either secondhand accounts or the president wasn't involved or didn't know. democrats are doing the opposite. that will be the contest as you watch these hearings, how much can they put trump's literal fingerprints on what's happened. >> mike allen live for us in washington, d.c. thank you very much. of course we'll be reading axios a.m. in just a bit. don't forget you too can sign up for that newsletter by going to signup.axios.com. >> that does it for us on this monday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. you've got to get your friends, you've got to vote. because if you lose it sends a really bad message. you can't let that happen to me. >> the top office in a deep red state turning blue over night. andy bashir declaring victory as kentucky's next governor. >> i lift him up a lot. trump took a loss, you've got to give me a big win, please. okay? okay? >> the new political set back

coming from louisiana where they re-elected the only democratic governor skbr governor john bel edwards. >> either kentucky and louisiana are secretly liberal or president trump is the problem. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it's monday, november 18th and the with us we have national contributor mike barnicle, jonathan lemire, and reverend al sharpton. and former chief of staff to the dccc and strategic communications for hillary clinton's presidential campaign, adrienne elrod. and pulitzer prize winning cull lum nist and editor of "the washington post," eugene robinson. and also david wasserman. a lot of politics going on this morning. >> we're going to get to another loss for donald trump, but front

page of all the new york papers talking about mike bloomberg switching on stop and frisk. and, rev, you talked to the mayor about that. >> yeah. what'd you hear? >> well, many years we marched and rallied, i was in one of those in the lead against this policy saying it was racially very much a problem because it was a disproportionate amount. and he resisted. so when he called me yesterday right after the sermon, i said to him that whether it was politically motivated or not, because clearly he's getting ready to run for president we feel, it was an important statement because the national effect, many cities picked up stop and frisk as a policy based on new york, the biggest city. we have a sitting president right now that advocates stop and frisk. so being that bloomberg was a symbol of that, despite his

motive, i think it was good to happen. at the same time, though, as one that comes out of a school of thought that you must be consistent, if we're going to hold him to that standard, and we should, we ought to also hold joe biden to the crime bill standard and bernie sanders who voted for it. >> and also -- >> it's a new standard now you've got to apologize, then let's be fair across the board. i'm not ready to run out there and endorse bloomberg because of an apology, but i'm certainly going to ask everybody, we all want to know your criminal justice background and what you're going to apologize or stand up for and then earn the forgiveness. you can't make one speech. >> you bring up a great point about people's backgrounds. elizabeth warren was a republican longer than i was, jonathan lemire. do we don't want judge people on their past? >> the bloomberg -- >> that is large across the democratic field in general, i'm not talking specifically about

stop and frisk. it seems like an awfully convenient some would say -- >> it's too convenient. >> you didn't leave the republican party, they left you. >> amen, brother. amen. and all the people say. >> amen. >> it's true. >> i covered bloomberg here in new york as mayor for years. he was not just a proponent for stop and frisk, he was almost evangelical for it. he really pushed for it. he believed it was the best way to keep crime down. if you catch people from lower events or low-level crimes or if you push forward at the suspicion of such, you might catch them way weapon or something like that. >> it was like rudy giuliani's broken windows. >> accelerated. >> right. >> crime numbers fell, that was the argument they made here in new york city. but as the rev and others pointed out, it was disproportionately targeting people of color and it become an issue. now at the end of his term the

practice started to fade but it was something he believed in and stubbornly refused to apologize for. even as they started to move away from it, bloomberg never would back down from it. now he's expected to make his announcement for run for presidentny day, it's a convenient time to do this. it is a step, it would seem, he's serious about this run. a more important step than getting on a balanlot in alabam it was interesting to see yesterday how many interpreted it as being political. >> it was. because it was. >> the problem with it is that he -- even at the end of his term, i mean, he's a guy driven by data. >> exactly. >> even at the end of his term he had an interview with new york magazine and he was explaining, he said, listen, if you want to know where the disproportionate amount of crime is it's in two locations. he talked about south bronx and central brooklyn.

