you just said that two minutes ago. you said two minutes ago they would have to buy in. you said they would have to buy in. >> they would not have to buy in. >> are you forgetting what you said two minutes ago? are you forgetting already what you said just two minutes ago? >> good morning. and welcome to "am joy" and happy saturday. we have a lot to get to this morning including two deep dives on impeachment and donald trump's threat to national security. but first, that tense exchange that you just heard between castro and vice president biden over health care quickly became the most talked about moment of the debate. declaring it incorrect though he continues to stand by it. and the take away the many debate watchers was that castro had harmed his own campaign. several 2020 contenders have since rushed in to biden's defense condemning castro for what some are calling an

unnecessary swipe at biden's age. team biden and team castro continue the feud off the debate stage with biden's camp crying cheap shot and castro kanderring that he was just fact checking biden. but joe biden didn't exactly leave the debate unscathed either. the day after the debate jokes about biden and record players, yes, he mentioned record players began to shift into a sharp critique first on social media anocolluding from my next guest and then in columns and commentary to lindsey davis's question on repairing the legacy of slavery. >> make sure that every single child does in fact have three, four and five-year-olds go to school, school, not daycare. school. we bring social workers in to homes and parents to help them deal with how to raise their children it's not that they don't want the help m f they don't know quite what to do.

play the radio. make sure you have the record player on at night. the phone. make sure the kids hear words. a kid coming from a very poor school -- or a very poor background will hear 4 million words fewer spoken when they get there. >> the author of winners take all and smith of rolling stone in response to that, fired off a column in which he said it's time for joe to go. he said democrats need an anti racist dom knee nominee. a third confirmed biden isn't up to the task but before that even came out i noticed your tweets. you went on a tweet storm about that answer that joe biden gave and this is what you wrote. joe biden's answer on how to address the legacy of depravely was appalling and disqualifying, you wrote. it ended in a sermon implying that black parents don't know how to raise their own children and said this can't go on. and in response to tim wise,

anti racism educator tim wise who wrote sorry, but when you want to be president and you respond to the question about the legacy of slavery and how to address it by discussing better parenting and putting on the record player at night you're putting on a lack of depth. >> those are strong words, so i'm going to let you explain your position on biden's answer. >> you know, i think on thursday night without intending to, joe biden threw himself a retirement party. and i don't say that lightly. i don't say the idea of him disqualifying himself lightly. but the reality is, this country is in a battle for its soul. an existential battle in which race is at is very heart, in which white supremacy is at the very heart and there have always been and this is really important to understand, two tradition, two manifestations of racism in american life.

there's racism with a hood, which is very easy to see and there's racism with a smile. there's the racism of fire bombing churches which is very obvious and then racism of can i touch your hair? there's the racism that is flagrant and the racism that is insidious and it is very clear and everybody knows this that joe biden is not out of that tradition of the evil tradition of racism of the hood and he's not a white supremacist. but joe biden has revealed himself to be deeply steeped in and anchored in and unwilling to cut ties to that second subtler tradition of american life and we have to be real about that. this is the kind of comments that by the way, any person of color and black people especially have encountered all the time at work, all the time on the street, all the time in various aspects of life. it is thanksgiving and if you are running against a guy whose

big idea is tax cuts maybe it's fine. when you are running against a white nationalist what you are going to do is you are going to neutralize the central issue in this race by putting forward someone who has simply not changed from the mad men era. last night, yesterday during the afternoon something interested happened to me. after i had done these tweets and talked about this, i was approached via twitter privately by a trump campaign organization, an official trump campaign organization that privately messaged me to try to share additional videos from other times about joe biden saying similar racist things. now, i'm not interested in amplifying trump campaign talking points. why is that significant? they are ready. they know this is a good issue for them because if they can show that you know what, he's kind of said a lot of things also, he kind of said white people don't owe anything for the past in this country, he

also said bussing is a bad idea. he also has said you know, some african american, one candidate is clean and articulate in contrast to others. he also said the thing about the indian accent. he also gave too many women too many back rubs. they are very excited about this. >> that is an excellent point that one of the challenges, particularly for more liberal, more progressive voters in 2016 was this argument which is actually flagrantly absurd that there was not a big difference between hillary clinton and donald trump, not a big enough difference for people to see there are two sides of the same kind of argument. because hillary clinton is very intelligent. certainly a very experienced leader and donald trump is donald trump, but the risk that that could happen again i guess is what you're talking about. now, the counter facts to that, which is a country that would elect donald trump, the kind of

people who would vote for him but maybe don't like things about his character might feel comfortable saying well, i'll go to joe biden because joe biden kind of shares my general -- my generalized discomforts in certain areas and makes the kind of mistakes that i might make if i'm that person and so he's kind of more like me or like my uncle or like my family and so that you could take a marginal voter in the middle who is an independent who said i couldn't see a huge enough difference so i went with trump but i went with him. >> i don't think the antidote to the poison of outright white supremacy is milk toast unconscious bias and a kind of white default. you know, what joe biden, yes, i think there are -- i think this is actually the whole point. there are a lot of people in america. i think there are not all that many people in america who are

like donald trump. there are a lot of people like joe biden. but millions of them actually, and we don't talk about this enough, have been on a path in the last 10 or 20 years of getting better. there's some other people pretty close to joe biden's auj in this race. >> or older than him. i think bernie sanders is the same age or one year different. >> so this is a problem of someone -- look, the things he says, the things donald trump says, let's put it this way. the things donald trump says have been out of bounds for a very long time. the things joe biden says were not out of bounds when joe biden was my age. right? and that is a hard thing. this country has changed. our norms have changed. we have now realized that things that nobody ever thought about in the mad men era were basically completely exclusionary of women and people of color. we've enlarged our understanding. and many millions of americans have enlarged their understanding. i was talking to my parents the

other day. my mom was reading a book for school and as an immigrant to this country, it has raised things for her that she didn't see that she now has a language for her own experience which she's experienced. joe biden has so clearly not changed. he's not changed. he is the person that we all know who -- who is so steeped in the idea that americanness means whiteness. his policies are great. husba his policies are fine. that's not the issue here. this is someone who can't see and when you are asked one month after the 400 year anniversary of the first enslaved africans coming to these shores which is in the "new york times" in a prominent way that hopefully joe biden saw it. what do you do about that legacy since you made a comment 40 years ago saying you're not responsible for that, what do we do about it sir? and when your answer is a morally obtuse point and an evil

point in my view given the history of this country, the black people's parenting skills are the problem which is what he said and secondly you make an absurd point which is black people don't play enough music. i'm not sure what black people joe biden has encountered that he thinks music is not part of the black experience. but this rambling answer, this is a story of someone whose ideas belong back in the 1950s where they came from. >> let me take part of the point that there are a lot of people like joe biden out there in the world, which i think is true and you know who really believes that? black people. we know that we live in the 21st century and lindsay davis is only the fourth black woman to ever moderate a presidential level debate. four in our -- in the history of television. so we know that's the case and we know what this country is. i spent the entire day yesterday at the congressional black

caucus sort of weekend events and i'm not going to say almost every -- every black woman who i spoke to about the election who was over age 40 and listen, black don't crack so i can't speak to anybody's actual age but everybody who appeared to be -- all the grown folks that i spoke to, 100% were for joe biden. all of them. some of them fervently for joe biden and that's after the debate. the polling shows that joe biden among african american voters has nearly half which is what you need for the domination. it is literally black voters who have him ahead and i think that's partly because black voters don't have a lot of confidence in the electorate who you said a lot of them have those same dings as biden or sometimes bernie sanders, they have these things that are generational about race and a lot of black voters don't trust the electorate to do another obama type election. so their argumen person that th

