senator
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tweeted on saturday, quo, the good news is that trump is getting nervous and stat fab federal budget they should be. should they be, kasie? >> i think we've spent sop time focused on this and, yeah, bernie sanders has shen that. there were a ton people who tried to talk him out of stay in f i think that there are going to be a will the of democrat counting on joe biden as strength precisely for prp iffrm
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is ffrp i've. . >> and that is the argument that joe biden has come out very strongly out of the gate with in a way that bridges a lot of divides but also in the democratic party. he's talking about the soul of america. that really speaks to a lot of the voters who have felt very left behind by this president's language in charlottesville and s or and then vote pd for donald
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trump. already it could potentially be is probably the most stsh osh if this think she's going to buon down and go. it's a swing area that republicans and democrat all fought for. it turned a little more red of late over the past decade, but wouldn't you agree with me that donald trump actually has real reason for concerns because joe biden, man, joe biden goes to the heart of the territory he has to win if he's going to get re-elected. we can break it down -- you no, these poll numbers, they may not
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mean anything anything but can't we say that if joe biden hold donald trump even in pittsburgh and wrn pennsylvania and clean donald trump's not going to be re-elected. it's that simple. >> and, you know, joe biden of course born in pennsylvania, he was -- when he was in the senate, he was sometimes called the third senator from pennsylvania, even though he was the senator from delaware because he has such a relationship with the stayed. if he can take that pittsburgh/metropolitan area in a big way, he's got philadelphia, he takes virginia, it's very difficult to see how
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. team or coalition getting right behind biden or not. you po a what who brought to ashl during himself voice and you feel this when you think about his history. think. pcht they walked out of this white house complete losers, walking away to literally opening up the doors of the white house to the worst president in history one might argue. so maybe joe biden is walking just the right line in between a lit of support for obama a and making his on way. >> there is a deep seated frugs pb f sfchlt i shouldn't even be
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>> joe, she answered your question. >> you are a capitalist. explain. >> you no, i wrote that op-ed because i felt like i needed to interject and have a voice in this whole conversation about socialism. because of my personal story, just really briefly, i escape khizr vietnam with my family, we were rescued by u.s. navy. had a kmabs who were suffering from shortages as a result of the implementation of socialist economic policies. i've seen the darker sides of
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about going to that form of economic policies that we've seen fail so much across this world. >> so nancy pelosi has been quite clear that the democratic party believes in capitalism. do you think that -- what we hear from some more vocal members talking about democratic socialist and pcht that's more the exception ant the actual rule? >> yes. there are a snurmt is the be psh
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pp do you see it as a threat to the potential. it is in part manufactured by the republicans a a, if from pac funk my cog cog exhibit kprjt they're doing as much to normalize the conversation around socialism as the handful of democratic members who embrace those policies. >> representative stephanie
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murphy, thank you very much for being on the show this morning. we really it. fascinating, isn't it, we had heard a couple of months ago a will the of new members coming in talking about socialism, attacking american capitalism, but there certainly. but also from nancy pelosi herself who has had little use for talk about how the democrat being party is going to turn it become it not simply that the wor worlding 8 ffrmt ffrmt prpyou
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have to be careful for anyone talking on the tran. . ffr ffrmt. f sfchlt you've got to bridge your party that wants to be comfortable with the establishment and also you got forces in biden's case to his left and bush's case to his right. he essentially was the third term for reagan and i would think that's the challenge for biden now. >> richard haas, thank you so much. great to have you on this morning. it's always good to go around the world with richard haas. if you have noticed that joe, i don't know, might be a little punchy this morning, it's because he's exhausted. he was out late coaching this
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baseball team last night, his son jack is on the team, but all the boys on the team are absolutely adorable and one girl. >> and who is all the the way to the left. >> so cute! ne played their hearts out last night. >> there was actually a picture and, willie, if she pitches 30 pitches in a game, 29 of them were strikes. she was our first round draft pick. extraordinarily great baseball i.q., but we also had j.j. and jack and coal and braden and luka and thai and damien and deshawn. >> our coaches, we want to thank lee and josh of course and brian just tan who as did all the coaches these games would go on
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until 9:00 at night. a little punchy by 9:00. and i'm screaming "get the extra point team on the field." >> you landed the brace, which is the team i assume you wanted to have and that makes you bobby cox. i'd love to see the way you go out to the mound with that cox shuffle. >> pigeon toed, just like that. >> i can't believe how tall jack is. >> oh, my gosh! >> i can't believe that's little jack, who i knew way back when. >> greatest first baseman i've ever seen. >> talk about sprouting out. where do you put a guy that tall? you put him on first base. >> he's just like this, got it. >> hoose scooping it up, man. it was a great palace blast and
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come on, the little league. this is i mean, just so much fun for the kid and the parent. mika was screaming last night, along with susan and aliya. mika, didn't you have parents move away from us because you were yelling so loud actually? >> yes, a man did walk away. but you come to play, right? i was supposed to leave early too go sleep but i just couldn't. there's brand new sound out just crossing this morning of joe biden this morning, how he's reacting to the women who say the former vice president touched them in a way that made them uncomfortable. his wife, dr. quill jill biden, also weighed in on that. "morning joe" is back in a moment. joe" is back in a moment introducing the all-new 2019 for
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the president has a motto, make america great givagain. do you have one? >> make america moral again, return to treating our people with dignity and this god awful separating people to agrandize his own power. >> moments ago in an interview with abc news, former vice president, 2020 presidential candidate joe biden along with his wife, jill, responded to accusations of unwanted touching as well as jill's own personal experiences. >> i've always thought that part of leadership, part of politics was listening to people, letting them know i hear them and i empathize with them if they have
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a problem. it's my responsibility to be more sensitive to whether or not someone wants me to reassure them or want to say hello or show affection and support. >> but, robin, i think what you don't realize is how many people approach joe, men and women, looking for comfort. but going forward i think he's going to have to judge, be a better judge of when people approach him how he's going to react, that he maybe shouldn't approach them. >> have you ever experienced a similar situation when a man made you feelin co iuncomfortab their actions or inappropriate language? >> yes, it's happened to me and i'd come home and tell joe about it. >> she'd never tell me the name, though. yes, i've felt that men were in my space.
