>> all right, mike allen, thank you very much. we'll be reading axios a.m. in just a bit and you can sign up for the newsletter by going to signup.axios.com. >> that does it for us on this tuesday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. thank you very much, everybody. i want to start by wishing my very good friend prime minister abe of japan, a happy birthday. he's 39 years old today. please extend my wishes to the prime minister. >> president trump -- >> people say he's not on top of his game. he's on top of it. i mean, that really shows that you have the details when you're able to remember birthday of one of america's most important allies. >> shinzo abe. >> maybe he is on top of his game. >> no, because that was 2 halve

weeks ago. >> who was his birthday. >> two 1/2 weeks ago. yesterday's birthday was vladimir putin. and he may have given him the biggest birthday gift by withdrawing u.s. troops from zbloo syria. >> that was about as big a birthday president vladimir putin could have had. obviously donald trump not only helped the russians, he accepted syrians, isis, iranians. he just happened to hurt our one ally. and the comdem nations wendemna pretty strong. >> with the exception of rand paul and mike lee, i think most

republicans came out, including lindsey graham who's been on board for just about everything. the president jumped head long into this based on one phone call from the president of turkey without any of the implications whatsoever and most troubling without consulting anyone at all just making this decision unilaterally. >> all right. we're going to talk about this much more with former aide to the george w. bush administration elise jordan. the author of the book "the a world in disarray" richard haass. and national security expert columnist of usa today and author of the book "the death of expertise" tom nichols. president trump spent yesterday defending his decision for withdraw troops from syria even as key republicans and allies urge him against leaving america's kurdish allies open to an assault from turkey. multiple current and former u.s.

officials tell nbc news that the announcement blindsided not just america's kurdish partners in the fight against isis, but also senior officials at the pentagon, the state department, and the white house as well as lawmakers on capitol hill. and also, u.s. allies in europe and the middle east. this is pretty full-throated all around the world. the one person that the president did consult with before making that decision, turkish president erdogan. >> why are you siding with a military leader and not our kurdish allies? >> well, i'm not siding with anybody. we've been in syria for many years. syria was suppose tiebd short-term hit, just a very short-term hit. we were supposed to be in and out. i don't want anything bad to happen to our people and i told that to president erdogan. i said don't hurt -- any of our people get hurt, big trouble. >> those remarks followed the president's tweet threatening to, quote, totally destroy and obliterate turkey's economy.

that's quite a threat. >> yeah. >> if turkey, quote, does anything that i in my great and unmatched wisdom there are is the president talking, consider to be off limits. but many -- >> i'm sorry my great and unmatched wisdom? he has the great and unmatched wisdom of chief igham on the simpsons. >> i'm just worried that the people that stand up for him -- >> many republicans don't see great and you matched wisdom in this syria decision, they see more crusty the clown or chief wigham. and actually, they are voicing their complaints. >> yes. >> let's roll the tape. well i can't read the script if you don't roll the script. that's the problem. there you go. they were voicing their opposition, mika. they're yelling at me read the script but -- >> i got it. majority leader mitch mcconnell

put out a statement saying in part a precipitous withdrawal of u.s. forces from syria would only benefit russia, iran, and the assad regime and it would increase the risk that isis and other terrorist groups regroup. that's mitch mcconnell. lindsey graham, one of the president's strongest defenders slammed the move in a series of tweets yesterday. this is lindsey graham. he warned that the decision ensures an isis comeback. it forces kurds to align assad and iran. it destroys turkey's relationship with congress and said abandoning the kurds would be a stain on america's honor. >> isis is not defeated, my friend. the biggest lie being told by the administration that isis is defeated. the caliphate destroyed. but there are thousands of -- >> does this have -- >> and know the caliphate would not have been destroyed without the occurred. this impulsive decision by the president has undone all the

gains we've made, thrown the region into further chaos. iran is licking their chops and if i'm an isis fighter i've got a second lease on live in t. this, to me, is nerve unnerving to its core. >> go ahead, mika, go through this list. >> it appears are the president works for someone else. rubio said reports of a u.s. retreat are true. the trump administration has made a grave mistake. former governor mike huckaby called it a huge miss stake to abandon kurds. trump's performer sun ambassador nikki haley said leaving the kurds to die is a big mistake. and senator ben sasse said this bad decision will likely result in the slaughter of allies. so literally everybody knows that people will die but yet the president continues. we also want to show you the reaction from long-time

televangelist pat robinson. >> the president that allowed khashoggi to be cut in pieces without any repercussion what's is over is now allowing the christians and kurds to be massacred by the turks. and i believe, and i want to say this with great solemnity, the president of the united states is in danger of losing the mandate of heaven if he permits this to happen. >> richard haass, of course the condemnation is almost universal. i want to follow up on something lindsey graham said. he said if i'm an isis fighter i have a second lease on life. well, lindsey, though he often when defending the president just makes things up, in this case he has a pentagon study, an ig report to actually back him up the 't up.

the pentagon said there was a danger because of united states neglect, there was a danger of isis reforming. once again causing the sort of chaos that they caused not only across the middle east, but in america and across the world. and this move yesterday could not -- donald trump could not have done more of a favor for is isis, iran, russia, turkey, all of these people who consider themselves to be our adversaries that he did. is there any explanation that you can come up with? >> well, the only explanation is the one the president keeps giving, that he was, quote unquote, elected to bring american troops home from the middle east and he's doing that. the consequences be damned. there's zero chance the kurds, if they're fighting for their lives against turkey, are going to have the capacity to continue to guard the thousands of isis fighters. so that and isis would be able to reconstitute itself. but this is part of a much

larger piece. the desire to get the united states forces out of the afghanistan. again, consequences be damned, given what the taliban could do. and so the consequences of this are not simply good for iran, good far russia and syria. it sends the message worldwide, it reinforces the message that the united states is no longer reliable. we are no longer predictable. we can no longer be counted on. so if you're an ally of the united states, this sentds the message essentially you are on your own. no matter what the alliance commitments or treaty commit mens, you are increasingly on your own no matter what sort of documents or papers or previous commitments have been there. this president essentially started from a blank slate and does not honor his inheritance. >> let's bring in ayman -- go ahead, joe. >> i was just going to say, willie, it's even worse than that. if you have fought along with

the united states, if you have been the one true ally of the united states through over the past ten years of some pretty rough sledding, it was always the kurds and iraq, he would could depend on the kurds and syria that stayed with us, that were the fiercest fighters that always helped us move forward and get through these crises, they were our steadfast ally. the message, richard is right, is sent across the globe. i've got to ask you quickly before you bring in ayman, we have a new poll out, a "washington post" poll came out and it's curious that the president would make this decision. i'm sure he was trying to just change the subject or maybe as we know with his phone calls from foreign leaders maybe he got something out of it because it certainly is not in america's best interest or our allies best interests. it's in isis' best interests. but you saw those republicans attacking the president. i wonder why would he do this when the support for impeachment

just grows by the day. there's a "washington post" poll out this morning, willie, get this. we'll get the numbers up in a minute. 58% of americans support the impeachment proceedings against donald trump. >> 58. >> only 38% now oppose it. by a 20-point spread, 58 to 38 according to this latest "washington post" poll, 58% of americans want this man to go through an impeachment inquiry. >> and that's after what the american. public watched all week yesterday. we saw all week last week the president reeling in the question of impeachment. you saw rob portman of ohio, a republican senator showing cracks in his support yesterday talking to a local newspaper in ohio saying the president's conduct was inappropriate and unacceptable. clearly this is on the president's mind. and we have to sprink until

ther sprifrpg wi sprinkle in there, the president has two hotels in istanbul, turkey. his business hangs over everything he does. >> one more number for you then bring in aman. what's that number? >> 49% of americans, 49% support impeachment and removal from office. almost -- well, statistically, within the margin of error, half of americans support donald trump's removal from office. and i think part of it is you could read through the mueller report and so many republicans on the hill didn't read through it or a lot of americans didn't read through it. there's a lot there to digest. but if you read it it's obvious this president is not acting in america's best interest. but here you touch on something very important. he calls ukraine and this is a country recently invaded by russia. he's holding up $391 million in

defense money. why? for his campaign's benefit. so he extorts the leader of a democratic ally. americans can understand that. misusing the office for his political gain. he makes a call to china, somebody that he has said is our enemy, but he calls china and he's talking and what does he do? he not only says it on tv, he says it in a phone call a couple months back reportedly and he says help my campaign out. i need you to investigate the guy who's ahead of me by nine points in the poll. americans can understand that. in a few minutes we're going to show this guy's connections with turkey, his financial connections with turkey. americans understand that. why is it that he's nice to countries where gives him the most money? russia? why is it that he bends over backwards to help the saudis out when what did he say in the campaign in they like my toys. they've given me $150 million. why is it that the philippines, everybody else is turning on the philippines because they have a

savage leader there who doesn't respect any human rights, or norms? why? this has got hotel prohibit there property there. and the same thing with turkey. why is it every time he gets on the phone call with erdogan he gets off and he makes decisions that americans understand are not in our best interest. whether you're on fox news, fox and friends, or whether you're on the 700 club pat robertson, or are whether you're a guy that goes golfing with donald trump and you've completely forsaken everything that you believed in with john mccain with constitutional norms, lindsey graham, all of these people understand none of this is in america's best interest. it all has to do with what we always say? the bottom line. it always comes back to the bottom line for donald trump. and now i think that's why 49% of americans want him removed from office. 50 -- what is it 58% of americans support this

impeachment inquiry. >> remember, this is the very, general mattis left the administration over this question of syria and getting out of syria. we don't have general mattis next to the president because of that. why does the president give erdogan a pass time and again? it was just a couple years ago, ayman, when the security guards on american soil in washington beat up peaceful protesters as erdogan watched. charges were dropped. time and again this president gives a pass to erdogan. but let's talk about what's happening on the ground, this surprise not just to the sdf, but to allies around the world, to the pentagon, to the state department, the surprise decision. imagine you're the commander in the field leading the sdf. you get a call at 3:00 a.m. yesterday morning to stand down and american troops are leaving your side, a complete surprise to that commander. >> and the first thing you're probably thinking of is all your troops and people you've had on the front lines are now exposed in someway, shape or form. they're going to be exposed from

the turkish side that they could start shelling certain positions inside syria, they could advance. there's all kinds of calculations the turks have to go through before they take on that risk. but the green light has been giventor them to beg given for them to begin some kind of remote air strikes that we've seen in the past. but it ends the quiet norm that had been existing. the syrian government and russian backers have made clear that they wouldn't tolerate any invasion or military operation by turkey in syrian sovereign territory. they're going to try to win over the kurds and offer them some concession to bring them back into the fold to keep the integrity of that country in place. you can see yourself opening another front between turkey and syria. you talked about the fact that president erdogan has snubbed president trump on many times, including most recently when the american military told turkey do not buy those russian surface to air missiles. that was a very big decision. what did turkey do?