country, the way it really is, not the way we wish it is, but the way it is would elect. what do you say to those voters who say yeah, you're right, this is how the country is and that country is not going to elect any of these other progressive candidates or candidates of color. they're only going to elect joe biden? >> look, first of all, we are early in this race. no votes have been cast, and i think particularly with older voters of all races frankly, with all voters actually, name recognition is an enormous advantage and this early on in a race someone who is the vice president of the united states for eight years and by the way, a very loyal servant of the first black president in this country, a person who was a good man for that president. he's going to have this kind of support. the question is what kind of support is he going to have a year from now? and the reality is the black community has been far more respectful of joe biden than joe biden has been of the black

community. this wasn't someone using a term wrong. we have to be really clear. the wholetrope for like all of american history when you have asked questions about systemic racism, what has been done to black people for 400 years in this country, the basictrope of racism has always been what you are observing is actually their own fault. and on thursday night joe biden who wants to be the president of the united states and run against the white nationalist basically blamed black people's parenting skills and lack of music for the legacy of slavery. he has to -- he has to drop out. >> it's an important discussion. i'm glad you were available to come on today because it's the paul ryan saying it's the culture. this is the thing that happens a lot to black people but i will submit again as i let you go the question is going to be how do you convince black voters, particularly black women voters who are the most consistent and

most determined and the most civically minded voters. how do you convince them that the country is better than doing better than that. right now people are very cynical about this country and about what it's willing to do and whether or not electing president obama was a statement about what the country is or about a moment when the country tried to be different but really fundamentally is not different. so it's a big question. we'll have it again. thank you very much for being here. >> thank you. before we go, a quick reminder, my latest book "the man who sold america." trump add the unraveling of the american story is still available. yeah, so i want to just let you know that. coming up, what's in a name, impeachment. we do talk about a lot of this racial background stuff as well. let me know what you think. up next, impeachment. what's in a name. that's next. in a name that's next. ♪ limu emu & doug

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we've been very clear in court filings, in public statements and in proceedings in the committee that we are in fact conducting investigation preparing to decide whether to recommend articles of impeachment to the house. you can call that an impeachment investigation, you can call that

impeachment inquiry. those terms have no legal meaning but that's exactly what we're doing. we're involved in an investigation to determine whether to recommend articles of impeachment to the house. >> this week democrats managed to twist themselves into a knot with mixed messages between house leadership and house members over impeachment. the arguments are media catnip and potentially substantive. on the substance front the judiciary committee voted to set the rules for future impeachment investigation hearings and as you heard, jerry nadler made clear that what the committee is doing is setting the parameters for deciding whether to impeach donald trump. and if so, on what grounds. you know how we know how serious the threat of impeachment is regardless of whether house leadership wants to use the word? because of the way trump's attorney general and full time sixer william barr kicked in defense mode. he told the judge that the

judiciary committee should not get access to secret mueller materials in part because per the doj the committee hasn't made clear that this is an impeachment inquiry. a former u.s. congresswoman and author of the case for impeaching trump and it's great to talk to you. you're one of my favorite people to talk to on this. >> thank you. >> let's go to the semantic question first. according to jerry nadler who is the relevant person here, impeachment is not started by the speaker, it's started in the judiciary committee. he made it very clear they're doing an impeachment i quirery. does it matter what they call it? >> technically i don't think it matters what they call it. i think the justice department's brief is way off base and shows that they don't even have the slightest comprehension of what impeachment is about. when we started the impeachment process and the only one that ever actually worked with regard to richard nixon, when we started we didn't have any authorization from the house of

representatives. we got that later on. but that's -- that's neither here nor there because the fact of the matter is, what the justice department is saying is, if you don't say that you're going to impeach the president, in other words, if you might do your inquiry and then say well, there's not uf evidence or we think there should be other remedial legislation, that's not good enough. you just have to say you're going to impeach him. well, when we started during the nixon impeachment process, we didn't know even after we had the house authorization whether we were going to have enough votes for impeachment. so that's just a ridiculous argument. we didn't know there were going to be any republicans joining us until three days before we had our debate months and months into the process. we had conservative southern democrats on the committee. we didn't know where they with. so the process has to take place and also they say well, you know, even if this were an impeachment inquiry the house

shouldn't get the grand jury materials. well, what world are they living in? during the nixon impeachment we got grand jury materials and we got it with the approval of the court. that's a precedent that's there for 45 years. what are they talking about? i guess this is just like the new trump supreme court they throw out all precedent, disregard history, don't know what they're talking about but that's what we see with the justice department here and it's highly political and it's wrong. let the house do its work. you know, nobody knows the outcome of an inquiry. they don't know whether it's going to be -- whether there are going to be any grounds for impeachment. i personally think there are x but maybe they'll decide they aren't after they do a thorough investigation. then maybe they'll decide as we did actually in the nixon impeachment, there was several articles of impeachment that were proposed. i drafted one of them and they were rejected. does that mean you have to drop the whole process? it's just what they're saying is

ridiculous, let the judiciary committee do its work. the justice department may be creating enough confusion so that judges may try to hold back. hope they don't because i think that impeachment is something the framers really wanted to protect the democracy and the court shouldn't stop that process. a serious dlib rative process from going forward. >> i think you made the point that i really wanted to touch on you quickly. the -- i think what a lot of people are afraid of and what they worry about is that the reason that william barr can make these assertions that donald trump has so stacked the courts including the supreme court with kavanaugh replacing kennedy. they that are confident that they can make what are absurd arguments that are ahistorical when it comes with the impeachment inquiry against nixon, but they're comfort if it goes all the way they've got a vote locked down with gorsuch

and kavanaugh and the other conservatives. >> that's my concern too. i think we did see in the census case that justice roberts because the evidence was so overwhelming of political interference with the census process that to preserve the integrity of the court, roberts cast the correct vote, but can we be sure that that's going to happen here? i don't know the answer to it and i'm troubled about it and it may just well be that the house of representatives has to bite the bullet and say, we're going to authorize an inquiry into whether there should be articles of impeachment. we were not -- when we were authorized we weren't told you write articles of impeachment. >> right. >> we were told inquire as to whether there were grounds. i think people get confused. impeachment doesn't have to happen because you do an inquiry. >> yeah. it's a grand jury, folks. that's the way i would describe it. thank you very much. really appreciate it.

definitely check out our book if you want to know. in hour two of today's show we are going to dig deeper on impeachment. what the house vote this week actually means, what's behind the semantic confusion, but coming up -- and what's behind the semantic confusion, but coming up next the very real threat that donald trump poses to our national security. that is next. ional security that is next

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stop! look up. look both ways. let's start looking out for each other again. it's a busy world out there. and we're all in it together. go safely, california. in may of 2017 donald trump met in the oval office with high ranking russian officials with no americans present. no u.s. media, no cabinet members and we later learned after getting pics of the get together from russian media that trump revealed highly classified counter terrorism information jeopardizing an important intelligence source. shortly after that meeting the cia decided to extract a different intelligence source, one of its most important. a russian informant with access to the highest level in the kremlin. cnn was the first to break the story and most striking is this claim from a person directly

involved in the discussions that the cia's decision was motivated partly in quote that president trump repeatedly misand led classified intelligence and could contribute to exposing the covert source. the post and the "new york times" reported that the spy was pulled for other reasons including concerns that the source might have been a double agent. both papers cited current and former officials in their point. joining me now, author of the moscow rules. thank you for being here. >> so glad to be here. >> let's talk about this. have you ever in your career in intelligence heard of the president of the united states being considered a potential threat to the safety and identity of a highly placed source in a country like russia? >> never. this is unprecedented.