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>> and how did you handle it? >> you know, it was -- i just sort of stepped aside. i didn't address it. like you said, things have changed. there was a time when women were afraid to speak out and i can remember specifically it was in a job interview. you know, so that's where we moved from. if that same thing happened today i'd turn around and say what do you think you're doing? so i think it's totally different. up. >> knyou know, i really think sometimes we got to get out of new york, get out of washington, get out of the big cities and think about what the questions are you want to ask a major candidate in terms of their candidacy for presidency. the amount of time that was spent on biden's hugs, this is a guy who has hugged 5 to 10
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million people and they love the fact that he's touchy and huggy and they run to him and five women are uncomfortable with the way they hugged him, one of them say she smelled his hair, i know joe biden, went up behind her and took a deep breath because he was going on stage. i want to explain that. he was going on stage, he took a deep breath before he went on stage and you took it deeply personally and now you're writing a "new york times" op-ed about it demanding an apology? this, once again, is completely ridiculous and the rest of america thinks it's ridiculous, too. i'm done. you guys can continue to talk about this, i won't. i refuse to give it any more time so take it away. >> i was looking through some old pictures. this picture was from three years ago. i don't usually show a picture
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of the baseball team, don't usually show pictures of my kids but this was quite some time ago. willie, you remember the convention when joe came on set. i want to show a picture to everybody. this is joe biden with my son. i don't know if you can see it. but do you see what he's doing? hand on the shoulders, whispering to him quietly, reassuring him, he was nervous, telling him, hey, buddy, how are you doing, how's school going? and mika also at that same time had twins that she's basically, you know, taken on since tia died, one of her best friends. they were there, too. he got right there with them and assured them, they just lost their mother from cancer, that everything was going to be okay. this is what joe biden does. if somebody's uncomfortable with it, they can tell him in
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realtime, but this is -- as mika was saying, this is what joe biden does to kids. he's learned his lesson i'm sure, he's going to back away, that's fine. but to suggest that there was something malicious in what he was doing -- >> that demands an apology. >> or that he was getting his kicks from doing that, sorry, there's about 45 years of public experience that suggests that's just not true. >> these stories are all out there in the public view. we've heard from the women who made their accusations, they made them clearly. none of them have said they're accusing the former vice president of sexual misconduct but it will be up o the voters to decide whether or not those stories matter to them enough to push joe biden to the side and
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race a it appears from these polls we've been talking about this morning that many democratic voters are comfortable moving past those stories. >> i think that's right. this is not something that just broke in the news the last couple of days. this is something that the "new york times" op-ed came out with weeks ago. the thing that caught my attention that in a way could be more potentially dangerous for his candidacy is when they said, well, if donald trump says make america great again and he said make america moral given, which is on the one hand, how can you not like that, right, the idea of america being moral. on the other hand, does it i imlie there's something mobile. if he's framing it as the act of
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having who has always had this really great line that has stuck with me eenot saying, look, he s hostile to you as voters who like donald trump. >> it's important, casey, that that remains directed, make america good perhaps is directed towards donald trump and who also voted for barack obama at times and probably will make it to the system has i railroad back in do as 2015 when hillary
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clinton attacked donald trump for being a misogynist. well, donald trump aimed his guns on bill clinton and he did it throughout the rest of the campaign. even though donald trump i know for a fact really liked bill clinton an awful lot personally. donald trump now finds himself in and his supports are can't contract size becauses that opens him up to a line of attack that he just doesn't want to open up. >> i think that's a very fair point here, joe.i mean, what is this, too? i think to a certain extent we have to trust the voters to actually be able to judge people's character for themselves. you know, as people are starting to judge and lk at joe biden and
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i've soon it, there can be a campaign against you with lies and things taken out of context. i just don't like covering this story because it's not a story. >> and the polls that we showed this morning suggest that certainly what's happen over the past three and pop may have helped joe biden because his numbers have just gone up a great deal. >> hey, before you go, we were talking about a poll last hour that showed and i've soon some other people tweeting it, david french was talking about it this morning, the great david french from "national review" the rab
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say they will not be voting for drpt. donald trump has consistently had 10% to 15% of the party that is waiting to ride out this presidency and hoping that the republican party goes back to some other form afterwards. i don't know if that will necessarily he's tackled nrchlt one of the most powerful democrats in the house, majority whip, james clyburn is standing
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listen to your mom, knuckleheads. hand em over. hand what over? video games, whatever you got. let's go. you can watch videos of people playing video games in the morning. is that everything? i can see who's online. i'm gonna sweep the sofa fort. well, look what i found. take control of your wifi with xfinity xfi. let's roll! now that's simple, easy, awesome. xfinity xfi gives you the speed, coverage and control you need. manage your wifi network from anywhere when you download the xfi app today. . joining us now, former ceo of microsoft and current owner of the los angeles clippers, steve ballmer. he's here to unveil the annual report. it's great to have you with us today. i want to dig into your report but first talk about the clippers and the fight they put up in the first round against arguably the greatest dynasty in the history of the nba or maybe
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even in sports. must being it reflect what is you value mostwork. tenacity. we definitely gave them a little battle. >> they certainly didn't back down from the wars. big things ahead for you guys. let's talk about usa facts and before we get into the details of the report, just for the benefit of our viewers what are you after? what's the goal? we've talked about it so many times in this silo world of media you can find your own version of the fact and adhere to those. what are you trying to do at usa facts? >> it's grounded in a couple of three principles. number one, we need a more civil discussion in this country of what's going on. number two, adjectives are easier to manipulate, actually than numbers. and while not everything in our country can be explained numb
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numerically government can in many ways not in all ways, i few years back i set out to under government but only using government numbers. government owes itself to be factual and correct in the numbers. and then i just wanted to understand them, present them in a way i could understand, and then start sharing it out to educate the broader public, including, if you will, our politicians. >> so, steve, i had a good conversation with a really good friend of mine who has been a trump voter and a trump supporter and we haven't talked politics for several years. but he wanted to start talking about it the other day and he said hey listen, i want you to know why i support donald trump. and he brought up the border and the wall and he brought up