they totally snubbed the americans saying we will buy these despite the fact that america and nato said no. what does president trump do? a couple weeks after that decision he turns around and grants turkey something they've been pushing for for years, a green light to attack kurds inside syria. >> let's talk about the relationship between presidents trump and erdogan. the white house announced president trump's pull out shortly after his phone call with president erdogan. it marks the second time in less than a year that president trump announced a major troop withdrawal from syria immediately following a phone call with erdogan. those are just two instances in a trend in which erdogan has had his way with president trump. in may of 2017,s a mentioned just minutes after a immediate meeting with trump in the oval office, he was seen on camera ordering his security detail to assault a group of peaceful protesters on embassy row in washington. american protesters. trump still has not comment hand to incident and charges against the turkish saassail quadrants

were dropped later. they took positions against the protest of the white house. the trump administration ejected turkey from the f-35 fighter jet program in response, however, president trump has declined to implement sanctions which were threatened and would be warp warranted for buying russian-made defense systems. sunday, nbc news learned that the call initially was instigated to quell erdogan's growing rage over not getting a sit-down with president trump last month at the united nations general assembly. so the reporting nbc news has is that basically donald trump was trying to get erdogan off the phone because he was mad that he didn't get to have the one on one with him here in new york a couple of weeks ago and said, okay, go into syria. >> the art of the deal. so what exactly is america, is our national interest get prg

this rash decision that donald trump makes? because apparently he wants to get an authoritarian that he lets do whatever he wants otherwise even on u.s. soil go ahead. this process, i'd like to compare and contrast a little bit with the afghan peace negotiations. you have actually whatever you think the deal that was being worked out, you had a year-long process. and it was a serious process. and two warring factions were going to move to the next stage and go to oslo. you had dump insert himself into the process, boom, it blows up. >> there was one similarity between the two that is really uncomfortable. in both cases, we totally undermine our friend. we ignore the -- >> democratically elected government. >> which had been our ally and now we've ignored the kurds. what does this is a if you're an american ally? we will just turn on you. it means nothing and instead we will placate our foes. the consequences of this are big and they're lasting and they're

global. as bad as they are for the middle east, they are even worse for the entire world. >> let's bring in one of the authors of that nbc news report i've been mentioning, carol lee. walk us through this decision-making process. the president said, quote, i consulted with everybody. that was i had blanket response when asked who helped him make this decision, i consulted with everybody. that's not borne out in your reporting. tell us why president erdogan was so upset and the president, according to your report, trump tried to snooth over by sayimoo saying i'll get our people out of the way so you can go into turkey? >> the backdrop between the phone call was the u.n. general assembly meeting that didn't happen between the two of them. erdogan felt very slighted that he only saw president trump at a larger reception for a number of world leaders and they had minimal time together. and so the goal was for the president to try to smooth things over. and they discussed, you know,

missile defense system, a safe zone in syria, president trump offered a white house visit to president erdogan. and then the conversation kind of went off the track and erdogan was very determined, according to people we talked to, that he was going into syria, that he was finally just going to take this action. and the president basically said, according to people we talked to, fine, you can do something moderate but if you do something large scale that's not going to be okay. they hang up the phone. the chief of staff calls the defense secretary to inform him of this decision and then the white house scrambled to put out a statement. meanwhile, in the middle of the night in syria u.s. troops who are in theier of whi area in wh wanted to pull back some of these force sods they didn't get in the way of what turkey was doing gets an urgent message saying we are departing the field. and at 3:00 a.m. the commander of the forces gets a phone call

you need to get on a video call with the commander who informs him of this presidential decision. you see it unravel from there. and then there's confusion in washington, in european capitals across the middle east and no one really knows exactly what the decision is. and you've seen in the last 24 hours the president's tweets, the statements coming out of the white house, they're saying, no, the president really was against erdogan going into turkey. he does not support this. he only pulled back because erdogan was determined and it was going to happen if i ways. a anyways. there's no clarity on what the policy is today going forward. >> so president trump's decision to pull troops from northern syria is once again raising questions about his business dealings. as "the washington post" points out, the first person to suggest that donald trump could have a conflict of interest in dealing with turkey and turkish president erdogan was actually trump himself. here he is back in 2015. >> well, i also have -- i have a

little conflict of interest because i have a major, major building in istanbul. it's a tremendously successful job. it's called trump towers, two towers instead of one, not the usual 1, it's two. i've gotten to know turkey very well and they're amazing people, they're incredible people. they have a strong leader. >> they have a strong leader. >> the post notes that both donald trump and his daughter ivanka travel to turkey when the trump organization launched the trump towers project there in 2012. donald trump tweeted, celebrations of the project several times while there. and ivanka trump who is now a senior official in the white house tweeted at the time, thank you, prime minister erdogan, for joining us yesterday to celebrate the launch of trump towers istanbul. >> so, tom nichols, bob woodward and carl bernstein used to say follow the money. what we've been saying since trump got into the white house

was if you don't understand his foreign policy, it's not really difficult to figure out. follow the money. whether it's in istanbul, whether it's in russia, whether it's in the philippines, wherever it is, saudi arabia, chances are good these are countries that have strong men or authoritative governments that have piled money into donald trump's public -- into his account in the past. and this is not a surprise. he keeps doing this time and time again with turkey. >> follow the money and follow the ego, because the other pattern you're seeing here is obviously the president when he has business interests that changes his view of things. but also you can see a difference in the way the president's relating to our allies as opposed to these

strong men and authoritarians. our allies are talking to the president like an adult. there is nuance, there is peer-to-peer discussion. people like theresa may. whereas the people that are getting somewhere with the president are the ones who talk to him at his own level. they bluster they flatter, they appeal to his vanity, they kind of go on about their own hurt feelings. and the president just responds to that on a very elemental level. and so, you know, it makes for -- it really makes for a difficult problem that our allies are trying to talk to the president like a leader and their equal in an alliance and these other guys are talking to the president like they're putting up a skyscraper somewhere in new york and they've got to haggle over the price of concrete. and that's where the -- that's the president's comfort zone. >> what do you think the cops

consequenc consequences? what are the consequences of us abandoning a long time ally like the kurds? >> well, one of the consequences is that we are now perceived as an unreliable ally. people overseas are not going to make the distinction here to say this is donald trump making this decision, this -- for people overseas this is the americans. and america is developing this reputation. >> that's right. >> our allies, the guys that are getting left behind in the field aren't saying, well, we understand it's just one guy in the white house. he's the personification of the nation, he's making this decision. but there's another problem with that. the flip side is that vladimir putin in particular is coming across as the guy who never walks away from a friend. putin is the one telling people, saying, when russia sticks by you we stick. and the americans walk. but we're always here. we're the reliable partner, not the americans. and that is devastating for american foreign policy. >> it is devastating, richard.

and, of course, you only have to look at this one country syria to see what vladimir putin did when, of course, it seen the entire world, the united states rightly wanted assad gone, putin stood by his side. putin brought russian troops into the middle east into syria for the first time since 1973. putin has been a steadfast ally of assad even when he shouldn't have been. here, you have the united states cutting and running on a whim. and that's the most dangerous part of this, on a whim donald trump decides on a phone call once again without talking to anybody, without going through the channels of talking to advisers who spent their entire life working this -- working this out, he just does it on a whim. and our apple lillies are left russia stands by their allies

even in the darkest moments, the united states can't even do it through a phone call. >> you're right, joe. what will this mean, then? it means that american allies get up in the morning and they have to make a historic choice. if they decide that we're simply too unreliable and too unpredictable, they really only got two choices. either they essentially deliver or if you want to use a rougher word, appease a more powerful neighbor, russia, china, iran in their neighborhood. or they basically say we've got to become more self-reliant. this could be making the world safe for proliferation, whether it's convectional arms or conceivably nuclear arms. either way we have less influence, either way it becomes a much more turbulent world. that's the direction we're going. essentially you're seeing -- it's rare to see history so upclose and unfolding. but what we're seeing if you take a step back, this is the end of 70 years of the american era in the world.

we are voluntarily abdicating our role and it's the russians, the iranians and the others who are benefiting where countries will simply take matters into their own hands. this will be seen as historic stuff in terms of the trends of history. >> well, and the great tragedy is after stumbling through the past 19 years, 18, 19 years in this new century or the 18 years since september 11th, you can talk to the greatest minds of this generation, the greatest military strategists of this generation and they can recount chapter and verse what we got wrong in afghanistan, what we got wrong in iraq. but to a person they will tell you that we got syria right in this respect, in defeating isis. we have a small footprint there. it is a sustainable footprint. and we've used a limited number of men and women, and our

kurdish allies in such a way -- think about this. with this small footprint we've thwarted iran's expansion. we've thwarted russia's expansion in the area. we've thwarted syria's expansion. and we have continued to crush isis. and now donald trump is surrendering. >> yeah. >> he's appeasing -- he's appeasing putin, he's appeasing erdogan, and the consequences of this are going to be deadly. >> and i think it's worth looking at some of the republicans who have been protecting this president and schilling for him. especially just looking in the past three days that jim jordan or ron johnson or lindsey graham on the ukraine scandal, he doesn't mean it. to what he stowed george stephanopoulos about taking bitter on a rival, he doesn't

mean it. to his love affair with kim jong-un, he doesn't mean it. how about if he said i'm going to abandon our kurdish allies and then ignite a slaughter, would you say he just doesn't mean if if he just said that? because he's doing it. you've let this president run roughshod on our foreign policy. you've never called him into check. look where we are right now. he doesn't mean it. >> it is connected. >> it is connected. >> when you look at what donald trump said about china saying they need to investigate marco rubio, he wasn't joking. >> was trying to dig on us. he doesn't mean it? >> jim jordan, it was obvious he wasn't joking. it was obvious time and again you'll remember when he said, russia, if you're listening. >> oh, he means it. >> find hillary clinton's 30,000 emails. later the defense was he was just joking. he wasn't joking. that night what did the russians do? they began trying to interfere with american democracy and that's continued through today. he means it and you've got stand

up to him and here's the thing. 58% of americans, 58% of americans this morning think this impeachment inquiry needs to go forward. and 49% of americans think he needs to be removed from office because you continue to allow him to act in an aberrant way that is not our interest. >> because you're afraid of a tweet. we'll dig deeper into that "washington post" poll, majority of americans supporting impeachment. nearly half support removing the president from office. and wait until you hear the numbers among independents. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. . you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. without my medication, my small tremors would be extreme. without it, i cannot write my name. i was diagnosed with parkinson's. i had to retire from law enforcement. it was devastating.