the fact that it was such a concern that the cia thought it prudent to remove this man, an invalue you believe resource, an invaluable conduit into putin's russia and the decision making process, they would pull him out rather than risk what was going to happen to him. >> yeah. let me play you an interview that rachel maddow did this week with a former cia official. this is what he said about those. take a listen. >> it's a red line that most people think in the united states that putin will not cross. i for one believe he straddles that line as we speak, which means that you know, this particular individual who was outed, if you will, and was ex- filtrated in 2017, i have no concern at this particular point in time that putin will come and get him now. what i worry about is a year from now, two years from now,

five years from now, he has a wife and three kids. he was -- he was resettled in this country in true name. >> under his real name and his real name as gotten out there in some reports and just to be perfectly clear, this particular informant was highly placed, had access to the kremlin. was instrumental in the cia's most explosive conclusion about rush's interference campaign that vladimir putin ordered the attack on the election to help donald trump. that is a huge ringing bell in my head that this guy helped our guys, our good guys figure out that the kremlin was helping trump and now he's here under u.s. protection. should -- is that a worry to you? >> you know, when these foreign sources are reporting intelligence to us and this intelligence was absolute gold. when they're providing us with that information, we are promising them from the beginning from day one protection. we will protect them as a source

and if it goes badly, we will pull them out and we will resettle them. there's a whole operational piece of the cia that's set up to do that. this man always knew that we would ex- filtrate him if we needed to, but he would anticipate maybe coming here to live, he has come here now to hide for the rest of his life. he and his family are going to be worried that putin and his ilk are going to come after them and they shouldn't be worried. >> do you trust donald trump to be the person presiding over keeping him safe? >> i would hope that donald trump is not the person. i would hope that the republican politicians around donald trump are not the people that are protecting this man. politics has nothing to do with this man and the rest of his life. he provided what we needed, we're lucky that we had him. we've got the information that's necessary to make serious

decisions. he should be able to live the rest of his life in the united states without this constant threat hanging over him. >> we know there is a history, it's happened before, scooter lib by who worked for dig cheney, they were angry, they were angry about the fact there was no uranium in iraq and they ousted valerie plain, they did that on purpose to punish the husband. so we know there has been a po litization and she was vocal that could put people's lives in danger. in that case it was a lie from the bush administration about war. in this case it's donald trump's legitimacy that's in question and we know that he's been able to get other officials, people like the head of the department of justice, the attorney general to do his bidding first. most -- put him first. so again, i guess if you -- if you're in the position of this

man, what are your concerns? and are you concerned about being in the united states in that case? he is -- it's just personal to donald trump. >> i'm not sure why he decided to be resettled under his true name. that's, you know, can't get into that. that's too in the weeds. we would typically resettle a family, give them entirely new identities, all of them new identiti identities. kn new identification. the fact he was here in his true name and in the washington, d.c. area was running a little bit of a risk. now that this has blown up in the press both here and abroad and in russia, all of a sudden, putin, who could have plausibly said oh, that guy was nothing. he had no clearances. he was a drunk, we fired him. he said all those things, now my sense is that putin is feeling an obligation to step forward. we have poked the bear and he is -- >> they've asked interpol to

look for him. >> it's a bad situation. >> i want to tank you for being here. i know you're a great friend with malcomb nance so i have to thank him for introducing us. >> a new level of cruelty against hurricane victims. that is next. you wouldn't accept an incomplete job from anyone else. why accept it from your allergy pills? flonase sensimist. nothing stronger.

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i was really heart breaking to see and experience what i saw, wagner, not even hurricane floyd in '99. we had this kind of stuff. >> when my home collapsed and i felt like i almost died you know. >> reporter: because a lot of people died and i thought i was going to be one of them. >> to think that we've lost everything, you know, we just thank the lord that he is still with us. >> i'm going to be sad to be leaving the island. this is home and there's no place like home. >> two weeks after hurricane dorian laid waste to parts of the bahamas, tropical storm humberto is expected to lash the same area today with strong winds and rain. the death toll is at 50 but is expected to climb significantly. another 70,000, that's 70,000 people have been left homeless. they're unlikely to find refuge in united states just 50 miles

away. on wednesday the house announced that it will not grant temporary protected -- i'm sorry, the white house announced it will not grant protected immigration status to evacuees of hurricane dorian. when asked about it donald trump didn't hesitate to employ some of the same rhetoric we've been hearing since day one of his campaign. >> i don't want to allow people that weren't supposed to be in the bahamas to come in to the united states including some very bad people and some very bad gang members and some very, very bad drug dealers. >> join me now is cochair of the caribbean caucus. thank you so much for being here. >> thank you for having me. >> on this idea that there will be no tps for refugees. the head of the cpb said no it's not true, mark morgan said we are not working and telling any cruise lines you can't allow anyone without documents to come into the united states. that's just not done.

there's some confusion there. we will accept anyone on humanitarian reasons that needs to come leer. we need to process them. >> well, i mean, listen, temporary protected status is there because we know that individuals who have been hit with natural disasters will have lost everything, will not have any documentation and that's why we ask that they come. we have embassies here, we have consulates here, if we need to verify individual's backgrounds and their identities, we have the capability of doing that. >> well, we know that this is the white house particularly does not want immigrants -- particularly immigrants if certain places in this country and if people get tps they can also get work visas. >> that's critical. that's a possibility. we have to push back against that. part of our humanitarian mission is to make sure that individuals taken away from harm but are also part of the solution for the nation. those who would come and be able

to work can now send remittances back to help with the rebuilding process. they are cohort of individuals from the nation who are here helping to rebuild and that i think is the most american thing that we can do. >> and there's a deep, deep connection. >> absolutely. generationally. >> they've been here for such a long time. let me show you, this is some video of bah hamian named renard oliver and his baby who were turned away to get off a ferry from the bomsz ahamas to florid. and the first job i had in news, my old station and let's look at that video. >> they just got a call from cdp and cdp told them that everyone that doesn't have a u.s. visa has to come off. >> normally you can travel. right? >> normally you can use police record by way of airplane at

least. yeah. >> so you have to take your baby off? >> yes, i have to take her off. >> how do you feel? >> at the last minute like this, you know, it's kind of disappointing. i'm watching my daughter cry, but yeah, it is what it is. >> the ferry company apologized and blamed cpd. they blamed border patrol. >> this nation is sending mixed signals through the trump administration and that will confound anyone who is trying to make sure that they are in compliance. and so i wouldn't blame necessarily the ferry company. i think it's our obligation to clarify. >> you have a bill on this. >> i do, hr 4272 which would extend tps do bah hamians. >> any chance that mitch mcconnell over in the senate would even look at it? >> we're going to have to work for it. this is a crisis and hurricane season is not over. >> right. >> so we think that it's critical. we being the members of the

house of representatives and our colleagues who have all signed on to this bill. we're going to make the case that it's important that we do this. >> and the public should make mitch mcconnell and republicans in the senate aware this is something important. black and brown people are human beings and these refugees are unreal. the bahamas was really clobbered. >> we're hearing reports of human beings being swept into the ocean. essentially the ocean covered the land mass. >> thank you for being here. we'll let everyone know about that bill. more "am joy" after the break. that bill. more "am joy" after the break. what's going on? it's the 3pm slump. should have had a p3. oh yeah. should have had a p3. need energy? get p3. with a mix of meat, cheese and nuts.

