. attorney general william barr may not have appeared on capitol hill yesterday but the house judiciary committee is moving on and setting its sights on special counsel bob mueller. at the same time nancy pelosi is excusing barr of committing a crime by lying to congress. the man set to bomb the new york city subway prison is set to be released after cooperating with authorities after nearly a decade. good morning, everybody. it is friday, may 3rd. i'm yasmin vossoughian. we're starting with attorney general bill barr failing to

appear on capitol hill for questioning yesterday. the house judiciary committee is moving forward, though, and making plans to speak with special counsel robert mueller. one source familiar with the matter telling nbc news the committee has begun discussions directly with mueller's team about coming to testify before the committee. so far nothing has been finalized, no date has been set. the committee has previously been in discussions with the justice department regarding mueller's testimony. jerrold nadler said the panel hoped the have special counsel appear on may 15th and that the committee was firming up that date. house speaker nancy pelosi is accusing attorney general barr of committing a crime by lying to congress about robert mueller's report. here's what she told reporters yesterday. >> madam speaker, did the attorney general commit a crime? >> he lied to congress. if anybody else did that it's

considered a crime. nobody is above the law, not the president of the united states and not the attorney general. being attorney general does not give you a bath to go say whatever you want. it's the fact because you are the attorney general. >> so a spokesperson for the department of justice responded to pelosi's comments saying this, speaker pelosi's baseless attack on the attorney general is reckless and false. one of the more memorable moment from the hearing came from steve cohen. democratic congressman from tennessee used barr's absence from the hearing to mock him with a bucket of kentucky fried chicken and the ceramic version of the bird as well. at one point cohen went so far to place the ceramic chicken in front of where barr would have been sitting. having some fun with. speaking with hallie jackson yesterday the congressman explained his pretty obvious

dig. >> the message is that bill barr is a chicken. he was chicken to come to the house judiciary committee, face the members of the congress and also face 30 minutes from counsel that would have been difficult for him to respond to because he stands on shaky ground. >> not everybody thought that was funny. cohen's colleague tom tillis took issue with that. >> you tell me whether or not the chair of that committee is actually serious about this subject when you've got a guy eating fried chicken in place of where they wanted attorney general barr to be. this guy didn't even have good enough sense to have bojangles chicken. last night president trump was asked if he warned putin not

to interfere in the 2020 athletic. >> i told him you can't keep doing what you're doing and i don't believe they will be. >> have you been firm with the russian president? >> i think so. i don't think anybody has done more with russia than i have. president obama before the november election, my november election, if you look, he was told by the fbi and others about russia. he did nothing about it. >> what could he have done? >> he could have done something. he could have called out troops and said let's look at this closely. he did absolutely nothing because he thought crooked hillary was going to win the election. but i don't want russia or anybody else playing around with our elections. >> let's set the record straight. the director of national intelligence and defendant homeland security sounded the alarm about russian influence ahead of 2016 election. obama administration officials said senate majority leader mitch mcconnell impeded a

bipartisan statement over his concern hurting republican chances. new andy poling showing president trump losing badly to nearly all of the top candidates in the democratic presidential field. a quinnipiac university poll conducted over the last week shows trump's job approveal is 41% to 55 by those who disapprove. while he has a slight lead higher, 43% job approval in the latest cnn poll trump loses by ten points in a hypothetical election to beto o'rourke and loses by six points to joe biden, to bernie sanders, to kamala harris, pete buttigieg winning by three points. and trump managing to edge out only elizabeth warren who gets