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fly ball right field by will smith. adam eaton squeezes it. we've got ourselves a game five. >> molina in the air, left field. duvall's got a great arm but that is deep, long, ready to run. he tags, here he comes. duvall's throw, no chance. and the cardinals have won game four! >> ricky's 2-1 pitch. high drive to deep right center field. back goes reddick. back near the wall. it is out of here! >> the yankees have swept the twins! and they're the first team moving on to the championship series in 2019. >> let's bring in mike barnicle right now, msnbc contributor. mike, get that off, get that off! i don't want to see yankees jumping up and down. >> i beg to differ, joe, i big

beg to differ. keep it on. never have we needed october baseball more than we need it now. >> well, i just meant the yankees. but we'll get to the yankees in a minute with willie, but first let's talk about actually some bright news out of washington, regardless of whether you're, you know, a nationals fan or not they, of course, bryce harper skips town. gets paid a boatload of money and yet the washington nationals are just having an amazing run. they've had a great season. and who would have believed they would have pushed the dodgers to game five? these two series in the national league just as good as it gets. >> yeah, absolutely, joe. and with regard to the nationals game, i mean, people who are, you know, just moderate baseball fans who might tune in to a playoff game, you're seeing one of the best pitches in the last

20 years in max scherzer who single handedly kept the nationals in this series. would have been nice if a lot of the fans realized that during a rain delay they ought to come back to their seats in washington, which they eventually did. that's an entirely separate story. but i have to tell you we were just talking off camera here. the epic games yesterday, you're right, the national league series are great. but from 1:00 in the afternoon to midnight last night, wall to wall baseball, it's such a relief given what we've been talk about these past two days. >> are we going to get -- >> no, not yet. let's talk the braves and cardinals game is great, but let's keep talking about washington for a second. we have a few people in washington that watch this show. it's -- you would -- you would -- it would be easy to say, okay, washington's had a great run. but the dodgers will win in game

five at home. look who's going up on the mound for nationals. >> strasbourg. >> that guy has been on fire this fall in the post season. and he is one of the last guys in the world i'd want to see if i'm a dodger. >> absolutely. first of all, his first time out he virtually shut the dodgers down. he's going to be facing las vegas los angeles tomorrow night in los angeles. it's going to be a great game. the dodgers have a very great team. they might be peaking at the right time. the dodgers are loaded, they're a prohibitive favorite to be in the series. but we'll see what's going to happen. >> but you look at the yankees, willie, from the very beginning they were on fire, they just completely dominated a really, really good minnesota team. and i'll tell you, severino last night early on on fire. >> yeah, he was. he worked out of trouble a

couple of times. it was good to see him back on the mound in the playoffs. the yankees have won 13 playoff games in a row over the twins going back over the last 15 years. so they got the right draw. but you're right, the twins had a great season. they had the fourth best record in baseball, a couple games behind the yankees. and the yanks just outshrugged them. their bats are incredible. torres, the 22-year-old second baseman is a superstar, as the world saw over the last three games. now the yankees have to think about whether or not they get the astros. the rays won yesterday. verlander going tonight if the rays can help the yankees out and stretch the astros to a fifth game, that throws off the astros' rotation and in game one we wouldn't get verlander or gerrit coleland, it would be much appreciated from those fans who seem to have found tropicana field for the first time this year. >> i wonder where they brought them in from. what a great organization, richard haass, just looking at tampa, an incredible

organization with young, gutsy players, a great coach. but they just never had the fan support. i don't think they're going to be in tampa very long. but they looked good last night against a team that i would argue is the best in baseball, the houston astros. >> agree. but, joe, willie and i have a question for you which is whether you are prepared to name the grandson gray bar scarborough? >> yeah, no. >> can we talk politics now? i just -- i've just -- come on, guys. >> you're not well, are you? >> actually mika allowed me to watch the braves -- >> i was trying to watch ha hardball. >> we gotten to hardball -- >> i have to talk to steve kornacki about the open. let's do politics. >> this is not a baseball show. >> it's not. more than half of americans now

back house democrats back the impeachment inquiry into president trump that could remove him from office. according to a new "washington post," george mason university poll out this morning, 58% now endorse the impeachment probe, up 21 points since july. >> just stop for one second, mika. up 21 points since july. we've talked about nixon -- >> yeah. >> -- and we've talked about clinton and those impeachment numbers. this is -- this is completely different. we are in unchartered waters here for donald trump. his support is melting down and americans are usually very conservative with the small seen about impeachment. they are not here. the numbers are skyrocketing. >> you see it in his behavior and in his weird tweets. 38% say they do not support it. reading from the post's write-up, among all adults, 49% say the house should take the more significant step to impeach

the president and call for his removal from office. a majority of independents at 57% say they support the impeachment inquiry into president trump. and almost half of americans, 49%, say they approve of congressional democrats handling of the impeachment inquiry. god. >> so, elise, these numbers are moving so quickly we don't know what's going to happen next. but people -- people i talked to, elise, it's the madness every day. the chaos every day. it's donald trump's own behavior every day. i go back to what jonathan lemire wrote i think on sunday where he said some of the very traits that crazed disruption that helped donald trump get elected, it is now working against him. and as he doubles down, so, too,

support for his impeachment and removal of office. these numbers are stark. 58% support the impeachment inquiry and 49%, almost a clear majority, want him out of office. >> and, joe, i break out even another number from this "washington post" poll. 18% of republicans support impeachment. that's starting to go up. and those are numbers that i would be incredibly uncomfortable with if i'm donald trump in this white house just because you see the starts of a shift. this -- it's going to be interesting to see how voter attitudes have shifted since 2016 when a lot of those voters who weren't excited about donald trump or hillary clinton decided to hold their noses and vote for trump and they said we don't know what we're getting, we know it may be crazy, but we know what we're getting with hillary clinton. well now couple of years into donald trump's presidency people understand the chaos that donald

trump has wrought. so do those voters who just barely came out for donald trump in 2016, are they real sticking with him? >> and, willie, for republicans, the question is not do we have donald trump run the country or nancy pelosi. >> right. >> or donald trump or elizabeth warren, it's do we have donald trump run the country on or mike pence? and do we turn the republican party not over to bernie sanders but maybe to nikki haley? i mean, you look at this and republicans have to start thinking, wait a second, this is a guy, a life-long democrat that gave money to charlie rangel and elliot spencer and hillary clinton eight times and kamala harris and he's pushed tariff taxes so he's hurting the economy. he's -- he's got record debt,

trillion dollar ef sitsdeficits now he's allowing isis to reform and start killing americans again. >> yeah, i mean, i'll be -- all what you said is true. but i think the people who support the core of the president trump support that 38% actually that we see in this poll that are not for the impeachment inquiry, they haven't been moved by any of those things you've just mentioned or any of the things we've seen over the last three years from president trump. so will they be moved off their position on him because of ukraine, because of this thing that is out in the open? i don't know, tom nichols. i think for the core support of donald trump, for the people who have been with him from the beginning, there's almost nothing, it's the old shoot somebody on fifth avenue argument the president has made. there's almost nothing that will take them out of the bunker with him. >> yeah, i think there's two things that are interesting about these numbers from the poll this morning. one is that the president has managed to put himself in the

same territory where nixon was right around the summer of 1974 when he was at the end of the watergate process. i mean, the president, i mean, the number for removing the president from office didn't start to clear 50% until late summer of '74 just before nixon resigned. so the president has, you know, he's overperforming here in terms of where the poll is. but the second issue, i think, is this may be where the polls stay now. because that 38%, as you say, willie, they're just not going to budge. it doesn't matter, the president literally is walking outside, i would argue the president's walking outside and committing one impeachable offense after another. i mean, every tweet, every moment on the south lawn you can just, you know, sort of write down another article of impeachment and an abuse of power. but i don't think those 38 prs

are goi 38% are going to move. the democrats were very conservative. they wanted the polls to support them. i think the polls are where they needed them to be but they may not move much more than this in terms of the overall picture. i think the numbers to watch now are going to be republicans, independents, and as elise just said, how much of that margin you're going to get with some diseffective republicans? but by in large, i think that 35%, 38% number is going to stay steady for a long time. >> cara lee, we began this hour tacking about the aspects of donald trump's foreign policy with regards to the kurds. the military is apolitical so they're not part of this poll that we've been talking about. but in your reporting do you get any sense from the pentagon, from across the river from where you are right now, that they are more than a bit rattled at the president's erratic behavior and this behaviors that joe mentioned a few moments ago might be part of these poll

results, that people might begin to think, you know, this guy just can't do the job? >> well, i think i'd say two things. one is that if you look at syria specifically, if you talk to people in the pentagon they'll tell you and joe mentioned this earlier and he's absolutely right, this is a policy that people see as working. and so they're just confused about why the president would be messing with it. it's not something like you've seen in afghanistan, for instance. and so it's largely supportive. in terms of the poll, you know, the number that sticks out to me is this 49% of people who support removal from office. that's the number that people around president trump are really paying attention to and are very concerned if it creeps above 50%. and that's happening. it's inching towards that benchmark at a time when the president is sort of poisoning the well with some of the republicans on -- in congress who he's really going to need out there and defending him. you know, one of the things that people around the president say

is they expect the senate to be a firewall. but they don't want a bipartisan vote to remove the president from office. and so they're very closely watching those numbers. and then at the same time, you know, they're seeing the president not consulting with some of the people on policies like syria that he's going to need to defend him at a time when he really needs as many people as can he get out there defending him against impeachment, as these polls show. >> all right. >> thank you very, very much. >> thanks, guys. coming up, a federal judge ruled yesterday that president trump should turn over his tax returns, but that decision has been put on hold by an appeals court. we'll discuss the president's legal argument for broad immunity and what's next in the case next on "morning joe." nit case next on "morning joe." ♪ (dramatic orchestra)

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president trump won a legal victory in the u.s. court of appeals for the second circuit

after a judge granted the president a last-minute delay preventing new york prosecutors from obtaining eight years of his personal and business tax records. blocking a subpoena by manhattan district attorney cy vance. it was issued shortly after a u.s. district court judge rejected trump's claim that he was immune from a criminal investigation related to hush money payments related to stormy daniels and karen mcdougal. trump has consistly cited an ongoing audit as the reason for withholding his tax records. joining us now, state attorney for palm beach county dave ehrenberg. dave, is he being audit order not? is that true j he sa? >> reporter: he says he is. it's the worldest longest audit. >> it's a lot of auditing. is that a reason not to hand over tax returns? >> no.