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crime. and i said you do understand when you voted for donald trump border crossings were at a 50 year low and crime also at a 50 year low. the rate solo that new york city didn't even. have any comparable statistics from the 1950s, they were that low. and he said, well i don't really know about that. it seems like things are just getting worse. and this, again, intelligent guy. post-graduate degree. but completely ignorant of the facts. voted for donald trump on two issues that should have actually taken him the other way. >> the numbers are clear on that. border apprehensions are down. now if government really wanted to get after this, you would make sure that the numbers were more and more current. the most recent numbers are a couple of years old as are the estimates of the undocumented
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population. but the number of border guards we have is way up. the number of border apprehensions has come down by a factor of about six. the numbers are in our annual report. if you look at crime rates, crime rates also by the numbers have decline. violent crime is down since 1980 and in a good way. really down since the crack epidemic. property crimes way down. the only thing that's up some is drug crime and that's even flattened out and coming back down. >> john, i guess the question is how are facts have gotten to a point where they just don't matter, where a very educated guy can be so misinformed on two of the most important issues for his vote? >> i think there are two or three things that have happened. number one, i don't think ever has anybody really looked at the
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numbers. i think people have counted on the narratives being correct from our politicians. and i suggest that's something that needs real study and real looking at. that would be number one. number, two people do like to take numbers out of context. let me just plug one that makes my point and not give full context. you can take a look at the border apprehension and some people would say it's a large number, others would note how much it's come down. really putting the numbers in context to be fair and accurate has never happened. >> steve, it's john heilemann here. this is a very valuable thing you're doing and a reminder of how far often the narratives that exist are in opposition or at least distanced from the facts, but the environment that creates that distance is this
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polarized media environment where medias have agendas and that's why they are plugging them out of context. think about this from the context of your life in corporate america and your life in the sports world, what can to be done about that? beyond just calling attention the facts, how do you alter the incentive structure of a universe that cares more about agenda than empirical reality. >> somebody has to step up and call people on this. call people on the numbers whether it's the media, politicians. we have mostly tried to educate at this stage. in my dream we do it just like corporate america. there would be something like corporate report, an annual report. we do a thing that's called a 10-k for business. what people have to do with corporate executives have to do is sign those documents and say, yes, this represents accurately what's going on in my
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organization. why don't we hold these politicians accountable for reading something, attesting to its accuracy and signing it. media it's harder to do, but politicians are not. >> steve ballmer, thank you very much for being on the show this morning. appreciate it very much. >> my pleasure. >> coming up more on the new andy poling this morning suggesting trouble ahead for president trump. in his 2020 re-election bid. we'll break down the numbers including the struggle he's facing with republican voters. plus house majority whip jim clyburn and angus king both join the conversation. and as we go break at knowyourvalue.com we're taking a serious look at stress an anxiety. i have a pretty personal piece that just posted there. i hope it will serve as a warning for everyone, for elm especially. also we had some incredibly inspiring advice coming on taking risks that will roll out
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later today. you can't get ahead holding back. sometimes you have to take that big chance. i share mine. also we'll be talking more about getting to the top and staying there at the inaugural ascend summit in new york city on may 10th. >> it's going to be great. >> go to knowyourvalue.com to get tickets. we have an amazing lineup for the event. that's next week. we'll be right back with a packed 8:00 a.m. hour. heeeeey. ! ah, control. (vo) go national. go like a pro. we see two travelers so at a comfort innal with a glow around them, so people watching will be like, "wow, maybe i'll glow too
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why didn't you deny calling the president a moron? >> that's a really old question. >> you understand that by not answering the question some people thought you were confirming the story. >> i think i've answered the question. >> you think you answered the question? >> i've answered the question. >> did you call the president a moron? >> i'm not going to dignify the question. >> wow. amazing how often that word seems to pop-up in the white house as a former aide to john bolton tells "the new yorker" on the record quote, i wonder how he goes into work every day because deep in his heart he believes the president is a moron. and, joe, we have "the new yorker's" dexter on the show for that bolton profile. we'll hear more about that and the whole moron thing. good morning and welcome to "morning joe". it's tuesday, april 30th. along with joe, willie and me we
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have former aide to the george w. bush white house and state department elise jordan. national affairs analyst for nbc news and msnbc co-host and executive producer of showtime's the circus, john heilemann. national political correspondent for nbc news and msnbc and author of "the red and the blue" steve kornacki is with us. and editor for "the washington post" and msnbc political analyst eugene robinson. good to have you all with us. but first, new troubling poll numbers for president donald trump. >> they've been very bad since the mueller report was released which the president, of course, after it was released he had done an honorable job. you heard donald trump said mueller did an honorable job. >> 55% say they would not vote for him in the 2020 election according to latest abc
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news/"washington post" poll. those numbers are relatively unchanged from three months ago. furthermore one in six republicans and nearly a third of self-described conservatives also say they will not vote for trump. spilling trouble for the president's re-election bid. yet among those who rule out voting for trump 29% say they will definitely support his democratic opponent saying two-thirds will wait to see who that is. the poll notes 75% of americans and 85% of registered voters say they are certain to vote in the 2020 election intended turn out levels typically only seen in the closing days of a presidential contest. >> john heilemann, it's one thing to run as a challenger. it is easy to run as a challenger. i know i once ran as a challenger. it's just easy. you are shooting catfish in a barrel, right? it's quite another thing to run
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for re-election and that's why politicians always look at the re-elects. they want to be close to 50%. if donald trump re-elected 29% nationally in this poll. you got in wisconsin he's re-elected 31, michigan 31 and pennsylvania where joe biden was in yesterday, down in the 30s. i understand everybody, the mainstream media because they missed it the first time, they think donald trump has some magic voodoo spell he'll sprinkle in the last days of the campaign. presidents do not get re-elected with 31% re-elects. politicians. dog catchers don't. so donald trump in wisconsin, in michigan, in pennsylvania and that's the whole gang for him, egot to figure out a way to get that 31% re-elect up and it ain't going to happen as long as he's going out throwing these verbal grenades thethat makes t