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so, again i ask, are you conducting an impeachment inquiry or not? if you are, just be honest with the american people. >> will the gentleman yield so we can answer his question? >> i yield to -- >> so, the answer is, yes, we are engaging an impeachment investigation. >> welcome back to "a.m. joy." despite house democrats stumbling on their impeachment messaging this week, let's take the most relevant person in this case, congressman jerry nadler, the chairman of the judiciary committee, which is where impeachment begins, at his word that, yes, they are now engaged in an official inquiry into whether to impeach donald trump. >> we have been very clear for the last several months in court

filings, in public statements, and in proceedings in the committee that we are, in fact, conducting an investigation, preparing to decide whether to recommend articles of impeachment to the house. now, you can call that an impeachment investigation, you can call that an impeachment inquiry. those terms have no legal meaning, but that's exactly what we're doing. we're involved in an investigation to determine whether to recommend articles of impeachment to the house. >> that is certainly a victory for the 134 democrats out of the 235 democrats in the house who now endorse impeachment, or at least the beginning of an impeachment inquiry or investigation into whether to recommend articles of impeachment. what caused so much confusion this week was the reluctance of house leadership, including the speaker, to use the word impeachment to describe the ongoing process. and speaker pelosi's clear frustration about having to answer questions on the subject. >> do you agree, do you concede

now that an impeachment inquiry into president trump is under way? >> do i concede now? have you not paid attention to what we've been talking about for months? we've been saying, we're doing three things -- legislate, investigate, litigate. that's the path we have been on, and that's the path we have continued to be on. i'm not answering any more questions on this subject. >> impeachment also did not come up, not even once, during thursday's democratic debate, despite the 2020 field being among the most vocal about removing trump. the reluctance amongst house democratic leader, per their public statements, has to do with the 59% of americans who still don't support impeaching donald trump, at least according to the latest monmouth poll. but as we heard in our last hour from former congresswoman elizabeth holtzman, who was among the democrats who was there for the impeachment process against richard nixon, the public rarely supports impeachment until they're convinced of it and convinced of why an election should be overturned. and that's the role of the

impeachment hearings. that's why you do them. democrats who already favor impeachment have a grab bag of potentially impeachment offenses to choose from. there's the obstruction of justice that was laid out clearly in the mueller report, trump's pattern of self-enrichment using the office of the presidency, his status as the unindicted co-conspirator in the hush money payments to stormy daniels, which are part of the reason his former lawyer and fixer michael cohen sits in prison to this day. the trump administration defying congressional subpoenas, his dangling of pardons, and his racist language, like those that experts have said help incite white nationalist violence, and also the "go back" comments he tweeted at four freshman democrats who are all u.s. citizens, remarks listed by texas congressman al green, an impeachment supporter, as grounds for impeaching trump. we are now 415 days away from the 2020 election, meaning there are now 415 days left for democrats to act on impeachment, rather than relying on the

possibility that trump will be removed from office by losing the election. time is running out, and the drum beat of impeachment in nancy pelosi's divided caucus is getting louder. so, what will the democrats do? joining me now is democratic congresswoman sheila jackson lee, a member of the house judiciary committee and the woman in whose district that debate took place this week, this past week. and congresswoman, first of all, are you surprised that impeachment didn't come up at that debate? >> well, i was somewhat surprised. obviously, the candidates have to answer the questions that the various questioners present to them, and their time is short, but it was sort of surprising. but i think the issue is not that there are no supporters of impeachment in those that are running for president, it's a given that the house judiciary committee is doing its tasks, doing its job and has been doing so now for going on almost a year, and now we will continue to do that as we proceed even

more intently and intensely with an impeachment investigation. >> and you are a member of the judiciary committee. that is the relevant committee here when it comes to an impeachment inquiry or impeachment itself. in your mind, does it matter whether or not the speaker herself is willing to call it an impeachment inquiry, or in your mind, is that what's happening, regardless of the way she describes it? >> i think that's what's happening, regardless of how she describes it. speaker pelosi has her responsibilities. we are very pleased with the framework of which we are operating under that the speaker agrees with, and as has been said, legislating, litigating and investigating. our litigating is to, in fact, move us forward more intensely in the investigation. you made a point earlier about what happens in investigations. it moves the needle. it educates the public. it gives them a focus, and that's what we intend to do with

witness after witness after witness, including don mcgahn, because we believe he has absolutely no reason to reject the demand for his presence before the committee. we have subpoenaed him. we have now gone to court. and now with the resolution that we passed just this past thursday, we believe the court will see that we are truly in an impeachment investigation, needing to get all of the facts to ensure that we have the truth. and joy, i just want to say this -- this is not a witch hunt. we have no particular desire to go after a president of the united states. it is a sacred and somber responsibility. but we cannot leave all of what has occurred in this administration on the table without doing our article one duties and upholding the rule of law. >> can you give us some insight into what areas? i named a whole big, long list of things that potentially could be written into articles of impeachment against this president that the public has

all seen great reporting on. are there particular areas that the committee is focused on when it comes to where you potentially could have impeachable offenses? >> well, from my perspective, the obstruction of justice is the most stark and devastating potential accusations that may draw up articles of impeachment, and that is a whole lineage of efforts by the president to tell people to fire director mueller. the back-and-forth of telling someone to fire, then telling someone to cover it up that you were told to fire, getting someone else to go to don mcgahn, for example, and whisper to him, going to general sessions before he was terminated to tell him to unrecuse himself so that he can take over the investigation and not have director mueller do it. of course, the long sagger of director comey in terms of was he really fired because he

wouldn't stand down on the russian investigation or that he wouldn't go light or encourage lightness on general flynn. all of that is in the wheelhouse of high crimes and misdemeanors. to the american public, it is not a criminal act. i think the sdrindistinction wi richard nixon is people could understand a burglary. but be reminded, it was called a low-rate burglary, but it was a burglary, but then it was the lying about the burglary. but let me tell you what it really was. after the senate had its hearings for about nine months, it was the smoking gun of the tapes. >> right. >> we're investigating so that we can educate the public, but as well, find all the facts that may be relevant to then writing the articles of impeachment, which, by the way, that is what will go to the floor of the house for a vote. >> congresswoman sheila jackson lee, thank you very much for your time this morning. really appreciate it. >> thank you for having me. and i wish the people of was hms -- we are working.

joy, i am really overwhelmed by the terrible response of this presidency. we members of the united states congress will be pushing dollars toward them for recovery, working on the tps, working on the visas, and we say to them that we stand as their friend and allies and pray for them on a regular basis. >> thank you, congresswoman. thank you for saying that. really appreciate that. >> thank you. >> and i know that all of the viewers of this show very much agree with that. thank you. all right, joining me is maya wiley, senior vice president for social justice at the new school, greg sargent of "the washington post," maria talisa kumar and paul, you're at a disadvantage, so i'll let you go first. where the congresswoman ended there was that they're essentially trying to put forward through these hearings a very simple, understandable case for the public of potentially impeachable offenses. where she went was the obstruction of justice that was very clearly revealed, and lots of prosecutors agree with this, in the mueller report.