he can hand over his tax returns, there's no special rule that says an audit prevents someone from turning over tax returns. as far as the judge's ruling i wasn't shocked by it because there's no basis to give the president complete immunity from a criminal investigation. if you tried making that argument in law school you'd be thrown out of class and probably made to rethink your career choices. >> were you surprised by the judge's ruling? was there anything that stuck out to you in the judge's decision? >> the tone of the 75-page ruling was something that stuck out to me that it took the president to task for what the judge called a repugnant view of complete immunity. the judge said that he supported the system of checks and balances. you remember that old quaint concept in our constitution and said that no one is above the law. from a procedural standpoint,

they said that the federal court should not be stepping on state criminal actions like this one and from a substantive standpoint the court said that trump needed to give up his taxes because had he to comply with a legitimate grand jury subpoena from the district attorney. but ultimately trump may win by losing. if he's able to keep delaying this beyond the 2020 elections, that's clearly his goal. >> so what's next in this case? and what's your gut on where the doj is going to land on this? >> reporter: well, i cannot imagine that any higher court is going to accept complete immunity for a sitting president. there's plenty of legal precedent for criminal investigations of a president. i'm old enough to remember the mueller investigation or how about the southern district of new york's investigation of campaign finance laws that led to michael cohen's incarceration and president trump's identification as individual number one? in as far as the attorney general, bill barr, i think that

he will continue to serve as the president's defender even though that's not supposed to be his role. but i think that's going to happen. the irony here is that his federal prosecutors submitted a brief in support of the president despite the fact that his own prosecutors only recently had investigated the same stormy daniels and karen mcdougal payments that are at issue here in the state investigation. essentially he is saying that state prosecutors should not do what the federal prosecutors have done. so much for state's rights. >> wow. all right. we'll be following this state attorney for palm beach county dave ehrenberg. thank you so much. and it is the top of the hour now on this tuesday, october 8th. so with joe, willie and me we have msnbc contributor mike barnicle. former aide to the george w. bush white house and state departments elise jordan. president on foreign relations, rich haas. national security expert and

columnist at usa today tom nichols. and joining the conversation, white house correspondent for pbs news hour, yamiche. and political reporter for "the washington post" and msnbc political analysts, robert costa. he is the moderator of washington week on pbs. president trump spent much of yesterday defending his decision to withdraw troops from northern syria, even as key republicans and allies urge him against leaving america's kurdish allies open to an assault from turkey. multiple current and former u.s. officials tell nbc news that the announcement blindsided not just america's occurrkurdish partner also senior officials at the pentagon, the state department, and the white house as well as lawmakers on capitol hill, and u.s. allies in europe and the middle east. the one person the president did

consult with before making the decision, turkish president erdogan. >> why are you siding with an authoritarian leader and not our kurdish allies? >> well, i'm not siding with anybody. we've been in syria for many years. you know, syria was supposed to be a short-term hit, just a very short-term hit. we were supposed to in and out. i don't want anything bad to happen to our people and i told that to president erdogan. i said don't hurt any of -- any of our people get hurt, big trouble. >> those remarks follow the president's tweet threatening to, quote, totally destroy and obliterate turkey's economy if turkey, quote, does anything that i, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits. wow. that comes as more than half of americans now back house democrats impeachment inquiry into president trump that could remove him from office. according to a new "washington post," george mason university

poll out this morning, 58% now endorse the impeachment probe, up 21 points since july. 38% said they do not. and reading from the post's write-up, among all adults, 49% say the house should take the more significant step to impeach the president and call for his removal from office. a majority of independents at 57% said they support the impeachment inquiry into trump and almost half of americans, 49%, say they approve of congressional democrats handling of the impeachment inquiry. >> let's bring in his great and unmatched wisdom, bob costa. bob, these numbers keep moving. there was a usa today poll on friday, i believe it was, that showed the numbers bumping up to 44%, i think, 35%.

so that spread has been expanding. now you of course see in this "washington post" poll from this morning the numbers really explode. 58% to 38%. i wonder if these polls -- what can you tell us about the impact these polls are having on republicans like rob portman and others to actually come out now and start talking about how the phone call was improper? >> the impact could be significant based on my reporting with my colleague phil rucker from monday's front pachblingt popage of the post. they said they were keeping a close eye on suburban republicans and if they were hawks they were looking for episodes that would challenge their bond with president trump. now in the succession of a few days you see this decision on syria and the kurds, alarming many hawkish republicans and new polling that if you're a suburban republican in a swing state that will make you sit up straight and wonder do you really want to be with president trump heading into 2020? >> well, yamiche, you can look

yesterday as the impeachment numbers expand and say they really -- you just have to say explode up to 58% in this "washington post" poll. and this has been an ongoing predictable trend. you have the president of the united states yesterday coming out with just a bizarre decision based on at least what his republican allies think and people like pat robertson in a way that puts him in even greater dang tr greater danger, it would seem. >> you have the president needing his allies in the senate, needing his allies on capitol hill to keep them as close as possible. in said, what you have is the president taking this decision on syria and now creating space between him and congressional republicans. the fact that mitch mcconnell came out and said you need to show them leadership here and he was comparing president trump to the obama administration which to republicans is the ultimate way to tell a republican that you're not doing a good job.

you now have the president, i think, really trying to figure out how to wiggle out of this. he's still saying he wants to stick with his decision, but he's also saying, you know what? i'm going to not allow the thing that people were worried to happen happen which is that our kurdish allies will be obliterated. the president is in a very precarious situation here. our polling at pbs news hour also show that permanent more likely to want to support impeachment now. look at the mitch mcconnell statement. it was amazing to see mitch mcconnell come out and lind disy graham come out. the president needs these people. this is not the time while the democrats are forging ahead with their impeachment inquiry that he needs to do anything to upset congressional republicans. >> you're right. the mitch moim mcconnecconnell was surprising because it was true. he talks about how the president's move helps iran, helps syria, helps russia, and helps isis.

and so many republicans were saying that yesterday. and one of the president's biggest defenders from the evangelical movement, pat robertson, the 700 club, had this to say yesterday. >> the president who allowed khashoggi to be cut in pieces without any repercussion what's so ever is now allowing the christians and the kurds to be ma massacred by the turks. and i believe, and i want to say they with great solemnity. the president of the united states is in danger of losing the mandate of heaven if he permits this to happen. >> well, willie -- >> okay. >> he's permitting this to happen. pat robertson talking about the president losing his mandate from heaven. even going back a year to the khashoggi murder just to show that it wasn't just what happened yesterday, that you

almost get air sense th almost get a sense that there are a lot of conservatives who's keeping count, who's keeping score of all the things that they may have bit their tongue about that just are not conservative, are not right, and are not things that apparently they're going to continue to stand for. >> yeah. and pat robertson speaks to and for a lot of people in this country. that was significant. i wouldn't help but think as i was listening to lindsey graham and marco rubio and ben sasse and others like that speak out against this yesterday thinking that wasn't so bad, was it, guys? to come out and cross the president? so criticize him for something. what happened as i result of that? i haven't seen any mean tweets at republicans as the president did to mitt romney a couple days ago on the ukraine question. but you can stand up for something when you actually believe in it, when you think the president's doing something wrong. this might be a good lesson to many of them. richard haass, you were talking earlier about how recklessly the president made this decision. nbc's reporting is that the chief of staff, mick mulvaney,

was on the phone call between the president and president erdogan, went oh boy, calls the secretary of defense and says, by the way, we're getting out of northern syria. so the secretary of defense had no idea this was coming and apparently most people in the world didn't know this was coming. >> telling the secretary of defense after the decision's made, that's not exactly consultation or deliberative process. this is the most ad-hoc presidency we've ever seen. it's least systemic presidency. process is meant to protect when you have a national security process, you look at implementation, get intelligence. this is a president who's essentially dispensed with all of that. so the decision itself is uninformed. and then you surprise people in the field who are most affected. obviously the kurds and others. and this adds to the sense that american foreign policy is improvised and that we're not taking into account the stakes,

our interests, or the interests of others that we're making it up on the fly and they end up being road kill. that is what we're seeing here. >> mike barnicle, seems to me that jeb bush is owed an apology, calling donald trump the chaos candidate in 2016, much like mitt romney said in 2012, that russia was going to be america's greatest geopolitical threat. they were both mocked and ridiculed and ended up being right. both of them. but you just -- for americans who don't -- who say, oh, expertise doesn't matter, we should talk to tom nichols about this and the death of expertise or that we just want donald trump to shake things up, look what happens when donald trump shakes things up. he doesn't have an interagency process at all. he doesn't have the defense department talking to the state department talking to his national security advisers. all the things that successful

presidencies have. he just picks up a phone, calls, makes a decision on the spur of the moment, and that's why there is right now a global manufacturing recession and why we're suffering through the worst manufacturing recession in over a decade. because the president just gets on the phone, he thinks that he has great and unmatched wisdom, and then he makes a step against china or against the eu or against others regarding tariffs or some other tax that discombobulates america's economy and our relations across the globe. there is no process. he is the chaos president. he is the chaos commander and chief. and we're all paying for it right now. >> and you just referenced one of the key aspects of why we are in the middle of this chi chaos,

joe. donald trump today and always has recented the advice of others who are experts because he regards himself as smarter than anyone. and what we're seeing play out here is the president of the united states is ignorant of so many things. he has confused the endless war in afghanistan and the endless war in the middle east with america's role in the world. there are two separate items. he is ignorant of world history. he is ignorant of our own history. he is ignorant of the way our government operates and ought to operate, and thus we are where we are today, this morning where we have people -- richard and i were talking about this off camera. we have people in the pentagon who take an oath. they take a very serious oath when they enlist in the united states army, in the marine corps or whatever. part of that oath is to obey the orders of the president of the united states. but they know in the pentagon, many of them, they are very

smart people. and the american military represents the best that america has to offer apart from war, everywhere in the world. the american military is there to help people, not hurt people in so many countries around the world. part of that oath is to obey the president of the united states of america, and thousand that's in doubt. >> well, tom, you've written about the president denigrating the service of some of the greatest military minds of our generation, people that have served honorably and served well. and here you had this guy who had his rich daddy find a vip doctor, have bone spurs, have a diagnosis of bone spurs so he could skip the vietnam war and graduate from an ivy league college. and the day he graduated from an ivy league college, 40 americans died in vietnam that day. and yet.