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daunting for the president and not to say -- he has enormous assets on his side, especially financial ones. he's raising a ton of money. got the big plane. not a serious primary opponent so he can prepare for the general election straight on through until it happens. that's the advantage of incumbency. not only is his re-elect number as bad as it is, but bad set against what the president said is a pretty solid economy. it's not as though anybody expects this economy which has been strong one president trump, it won't get a lot stronger between now and november of 2020. if anything it's likely to weaken. even if it holds that information is priced in to the stock. he's sitting in the mid-30s in states where they've seen the economy go up in the past two or three years. people voting for trump because the economy is good is already
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in his column. it takes to work have numbers as low as he does against strong macro economic numbers. no one is ever -- the american media should not be dismissive and say this is a foregone conclusion. we should be wary about making predictions. we should not understate the degree of challenge that he faces just if you look at the pure data and you look from state to state where he stands. it's an uphill climb in a lot of ways. >> steve kornacki, let's look at the group of candidates who hope to defeat him and the new poll. we got the national number which shows joe biden with a healthy lead, a growing lead and some interesting information as we go through inside these african-american voters and young voters. >> significant movement in the poll. they've been doing this every week. biden after the announcement last week you see him moving up to 36% there. that gap with sanders we've been
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talking about a pretty narrow gap. that sits at 14%. biden we've been saying overall if you talk about the democratic electorate extremely high favorable score. some of the other candidates have that as well. one thing that's a potential read of this is that there was a certain segment of the democratic electorate that was looking at joe biden that liked him a lot. thought there were false starts in the past. guy will be 78 years old. will he run for president? it may have made a difference to a certain number of democrats to see him put that video out there. see him go on television last week and say yes i'm here, this is real, i'm running. the andy poling profile of a front-runner sitting in the mid to high 30s versus somebody sitting back in the mid to high 30s in terms of winning the nomination that's two different stories. that's a real bounce. is that bounce replicated in other polls. can he sustain that down. if he is and we look at numbers like this going forward this is
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a different andy poling profile for bidden than i think we've been talking about in terms of his prospects. one of the other interesting findings of these findings, race and gender. who does biden poll best with? black women. race and gender who does he poll worse with? white men. there were a lot of demographics that will defy what you learned from social media. >> that's a 23 point spread if you're listening in the car. joe biden at 43% among african-american voters. bernie sanders at 20%. and kamala harris at 10%. we'll get into some of others with older voters and younger voters. these are strong numbers for joe biden. wow. >> we had amisha on the show a week ago and she out the most important subgroup among democrats, black women. most important group.
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i said last week beaware of the elites in washington and the elites in l.a. and the elites in new york that are driving the discussion on social media. it is in the democratic primary black women who are the back bone of the democratic process, the democratic primary process. they were the ones that made such a huge difference in electing doug jones to the senate. roy moore thinking about running there again. doug jones shoufld just stay whe where he is. the fact that joe biden is doing well among black women that's extraordinarily important because that's a group that bernie sanders has not done well with, did not do well with four years ago and that's going to be a real challenge for pete buttigieg. so for bidde biden.
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>> bernie sanders has the lead at 36%. joe biden at 23% a 13 separate. among older voters we take a look at 65 plus, you have joe biden at 48%. pete buttigieg at 11. bernie sanders at 10. what do you see in those numbers, steve? >> that's a pattern we've been seeing. there's an age divide when it comes certainly to sanders appeal to the democratic electorate. ever lie poll we're seeing. your oldest group 65 plus. at 45 years old, about 50 years old you really start seeing sanders support take a hit. biden has struggled when you get under 45 and particularly the youngest possible group there. one of the realities of the democratic party is that may be at odds perception you get from social media. we talk a lot about changing democratic party, millennial voters, young voters, more liberal. there are still an awful lot of 45 pluses in the democratic
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party. >> coming up a few of the moments from joe biden's opening rally in pennsylvania. we'll talk about his pitch to independent voters among others next on "morning joe". oe". oe". (alarm beeping) welcome to our busy world. where we all want more energy. but with less carbon footprint. that's why, at bp, we're working to make energy that's cleaner and better. we're producing cleaner-burning natural gas. and solar and wind power. and wherever your day takes you... we have advanced fuels for a better commute. and we're developing ultra-fast-charging technology for evs.. at bp, we see possibilities everywhere. so we can all keep advancing. we see two travelers so at a comfort innal with a glow around them, so people watching will be like, "wow, maybe i'll glow too if i book direct at choicehotels.com". who glows? just say, badda book. badda boom. book now at choicehotels.com
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♪ welcome back to "morning joe". we kicked off the morning by talking about joe biden. let's hear from the presidential contender himself. >> donald trump is only president, is the only president who decided not to represent the whole country. the president has his base. we need a president who works for all americans. we can afford this. we can do this. folks, everybody knows who
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donald trump is. and i believe, i believe in hope. they know who we are. we have to let them know who we are. we democrats, we independents who had the same view have to choose hope over fear. unity over division. and maybe most importantly truth over lies. >> gene robinson, it's hopeful in a candidate on the democratic side to see someone with the experience, with that whole obama-era hope. as well as what biden is bringing to the table in his performance right now. i think some of us were leaning in and watching and seeing how he was doing hoping he looked as good as de. i thought he sounded great and hitting all the notes. >> i agree. you look at those numbers, the
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andy poling profile is a front-runner profile at this point or getting there. you can kind of say that about him. i think those numbers are not that great for bernie sanders and pretty awful for the rest of the field going into the meat of the campaign. everything that was said about support of black women is true, and really important in a democratic primary process. and what biden has is a kind of stature as a former vice president, the association with president obama, of course. one thing democratic primary voters are doing, i think, is pick during the potential democratic candidate standing on a debate stage across from donald trump and what's that going to look like? how will that play? how is that going to work? so far i think biden is reassuring a lot of democrats that he looked pretty good on that stage.