i wonder if it surprises you, as it does me, that she didn't go first to the simplest thing. she said simple and understandable -- using the white house to get rich, using the white house to make your businesses richer, using the white house to make people stay in it, whether it's foreign leaders or even the united states military. >> so, what's the most impeachable offense of the many that we could consider for donald trump? how much time do we have, joy? so, i think the congresswoman is correct that the impeachment for obstruction of justice for the mueller investigation, that would be the easiest, because special counsel mueller laid it out in 400 pages, but it's certainly not the only one. we could also think about trump's encouraging the russians, a hostile nation, to interfere with the 2016 election. we can think about all of the ways that he has corruptly tried to use the presidency to advance the interests of the trump

organization, or we could think about the ways that he's dangled pardons in front of anyone who can help get the wall built, even if they have to commit crimes in order to do so, or we can think about the way he's practically already been charged by the southern district for directing that criminal conspiracy to provide hush money payments to his women who he's had relationships with, or again, lastly, but far not least, i think that trump's appeals to white nationalism, his white supremacy, his antiblackness is certainly an abuse of office. so, if one of these charges had been levied against president trump, he would have been impaeched fast -- i'm sorry, if one of these charges had been levied against president obama, he would have been impeached fast, quick, and in a hurry, so what is the house waiting for? >> yeah. and you know, maya, i think that is the key, is that -- so, there

is a perception, if you talk to folks in the sort of democratic hill world, that the mueller report didn't deliver the knockout punch, and it made it harder to make the very clear case that something in the mueller report is what impeachment will be based on. because it didn't deliver the knockout, now they're having to reset and say, okay, the point of hearings is to convince the public. right now, most of whom object to overturning the election through impeachment. that this man has done something that even if it isn't critical in court, is grounds for removal. and so, the simple cases would be enriching yourself off the white house. you can show people are staying in his properties, they're going 40 miles out of their way to stay in his properties, even his own cabinet members are paying him to do their parties at his properties, bragging about it in public. it's very public. and so, that case -- do you -- the argument that i'm hearing back from democrats who are frustrated with the debate we're having on the semantics is that you can't proceed to impeachment until you have made that case to the public, not just on news

shows like this one, but in one hearing, one set of hearings. >> you know, i think so many important points have been raised, and your question is raising all the right ones, joy, and i really want to agree with paul on in. you know, what's going on here is that, first of all, we're confused about what impeachment actually is. >> yes. >> so, let's start with the fact that what everyone has said about the process is -- it is supposed to be a process of investigation. that's how the constitution set it up. you're not supposed to know where the plane is going in order to land it, right? >> it's a grand jury! >> it's a process. but it's also a process that's political. it isn't just legal, and it's not just criminal. and this is a point that we're all needing to elevate. what the founding fathers said -- you know, it was james madison who said, look, waiting four years for another election, that's a problem, because if we have someone who is

incapacitated, maybe mentally, or is just abusing power, there has to be some way to address that before an election. >> yep. >> and they understood they weren't just talking about actually violating criminal law, right? incapacitated or -- so, then, mason says, okay, how about maladministration? >> right. >> and madison says, you know what, that's too vague. let's be more concrete because we're not saying just because we disagree with you, we can remove you from office. >> right. >> and then they land on high crimes and misdemeanors, because that was commonly understood back in britain under the crown to mean you're abusing the public trust. >> right. >> so, this goes back to your point -- just abusing the public trust by being, even if it's low-level, unethical, but in a serious way, not even enough maybe to rise to a crime is absolutely impeachable.

the founders -- it was hamilton, if anyone wants to read it, federalist papers 65, where he said, if you are engaging in misconduct -- that's not necessarily a crime -- or just abusing the public trust. >> yeah. >> so, part of what we're doing is having a government lesson in this country, because we've done it so infrequently, we forgot how it was set up in our constitutional order. i also think, though, the democrats are absolutely right to pursue obstruction because, you know, frankly, the frustration from a legal standpoint is that robert mueller could have put it over the finish line. he just chose not to because of that office of legal counsel memo, because he was saying, it's your job to put it over the finish line. because what robert mueller said was, substantial evidence, substantial evidence, substanti substantial evidence. >> to the point where over 1,000, i think, and counting, former u.s. attorneys said yeah, i'd prosecute that case. so, the challenge for democrats is that, yes, if they look at it -- if it's corruption, the

corruption builds. so, if donald trump is enriching himself, a year from now he will have enriched himself more, because if he feels he can do it, now it will be all christmas parties of all members of congress have to be at mar-a-lago, all golfing trips must be to -- he could openly just do it. then you also have cabinet officials below him who receive the message that this is okay, so the corruption bilthuilds, r, so you have to stop it. on the other side of it, nancy pelosi has to actually have the votes. once it gets into the full house, it's not clear -- it is not clear that they would have the democratic votes to put it over. i'm going to read you just very quickly, mehere's one person wh opposes impeachment at this point, max rose, elected in a conservative part of new york, and he says this from staten island -- "i fear the democratic party is now at risk of repeating a similar bait-and-switch mistake by focusing on impeachment instead of infrastructure, health care costs, putting people to work and livable wages and benefits." he said he needs to pass bills and sign it, that's what they were elected for. >> i think you're getting to a

central tension. and i think the congresswoman made news by saying there is going to be a vote on articles on the floor. i hadn't heard that before. maybe it's been said by others, but she seemed to strongly suggest that that's going to happen, and this seems to me to be the central problem. we're all talking about the fact that they're arguing over whether there's an impeachment inquiry, but that's really not what the fundamental incoherence really is, right? >> yep. >> the real incoherence is that we know there is an impeachment inquiry under way. they are looking to -- they are inquiring into whether to bring articles of impeachment. what we don't know is whether a full vote on those articles has been precluded already. >> right. >> that's the real issue, right? >> yeah. >> and so, by the way, i think we should give the leadership a little more credit in some ways, though, than they're getting. now they were very clear on the fact that there is an impeachment inquiry under way -- >> and it's his duty. >> and for the speaker, for all the talk about how she got testy with the reporter and for all the talk about how she won't use this word or that word, she does

appear to be supportive of nadler's approach. and so, that's been clarified now, and that's a real step forward. there's this tendency to treat this debate as if it's either full house support for impeachment on one side or nothing on the other, and a lot of people rage on twitter that they're doing nothing, but that's really not quite a fair way to frame it, right? there is something happening. again, though, the main question still remains whether a full vote has been precluded and ruled out already, in which case, why are we doing even this? >> and i think the history on this -- and i'm glad you made that point. a, the speaker is second in line to the presidency. it would be unseemly, because remember newt gingrich. go back in history. how unseemly was it for the speaker of the house, mr. gingrich, to be rooting for an impeachment that, let's say the crimes extended to the vice president, would make newt gingrich president, right? and so, in a sense, it makes sense for the speaker to be the one person who's reluctant,

right, on impeachment, because she could, in theory, if mike pence were to be drawn into this notion of corruption and potentially impeachable, there is a line in which she is advancing her own status. >> right. >> so it makes sense for her to be the reluctant one. i think that actually makes a lot of sense. but for the other job of speaker, and especially this speaker, who is a really good counter -- her job is to count those people. she needs to know how many max roses she's got and how many congresspeople she's got who want to impeach him. she clearly has to know the number. so the audience for whether or not he should be impeached is not just the public, it's reluctant democrats. >> and she's threading the needle, joy. what she recognizes is, yes, we often talk about the squad of the progressive movement and they're the ones that are highlighted, about out what brought back the house was a lot of moderate democrats, max rose being one of them. the challenge i have with max rose is that he makes it sound as if they're not legislating. no, they're legislating. they have passed background checks. they have passed environmental rules. they have gone down the list. all of this legislation is