47% to his 48%. but, again, still very early. senator michael bennet of colorado is the latest democrat to announce he's jumping into the 2020 presidential race. >> my plan is to run for president. if we continue to go down the path we're going, and this just isn't about president trump it's about the politics that existed before he got there, he certainly has made matters worse. if we keep going down this road we're the first generation to leave less opportunity not more. >> bennett enters the field less than after a month after undergoing surgery for prostate. he requires no further treatment. the "new york times" announced editorial page editor james bennett has recused himself from 2020 election coverage following his brother's announcement. meanwhile fellow 2020 democratic candidate and former colorado

governor yesterday welcomed bennett into the crowded field. senator bennet will be a guest later on "morning joe". joining us now is melissa quin. let's talk about some of these stories i've been talking about. the fallout from the attorney general, snubbing the house judiciary hearing yesterday. what type of reaction so far are we getting on the hill from all this? >> happy friday to you as well. the reaction we're seeing from lawmakers on capitol hill is exactly what we would have expected to see. you have democratic lawmakers who are just outraged at the fact that attorney general bill barr decided not to come and show up and testify before them. we saw many antics, steve cohen bringing that bucket of kfc fried chicken basically saying he's not allowing congress to do their job, doing their oversight responsibilities by not showing up and taking their questions.

republicans are blaming their congressional democratic counterparts in saying they have essentially robbed them of the opportunity to ask bill barr key questions about not only special counsel robert mueller's probe but important justice department related questions and saying look half of you guys on the democratic side are attorneys yourself. there's no reason why you need to have a staff attorney come in and question bill barr in the first place for that second 30 minute round which was a key objection that the justice department had in terms of him testifying yesterday. >> we know that there are a lot of negotiations going on right now especially between nadler and now we're hearing with the mueller team specifically not just the justice department. so he had talked about the fact that he wanted to wait a couple of days to negotiate something with the attorney general to figure out whether or not the appearance would happen, the testimony would happen but more importantly they want to get the unredacted version of the

mueller report handed to them. last night we heard they were directly negotiating with bob mueller and his team as to when mueller would come to testify on the hill. how much -- how much light -- how much could we actually learn from bob mueller if he were to testify? >> i think we could learn a lot from him and i think a key question that democrats are likely to pose from him, if there was not justice department guidance saying that a sitting president cannot be indicted, based on the episodes of obstruction that mueller and his team reviewed would you have recommended that the president of the united states be indicted. and if this were not the president of the united states who was involved in these ten episodes that may have constituted obstruction would you, bob mueller, recommend he be charged. there's opportunity for mueller to be pressed on exactly what he thought about bill barr's four-page letter which we knew

he took issue with. >> it will be interesting when we do get a date when bob mueller appears and hear his testimony. but to see how far bob mueller actually goes and how forthcoming he actually is. because he does like to stay inside the lines on many things. whether he'll answer questions like this why didn't you make a decision on obstruction and that kind of thing will be the real question. we'll have to wait and see. thank you. a man who plotted to blow up new york city subway system nearly a decade ago may soon walk out of prison. the al qaeda trained maftder mind has been sentenced to ten years in prison which is close to the time that he's already been in federal custody. ron allen has more on this. >> reporter: an extraordinary move. the would be subway bomber set to be released from prison after almost a decade of cooperation with authorities. he met with the fbi more than

100 times after pleading guilty to a dangerous plot in 2010. when the young follower of al qaeda and his two friends planned to detonate bombs during rush hour on new york city subway around the september 11th anniversary. he was arrested in 2009 faced multiple life sentences with no chance for parole. in court he apologized, i'm sorry for the harm that i caused. i'm asking for forgiveness. the federal judge sentenced the now 33-year-old to time served, about ten years saying to him this one unthinkable second chance has come your way. you've earned it. >> he's extremely appreciative and thankful for what happened today. >> reporter: prosecutors suggested a shorter sentence citing his assistance, providing critical intelligence and unique insight regarding al qaeda, information that led to terrorism charges against numerous individuals including his relatives and friends and a

terrorist planning to attack a military base in afghanistan now serving 45 years. prosecutors added his cooperation came at great personal cost to himself and his family. >> trying to basically find a needle in the hay stack is so difficult and that's where you need informants. you need people to provide information. >> our thanks to ron allen for that report. still ahead. the new york state attorney general's office say deutsche bank is complying with subpoenas regarding president trump's financial records. severe weather hits the south. roads are flooded. buildings have been damaged after two tornadoes touched down in arkansas. meteorologist bill karins will have a check on that plus a check on your weekend forecast coming up. ♪