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now, it's a long campaign. it's joe biden. you know, let's -- we won't make any sort of permanent judgments at this point, but i got to say he's had a spectacular launch to his campaign. >> you know, elise, i know it surprises you. when kenny rogers sang about the gambler, he was not thinking about donald j. trump, because donald trump has the worst poker face i think in the history of modern american politics. he was sort of on a meltdown yesterday about joe biden being in old joe's home state of pennsylvania. and there was a tweet storm about it. you can tell he's really scared of biden. he understands that this year will be all about pennsylvania, pennsylvania, pennsylvania. and he's drawn the worst card in joe biden if he wants to win pennsylvania. >> well, joe, talking about a poker face, it's really hard to maintain a poker face when your
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competition when you tweet out exactly what you think and i found it very telling that president trump was, he was definitely unnerved by the union support that joe biden enlisted yesterday and was ripping into union leadership as taking money from the rank-and-file and he still maintains his support. but i thought that shows that joe biden has definitely gotten one his skin and that the way joe biden is going about attacking him, not directly head on, but referencing the lies and the lack of moral character, and definitely making donald trump part of his case for defeating him that the character of the man does matter. has been effective and has gotten in donald trump's head. >> coming up on "morning joe," senator an gus king is just back from iraq. we'll get his take on the situation there. and bring in acclaimed wear
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correspondent dexter filkins who is rofiling john bolton for "the new yorker". more "morning joe" in just a moment. new yorker". more "morning joe" in just a moment leave no man behind. or child. or other child. or their new friend. or your giant nephews and their giant dad. or a horse. or a horse's brother, for that matter. the room for eight, 9,000 lb towing ford expedition. high protein.
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i'm really proud to serve with barack. look it's a new time, new day. we're moving on to things that are within our grasp. finishing the job for equality with women. finish the job on the climate. did you get any benefit from the tax cut? have you really -- have you wages gone up? do your employers treat you with any more respect and dig any at the than they did before? what's the story. ask these folks. ask the folks in this state. i know this state pretty well. the fact of the matter is they are not getting their fair share. the american people, the people who built this country are ordinary americans who have done extraordinary things for neighborhoods that we all come from and this president does not show a great deal of respect and he continues to divide the country. >> some more from joe biden's
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interview with abc news this morning. joining us now, house majority whip democratic congressman jim clyburn of south carolina. great to have you back on the show. >> thank you so much for having me back. >> so, you know, at some point, jim, we'll come on down to south carolina. we're going to be talking about the democratic primary. we'll get something to eat at lizard's pickett and talk about the field, the democratic field. i wonder what your personal thoughts are. i know you need to wait for quite some time to get in. south carolina is such an important step for any of these candidates. but you've dealt with joe biden a long time. what are you thoughts about joe? >> well, thank you so much for having me, joe. the fact of the matter is i've said a long time that if joe biden were to get in the race he would, in fact, be the front-runner. and his problem would be maintaining that position
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throughout. that looks like what your andy poling is seeming to be saying. joe is well loved in south carolina. he spends a lot of time there. the two of us were two of the three speakers at holland's funeral services two weeks ago. so he's going to do well. you know, i always say that the best predictor of future behavior is past performance. and i think that people who are looking to the future, they are going to look at each one of these candidates and see whether or not they can see something in their performance over the past years, can be a predictor of how they will conduct themselves going forward. so i think he's going to do well. >> do you have any favorites right now? anybody in particular that comes to mind? >> well, i've been trying to entertain and be of assistance to all of the candidates.
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i do believe that cory booker has been spending a lot of time in rural south carolina. that makes a lot of sense to me. kamala harris had a great roll out in south carolina. so i think that the candidates are doing well there. eric has been doing good. basically got the upper state of south carolina. these candidates are conducting themselves very well. i think that the state has been very receptive to them. as i always say south carolina is a small state. it has a relatively cheap media market. four distinct cultures that will allow information try out their messages. i think it's a great laboratory for all the candidates. but at this point i think those that i just mentioned are probably the leading candidates. >> from presidential politics to concerns in congress, let me ask you about the ongoing debate.