die d and this guy denigrates these decisions and which lindsey graham said this will only strength isis. mitch mcconnell said this will only help isis. his closest allies have said this will only help isis. and he makes the decision without talking to one person who could have actually guided him in the safer direction not only for america, but for western civilization. it is, as you've written about, the death of expertise. >> and you know, joe, when i wrote about the death of expertise, people ask me what's causing this? what's the roots of this? i said we're suffering and we've been suffering for decades now from an epidemic of narcissism. and the president is exhibit "a." because this is the problem of, you know, the narcissistic unwillingness to believe that there is anybody that could possibly be smarter than you are. a good leader listens more than

he talks. a good leader understands that when there are people in the room who have a lot of background, a lot of knowledge, a lot of expertise, that's a resource he could draw on. they're not there to just fight with him or argue with him, they're there to be a resource for him because they're trying to help him succeed. and he really bristles at that. he doesn't want to hear from experts because it triggers that insecurity in him that he just doesn't know enough or that his instincts aren't good enough. and that leads to disastrous decision making because it leads to impulsive decision making based on what you think you know, not what actually may be true or false. and we're seeing that every day where his rejection of expertise. north korea, iran, the kurds, the trade war. i mean, all problems that experts warned him over and over again would cause problems but he doesn't want to hear it. >> so, tom, let's make people uncomfortable right now. because this has been happening

a lot recently. this has been happening, in fact, throughout the entire century with our commanders and chief. -- chiefs. you can talk about barack obama, the constant complaint i heard from diplomats and democratic senators and foreign policy experts who were rooting for the guy was barack obama always believed he was the smartest guy in the room. he didn't want to hear from generals, he didn't want to hear -- he always believed he was -- i'm nol nt saying that, just telling you and i know you heard it too that he always believed that. and it led him to a foreign policy apparatus where it was the president and ben rhodes and sometimes his chief of staff sitting around making decisions. the interagency process did not function. george w. bush goes into iraq and never asks a man who ran the first war in iraq, collin powell, whether he should go

into it or not. when asked why he didn't ask collin powell about whether he should invite iraq the second time, george w. bush's answer, well, i knew what he was going to say. we have been paying, we have been pairing for the arrogance of commanders and chiefs in foreign policy now for 19 years. and it continues. >> but think there's a difference between -- >> of course there's a difference. hold on a second. thank you. i just want to make sure that all of our friends in tweetland understand i am not putting them altogether. i'm just simply saying, there has been this attitude over the past 19 years from the past three presidents that they know better than the experts. and we have paid a price for it. but go ahead, you're right. there's a huge difference between donald trump and any of the 44 presidents who preceded

him. he is so much more worse on such a larger scale. i'm just hoping the next president we have actually engages a little more in an interagency process that draws upon the wisdom of experts. >> i was one of the people that was critical of president obama in particular for what i thought was a certain amount of arrogance and decision making. but there's a huge difference between having an interagency meeting, having your advisers come into the room and then overruling them. there's great moment that the "new york times" reported at one point when samantha power was trying to make a point and the president -- president obama said something like samantha, i get it, i've read your book. that he heard her and was rejecting her advice. that's different than a president who has basically trashed the interagency process so that it doesn't even exist. >> yes, it is. >> that, you know, the meetings don't happen. there is no consensus to overrule. people kind of creep into his office and say, you know, what's

it going to be today? and then they wait for a tweet to see if that's actually the policy that comes through. so there's no -- >> right. >> -- that presidents carry that burden on their shoulders and they tend to say i'm the guy -- you know, famous moments like lyndon johnson chewing out the joint chiefs which also led to disaster. they carry a unique burden. in this case the president, it's almost like decision making is for him some kind of self-affirmation exercise rather than commanding and leading a super power. >> again, just to be clear, this is recklessness on a level that we have never seen before. >> so maybe -- >> from a commander and chief. >> maybe just to make an attempt to debunking all of that, maybe this is not the death of expertise, yamiche, perhaps if you look at all of these actions, just pick ten in the past four months, maybe this is just an audience of one. vladimir putin. >> well, there are obviously

critics of the president who say that a lot of his behavior has benefited vladimir putin. i've talked to foreign policy experts -- >> a lot? >> i've talked to foreign policy experts ahead of many of his trips at the g7 or g 20, any other place easy goes, nato, and most of time foreign experts will say this is donald trump pulling back america's traditional role in the world, pulling back the idea of america as a leader on climate change, on a number of issues, on equality. all sorts of issues that america used to be looked at to say this is the leader of the world. now president trump ran on this issue of not just america first but of isolationism. and i will say that, i mean, there are people that i've talked to, voters that i've talked to who back the president's view of the world which is that they think america was in too many places, that american soldiers are doing too much. but what you have here with the syria decision is not just people saying, okay, we want to have less troops out in the

world, you have republicans saying you're actually making the world a more dangerous place and you're abandoning people who have traditionally been our allies. i think there is a difference to be done there. and based on my reporting, when i talked to republicans just yesterday trying to get some information on impeachment, all they wanted to do was talk about syria because so many republicans and their aides were just really dumbfounded by the idea that the president would make this decision in the middle of this impeachment inquiry. >> so, bob costa, as you can see below our screen 58% of americans support an impeachment inquiry that the democrats are moving forward with. and among those almost half, 49%, support his removal from office. those numbers have gone up 21%. with that as a backdrop on what's happening on capitol hill today and with the president's closest allies coming out aggressively saying his actions are going to benefit russia and isis and iran, what happens

next? what do the republicans do to try to slow down this policy of the president that they consider disastrous? >> the republican block i'm paying attention to now as a reporter that's evangelical republicans, evangelical christians who say the president's removal of u.s. troops from northern syria the threaten christian groups and christians in that area. when you have pat robertson speaking out and former governor mike huckabee and others now will a cascade of republicans on capitol hill who are close with the evangelical community speak out? because that community inside the republican party has been such a political foundation for president trump working with him to help support conservative, judicial nominees, to support other policies, if that -- if there's a crack there and not only a crack among moderate republicans, you could start to see a real different kind of discussion within the republican party about how to move forward with this president.

>> and, bob, of course the evangelical community also understands that it is about the christians in that area that are now going to be abandoned. but also those american troops have prevented iran from expanding towards israel. t that, too, they consider an existential threat, right? >> that's correct. there's many dynamics within the middle east. you have evangelical christians are wanting to see christians in northern syria protected, they want to see israel protected through the different proxies for israel and fighting the proxies of iran in the region. so all of these dynamics are swirling around this administration in unorthodoxed outsider president who is defiant in his nationalism in terms of how he deals with foreign policy. >> robert costa and gentleman me

yamiche, thank you so much for being on this morning. with everything going on, i think it makes the most sense to end this block with good news and someone that we all can agree say really good man. former president jimmy carter was back to bidding homes fuild a day after suffering a fall in his georgia home. the 95-year-old with a bandage above his eye and 14 stitches was created by a cheering crowd just before building a home with the organization in nashville. carter received 14 stitches after falling on sunday, but the fall did not do anything to damage his spirit. >> well, of course i want to explain my black eye. i got up this morning getting ready to go to church, right after that we had a family reunion and coming to nashville and i fell down and hit my forehead on a sharp edge and had to go to the hospital. and they took 14 ticstitches in

four head. my eye's black, as you noticed. but i had a number one priority and that was to come to nashville to build houses. >> just incredible. >> the crowd went wild. >> what an incredible guy. and go braves, says jimmy carter. still ahead. >> jason crow just returns from a congressional visit to syria. the syria/jordan border and says president trump's decision to withdraw troops is misguided. he joins us next on "morning joe." misguided. he joins us next on "morning joe." i was diagnosed with parkinson's. i had to retire from law enforcement. it was devastating. one of my medications is three thousand dollars per month. prescription drugs do not work if you cannot afford them. for sixty years, aarp has been fighting for people like larry. and we won't stop.

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♪ ♪ the name game >> if you don't mind i'll just make a quick statement of a man i also have great respect for, justice anthony -- you know who i'm talking about. we appreciate it very much, tim

apple. >> marilyn lockheed. douglas mcarthur. >> mike bolton is in russia. mike pounds, just a whole group of great people. as you know i got the secretary general solheim. >> one mistake and it's no good. but we just can't make mistakes, right? so we don't make mistakes. go ahead, ken. >> chuck canter bury, the national police for the -- >> let me tell you something, i am the last person to -- >> this is true. >> to throw stones in this account. i've actually adapted phil's approach. >> hey, buddy. >> i thought it was so nice that phil called me buddy for the first five years i was at this network i didn't understand he just didn't know my name. ken, go ahead. >> i'm chuck -- >> i will not -- i will not cast

stones. >> we've got bigger fish to fry but that's a pretty good matchup. also the john bolton going to michael bolton always got me. mike colonel bolton was a man he was aware of with the hair -- >> he was a big michael bolton fan. >> oh, my gosh. >> what do we have now, willie? >> lerts turntt's turn to jason he just returned from the syria/jordan border. also hans nichols at u.s. university school of foreign service elise labott. just as a soldier, i want you to think if you could for our viewers about those special

operators, the american special operators who are serving in syria who got the surprise phone call to stand down and stand aside yesterday morning. what are they thinking today? >> yeah, you know, when i was in iraq and afghanistan i warkd or all the time with iraqi courses, afghanistan forces not because it was important, it was special. we could not have accomplished the mission without these forces. they know the culture, the history, the terrain, the language. we need those folks to get mission done. today everyone's waking up and those forces are thinking that the american handshake doesn't matter. the message that donald trump just sent to people around the world is that the american handshake doesn't matter. we have rangers on the ground, gren bere green berets that have been fighting with these forces for years. if you fight with us and stand shoulder to shoulder with us we will take care of your and your families. and today we are less safe because of the actions of the

president. >> congressman, you fought alongside shoulder to shoulder with local soldiers. do the members of the sdf, syrian defense forces -- democratic forces, eight lov them air american flags on their shoulders because they do fight side by side what have we left them to now by stepping aside with the president's decision? >> we're putting them in a terrible position. if turkey moves south and i vades the inadvisi invades these areas, we're leg of them to slaughter. there's the national security element but the moral element. these are people we've made promises to and that's people have risked their lives and family's lives to fight with us. again, because u.s. soldiers have made promises to them. and now we're sitting here potentially leaving them on their own. it is astonishing on so many levels. but there's also the national security element here. this idea that there are about