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welcome back. during a press conference yesterday new york state attorney general weighed in on

her office's investigations into deutsche bank. according to james the congressional testimony of trump's former fixer michael cohen spurred an investigation into president trump's finances and is yielding some information. >> can you speak to the investigation of deutsche bank. >> we issued subpoenas to deutsche bank and we're collecting a lot of the documents that we had requested and we're reviewing them. >> since they are being very cooperative, is it -- >> they were issued over the subpoena and complying with through. >> joining me here on set, legal analyst -- msnbc legal analyst danny cevallos. that's what happens when you're on tv at 5:16 in the morning on a friday. let's talk about deutsche bank. what could they be looking at

right now with regards to the documents that they've gotten so far as we've just heard and we know the trump family, trump organization, president trump himself are trying to block any access not only to the financial records at deutsche bank but the records that are at capital one as well where he has a checking account. it doesn't necessarily seem like it's working. >> not so far, but generally speaking on the side of the subpoenas and the attorney general, they have broad ranging subpoena power. the challenge for the trump administration, the trump team, the trump family is that they are third parties that are not directly being subpoenaed. that's always a challenge for every citizen whenever there's a subpoena or a search warrant to a bank and the bank has to disclose their information. the trump plaintiffs have already filed a lawsuit to prevent disclosure of some of these records. and there is case law suggesting that at least when it comes to congressional subpoenas for this information they have to be related to some legitimate

legislative purpose. congress and we're not talking about the new york ag at the moment but congress doesn't have a broad law enforcement investigative power. the new york attorney general, on the other hand, does have a law enforcement power and the ability to investigate. they probably even more broadly than congress does. >> what do you make of bob mueller's team as it broke last night now directly negotiating on his appearance with jerrold nadler? >> this has always been an open question because on one hand if trump wanted to press the issue, as long as mueller is still technically within the executive branch he might try to stop his testimony. but if mueller is a private citizen and returned to private life there may be very little that the trump administration can do -- >> which one is he right now? >> i'm not exactly sure. he may be making the transition right now. >> right. >> but if he's a private citizen that may be very difficult to block. not the first time it happened.

the bush administration tried to block the testimony of harborha myers long after she left the white house. >> he's also trying to block the testimony of don mcgahn. >> there's historical precedence where the president or an administration oppose someone from testifying. since nixon we haven't define the executive privilege. all we know it exists. it's not absolute. still remains for the courts to define the contours. >> it's significant that they are negotiating directly with robert mueller instead of the department of justice about bob mueller and when he would necessarily appear and the big question is what does that say now about bob mueller's relationship with the attorney general? >> in the last few days we've seen what was a very cozy relationship between the two men, mueller and barr. perhaps it's deteriorated since the testimony and letters back and forth. this may be a situation where

mueller might be inclined to defy the will of the administration and actually come in and testify before congress. >> danny cevallos, thanks. >> let's get a check on your weather with nbc meteorologist bill karins. >> we didn't have too much severe weather yesterday. we saw some flooding in isolated areas. we'll do it all over again. a soggy weekend coming up. the kentucky derby is coming up. the worst of the weather, san antonio has some thunderstorms that are about to knock on your door. little bit of rain in northern louisiana. soaking rain over the ohio valley. heading right over the top of louisville this morning. so that's not what you want. the tracks are already wet and get worse. there's a flash flood watch for the area. chance for severe storms will center on central portion of central texas including waco, austin, san antonio. here's the flood threat.