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i read in the papers this morning that because donald trump is being so objestinant h won't allow you to do your oversight work that your mandated to do, more members are starting to think about impeachment. what can you tell us about that? >> i think all of us are concerned about whether or not we'll be able to do oversight constitutionally we're obliged to do. we have six committees. they are doing their work. some are looking at his finances. some are looking at his tax records. some are looking at his performance over at the judiciary to see whether or not he really obstructed justice or whether or not there s-in fact, some conspiracy here. these committees will do their work. we in the house, on the democratic side will allow them the time and space to do it.
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and then we'll respond appropriately when their work is completed. we don't want to get out in front of them. we should not get out in front of them. we should wait and see where the facts will lead us and then we should respond to their approach to these various committees. >> but impeachment is still on the table? >> absolutely. it's always on the table. we can't take that off the table. that is the only thing that we have available to us. the mueller report was a road map. it told us that there were some barriers there that they could not overcome. there were some road blocks that they could not get around. the mueller report says that congress is the best vehicle to get through those barriers, to get around those road blocks and then see what's on the other side, down road for us to respond to. >>congressman, it's willie
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geist. we're coming up on the shooting on the church and we had another attack on saturday where a woman was killed. you've been passionate on this subject and we under why specifically given what happened in your state almost four years ago. as you think about that problem, as you think about the rise of anti-semitism and hate in this country, how do you approach that from where you sit, from a legislative, where you sit in congress from a legislative point of view? how can we work on this? how do we get better at fighting an idea, an ideology, of fighting hate? >> well, i don't know how you fight hate except to do it with love. i grew up a disciple of martin luther king jr. who told us time and time again that darkness can only be driven out by light and that hate can only be gotten rid of with love.
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and so how you do all of that, those are expressions. but us in the congress need to be responding to what you see to be an obvious need. that's why i authored 11, hr-112 to close the charleston loophole. interesting thing on me is 90% of all background checks are completed in 90 seconds. 96% of all background checks are completed within the three months or the three days that are currently available. only 4% of these background checks get beyond the three days. and i don't know that we ought to be concerned about the invention that may accrue to someone who is trying to get a gun and is only 4% of the people that would suffer that kind of invention. i think it's incumbent upon us in the congress to don't educate the public as to what we're
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trying to do here. so that's what hl-1112 is about. we passed hr-8 to expand background checks so we can cover gun show loopholes. so we're doing what we can do in the house. i would hope that the senate would respond positively to those two pieces of legislation that we have already passed in the house and it's incumbent upon us to don't educate the public what we're trying to do. >> congressman ellis jordan here. you're speaking about gun control coming from a conservative state, a state where most of your constituents, i would imagine, are supportive of gun rights, and you illustrate the importance of talking to rural voters. how can the democratic party navigate the fine line between appealing to the coast, but also speaking to the local communities and making more of an inroad in the deep south again?
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>> well, remember charleston is not the only incident we've had. it's been the most significant. but we do have cool children going school every day. we have incidents in our schools almost daily with under age children bringing guns to school because their families have been negligent in how they manage guns in their home. we have to look at the holistic approach to this and see what it is we need to do to better educate the public as to how they taught manage guns and how they ought to be able to manage to purchase guns. so i don't think it's a violation of gun rights for us to look at this and be more responsible about it because everybody is not responsible. like every other law that we may have on the books. so i do believe that in south carolina and south carolinians,
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i do believe rural people need to have closer attention paid to the challenges of living in rural america, and one of those challenges would be to help them navigate through their gun rights in a responsible way because everybody is not that responsible when it comes to guns. >> all right. congressman jim clyburn, thank you so much. always good to see you. >> thank you very much for having me. up next senator angus king joins the conversation. the president has said that isis is defeated. senator king is just back from iraq and says no it's not. >> also the leader of isis who reappeared yesterday in iraq says they are not defeated either. >> we'll also get senator king's take on the moves that president trump and his family members are making to prevent two major banks from complying with lawmakers. we're back in just a moment. h lawmakers. we're back in just a moment.
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isis has released a new video purportedly showing abu bakr al baghdadi the terror group's reclusive leader giving an address. if it is him, it's the first time he's been seen on video since july of 2014. the footage shows a bearded man who resembles abu bakr al baghdadi although significantly older and heavier. praising the terrorists who carried out the sri lanka bombings. nbc news could not verify the exact date and time of the recording or if it is actually abu bakr al baghdadi. in the past several years multiple reports have questioned whether abu bakr al baghdadi is actually still alive. joining us now member of the intelligence and armed surfaces committee's independent senator angus king of maine. senator king just returned from a three day trip to iraq, and senator we welcome you back to the show. the president is so proud of the
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ground he's gained on isis. what do you make of him saying they are beat yen and defeated. >> that's not what i found in iraq. of course that's not what abu bakr al baghdadi said yesterday and that's not what happened in sri lanka. what i heard from everyone that i met with, iraqi officials, our policy people on the ground in iraq is that isis is very much alive. estimates are 15,000 to 20,000 fighters. it's true that they've lost the caliphate, the real estate, the ground that they controlled in syria and iraq. but they've simply turned -- they've now become much more similar to al qaeda. just because al qaeda didn't control any territory, didn't mean that we weren't going to take them seriously as a threat for almost 20 years. so isis is still a athlete. the idea is there. the radical ideology is there. that was the consistent message that i heard in iraq,
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particularly from iraqi officials and the kurds. >> senator it's willie geist. many americans have been con. soomd over the last couple of years with domestic policies and everything coming out of the trump administration that they've taken the eye off of iraq a bit. i think it's fair to say that. you were just there on the ground. what can you tell americans and our viewers what's happening there and what america's role is happening there. >> isis is serious and we need to be focused upon it. but the second message was they want continuity of american policy. the americans are playing a very important role there. there's not a lot of americans there. i think it's between. 5,000 and 8,000. by the way, the coalition that's involved in fighting isis is 79 different countries. i was in a mess hall in one of the bases. there were swedes, canadians and americans. there's 79 countries. but america is the glue of that
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coalition. and the message that i got from, particularly from the kurds and also iraqi public officials is stay the course. stay with us because we're providing and giving them a hope of some stability and cisco pretty easily reconstitute and move on baghdad, for example, which they did a year or so ago. so i think that's what -- those were the two consistent messages that i heard all over the country. >> fair to say people you talked to on the ground actually doing the fighting don't believe isis has been defeated? >> that's absolutely true. let's bring into the conversation staff writer for "the new yorker," author of the book "the forever war." his piece john bolton on the war path can trump's national security adviser sell the isolationist presidency. dexter, great to talk to you. we were talking in the break, i mentioned your book "forever