11,000 isis fighters, 11,000. these are the most battle, hardened isis fighters. these are the people who fought to the end in raqqa that are currently being held in makeshift prisons all along northern syria. these prisons are entirely controlled by the sdf forces. they're sitting here guarding these people. if turkey moves south, what's going to happen is these sdf forces will abandon their posts to try to fight and defend themselves and their families. these prisons will be unguarded. these 11,000 isis fighters will evaporate into syria and for the rest of the world. many of them are from places around the world and that will be an extreme risk for all of us. >> congressman, people in the nope, in t know, your former colleagues, they know that isis has certainly not been defeated. they know that the kurds, the kurdish troops were our most ferocious allies in combating isis on the ground in northern

syria. and america's role in the world, is it not larger than our handshake to the kurds? what about troops who are on the ground with us from france, from germany, from the netherlands, throughout that region, throughout the world, what does this is a to them? >> yeah, well, it sends a very strong message that our partnerships and our friendships don't matter like they used to. you know, when i was in afghanistan just a couple days ago i had a chance to meet with all the top nato commanders from all the different forces. i was sitting around a table in kabul with commanders from all around the world, from germany, from australia, from denmark, and i delivered a message to them. i said that, you know, in the united states congress we value the nato partnership that you're sitting here fighting, risking your lives just like the american soldiers are because you are honoring your commit tee meant commitment to nato and our partnership. i delivered that he message and

a general from denmark said thank you for saying that because that's not the message we're getting back home. we are strong as a country not just because of the sacrifice of our service members, which is extreme and ongoing. but because we have friends. we have friends, dozens of alliances and partnerships. we don't go it alone in the united states. we have friendships. but what the president is saying is we are going to go it alone. we're going to be less safe because of it. the world is going to be less safe because of it. >> on that point, elise labott, perfect timing to bring you into the conversation and look at what you've been gathering, the reporting you've been gathering among state department circles. you say morale is taking a hit. how so and how bad is it? >> that's right, mika. i've been talking to foreign service officers around the world and it's pretty grim. i mean, there are a lot of hard

had working diploma -working diplomats to keep the trains running with these unilateral decisions by the president. but it's really difficult. foreign service officers, as military, are apolitical. they follow any important policy vision of an elected president. but as one diplomat said to me, you want america first, we'll do america first. but that's always been -- there's never been any question that the u.s. president had american interests at heart. and now diplomats are concluding that the president has his own interests before the national security interests. and u.s. foreign policy, as you know, is a carrier ship. it's not like a little speed boat. and when the tail kind of swings, it hits u.s. allies like you've been talking about and the congressman said in syria with the kurds who were the ones that really were doing the lion's share of work. and they're not going to -- not only is the u.s. not seen as reliable, they're gnot going to

want to help us next to time. >> i can't imagine what the reaction to the state department is in terms of this latest move by the president in terms of our kurdish allies. and where is mike pompeo? where is pompeo? >> i have to say, you know, a lot of officials have said the revelation that secretary pompeo was on that call with the ukrainian president and president trump was a real blow and it started this discussion among state department officials foreign service officers about where secretary pompeo is in all of this? is he further his own political ambitions by keeping quiet and not speaking truth to power to president trump? or, is he trying to -- you know, he gets a lot of wild ideas and a lot of irrational policies coming across his desk. and is he kind of judging how to temper the most dangerous ones and saving his political capital? it's an open question, but, as i

said, it's pretty bad there right now, mika. >> hans nichols, you've been reporting with our colleagues at nbc about how the decision came about based on the nbc news reporting we've got from cara lee and others it was pretty ad-hoc to put it mildly that the president had this phone call with president erdogan and people on the call including the chief of staff were surprised by the promise made by the president to president erdogan and scrambled to call the secretary defense for example, and the state department to let them know it came from the president first without much consultation or any consultation. >> and then the challenge was to get everyone on the same page and have it -- make it seem as though this was one unified policy. just the chaos of yesterday, the central tension of what you're seeing from the white house right now and the president in general is that they're arcing that this is just a tactical move, that you're taking about 50 troops and this not that big of a deal. the president seemed to make that point at several points

yesterday. but the broader rhetoric from the president is this is part of his overall plan to draw down and to get america out of these foreign wars. what we don't really know is what this means for the rest of the footprint in syria close to a thousand troops there. what it means for troops in afghanistan where the president so clearly wants to draw down. and the president thinks that his party is with him. he was asked about this yesterday in the face of all that criticism from senate republicans the president himself insisting that he actually has more support. he really only has one public support and that's rand paul who is a noted isolationistist. a we did a story a couple months ago on the special surgical teams that do go there and help the syrian kurds. they don't just wear the flags, the kurds, they actually have american bloods inside of them. there are stories of these special operators being down on blood, giving their own blood to their kurdish brothers. this is a strong blood.

semantically officials will say they're partners, not allies. but that's a distinction that doesn't have a lot of difference on the battlefield when the bullets are flying. guys. >> that's an important point to make and the president said, yes, quote, i consulted with everybody, clearly that's a lie. nbc's hans nichols at the white house. hans, thank you very much. congressman crow, i want to ask you on a different matter the question of impeachment. a new poll from the "washington post" this morning shows 58% of americans now support the impeachment inquiry. there was a pivotal moment last month when you and six of your freshman democrat colleagues with national security background came out in support of the inquiry. i know you didn't do that lightly. do you believe the president now will be empeechd in the houimpe of representatives? >> i don't know. i think we have to follow a fair and transparent process. just as important if not more than the end result is the process. trust between the american people and their elected officials in congress is at an all-time low. there's very good reasons for that.

what we have to do is make sure this is an open, transparent fair process, that we are giving the impression that good government matters and we can do the right thing and put politics aside and support the country and defend the country. that, for me, is what this is all about. we have to make sure we're doing it the right way and frankly i think it's inappropriate to say what we think the end result is going to be because we have to make sure it's fair and we're going about it the right way. >> but do you believe based on what you've seen in the white house summary with the phone call and the president of ukraine and the whistleblower complaint and the text messages that were revealed from the house of representatives yesterday and frankly what the president has just said outloud since then, have you seen enough to impeach the president? >> you know, i want to go through the process. what i have said very clearly is that, you know, a lot of these allegations if they prove to be true, these are impeachable offenses. this is the president of the united states putting his own

personal interests in front of the interests of the country. it is a radical departure from our precedent, from history, from truly what has made this country strong. and it's a major national security risk. you know, it threatens our troops in europe. we now are seeing this pattern and practice extending to every other place in the world with respect to his foreign policy of national security. that's why we're making sure we're following the steps right now to prevent it. to get our arms around what's happening and figure out what we need to do next. >> congressman jason crow, colorado, appreciate your perspective. thanks for coming on. elise labott, thank you as well. coming up, first it was russia, now ukraine. president trump likes to claim any investigation of him is a witch-hunt. but a new book makes it clear that president trump cannot hide from the facts. that discussion is next on "morning joe." om the facts. that discussion is next on "morning joe."

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♪ president trump yesterday tweeted about the impeachment inquiry writing in part the first so-called secondhand information whistleblower got my phone conversation almost completely wrong. so now word is they are going to

the bench and another whistleblower is coming from the deep state, wrote the president. joining us now pulitzer prize winning author james b. stewart. he's out with a new book titled "deep state, trump and the rule of law ". great to see you. congratulations on the book. we've been talking about that this is perhaps the moment that president trump has been preparing everyone for by using the term fake news, don't believe what you're hearing from the president and deep state. don't believe what the intelligence services, the fbi, justice department, anybody in the government tells you. he's laid the groundwork for this moment and you describe the deep state relationship in the book. >> well, you see the whole saga unfold there. but what's so astonishing to me as a long-time reporter is she with the executive branch, trump, at war with the law enforcement agencies, which is unprecedented in my lifetime. and he has branded them as admittedly he's very good at doing, this sinister deep state.

and i think what i found, what you see here is in a positive sense, yes, we do have a deep state in this country, a very large bureaucracy who's primary loyalty and duty is firstly working for the american people. secondly, their duty is to you hold the constitution. they do not work for the president or the white house. >> in the book you talk about how some trump aides reasoned you say cory lieu wans douse ski and mcgahn would not follow through on trump's demands. but today perhaps the guardrails tlnt aren't there as much. can you talk about why some of donald trump's lawlessness has happened? >> you're right. trump himself seems to have absolutely no understanding of the concept of the rule of law. fortunately, no far he's had people around him who at least do have a basic grasp of this. steve bannon, controversial guy,

populous, he was smart enough to tell trump don't do this. he told him not fire comey, which was good advice he ignored. lewandowski knew, all those people are out. mckban is like mcgahn is like an unsung hero. you may disagree with his supreme court picks but he kept the white house on -- trump ought to be thanking him instead of mocking him. now they're all gone. he has, is it too strong to say the word lackies around him. and we see the ukraine situation, no one restrained him. no one said do not do this. the one missing piece with russia is trump didn't int gate it, he's just given democrats the missing piece. he seems to have learned nothing from this whole thing except that he, quote unquote, won. >> this is an important book, james, largely, not just because of the writing but because of

the representorial effort in this book. one of the segments in this book is one of the keys that a lot of people think we're going through today. it is the segment that when james comey, peter strzok, and james comey, peter stroke, and more became the vick stims. >> there are so many extraordinary facts. the human actors are like little russian ships. how weird that hillary clinton was putting thousands of the e-mails on her husband's laptop and he was caught up in a sex scandal and everybody was pouring over all of these. how weird that their private texts would all become public.

no one could make this up if it was fiction. but that forces comey to reopen the clinton examination. there is raging debate is did it cost her the election? we know it didn't help her and it was a close election. it was a sequence of events where he felt he had no choice. there was disagreement inside the government, but comey did what he thought was right. >> james, i think we're all used to the idea that the president wears down the people in his inner circle. they do things they might not have done earlier in their careers, but we all thought the justice department was different. and one of the most chilling things is the degree to which

the president has ground down senior people at doj. people like rod rosenstein. how deep is this damage to the d.o.j.? how lasting do you think it is? i'm starting to think that william barr could be the most dangerous person in america. this account makes me more concerned that the damage of d.o.j. is deeper and more lasting than even i might have thought it would be. >> i think you're absolutely right and the fact that trump has under mined the intelligenc of two major law enforcement institutions, we built them up to be independent over decades of carefully crafted -- rosenstein is that highly respected prosecutor, and he has

become a tool of the white house. he survived. he got mueller over the finish line but at what price? what did he have to promise to do that? and the speed with which they exonerated trump in the wake of the mueller report and misstated what the mueller report really concluded was shocking to me. now you have barr dismissing the whistle-blower account. barr is now traveling around the world trying to reopen the investigation into the russian inquiry. we don't need to reinvestigate that. we know what happened, we spent millions of dollars looking into it. it was perfectly legitimate, he was not a subject until he fired comey and lied about it. >> and members of congress are helping the president make the deep state argument. ron johnson was asked on sunday

if he trusted the fbi. >> there is the damage. if we have high ranking leaders saying you can't have the confidence in the law enforcement countries, then damage has been done to the democratic structure. >> such an interesting book. deep state, trump, the fbi, and the rule of law. >> coming up next, the new poll showing a majority of americans now spoupport the impeachment inquiry into president trump. and we will talk to adam kinzinger. plus richard engel will join us live from istanbul. i'm bad.