rain nonstop all weekend long throughout this region. from southern portions of missouri, areas of western arkansas, a good chunk of oklahoma, dallas-ft. worth area to tyler, texas. 14 million people plus are under flash flood watches. the ground is so saturated, it takes one thunderstorm and you can get some flash flooding. here's how it plays out. hit or miss showers in pennsylvania, ohio, through the appalachians. there's the storms in oklahoma and texas. by the time we get to saturday we track storms over the south. there's some of that rain, 6:00 p.m. that's when the derby -- that's when they go to the post and they go to the gate. hit or miss showers and storms. as i mentioned yesterday, sunday in the northeast that rain moves in and it looks like it will be here for much of the day. >> all right. thank you, bill. before heading to the pga championship later this month tiger woods is making a pit stop at the nation's capital. we'll explain why next.

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welcome back. golfer tiger woods who claimed his 15th major title and first since 2008 with last month's victory at the masters tournament will receive the presidential medal of freedom in a ceremony at the white house rose garden on monday. president trump announced he would honor woods after the golfer earned his fifth green jacket quote because of his incredible success and come back

in sports and more importantly because of life. actor peter mayhew has died. according to his official twitter account which shared the news yesterday he passed away tuesday in his north texas home with his family by his side. he was the man behind the mask of chewbacca in the original "star wars" triology. he portrayed chewbacca once more in the "star wars" force awakens. underwent spinal surgery in july. he was 74 years old. okay. still ahead a white house lawyer mocks the mueller report newly obtained letter. we'll show you what was said there. new violent and deadly clashes continue in venezuela.

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the number on your screen you inspired us to create internet that puts you in charge. that handles anything. that protects what's important. and reaches everywhere. this is beyond wifi. this is xfi. simple, easy, awesome. welcome back, everybody. i'm yasmin vossoughian. it is the bottom of the hour. let's start with morning's top stories. in a new interview president trump is telling fox news that he's against letting former white house counsel don mcgahn from testifying to congress and that he will not grant him

permission. >> i've had him testifying already for 30 hours. >> so is the answer no? >> i don't think i can let him and then tell everybody else you can because he was counsel. they testified for many hours, all of them. >> so as far as you're concerned it's done. >> i would say it's done. we both knew this. nobody has ever done what i've done. i've given total transparency. >> again the president's claims about transparency and cooperation is not true starting with the simple fact that unlike president clinton trump never agreed to testify for the investigation. congressional democrats say trump has already waived executive privilege by letting mcgahn speak to the special counsel prompting bill barr to make this odd comment during his testimony wednesday when he rejected the notion and referred to himself and the president as

"we." >> can you think of an objection why don mcgahn shouldn't come before this committee about his experience? >> yes, i mean i think he's, he's a closeed a ricer to the president. >> the president never exerted executive privilege. >> no we haven't waived executive privilege. >> so a newly revealed letter shows that in the wake of the release of bob mueller's report the white house criticized bob mueller and his team to bill barr. a five-page letter was sent one day after the redacted version of the mueller report was repleased. the sco's inverted-proof standard and exoneration statements can be understood only as a political statements, issuing from persons who in our system of government are rightly expected never be political in

the performance of their duties. to better understand the trump campaign's possible links to russia, the fbi back in september of 2016, they sent an agent posing as a research assistant to meet with a trump aide in london. the new york times is reporting that according to people familiar with the operation the woman who was a government investigator reportedly set up a meeting to discuss foreign policy issues with george papadopoulos and asked if the campaign was working with russia. fbi officials have defended the bureau's activities saying they were both legal and carefully considered under extraordinary circumstances. however, those actions are now under scrutiny as part of an investigation by the justice department's inspector general who could make the results public later this month. this is the newest detail that's become another political flash

point among president trump and his allies that law enforcement agencies and intelligence officials spied on the trump campaign to undermine his chances to win. the fbi has denied there's been any conspiracy against the trump campaign. joining me once again reporter for the "washington examiner," melissa quin. what do you make, melissa, about the white house lawyer directly criticizing mueller's investigation to attorney general barr? >> well, this is really quite a blistering rebuke of special counsel robert mueller and his team of prosecutors. he accused the special counsel of delivering a report that was part like a law school exam paper and also criticized him for effectively providing congress with a road pap towards pursuing impeachment proceedings. this letter really seems to serve two key purposes. number one for stating the fact that the president did not waive his right to assert claims of executive privilege and number