>> yeah. >> he said those are the areas where the residents are most in danger. those are the residents where he said we're not going to send it to areas that don't have high crime. and so he explained it that way. he was data driven. so i understand that argument. i don't understand if you're data driven why you back down, why suddenly, david, it doesn't matter if that's what drove you to that argument even if it was unpopular the second you jump in a presidential race. >> it again afghanistan with an m.i.t. professor, mike bloomberg and ray kelly is then police commissioner enhanced it and they used comp stat, the computer system, which would indicate the specific neighborhoods, the data show the most larcenies, murders, assaults, that's where they chose to stop, start, and frisk.

but one thing happened, they never checked the data to find out that fully 90% of the people being stopped and frisked were 14, 15, 16-year-old young men out on a saturday night, a friday night, a tuesday night, didn't matter, and it overwhelmed them. the stunning thing about this, i think to me, looking at it was that mike bloomberg who backed this policy for years after he left the mayor ald didi, boom, turned around. >> those numbers were out there. for a data driven guy, those numbers were there in realtime. there were reporters covering that story in realtime. i'm sort of surprised -- >> the center for constitutional rights, new york civil liberties union, they all proved this in court. and even in white areas, majority of white neighborhoods where the crime was not that high, the majority of people stopped and frisk were blacks

just going through the neighborhoods and browns. clearly there was a racial argument and we argued this all the way up until he turned around the other day. this year he was defending it. >> i just got a problem with it. >> gene. gene. >> a couple of things. the rev is right. if you read the federal court ruling that ruled bloomberg stop and frisk unconstitutional the way he was doing tit unconstitutional, not only were they stopping black and brown people in predominately white areas, but when they did bother to stop and frisk a few white young men, they found drugs and/or guns which is what they were ostensibly searching for. they found conned dra band trabd

mo than they found on black and brown guys. but it demonstrated that you do find guns and drugs where you look for them. and they wouldn't look for them. they just -- even after the ruling, bloomberg, you know, wouldn't allow that, you know, that it wouldn't kill him to stop and frisk some white guys too. and he wouldn't do it. >> looks like we've got a week's worth of headlines today alone. there are big developments in the impeachment probe with more revelations almost certainly on the way. it is leading to signs of new cracks within top levels at the white house. president trump is attacking an aide to vice president mike pence after she said the president's ukraine call was inappropriate. he is also fuming for mike pompeo state official testimony

who threatens to bring down the presidency. the president over the weekend visited walter reed center for what they called phase one of his annual physical. >> a couple weeks after last year's physical? come on. >> lots of questions here. but we start with more evidence that president trump doesn't have very long political coattails. >> little hands. little fingers. >> you need to do your -- >> little quote coattails. >> you need to do your hey son, you lost again speech. john bel edwards on saturday narrowly won a second term as the state's governor beating republican challenger in a state that president trump carried by nearly 20 points in 2016. his opponent was a wealthy businessman tied himself to trumpet often railed against undocumented immigrants on the campaign trail and portrayed edwards as a, quote, libual

socialist leaning governor. but edwards a conservative democrat managed to remain fairly popular by frequently breaking with the national democrats he signed into law one of the most restrictive abortion bills in the country, favored gun rights and touted his willingness to work with republicans. after winning he had a decidedly southern message for the president. >> i love this. >> shared love for louisiana is always more important than the partisan differences that sometimes divide us. [ cheers and applause ] >> and as for the president, god bless his heart. >> oh, that's never a good sign when you hear that. my goodness, i found that out the hard way. his opponent came up short despite a flood of support from republicans. >> boy, he worked hard. >> trump. >> donald trump worked so hard to get him elected. >> take a look at president