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thank you, everybody, i want to start by saying prime minister abe happy birthday. he is 39 today. people are saying he is not on top of his game, that shows you have the details when you're able to remember a birthday of one of america's top allies. maybe he is on top of his game. >> that birthday was two-and-a-half weeks ago. president trump may have given putin a very big help by withdrawing troops --

>> that was about as big of a birthday president an vladimir putin could have had. donald trump not only helped the russians, donald trump helped the syrians, he helped the iranians, he helped isis. he basically helped all our enmys in the regienm enemie enemies, but just hurt our one true ally and america's safety interests as well. the condemnations coming from the -- >> it is one thing when all of the republicans condemn something with the exception of rand paul and mike lee, including lindsey graham, so the president jumped headlong into this based on one call from turkey, and perhaps most troubling without consulting anyone at all.

just making this decision unilaterally. author of the book "a world in disarray." and national security columnist, the death of expertise, tom nichols. so president trump spend yesterday spending his decision to withdraw troops from northern syria even as they urge him against leaving the allies open to an assault from turkey. the announcement blind sided kurdish partners and senior officials at the white house, state department, and lawmakers on capitol hill. also u.s. allies in europe and

the middle east. this is pretty full throated around the world. the one person the president did consult with before making that president erdogan. >> we have been in syria for many years. syria was supposed to be a short term hit, just in and out. i don't want anything bad to happen to our people. i said don't hurt -- if any of our people bet hurt, big trouble. >> those remarks along with his tweets "to totally obliterate turkey's economy that i, in my great unmatched wisdom have to be off limits."

>> he has the great and unmatched wisdom of chief wiggam from the simpsons. >> one thing many republicans don't see, they see more crusty the clown or chief wiggam. and they're voicing their come plants. >> mitch mcconnell said in part a precipitous withdraw from u.s. forces in syria would benefit russia, iran, and the assad regime. that is mitch mcconnell. senator lindsey graham, one of the president's strongest defenders slammed the move in a series of tweets. he warped it ensures an isis comeback. forcing kurds to align with a d

assad, destroys our relationship with turkey. >> the biggest lie being told by the administration is that isis is defeated. the caliphate would not have been destroyed without the kurds, this impulsive decision has undone all of the gains we made. if i am an isis fighter i have a second chance at life. this to me is unnerving at it's core. >> marco rubio, go through this list, i want to follow up with something that lindsey said. >> it appears the president works for something else. reports of the u.s. are true the trump administration has made a grave mistake. mike huckabee call it'd a huge

mistake to abandon kurds. trump's former u.n. ambassador said leaving the kurds to die is a big misattack. and senator ben sass said it will likely result in add slaughter of a lines. here is what presideat robertso. >> they are now allowing the christians and the kurds to be massacred by the turks. and i believe, and i want to say this with great seriousness, he

subpoena possibly losing a spot with the great man in heaven if he does this. >> lindsey, he often when he defends the president just makes things up. in this case he has a pentagon study, an ig report. they said there was a danger because of united states neglect. there was a danger of isis reforming and once again, causing this sort of chaos not only across the middle east, but america, and across the world, and this move yesterday, donald trump could not have done more of a favor for isis, iran, turkey, is there any explanation that you can come up with? >> the only explanation is the one that the president keeps

giving that he was elected to bring american troops hope from the middle east and he is doing that consequences be dammed. the kurds will have the capacity to continue to guard against thousands of sies fighters. this is part of a much larger piece to get u.s. forces outside of investigation. again, consequences be dammed given what the cal ban could do. so the consequences of this are not just good for iran and russia and syria and all of that. this sends the message worldwide that the united states is no longer reliable. that we are no longer predictable. if you're an ally of the united states, this sends the message essentially that you are on your own. no matter what the alliance

commitments or the treaty commitments, you're increasingly on your own no matter what documents and previous commitments have been there. >> it is even worse than that. if you have fought along with the united states, if you have been the one true ally over the past ten years of pretty rough sledding, it was always the kurds and syria that stayed with us. that were the fiercest fighters, that always helped us move forward and get threw these crisis. they were our steadfast ally. the message is across the cloeb. we have a new washington post poll that came out, and it is

curious that the president would make this decision. maybe he got something out of it because it certainly is not in america's best interest, it is in isis best interest. but why would he do this when the call for impeachment grows for the day. get this, we'll get the numbers up in a minute, 58% of americans support the impeachment proceedings against trump. only 38% oppose it. 58% of americans want this man to go through an impeachment inquiry. >> and that is after what they

watched all week. they are showing some cracks yesterday, this is clearly on the president's mind and we have to sprinkle in, the president of the united states has istanbul murky. >> willie, one more number for you, 49% support impeachment and removal from office. half of americans support trump's removal from office. and part of it is you can read through the mueller report, a lot of americans didn't read

through it, there is a lot there to digest, but it is obviously th not acting in america's best interest. >> coming up, we'll look more into the polling supporting the impeachment inquiry for donald trump. that will be next on "morning joe." i was diagnosed with parkinson's. i had to retire from law enforcement. it was devastating. one of my medications is three thousand dollars per month. prescription drugs do not work if you cannot afford them. for sixty years, aarp has been fighting for people like larry. and we won't stop. join us in fighting for what's right.

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clinton and those impeach memen numbers, this is completely different. we're in unchartered waters. americans are usually very conservative about impeachment and they're not here. the numbers are skyrocketing. >> you see it in his behavior and his weird tweets. reading from the "the posts" white up, 49% say the house should take the more significant step to impeach the president. half of americans say they approve of congressional democrats handling of the impeachment inquiry.

>> so elise. news numbers are moving so quickly it is the madness and the chaos every day. his own behavior every day. some of the very traits that crazied disruption, that helped trump get elected is now working against him and as he doubles down so too does his support for his impeachment and his removal of office. almost a clear majority want him out of office. >> i break out another number, 18% of republicans support

impeachment, that is starting to go up and those are numbers that i would by incredibly uncomfortable with. you see the starts of a shift. this is going to be interesting to see how voter attitudes changed since they decided to hold their noses and vote for trump and they said we don't know what we're getting. we know it may be crazy, but we know what we're getting with hillary clinton. now a couple years into donald trump's presidency, they understand the chaos. so do those voter who is just barely came out for trump in 2016, are they really staicking with him? >> for republicans the question is not do we have trump run the country or nancy pelosi, or

elizabeth warren. and do we turn it over to not bernie sanders but maybe nikki hailey. republicans have to think this is a guy, a lifelong democratic that gave money to charlie wrangle. antho anthony weiner, and kamala harris. he is hurting the economy. he has record debt, a trillion dollar deficit, and now he surrendered to isis. as lind si gram said he is allowing isis to reform and start killing americans again. >> i think what you said it true, but the 38% that we see in this poll that are not for the

impeachment inquiry, they have not been moved by any of the things you just mentioned or any of the things we have seen in the last three years from president trump. so will they be moved off because of his position on the ju crane. i don't know to think for the core support of donald trump, those with him, it's the shoot somebody on fifth avenue argument that the president has made. almost nothing will take them out of the bunker with him. >> still ahead we'll go toi is s istanbul and talk to richard engel. also we will talk to adam kinzinger. kinzinger.

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and beyond. i was told by the top general sir, i'm sorry, we don't have ammunition. i said i will never threat happen. >> that is a lie, of course, donald trump is saying that lindsey graham allowed the militaries to not have that ammunition. he says he "took over our military." that is after he says he "took over our country." and he says the constitution of the united states, article two, allows him to do whatever he wants. that is just outright lays and

no, margot, the president is not doing that to try to get under the media's skin. she doing that please she anything nor rant, and inted of cowers in the corner, maybe you should say that article two gives him the power to do whatever he wants. maybe you should say something, instead of just he is just joshing, or i am talking to china and they should do something. when he says i took over the country, at the very least she not being ignorant. he is not joexing, because guess

what, when the american bpt president talks they listen. don't we they they might pass information on to a enmy. it's not a joke. it's not funny, it's not remotely funny. marco, lindsey, path robertson. you have allowed in, to the white house. he leaves he said it that he took over the united states of

america. it's not normal, it's not right. willie what about this claim that we ran out of ammunition. what a stupid stupid thing for him to sigh. >> lucky enough the people of the united states are part enough. they came to me and said i was out of am knew in addition, and i would like to know. but you know last week to your point, joe, about i took over the country. he talked about he is absolute right to investigate claims

around the world. >> all right, joinings now, republican congressman adam kinzinger. also joining us, senior foreign affairs analyst brett mcgurk who was correctly special envoy. >> congressman we're not going to start with a softball, but i do want to get your read on yesterday. what happened yesterday, i know a lot of republicans, democrats, and allies very concerned about the president deciding

unilaterally to abandon turkey. >> i think it is two takes. one of the reasons it was so concerning is it seems so impulsi impulsive. on sunday night we see a statement out of the white house and monday morning this tweet chain starts, and you know saying things like yeah, the kurds have been great but that's because we gave them a bunch of of money and commitment. this is important to remember. everybody talks, you have your rand paul types that say things like endless wars and term that's are very fatiguing. but remember when we had 150,000 troops in iraq, people like rand paul said we're not against using force, but maybe using special forces is important. this is how special forces train locals. we don't want to have 100,000

military in the middle of syria. terrorists have not stops being terrorists, and the day we forget that and "bring everybody home" we will be back. >> it is not pulling out of a "endless war." >> so what is the purpose of having to say that? >> so what are the implications now as a practical matter of walking away from the sdf. many wear american flags on their shoulders, what happens from here. >> if it is vietnam or a number

of fights. there will be a long history in the future. the second thing is it is quite possible that the kurds have to turn to bashar al assad. if they have to turn to iran for protecti protection, we have given up yet another area to them. >> you have worked for three presidents. there is a danger with what occurred to the kurds, but there is also a sadness to the way that the decision was made. could you speak to that sadness when it arises from the ignore

ra -- ignorance from the president of the united states. >> yeah, i think that is a cute point and i'm honored to be on with the congressman. when people like the congressman volunteer to wear the sacred cloth of the nation, there is an expectation that decisions made by the commander and chief of what they're going to be doing in the world will be taken with prudence. for decisions to be made impulsively after a call with a foreign lead who are does not share our interests, this is an unchartered territory. that is so disturbing. these are matters of war and piece. when it comes to these types of

decisions they have to be made wf careful deliberation. to have these impulsive tweets come down in matters of war and peace, it puts our nation at risk and our people on the ground in syria. i spell a lot of time in syria. and they don't know what they were supposed to be doing. they were sent to do a mission and now the mt. seems to have pulled a rug out from them. >> they are tweeting right now with #endendlesswars. sit tight for a minute, richard engel, what are you hearing on the ground here.