two, he still has the right to refuse to allow certain white house aides to testify and that is particularly interesting in the case of former white house counsel don mcgahn who arguably provide the special counsel with a lot of really important and damaging information against the president. >> was this also an effort by emmitt flood to reiterate that the white house believes the special counsel was very political and they were politically motivated in their investigation? >> absolutely. we heard from the president time and time again that the special counsel's investigation was a witch-hunt. the special counsel himself had conflicts of interest related to unpaid dues to the president's golf club. this was a team of 17 angry democrats. it seems like emmitt flood in that case was reiterating what we heard from the president across this 22 month span. >> is this a missed opportunity for the democrats. i'm thinking about bill barr and

his testimony and the possibility he may never appear in front of them in the house? is this a missed opportunity by the democrats to question the attorney general or should the focus now shift as it seems as it naturally is to getting the unredacted version of the mueller report and bob mueller in front of them? >> it seems like the house democrats are really trying to paint the attorney general as a partisan who is putting politics above his role as the chief law enforcement officer. certainly bill barr not appearing before the committee yesterday really allowed democrats to further that argument. now that being said that doesn't mean that barr will not be before the committee again at some time in the future. obviously jerrold nadler said he's considering whether or not to issue a subpoena that would compel barr to testify but that could also be the start of a pretty protract and lengthy legal battle. >> melissa quin, thank you. have a great weekend. president trump is going after democratic presidential

candidate joe biden after the former vice president said he was skeptical of the threat posed by china. watch this. >> china is going to eat our lunch? come on, man. you know, they are not bad folks, folks. guess what? they are not competition for us. no one can compete with us. no one can compete with us around the world. >> everyone is competition. i view everybody as competition. >> is he being naive about china? >> he is naive about china. china during the obama years in particular just took advantage of our country so badly. very, very big competition, china and i've stopped it and i am stopping it. but for somebody to be so naive and say that china is not a problem, if biden actually said that, that's a very dumb statement. >> meanwhile biden has respond to trump's wednesday morning twitter spree where he retweeted

tweets from firefighters who supported trump. >> you know, i understand the president has been tweeting about me a lot this morning. i wonder why in hell he's doing that. whoa, whoa, whoa. anyway. i imagine i'll be the object of his attention for a while. >> senate yesterday failed to override president trump's veto of a bipartisan resolution that would end all participation in the war in yemen. it resulted in widespread of civilian deaths. and has caused a catastrophic famine and humanitarian crisis. u.s. involvement has not been expressly authorized by congress. in a statement explaining his veto the president said in part

that the resolution is an unnecessary dangerous attempt to weaken my constitutional authorities. the bipartisan bill twice passed the senate and the house passed the measure last month after passing a similar resolution in february. it was the first time a resolution to end a military action reached the president's desk. i want to turn to the chaos, ongoing chaos in venezuela. four people are dead cluing a 14-year-old and a 16-year-old and more than to 30 were wounded during this week as often violent demonstrations between anti-government protesters seeking to oust embattled president nicolas maduro and those loyal to his regime according to a human rights group. the two teens who were shot and killed with live fire rounds from maduro's security forces comes after opposition leader juan guaido called for an uprising and mass nonviolent anti-government protest and military defections earlier this week. despite thousands of people

taking to the streets, the protests were smaller in scale than the opposition hoped for and most of the military remained loyal to maduro. he was heavily backed by russia and cuba. yesterday morning maduro led a military parade through caracas thanking troops who refused to revolt against him. president trump and the administration have all stated their support for the protest and for juan guaido who the united states and 50 other nations view as the interim president and they continue to say that military intervention does remain a possibility. still ahead the quiet moves president trump has been make being to reshape this country's courts. plus the steps his administration has taken to remove obama era safe guards for offshore drilling. and our own bill karins is back with a check on your weekend forecast. we'll be right back. weekend forecast we'll be right back. oh! oh!