sitting at the foot of mitch mcconnell. >> that's right. >> mitch mcconnell's not doing his job. so none of this legislation is ever going to see the light of day to the president's desk. so, they have to be very clear. and this is where i think that the democrats really have to recognize and really uplift all the work that they are doing at the same time as they're investigating. and they're not doing those two things. but i do also encourage something that i think that pelosi understands and that the rest of the public needs to understand is that unless we are highlighting those two issues, like yes, they're legislating and yes they're moving forward, this president's going to get away with something, and he's going to get away with increasingly dangerous rhetoric that is harming 40% of the american people. when we talk about people of color, we make it sound like we're marginalizing a group of people. no, we're talking about 132 million of us living in this country. and the moment that this president incites that violence and all of a sudden we look away from it, everybody feels less safe. >> well, when he's making bahamian, desperate bahamians who are trying to leave a place where there is incredible

death -- we think the death toll will be very high -- and saying among them are probably some criminals and criminalizing brown people and black people, it's dangerous, right, when he highlights them. but at the same time, this idea that democrats who oppose impeachment are making -- there's one part of their argument that feels incoherent, which is that it won't work in the senate. this is what another democrat who opposed impeachment, gerald golden said -- jared golden. this is an op ed in the "maine sun sentinel." impeachment would die in the senate, but more damaging, i believe impeachment proceedings would unleash an era of even greater divisiveness in our country, one of which we might not return." i'm coming back to you on this, greg, because every piece of legislation they're passing dies in the senate, all of it. so, if their goal is what max rose said, which is that we want to pass infrastructure bills, any infrastructure bill that a majority of democrats like would die in the senate. anything they do will die in senate. so that does not feel like a very coherent argument. >> i'd like to say that both of those arguments that we've talked about from the centrist

members are bad arguments, right? max rose's argument is bad because we know that we don't actually have to frame this as a choice between legislating on the one hand and investigating on the other. investigating is good governing. that's one of the core roles of the constitution institutional roles of the house. so when max rose says that, what he's doing is actually creating an unnecessary, built-in criticism of the act of investigating -- >> right. >> -- which is kind of a weird thing to do since your role is to hold the president accountable, at least in part. >> and joy, one of the things that folks inside the hill -- there's a lot of republican members who are not -- they don't feel comfortable with this president. so, i would encourage them, instead of saying i'm not going to run again, become independent. declare yourself that you're going to become independent, that you're not a democrat, you're not part of this party, but you still believe in good governance. and if you can thread the needle that way, then it does give people a choice, that this is not partisan, but this is about our country and democracy. >> they're missing also the point that if the idea is to

legislate, but donald trump doesn't respect the legislation that you've passed -- >> exactly right. >> meaning you say this is the budget appropriation and he says, to hell with that, i'm taking money from the pentagon and i'm going to take it away from military schools and build the wall, he doesn't respect your legislation. what is the actual point of legislating with somebody who doesn't even feel that he's bound in by the rule of law? >> i think this is exactly the point, you know. and i think what was unfortunate about the way representative rose framed, one, that he took a position in the absence of having the hearings, i think it would be totally fair to say i have to hear, i have to see the evidence -- >> i have to hear first. >> and what representative underwood did, which was complete, in a very similar district that trump won, and what she said was, no one is above the law. >> right, exactly. >> no one is above the law. she didn't say i'm going to vote for articles of impeachment, i'm not going to vote -- she said -- >> i'm open to hear. >> and so, what are we protecting, if not our democracy? because our democracy is practice. >> absolutely. absolutely.

this is a great conversation we have to have again, but i want to have you all come back because i think the bigger question then is what would be the actual facts on the table, like, what would they actually be debating that is potentially impeachable. so i would love to have you come back and discuss that. maya, paul, greg sargent, finally got you on the show. thank you for being here. and maria teresa kumar, thank you very much. coming up, new information on trump allegedly lining his pockets -- no surprise here, it is relevant to this discussion -- with military money. that's next. scussion -- with mi money. that's next. so i can buy from

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take your business beyond. welcome back to "a.m. joy." we are watching a ton of news. r.

we voluntarily stopped doing any international deals. i mean, just think of the opportunity cost, the amount of deals that i have done over the last ten years. extrapolate that over the eight years of what will be his presidency, that's a lot of deals. we just -- they talked -- somebody bought a cheeseburger at the trump hotel. it's asinine. and you've seen where the emolument suits have gone. they're just trying. >> mm-hmm, okay. the controversy surrounding donald trump's habit of directing government spending to his family's businesses and properties is only getting worse, no matter what don junior has to say on fox. earlier this month, politico broke a story about an international guard crew making an unusual stop at a trump property in scotland. now the air force has confirmed, it sent crews to trump's

turnbury resort up to 45 times since 2015. the practice is one of several possible violations of the emoluments clause that house democrats are currently looking into. maya and paul are back with me. maya, we were talking about the substance, not the debate over what impeachment is in general, but the actual substantive things that could wind up being on the plate of house democrats for an impeachment. this sounds like one of them. >> if the president is directing in any way, subtly, explicitly, the military to make use of his resort 40 miles from the airport, when there are cheaper hotels close to the airport that the military used to use, and even members of the military are complaining because they don't get the restaurants or facilities they need, that they would be able to afford near the airport that they're using, it really does make it a possible case of exactly what we were

talking about for impeachment, which is, you're just enriching yourself. >> yeah. >> you're just -- and you're misusing your power, because it's not power being executed for the american people, but you're doing it with the u.s. military. >> yeah. >> that's a national security issue as well. >> i also want to bring in. we have our good friend, seema iyer, who is also here. she is a court tv anchor and podcast host. i'm going to come to you on this, because the house investigators have a set of priorities in mind. >> sure. >> one of them is the violations of the constitution and the rule of law. they have got this, the emoluments probe, what we're talking about today, essentially enriching himself off of the white house. the g7 pitch to host the g7 at his doral resort, literally saying these seven foreign governments -- maybe eight if he invites putin -- would pay him to stay at his resort -- the military paying to stay at trump properties and the diversion of military funds to give to people to build a border wall.

this sounds like where an impeachment investigation is very likely to go. >> you cannot lump all of these transactions, though, into one pile, joy, because let's be clear, that resort in scotland. the airport had a deal with that resort back from 2014, way before trump ever even ran for president, okay? so, that existed prior to that. and then -- i think it was 2015. >> i think, okay, fine, 2015. now the refueling deal was signed by obama in august of 2016. so, if you look at what trump may have done after that point, it was just renable. just, it's a numbers game, right? the air force, the military, they're going to use that airport as a refueling station because of the agreement that obama signed. so, you have to take each individual transaction.

for instance, if trump wants to get the g7 at his resort, fine. then you may have an emoluments problem. but you cannot lump every single transaction. you have to separate -- did trump make this money because of his presidency, or did the agreement, was that in effect prior to him becoming president. >> let me read you a piece of the politico story by our friend, natasha bertrand. it says the air force has significantly ramped up its overnight stays in scotland under trump after signing a contract, as you said, with the prestwick airport, situated 20 miles from turnbury in the waning months of the obama administration, and that would be in 2016. since 2015, the service has lodged crews in the area 659 times, meaning up to 6% of those stays were at turnberry. but here's the challenge. turnberry was actually closed. it was closed down for renovations throughout much of 2015, so you can't say that there were stays at turnberry.