>> so of course everyone wants to end endless wars, but flew there is a great deal of confusion as president trump has signalled they can go ahead and carry out a military offensive. that is damaging. then he backtracked that slightly issuing a threat to turkey, saying that it is unmatched wisdom. he is going to harm the turkish economy if they go too far. what it has gone was made our allies not sure if the americans have their backs and make the turks not sure if they could go ahead with this operation. so we're hearing that the u.s. posture in syria has not changed, the u.s. forces are not

there. they're still co-located with the curdish allies. . only a few people have pulled back from the border, but the american forces are still there, but they are not sure what will happen next. will this order that the president issued by tweet be carried out? they're in a wait and see mode, but they're worried about the psychological damage. they're worried that the president signalled to turkey and the rest of the world that he doesn't care. richard engel inniststanbul. >> you said, congressman, that

the allegations that donald trump abused his power by withholding aifd from the ukrainians was very disturbing. september 26th, but it was just based on one whistle-blower and it was hearsay, does your assessment of the situation change at all now that there is a second whistle-blower with direct knowledge of the conversation going forward? >> it doesn't change because i don't know the details. that is a big big jump. the problem with the democrats, and this is their mistake, they called it an impeach mement inquiry. i say we want answers to this question and i want to be part of an inquiry. it may be wrong, but not to the

level of impeachment. i think republicans could be concerned about this and at no point should a president involve a foreign leader in anything in diplomatic politics, but now to jump to that must terminate with impeachment, and by the way you had a guest on an hour ago that said he is not willing to say that. but it can't be both extremes. >> so we can wait, of course, it makes sense to wait to get all of the facts in, and before making a decision on what the consequences will be for these phone calls. and you saw the text messages again. based on what you heard the

president admit to doing. you said he admitted in interfering in the election by digging up dirt on joe biden. >> right. i don't think any foreign leader should have any involvement in u.s. domestic politics, especially in an election. and so yeah, it is very concerting and i think it could be very wrong. i'm not saying it isimpeachable though. >> point taken. brett, can you under line for me and the viewers, just the importance of understanding the scale and the scope of this small footprint in northern syria and how all of the terrible mistakes that we have made in the past two decades in the middle east? all of the blunders that lead to

a point where the best and the brightest got together and figured out how to have a small footprint that somehow effectively managed to push back the russians, the ironians, destroy isis, or certainly hobble size, well as our other enemie enemies. can you explain how precise and how effect i have this deployment employment has been. we are trying to address our concern in the country about endless wars. it will be special forces driven. second we will have a large

coalition. the largest in history. 22 military partners cooperating with us. we have about 1,000 americans on the ground. they have helped enable and build a force of 60,000 syrians and they work as a farly koe he sieve unit that now basically have kol over a a third of syria. but our special forces on the ground, we're not spending that much money, we're not taking casualties. if this is endless and we can't do this we really lose our options in the future. the president seems to be mistaken. he seems to believe that if we get out of syria we preserve all of our options. he said we could go back and blast. who will come with us. this took years to build, our

commitment is very small, and it just pulled the stakes up without thinking of what is next. and the value of the american handshake, as a diplomat around the world. that is what we do, the value of an american handshake really matters, and to our diplomats around the world, that value is depreciating. it makes it hard to run the country. >>. >> i am just reading a post, gordon sondland is supposed to be appearing for a deposition on the impeachment probe, where do we get the answers? should people come forward and

testify? >>. >> i think within the frame work of the law, if it is a legal subpoena, and they don't have a reason to block it, then that is legitimate. but i want to make a quick point on what pellet said. it makes a point when the president changes his mind in the morning, it is hard for a diplomat that we need to empower to basically be empowered for things like conflict resolution and so whether or not it is that or things like you know this investigation but they need to be very careful to not just say impeach impeach impeach. it creates a lot of mistrust. we'll be back with that

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it is 47 minutes past the hour. we have been hearing a lot about whistle-blower's lately. our next guest was a whistle-blower for another scandal. christopher wiley joins us now. his new book is "mind -- blank." you can fill it in. what did we hear about the story you broke. >> i wrote the book really to tell the story about my journey from when i got recruited originally out of a military contractor to when that company got acquired by an alt-right

billionaire. >> so how does a guy like you end up working for the mercers and steve bannon. it is a funny story. i was recruited to work at a military group in london. what we were looking at is how, you know, at the time this is when siisis was just emerging a we had a lot of radical groups that were radicalizing in the

west. >> to do what? >> to join the jihadist fight in the middle east and north africa. so one of the things we started looking at is how do we identify people that would be vulnerable to radicalization and creating tools intended for the defense of our country on identifying who might be vulnerable to this messaging, and what is the likelihood of them joining a radical sized nation. steve bannon was introduced to the company, and he realize thad if you took the work this company was doing and looked tat in the united states and looked at inverting the work we were doing to identifying the same kinds of people, but instead of mitigating that effect, actually encouraging them to go down a

path of radicalization. when you look at the types of people that were originally targeted, people that were more prone to paranoid ideations, had a lot of stress in their lives, this is the exact same profile of the alt-right. so what i explain in the book is that this was an insurgency. this was a radicalization operation that was just using data and social media that is currently completely unregulated to build and cat liez the at-right. >> so what raised the alarm bells? >> when i started i thought i

was doing work to protect citizens. when i saw what was happening, and my work was being inverted. and there was videos of focus groups and events in the united states and people who had been targeted over and over and over again with disinformation to see how angry the rage on their faces, to see they were now living in an alternative reality, steve ban non's reality of what america is, and to see people going down a path of highly racialized thinking. and just believing in things that are not true and to add on top of that the company started to engage with all kinds of bizarre russian figures that i talk about in the book. we had psychologists in russia, they were giving presentations on targeting american voters, using social media data. people and business partners who

were former russian security agents. and it just became slightly overwhelming. >> and you saw that your company was harvesting facebook profiles to get to the right people with this information. >> yes, at the time facebook authorized the app that ended up harvesting tens of millions of americans profiles because they had very loose permissioning systems at the time and they did not have oversight of their platform. they let it mhappen. they didn't do anything. some of the people that worked on this project went on to work at facebook. they didn't do anything about it and i feltt li like i needed to least talk to somebody. originally i talked to people at the time who, you know, worked in american politics. people's responses at the time were that well of course trump uses a sketchy company because he is a sketchy guy but hillary

clinton is going to win. so let's not do anything about it because we don't want to be interfering in the election. god forbid someone interferes in the election. so then i talk to some journalists and the story came out. >> the book is called mind -- blank. we're learning the trump administration has blocked a top official from appearing this morning before a scheduled interview related to the impeachment enquery. joining us now, msnbc is garrett haake. >> according to gordon sondland's attorney he was told this morning he would not be allowed to speak this morning. the statement is interesting.

s he is described as profound lis d -- profoundly disappointed he will not testify and he is ready to testify on short notice. we expect to hear from adam schiff about this. he may try to call sondland's bluff. i would not be sir pried -- surprised if they issue a subpoena. there is supposed to be another deposition on friday. so it is democrats see if they can get sondland at all or soon. >> are there legal -- i guess if they take the legal road that could be delayed quite awhile. do they have to be able to compel someone to talk or no?

>> the question will be is do democrats think it is worth it, or whether or not they say, as they indicated, your refusal to appear is evidence of obstruction. all of these subpoenas become evidence in a second article of impeachment. rather than force the issue on the testimony and on the documents. democrats feel like they have a pretty strong hand here. they have all of these primary source evidence. they have the memo of the call, the whistle-blower's report. they can get the testimony from the whistle-blower at some point. but them they would have to make the argument that by not getting it they are getting obstruction. >> if the ambassador to ju crane. the former ambassador, if she wants to talk, can the white house prevent her? >> i understanding is that she

is still a state department employee even though she is not the ambassador. i think they could prevent her in that case. >> let's be clear now, you say in the news is the state department, is mike pompeo's name on this? >> we're hearing this from the mouth of the attorney for gordon sondland. we're not hearing this yaet from the state department. all we know from pompeo is he said keep your hands off of my people. he said he would protect his people nap is in conflict with the statement we have from sondland saying i want to testify. so we're yet to hear directly on

this. he says i'm here and ready to go and let's make it happen. >> garrett, thank you very much. elise. i wonder what does it take to goat testify, maybe he has to quit. >> that is the example that i use, you look at kurt volker. he wanted to testify to congress so he did resign. how much will they fight letting these ambassadors talk congress. >> gordon sondland gave $1 million to president trump's inaugural committee. they didn't have any providence of the relationship. and in the text he is quoted

assaying the president really wants the deliverable. what he pts in exchange for talking to joe biden and the visit. and the white house now confirming president trump has invited president erdogan for an official white house visit next month. >> wow, they have a lot to talk about don't they? so no to block this ambassador that had no authority over america's rip with the ukraine. very interesting, she the -- he is pushing, and you look at those dtext messages and that i what the quid pro quo looks like. and they were setting it all up.

and they went back and said no no no, it has to include them. it was all about biden. >> a lot to unpack and we'll have to continue tomorrow morning. that does it for us this morning, stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. >> thank you mika. it is tuesday, october 8th, and we start this morning with breaking news. in the past hour we learned that the trump administration has official life ordered gordon sondland not to appear for a deposition with house investigators. that was supposed to start just 30 minutes from now. house democrats previously said any attempt to interfere in the investigation would be viewed as obstruction, and potentially an impeachable offense. but the trump administration was willing to take that risk.