trump. >> they threw so much behind this guy. >> to the people of louisiana, we'll head to the polls. you know i'm really here for a little different reason. it's called early voting. you believe it? that's how much i like eddy. i'm here for early voting. you know, you can go out and vote. i said well not a lot of people do that. they say in louisiana, 40% of the vote is early voting. i said, like i said, i think i'll come. i'll come here. but you're going out to replace a radical, liberal democrat as your governor john -- [ booing ] >> john bel edwards has not done the job. you're going to have a great new republican, tremendously successful man as your oftenny, ed

eddy rispony. early voting is already under way. and i think i'm coming back here on thursday, do you believe it? i'm doing a double. i'm doing a double. >> he did a double, joe. he returned to louisiana a little more than one week later and started begging. >> in kentucky we elected everybody. the governor got brought up in a few short days, 19 points. i went, we made a speech, the whole ticket was there. everybody won big. governor's a really good guy. but 19 points say big thick and he lost by just a few thousand votes. trump took a loss. i lift him up a lot. trump took a loss. you've got to give me a big win please, okay? okay? >> it's like he's literally begging. >> at the was beg. it's sad to watch a president beg. buff cour but, of course, he's lying

about kentucky dpoi. i don't know if anybody knows this or not, but matt bevin was up five points until president trump went there. you lost six points for him in one day. >> it's just -- >> is that bad? is that bad, son? >> it's bad. >> donald, you need check -- i'm from the gulf coast. how did you lose louisiana? >> that's bad. >> how -- what -- how could you do that? i mean, and he's calling the governor down there what? a socialist? [ laughter ] >> that's -- >> louisiana. >> that's the most conservative democrat in a long, long time, jonathan lemire, a long, long time. this is -- the president went all in. i want you to imagine a business owner who's daddy gave him $400 million, okay? right? and then that business owner

says i'm going to start casinos in new jersey, right? imagine that. and imagine a guy who's daddy gave him $400 million. we're just making this up right now. $400 million in today's dollars. >> okay. >> he decides he's going to start a casino business and then he ends up $9 billion bankrupt. that's kinda like what this is. how do you as a republican lose kentucky and louisiana? mine, that's -- that's pretty rough. so what's the spin inside the white house? >> well, john bel edwards, as you said, is a conservative democrat. >> pro life, pro gun, you know. >> jamie e. is not aoc in this scenario and did not distance himself from the president although that was a good kiss off in the end, bless your heart. it's a couple of things here. there are people around him, there's no one around him to tell him to stay away from some of these races. or tell them that his line of

attack is not going to work. the president is popular in louisiana, he won it by 20 points. but you're not going to go in there and paint the governor as a socialist and expect that to win. the governor in kentucky, that was closer but that was a race maybe you should stay away from. he didn't. in part because he's so desperate right now to feed off the rally crowd, but to prove he's vital during impeachment. and instead there's three southern governor races in the last weeks, he lost two of them. >> there's political blood. water. mississippi was close. let's me bring in, jonathan has a great point, if the president had anyone around, stay away from kentucky because they elect democratic governors from time to time. stay away from louisiana, don't call louisiana governor a socialist because he's more conservative than you are, donald on a lot of issues, and he really is. it was -- i mean, talk about how donald trump going down there and saying what he said about the socialist governor really

was political malpractice. >> in fairness, show, he was down 47 points, trump brought him within two points. >> he had been hit also, little known fact, his campaign bus had been hit by a meteor the week before, right? >> right. >> donald brought back to life. trump did it. it's in the tweet. >> voters still have something called a bs detector. and when trump is going down to louisiana, by the way, he loves basking before crowds in places where he's popular and he's still popular there. but if he's going to say john bel edwards say radical democrat, voters are going believe that as much as if they were to go into new england and chaul call charlie baker and phil scott the governors in massachusetts and vermont some trump tea party conservatives. voters still make distinctions at this level. the good news for trump this is