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war." i couldn't believe it came 20u9 08, almost 11 years ago. at that time we were talking about afghanistan as a forever war. here we are 19 years almost into it. and it continues unabated. >> forever and then some. yeah. well, they are talking. there are peace talks that are pretty serious. president trump says he wants to get out, wants to pull everyone out. the americans that are there, for the most part are behind-the-scenes. they are doing a lot of training. but we're still there. >> when you wrote "forever war" we were talking about al qaeda. now we're talking about isis. >> same guys. >> talk about the distinction there and what you see about what the senator is talking about in iraq, the presence of isis continues despite what the president says. >> i mean look -- abu bakr al baghdadi used to be al qaeda in iraq and it was a name change. but the principle difference between isis and al qaeda was
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that al qaeda was essentially a guerilla movement. they would come out, attack and go back to hiding. isis claimed territory, the caliphate. isis is now becoming like al qaeda once was which it's going back in the shadows. so essentially abu bakr al baghdadi was proclaiming i'm still here. although you'll notice that, i think on the video, the parts about sri lanka, the attack were audio, not video. so it looks like that video was taken sometime ago. >> dexter, i feel like this is a good to talk about this profile that you wrote for "the new yorker" about john bolton because in it you write that president trump wanted to get out of afghanistan, he wanted to get out of syria and that force within the administration tried to temper his influence, which on the one hand i find
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incredibly disturbing because it's you surpri it's usurping the commander-in-chief. but now john bolton is in his position and seems to be pushing for war and regime change and venezuela almost, if my read of prour file is correct. >> definitely. definitely. i think that was the big surprise for me was in reporting this piece was that on one hand you have bolton who has always been aggressive. he's for an aggressive american foreign policy. he's for bombing north korea, bombing iran. you have a president who doesn't want any of that. he wants to bring the american troops home. he don't want to spend the money. there's a fundamental divide inside the white house between those two guys. >> bolton also seems to be more concerned with iran than north korea according to your reporting. >> i think so. some people use the word obsession with iran. i don't know if i would go that
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far. i think he's long been, been focused on those two countries because they are both trying to develop nuclear weapons. in fairness to him that's it. as one of his aides so to me when he wakes up in the morning i think about nuclear weapons. >> senator king, dexter writes in his piece and quotes some officials saying john bolton despite china and russia being our greatest threats and rivals in the world, john bolton has this quote anal focus on iran and has 30 years. what's your view of john bolton as the right hand to president trump on matters of national security. >> first thing i want to say despite the superficial resemblance i am not john bolton. >> it's really close, senator now that i look at it. >> i get that sometimes in airports. i prefer ted turner because there's more dough there. it's very concerning. in fact that was one of the
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issues that we talked about in iraq. iran is, i use the term, old term from law school a broading omni presence. they have a major war with iraq. they are a different ethnic. iraqis most of the middle east are arabs. iranians are persians. they have at each other for several thousands of years. so what worries people is that we need to work on containing iran but not provoking them to the point where we end up in a significant war in that region. they have a significant role in iraqi politics but not a controlling one and we want to keep it that way. i think it's a narrow path. what worries me about john bolton he's advocated bombing and aggressive military action. iran is not iraq. iran is a modern country with 80 million people, sophisticated
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anti-aircraft. this would be a real war. frankly i never understood why we got out of the nuclear agreement which it was working, everybody agrees it was working. even mike pompeo when he was at the cia said it was working. yet we got out and basically taken away that control over iran's nuclear weapons. so the question is controlling iran but not to point where we provoke a confrontation that could be catastrophic. >> senator, what do you make of the proposal to charge asylum seekers a fee. is there any reason why that would be a good idea? >> clearly it's designed to try impair people's ability to seek asylum. people would probably find the money because they are fleeing for their lives and they would have to do it. but to me the first thing i thought of was the poll tax in the south which was designed to
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disenfranchise african-americans. asylum is part of our law. part of international law. part of american law. and we have a dark history that turning away of the uss st. louis during the holocaust is a black spot on american history and here we are essentially talking about keeping out people who are fleeing for their lives. there are parts of that proposal that makes sense trying to accelerate the adjudication of whether it's a valid asylum claim. but imposing a fee seems gratuitous and it may interfere with a few people. but if i'm running from a gang in central america, i'm going scare up a hundred bucks if that's what it takes and i don't think it will deter anybody. >> also speaking of laws and process i'm curious because there's so many ways this president and his family are pushing back on questions being
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asked of them. subpoena, bank documents and now a lawsuit in return for these requests. where does this go? and is there a process and are there laws in place to for the president and to comply with questions about whether or not they have conflicts of interest? >> well, i think the first point to be made is that we have a constitutional republican and the congress is a co-equal branch of government with the presidency. in fact that is just the way our system is set up. so subpoenas are part of the process. they are part of the process of fact finding. and congress has the power to hold people in contempt if they don't abide by subpoenas. it rarely ever comes to that. usually there is some negotiation. but in this case the president has filed a lawsuit to try to block the subpoena to the deutsche bank to try to determine conflicts of interests in relationships apand i think that that -- as my father used
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to say, that is why they ive invented courts. >> it will be a busy time. senator king, always great to see you. thank you very much for being on the show this morning. >> thank you and thanks to the coach there, skoe coach, coach scarborough. and so in your piece about john bolton, you have a pretty extraordinary quote from a former bolton aide on the record, and i'll read it, john is thinking to the extent i can modify or mollify the president's actions, i will. but i do wonder how he goes into work every day because deep in his heart, he believes the president is a moron o. that is a quoit fromte from a b aide. do you think that captures the relationship? >> you can imagine bomb ton does not -- bolton does not have an
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easy job. i was told when he breaches the president, he is short, to the point, graphics when necessary, but very, very quick because otherwise his attention will wander off. >> and of course former secretary of state rex tillerson is reported to have used the same personterm about the presi and never denied it. >> shortly before he left, yeah. >> this is a great piece in the "new yorker." always great to have you here. coming up next, tale of two americas within one family. we'll explain that ahead. we'll explain that ahead it's kind of like playing your own version of best ball. because here, you can choose any car in the aisle, even if it's a better car class than the one you reserved. so no matter what, you're guaranteed to have a perfect drive. [laughter] (vo) go national. go like a pro. see what i did there?