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welcome back. president trump hit another milestone in his presidency yesterday with the senate clearing his 100th judicial nominee. the republican controlled senate confirmed rudolpho louise to the u.s. district court for the southern district of florida making him the 100th judicial appointment since trump took over. his appointments include two supreme court justices. in addition to confirming louise they plan to confirm two more for puerto rico and pennsylvania. trump administration dismantled rules for offshore drilling yesterday stripping obama era safety rules put in place after the bp massive oil spill. the changes include reducing the frequency of precautionary checks on oil blow-out

preventers and allowing the use of third-party companies instead of government inspectors to check the equipment. the roll backs are seen as a win for oil and gas companies who have been pushing for less costly safety regulations. officials estimate the changes will save the industry for than $1.5 billion. environmentalists argued loosening standards at offshore wells makes another oil spill more likely. the new rules set to take effect in 60 days. all right let's get a check on your weather with nbc meteorologist bill karins. >> we are watching the mississippi river for days. it's in major flood stage for weeks. we're watching the davenport area closely. they had a shot of the all time highest level. at 11:00 a.m. yesterday they did break their all-time record crest and why is that so impressive? their records go back to the 1860s. so we're talking 150 plus years

and you're looking at the highest it's ever been measured in the davenport, iowa area. pretty impressive. a lot of damage done there pap long clean up. going to take a while to get there. the river will go down so slowly. could be another week or two. here's what we're watching. here's the flooding. missouri river all the areas of red here is the rockford, illinois. flood warnings that we have. it's been so wet this week. so many river gauges that are in flood stage. major flood stage is the pink. the area right here where we have the major flooding on going. it heads down to st. louis but by the time it gets there, the levees that protect st. louis are much higher. today's forecast showers and storm along the gulf coast, worry about severe weather in austin and waco. a severe thunderstorm in d.c. this afternoon. weekend outlook rain and storms moves through the ohio valley on

saturday. of course we have the derby going on and storms and showers in the southeast. one decent day mid-atlantic to the northeast and then on sunday, it looks rainey and kind of chilly. boston loin 52 with some rain. new york city will be lucky to hit 60 degrees. of course the kentucky derby, the last three years we've had wet weather and last year it poured. we had over three inches of rain. wettest derby ever. that won't happen this year. probably a muddy track. a few showers and storms out there. not a complete wash out. you just want to be off the infield if possible. >> you're going to get soaked. >> your nice dress hat and galoshes. >> a cocktail. >> plenty ever mint juleps. >> a staggering stock debut that's signalling a new wave in

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welcome back. trading debut yesterday plant based foods maker doubled in value giving the company nearly $4 billion. we know traditional food companies are trading close to

two times sales or less. what happened here that could have caused this huge surge beyond, of course, the fact that i love beyond meat and i went out and bought a >> looking typically, as you mentioned, two or three times sales, this company is trading at more than 40 times sales, based on the fact the stock price almost doubled yesterday after its day pebudebut. they seem to be pitching themselves as more of a technology company. they've got dozens of scientists and engineers on staff trying to innovate there. that might be one of the reasons that people are treating this and valuing this a lot more like a tech firm with a huge amount of growth, potential. speaking of tech firms with great potential, amazon had some good news, a bit of a boost

yesterday, because warren buffett, speaking to cnbc yesterday saying this a company we've invested in, this is something i believe in and as a consequence of the announcement, we saw the share price take off yesterday. >> any decision warren buffett makes makes things change for sure. facebook said yesterday it was barring a number of far-right figures and conspiracy theorists. what more with you tell us about this? >> you have alex jones from info wars has been taken off the platform, louis farrakhan, they've all had their pages taken down by facebook. this seems to be the latest effort from the social media giant to try and undercut some of the criticisms of its behavior, its enabling of some of these people. they've cited to be very specific here, those who have called for acts of violence,