the resort -- the deal with the airport is a separate issue -- >> right. >> whether or not the obama administration authorized refueling at that resort. that did not -- hold on -- >> okay. >> the obama administration did not in addition to that say let's add the turnberry resort to the list of authorized hotels where people in the military could stay. the use of the turnberry resort is a completely separate issue from refueling at that airport. the thing that has changed is that, yes, the refueling is still happening at prestwick airport, but now what we're seeing is crews going 40 miles out of their way to do something that sure as heck was not a standard thing to do -- >> joy. >> -- which is to stay at trump's property. >> okay, but joy, let's be clear. they are getting a rate of $130 to stay at a resort compared to -- >> 40 milesway from where they could stay cheaper. >> joy, i would rather stay at a resort if it took me 40 miles to

get there as opposed to the motel 6 closer to the airport if it's so much cheaper -- >> hold on, it's a resort, meaning that the money that people get every day to spend, the per diems were not even enough for those members of the military to stay and eat at the resort. that's in the story. their per diems did not even meet the amount that it cost to stay there. so, this is not just we're making a choice of a hilton or a marriott. they're staying somewhere where they're per diems aren't even enough money for them to be there and stay and eat every day. they are actually overspending. if we did that on our corporate cards, if i did that -- >> right, right. >> if i said i'm going to take my corporate card and spend $1,000 when i could have spent $400, trust and believe corporate would have some words involved. >> okay. joy, i'm not saying that we are not riding on the line of an appearance of impropriety, but i am also pointing to the fact that -- and this is according to "the new york times" -- at this

point, there is little evidence of a systemic scheme to enrich president trump. >> key words, at this point. because the military isn't talking. let me get -- >> right, so you investigate -- >> the military won't even talk to congress. they're being awfully quiet. i'll let paul get in here, because the challenge is those words, at this point, because the military is very circumspect about how it is that they found their people going 40 miles to stay at trump's resort. >> there is no reason why a service member would want to stay at that resort. a cheeseburger cost $26. they get a certain amount of money a day. it's way away from the air base. so why in the world would they want to stay there? there is also a deal between the trump organization and the airport. the airport is going bankrupt. it was losing money. that's why it was sold for $1. so, the trump organization makes a deal -- we'll steer our customers to the airport if you

encourage people to stay at our resort, so that's the deal. >> but that deal was in place prior to his running for president. and then you have -- >> then he -- >> once he becomes president, it becomes an emolument. >> because this is how he runs his business. this is how he runs his business. unlike almost any other president, he didn't transfer his interests to a blind trust. he transferred his property interests to a trust that's controlled by his family and led by eric trump. he gets quarterly updates about how his business is doing. he maintains a business ownership interest in them, and he can draw out payments whenever he wants, so he's vitally interested in how all of his properties are doing and that's why he's using the white house as kind of a cash cow to increase the profits of the trump organization. >> paul, we are out of time, but the point -- >> you have no proof that the white house has increased his profitability. you have to show proof. >> what? >> that's why we need oversight. >> literally businesses that are owned by donald trump that were in the red were losing money are

now making money. that's proof enough. and on the argument that he was doing it before he was president, yes, that's why the emoluments clause refers to the president. before you're president, jimmy carter can sell peanuts from the peanut farm. once he's president, he sells the peanut farm. and if he becomes president and says all peanuts need to come from the farm, that would be an emoluments issue. thank you, welcome back, and we will do this debate again. we love to debate. coming up next, we'll tell you if character still counts with evangelical christians. that is next. evangelical chris. that is next - choosing to foster a child is choosing to nurture and emotionally support children in urgent need. it's not just about opening up your home; it is also about opening up your heart. consider fostering.

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if just seems like a miscarriage of justice that this one person would be characterizing an entire school. >> we feel very marginalized and we just want to voice the concern that we're not, you knokno know, what's happened. we are genuinely -- >> a few dozen students from liberty university held a protest friday in the wake of a bombshell expose in "politico" magazine about the school's president, jerry falwell jr. the piece portrayed the evangelical leader as behaving in ways that are, to say the least, antithetical to his professed beliefs. the report was written by a liberty university alum niz after interviewing more than two

dozen former and current liberty university officials. they detailed instances of falwell allegedly partying at nightclubs, graphically discussing his sex life with employees, and electioneering for donald trump. nbc has reached out to falwell in the wake of the politico story but has gotten no response. john fuguel stank is with me and fred schaffer, author of "why i am an atheist who believes in god." thank you for being here. >> thank you. >> officials depicted how falwell and his wife, becki, consolidated power at liberty university and how falwell presides over a culture of self-dealing, directing university resources into projects and real estate deals in which his friends and family have stood to make personal financial gains. among the previously unreported revelations are falwell's decision to hire his son, trey's company to manage a shopping center owned by the university. falwell's advocacy for loans given by the university to his friends and falwell awarding

university contracts to businesses owned by his friends." fred schaffer, what do you make of this controversy and does anything in that report surprise you? >> nothing surprises me about it, because back in the '70s and '80s, when my father was one of the founders of the religious right, francis schaffer, and i was his help in tistic sidekick trailing along, we were trailing along in jerry falwell sr.'s private jet that he lent us. and back then, it's deja vu all over again. we've seen this all before. remember jim baker and the scandal there. remember oral roberts sr. and then his son, richard roberts, both of whom i knew. i spoke at jerry falwell's church. i spoke at liberty college when it was liberty university back in the day. and i knew these people. so you know, if you look at trump's attorney, jay sekulow and his family who take in about $230 million a year in contributions and pay themselves out millions, when you look at people like kenneth copeland, who's worth $750 million, when

you look at benny hin, worth $40 million, jerry falwell jr. is just another con artist grifter cashing in on 501(c)(3) tax-deductible status. there's a long history of this. first of all, it doesn't represent the best of christianity in this country. it is the evangelicals who should be rising up furious that their name is dragged through the mud again and again and again by these con artists. and then when you look at the present situation, one thing has changed. the old con artists like oral roberts were glad just to make money, squirrel it away, steal, lie, et cetera, et cetera. now we have jerry falwell jr., and what he wants is access to power, and not just any power, white nationalist power, racist power, power that lies, power that commits adultery, power that has porn artists have to be paid off with checks written in the oval office. that's the situation we're in. so, it's a step lower than the traditional evangelical white con artist grifters out there. now it's con artists married to

a neo fascist, new republican party that's all about white nationalism. that's what's changed. >> and you know, john, there's been a denial first, but let me read you another report. this is a separate one from reuters that reported that falwell has blasted a university student as retarded, quote/unquote, a police chief as a half-wit in emails. liberty university issued a 19-page rebuttal, not to that, but to the politico and the reuters articles, saying liberty university's releasing this information on what would typically be private business matters to set the record straight. in an "associated press" interview -- this is three from my producers -- now, jerry falwell jr.'s asking for an investigation. he wants the fbi to investigate what he called a criminal smear campaign orchestrated against him by several disgruntled former board members and employees. he told the "associated press" he has evidence that the group improperly shared emails with reporters to discredit him and said the attempted coup was partially motivated by his backing of donald trump. what do you make of his denials

and what do you make of his status remaining in the evangelical community given what apparently even some of his insider folks knew? >> well, it's interesting in the era of the russia investigation, now the new trendy thing is for your investigators to be investigated. i'd love to see more scrutiny landing on jerry falwell jr.'s church. he is not a pastor. it's very important to remember that. his brother got the church. he got the school when reverend falwell sr. left us. now, i had the pleasure of debating reverend falwell on bill maher's show once, and he was a remarkable guy, reverend falwell sr. he was a segregationist who built whites-only schools. he defended apartheid. he said 9/11 was god's punishment on america. i grew up in the '80s as a kid being raised by an ex-nun, looking at a media culture that said this is what christianity is. and for too long, we've had a media world where we have atheists and then you have people who scream at women outside clinics, and that's meant to represent the spectrum

of spirituality. most inventory gelicals, including those i talk to, don't take falwell jr. too seriously as one of their own. he is mainly there because, as frank pointed out brilliantly, he's a grifter with a last name. oh, look at the picture you just showed when i said that. so, you know, the main thing about it is that for so many years, he's able to do this, and these modern-day pharisees have really got a clever racket going. this is a guy who endorsed donald trump after trump promised to turn away war refugees, to bring back torture. jesus never said cut taxes for the wealthiest nazarenes. they voted exactly against the teachings of jesus for trump. it's the same with mike pence. we had this idea where, well, i'm against gays, so i'm christian, even though jesus was never against gay people. so mike pence can sign a law in indiana saying you can turn away private taxpayers if they're gay because it offends your religion, but no one in the culture ever says, where does your holy book say jesus drove the gay cakes out of the temple?