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cancer treatment centers of america. welcome to fowler, indiana. one of the windiest places in america. and home to three bp wind farms. in the off-chance the wind ever stops blowing here... the lights can keep on shining. thanks to our natural gas. a smart partner to renewable energy. it's always ready when needed. or... not. at bp, we see possibilities everywhere. to help the world keep advancing. i want to thank my mom who has always loved me for a who i am. and if harvey had not been taken from us 30 years ago, i think he'd want me to say to all the gay and lesbian kids out there tonight who have been told they
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are less than, that you are beautiful wonderful creatures of value. and god does love you. and that very soon i promise you you will have equal rights federally across this great nation of ours. >> that was dustin lance black thanking his mom in his acceptance speech for winning the oscar for original screen play for the film milk at the 1 8'8 81st academy awards. he has written a memo about two americas told with his be dumt loved late mother. it is out now and the author, director and producer, joins us thousand. great to have you on the show. >> thank you. >> describe for us the two americas that you explore in this book. >> well, i think what i found was that there was even more than two. the book is starts by looking backward. high grandmother, my mother's
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experience in lake providence, louisiana. it was a very conservative youth for her and it got even more conservative as she joined the mormon church. she had polio as a child and these very cute more monday missionaries came by promising her a perfect body in the afterlife, a family in the afterlife and she joined up. so i grew up in a family that was about as conservative as it gets. mormon, military, texan, arkansas. and then i somehow came out of this, this coastal kid who decides to go to art school instead of going on a mission. and i started to explore are these different americas. this book i look back at who these people were that loved, the area that i loved, even the faith that even though we didn't agree on certain things, that i pressured in a way. and it was important if i'm going to write this book today
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to move forward. so i challenged myself in the last third of the book to go back to texas, back to arkansas and louisiana and even utah to meet with leaders of the mormon church and to see if a bridge could be built in a time as divided as this. >> and what did you find when you went back to those places? >> i found that -- my mom had had to find our bridges. even though she was very conservative, she voted for people i never would have dreamed of voting for, we had to. she was paralyzed. she was abandoned by my father. so my little brother was two, i was six, my big brother because 10. we had to raise her as much as she was raising us. so i learned earl li on the conversations that you have to have to keep those relationships alive despite a political divide. and so when i go into -- when i went into the south, have a meal with somebody. have a drink with somebody. usually it is jack daniels. when you go to utah, you might not do that, but you might have a lemon tea. but you will still have these
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conversations when you look people in the eye. and it does take a bit of courage, but mostly it takes curiosity. and it is stuff sometimes because you have to genuinely be curious to build a bridge and sometimes what you will hear, you will not agree with. but listening is the first step in rebuilding a relationship. and what i say and what my mom and i always said, if we're going to make this work, if we're going to love each other, we have to find a high plain th than politics. tough to find these days. and that was the challenge, helping people understand that there might be something that we can define ourselves by that is not political. and i often said, you know, i would be in texarkana or salt lake city and i would say imagine this magical universe that we live in, this spectacular thing if i said to you the highest plain of existence designed by if you put an r or a d on your registration
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voting card, you'd say that is absurd. but it kind of where we've found ourselves. >> it is a great message. you write that i knew around the people that i loved growing up, i was a sinner, a criminal and perhaps even mentally ill. >> sure. >> how did you work past that to come out and how did you build that bridge with your mom and all the people in your life? >> well, i was lucky enough to get out at a certain point. my mom remarried a good catholic who went to church at christmas and easter. and we made our way to california and i started meeting actual gay and lesbian people and they didn't have the horns that the mormon prophet had told me they would have. and they didn't seem ill, in fact they seemed quite happy. so i had good examples. and i was able to get stronger. but i have to say right now in this country, we need every state to feel that equal and for these lgbt kids to have that feeling that they have an opportunity to succeed equally. it is what i think pass being
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right now the equality act is so important. when i hear these democratic candidates on the trail, i want to hear more about the equality act because without it, you can drive from one coast to the other in this kuccountry right and as an lgbt person, your rights change and that is not fair, that is not american and i'd like to hear more about these equality act as these folks are running for president. >> the book is mama's boy, a story from our americas. dustin lance black, thank you very much for being on the show with us this morning. >> thank you. that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage. >> hi there. this morning let's make a deal. 90 minutes, speaker pelosi and chuck schumer will meet with discuss something that they might agree on. infrastructure. but after reports that the two sides had similar ideas for
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