followed hateful ideology, used hateful speech or slurs or goes against the company's policies. >> coming up, we take a look at this morning's "1 big thing." and on "morning joe," lawmakers shift their focus from the attorney general to the special counsel. more on the revelations that the house judiciary committee is moving forward with plans to speak with robert mueller about coming to testify before the committee. plus, democratic senator michael bennett joins the table to discuss his newly launched 2020 presidential campaign. "morning joe" is moments away. "morning joe" is moments away. for all out confidence...

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welcome back. joining us from washington, political reporter for axios, alexi mccammon.

talk to us about axios' "1 big thing" today. >> we're looking at how grass roots activists are sort gaining power over the 2020 convention for the election cycle. it's always sort of been controlled by the national party. this power shift is happening because of the dnc rule changes implemented for this presidential election. everyone sort of knows about the new threshold to qualify for the debate stage, which requires candidates to have 65,000 unique donors, but there have been changes like releasing the raw vote totals instead of just the percentages and things like barring the super delegates from voting on the first ballot at the convention. it's sort of a way for the party to remedy that interparty divide that we saw in 2016 between hillary clinton and bernie sanders when a lot of people thought that the dnc and the national party favored hillary clinton to be the nominee over bernie sanders. so this is sort of a way to give those grass roots activists more

power and rebuild trust in the institution, the national democratic party. >> are the grass roots parties making any of them nervous? has had changed the political conversation at all in the democratic party? >> grass roots activists are certainly changing the conversation within the democratic party. on the policy side we're seeing more niche policy ideas pop on to the debate stage before the debates start, packing the courts, filibuster, that's all from grass roots activist bus they're pushing the dnc to change the debate format, to allow for an open debate, bottom-up process and allow people to ask questions from the audience and not just rely on the moderators. >> and what are you learning about president trump's

campaign? >> he loves capitalizing on the russia scandal and claiming total vindication. they're going to try to capitalize on a story that's going to be on the front page of the "new york times" today how during the election the fbi isn't a woman undercover to london who worked with george papadopoulos. that raises red flags as a way to weaponize that against the fbi and the justice department and institutions here to say it's rigged against the president and it's high time to start investigating the investigators involved in all of this. >> so you've been on the road lately. what are you hearing from voters with regard to how much they care about russia's influence in the election and the mueller report as well? >> you know, it almost never and quite literally never have i heard it come up from voters, whether i'm in texas or ohio or

wisconsin or iowa, i have never once heard a question about russia or bob mueller's investigation come from someone at these events to the candidates. the only time it's ever come up is when reporters from d.c. are asking the candidates. it doesn't mean that candidates aren't talking about election security and infrastructure but they almost never the word russia and i've never heard bob mueller's name come up a single time on the campaign trail. >> so what issues are voters concerned with? >> somewhat surprisingly no matter where i've been, the issue of climate change comes up every single time. it's even people who say i have friends that are climate deniers and how do i talk to them? it's the typical issues. health care is a huge issue, especially with respect to the cost of prescription drugs and immigration, they're asking for specific plans about how to basically undo everything president trump has done with respect to immigration and whether or not they have a plan

to address this issue as soon as they get into office. >> alexi, thank you. to all of our viewers out there, you can sign up for the newsletter. that does it for me on this friday morning. i'm yasmin vossoughian. "morning joe" starts right now. good morning! welcome to "morning joe." it is friday, may 3rd. along with joe, willie and me we have mike barnicle, branding expert and political commentator -- >> legend, legend. >> donnie deutsche. >> he's also the host of a new msnbc show called "saturday night politics," premieres tomorrow night at 8 p.m. tell your dads when they wake up because they had a little too much to drink last nigh