not a blow to his re-election chances in the is an indication that, number one, the limits of his transferability of popularity are still there and, number two, some southern suburbs are now open to voting for the right kind of democrat. particularly those catholic suburbs. obama took 26% of the vote there in 2018. john bel edwards got 50% on saturday night. >> you bring up a great point. this isn't bad news for donald trump in terms of 2020 in louisiana or kentucky, it will be tighter or closer than was before. but it's bad news for any person running under ticket. i can't believe we've got to a point where we're talking about the suburbs of louisiana, of new orleans, of baton rouge, of

shreveport, the suburbs of dallas, the suburbs of atlanta. we're talking about deep south suburbs that are now breaking. that is bad news for republican candidates as it was in 2018. but it's also bad news for trump as you go -- much worse news for trump as you go north and talk about the suburbs of philly, the suburbs of detroit, the suburbs of milwaukee. >> the problem, joe, for democrats is that there are differences between the suburbs of some of those -- those coastal cities and the suburbs of detroit and milwaukee which are still quite republican and where arguably trump might have some room for growth. because keep in mind i was pretty unpopular relative to other places like paul ryan's backyard and marco rubio's yard in 2016. and that battleground poll we saw the other week shows that trump is still running

competitively in those places, even if he's running behind nationally. i think democrats could need to win the popular vote by as much as four points to beat donald trump. that's quite a head start for the president. >> well, let's get to the latest iowa polls where mayor pete buttigieg is seeing a clear surge of support. in the cnn des moines register poll, mayor pete is up 16 points, count them, since september, putting him in first place with 25%. senator elizabeth warren comes in second, nine points behind with 16%. former vice president joe biden and senator bernie sanders both tied at 15% each while amy klobuchar sits at 6%. >> adrienne, let's keep those numbers up. there are three things that stand out here. one, of course, pete buttigieg, he's in a great place right now. nine points ahead in this poll. he is surging. you look at his favorables,

they're higher than everybody else's. this guy is in good shape and i'm not so sure it's going to be easy for them to attack pete the way they attacked elizabeth, which leads to the second line. elizabeth warren, she definitely has plateaued over the past month. not saying that it's going to be -- you know, she was on an upswing. i'm not saying it's certainly fatal for her, but there's no doubt medicare for all and the math behind it as caused democrats to take a second look there. and joe biden also, he's down five -- biden, though, has plateaued in a lot of polls we've seen over the past week. and there's bernie holding in there at 15%. but no doubt mayor pete is on the rise and for now at least senator warren has plateaued. >> yeah, you're exactly right. first of all there is great news. you know, undeniablely for mayor

pete. you couple that with the fact that mayor pete has the strongest ground game in iowa, that's a very well known fact. he's got over 100 people on staff, he's got 20 field offices. so you couple his strength in this poll with the strong ground game and that sis a recipe for success in iowa. there's a little bit of good news for joe biden in this poll because when you get into some of the deeper questions in the poll, one of them being what is the most important priority for you as a voter, as a caucus goer, the number one priority is electing somebody who can beat donald trump. and that person still in this poll is joe biden, 25% of caucusgoers said that they still believe that he is the most electable against donald trump. so, again, you couple that with the fact that as you mentioned joe biden is staying pretty steady. plateaued around 15%. that's good news for him and he's doing well in the other early state polling as well, most notably south carolina. i think the biggest challenge

for mayor pete to the point you mentioned is how does he get a more diverse coalition? how does he attract african-american voters? that doesn't really matter so much in iowa, but it does matter if you're going to be successful during the duration of this primary. i think on wednesday night for the debate, joe, i'm looking forward to seeing who goes after mayor pete. he's now the front runner iowa. there's got to be somebody on that debate stage who attacks him. i don't know what they attack him on because he doesn't have a voting record. he's been the mayor of south bend, i doesn't have a voting record. but someone on that stage is going to go after him. i don't think it's going to be joe biden. i don't think it's going to be elizabeth warren. they've notoriously not gone after and not lodged attacks on their opponents. but is it going to be amy klobuchar or cory booker? we'll see. >> my warning to any democrats that are going attack mayor pete, you've attacked other people on the stage that aren't intellectually nimble. he's intellectually nimble. so you better -- you better prepare your attack because i