the great, great achievement of falwell sr. was this racket where they've convinced christians to vote against everything christ talked about, by talking about abortion, which christ never talked about. this scrutiny is good news, and i hope it's applied to more people because those young people who go to liberty university deserve better. >> and frank, why is it that people like jerry falwell jr. and donald trump have such a firm hold then on just average, ordinary, white evangelicals? >> well, we know they do because 83% of them voted for trump and the bedrock of his support is white evangelicals. you have to understand, you know, with or without russia, trump is not president if white evangelicals hadn't voted for him. i think what has happened is that the white evangelical movement -- i'm not speaking of all individuals -- but as a movement, has been rebranded as a personality cult -- >> yep. >> and they are trying to follow one person who, as john said earlier, correctly, is about as far away from jesus and his

teachings as you can get. so, the jump that has been made is not just a jump to an innocuous personality cult, it is a jump to the antithesis, the exact opposite of everything christianity at its best ever stands for. it's the opposite of feeding the widow and orphan. it's the opposite of reaching out to the stranger. it contradicts everything about the best of the old testament and the new testament. and so, what you have to see is that jerry falwell jr. has made himself into the leader of a heretical movement that any christian at any point in history would judge outside christianity the same way that the nazis co-opted the lutheran church and many evangelicals and roman catholics and took them outside of the tradition of christianity and they backed hitler instead, to their great sorrow and detriment, which is one reason so much of europe is secularized today. the same fate awaits the evangelical movement, unless it turns away from this personality

court. >> and back to you on this, john, because this is the movement that's also driving the takeover of the american courts, the federal court system, because they very much want control of the courts, both to have their own pi kunary interests on what they would view their christian interests, but also pro-corporate interests protected. >> indeed. it is all about the profit, not the prophet. and you know, again, you have to show me in your holy book where jesus said this is what he believes, if you're going to fight for this kind of discrimination or this kind of profit. this is why so many people are turned off to religion. it's the hypocrisies of the modern pharisees, and it's good to see this being made because there are a lot of decent christians out there trying to live by the tenants and sermon on the mound. >> really great conversation. thank you guys. really appreciate you being here. >> thank you. coming up, the controversial political ad -- controversial is a nice way to put it -- that featured a burning image of alexandria ocasio-cortez. that is next. dria ocasio-cortez th iats next i have moderate to severe plaque psoriasis.

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socialist. i'm a republican. >> a political ad that aired during this week's democratic debate on some abc stations has sparked outrage. the ad showed a photo of congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez consumed by fire followed by a warning about socialism and jarring images invoking the genocide of the khmer rouge in cambodia. the ad is from the political action group new faces gop, which is led by former congressional candidate elizabeth hang. ocasio-cortez responded on twitter writing "republicans are running tv ads setting pictures of me on fire to convince people they aren't racist. life is weird." the ad ran on some local abc stations, including some owned by the sinclair broadcast group. both abc and sinclair have declined to comment. author and media analyst eric boelard is joining me now. let me play you these responses on friday. >> i was merely making the point

of do you want to know what incites violence? that's socialism. we've seen that -- >> i think ads like that incite violence. >> i disagree with you on that. >> so, she had an opportunity to get on television on cnn to defend herself and she essentially defended herself by saying her ad would not incite violence, socialism incites violence. >> the fact that it ran is a disgrace. this is not an ad that slipped through. if you're an abc affiliate and abc is hosting a democratic prime time debate and a highly partisan ad comes in, everybody looks at it, and everybody looks at it and says, this is fine, this is part of our conversation, let's go ahead and air this. it was insightful for two reasons. first of all, not only did they set her picture on fire, but supporting the green deal and supporting medicare for all has nothing to do with genocide in cambodia several decades ago. so, this is an example of the media being so immune to the conservative culture of hate and violence that you look at an ad

like this and say, yeah, let's go ahead and air this. i mean, my goodness! republican convention next summer, if some group came up with an ad and superimposed trump's image on a nazi rally, do you think these stations would look at it and say, sure, let's go ahead and air that? again, they're so immune to conservative violence and hate and the culture that permeates there, and they're also intimidated, right? and this is a preview of 2020. if they're burning her picture in 2019, imagine what the ads in 2020 are going to look like. and it's kind of a dare you to these major media companies. go ahead and reject this ad. then we're going to go to fox and then go to rush limbaugh and then trump's going to tweet about it and then see what happens. so there's an intimidation game that's going on, too, and it is really disgraceful. >> and this particular group, new faces gop, they're specifically looking for nonwhite people to be the front of this. >> right. >> so as you said, then if the ad is rejected, you can say, aha, you didn't want this ad

with this person of color. but this is not new. max khalilen was a war hero, was attacked in ads, superimposed with pictures of al qaeda. the ads of howard dean were vicious. this is a thing that's done, and as you said, it's done to democrats. >> oh, it's done all the time, and it's done all the time. and again, it's kind of become the norm. and we talk about sinclair. no one should be surprised this is a part of sinclair. in 2004, they forced their stations to run an entire hour-long anti-john kerry documentary one week before the election. so, this is pure propaganda on their part. but it also is a signal to other media companies -- you are going to have to have a spine for the next 12 or 16 months, and you're going to have to have the guts to say to these right-wing hate groups, no, this does not clear our standards, this is not part of our public conversation, and if you want to create, you know, phony outrage, go ahead, but we're sticking by our standards. and i'm nervous that media months.es might not have the

>> yeah. maybe they should be as good as nascar, which said no more ar-15 ads at nascar. just be like nascar, how about that? eric boehlert, thank you very much for being here. >> my pleasure. >> great talking to you. thank you. and before we go, sad news for the "a.m. joy" family. our longtime beloved guest and friend michael nance lost his wife, who passed away on wednesday. in malcolm's words, she was a brilliant landscape architect, devoted mother, fierce patriot, a proud navy wife and the one great love of my life, he wrote. "rest in peace, maryse." malcolm, our love and prayers are with you. malcolm, our love and prayers are with you john smith. or any of the other hundreds of john smiths that are humana medicare advantage members. no, it's this john smith, who met with humana to create a personalized care plan. at humana, we have more ways to care for your health,

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that is our show for today. "a.m. joy" will be back tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. eastern. mean meanwhile, alex witt has the latest. >> i miss having you here, too. our condolences to malcolm nance. that is terrible news. >> cancer is the worst thing. it's just evil. but malcolm is a wonderful, wonderful person, as you know. he's just a great guy. >> very much so. so, our hearts go out to him. my friend, talk to you soon. thanks again. and a good day to all of you from msnbc world headquarters in new york. it is noon in the east, 9:00 a.m. out west. welcome to "weekends with alex witt." breaking news and official confirmation, a son of osama bin laden is killed. a u.s.-led ora