promise he will turn it back around on you. he's different than the others. he is a really skilled political athlete. let me ask you, rev. so you know this better than anybody. somebody can walk into a black church and they're immediately embraced and they're part of it. other people walk into a black church and they seem like they're on mars. i'm not naming any names, but we saw one or two people who looked like they had been dropped in from mars at elijah's funeral. >> right. >> so mayor pete right now is sort of in that second group. and the question is, if this guy does win iowa? >> he could. >> does well in new hampshire, he's got to make that turn to south carolina, he's had trouble connect. i know you've talked to him a lot. how does he -- how does he make that turn? >> he has to talk to people. and you're right, you have to show a comfort level among people of color if people of

color are going to be comfortable voting for you. that's the challenge. and i think that part of the issue he is going to have to deal with is the policing issue in south bend. >> can we talk about the other issue too? he's gay and nobody wants to talk about that on tv. you and i are going to talk about it right now. for older black voters who are conservative way small "c" who the same day barack obama got elected in 2008, helped jot dvo down in california the marriage equality maeamendment. that's a challenge for him. >> for older voters, yes. >> yes. >> but he's got to confront -- he has to say and i've said this to him that, yes, i'm gay, yes, that's my orientation. and everybody in here, you may not support my life, but nerve

here has members in your family are gay and are you saying they shouldn't be president? you've got to face it, deal with it directly has been my counsel to him. and he has to deal with the south bend issue. but you're absolutely right, in south carolina there's a difference between those that showed they're comfortable in a black church or those, i'm going to preach it and acts like they happen to run in here running from the police or something because they don't belong in here so you wonder what are they hear for? are they hiding from somebody? >> see, not a good look in a political campaign. >> right. >> not a good look at all. >> well, it depends on where he maybe he has to confront it. he's talked about it. he's very comfortable talking about it. >> i think he has to keep talking about it. he has to keep confronting it. and he has to bring people to their reality. this is 2019. >> i think you're right. >> i don't know a black family that doesn't have a gay member in their family. so let's stop acting like this isn't the real world. >> given his ability as a candidate, we've all witnessed

thus far. >> yeah. >> i could see a speech dedicated to that one topic, joe, that you just raised and i could see him knocking the ball out of the park. >> i totally agree with you. >> well, it would be, rev, would it not, it would be the equivalent for him if he were to win iowa and moved into new hampshire, it would be the equivalent of barack obama's speech on skbras thatrace. >> that's how you deal with this. the other thing i think he would have to keep in mind, i'm talking about mayor pete about, if what happens now as deval patrick ums u comes in who does come off like a secular preacher and nobody's better on that platform than deval patrick. you've got to factor the new landscape post this debate this week. >> i don't get his path. i don't see it. is there a path? >> i don't know if there is a path you can see now. but if they clean some of the bushes out the way -- >> there are a lot.

>> it may be a path that gets clear. >> in the you goff poll, sanders and biden top the field 22% each and buttigieg comes in one percentage point short at 21%. look at his movement here. warren sits at 18 prs while clob schar and harris round the aught u out the top 6 with 5% each. and warren leads by 31%, joe biden follows warren with 22% along with sanders 20% and mayor pete at 16%. >> dave, what do you see in all the polls, dave wasserman? >> well, pete's surge is real, first of all, but where is it coming from? i think it's coming from the additional scrutiny on elizabeth warren. what has her base of support been? it's been whites with college degrees. those voters are now thinking, well, she might be a little too

liberal for the general electorate so where am i going to go? maybe pete buttigieg. the problem for him is where does he go after iowa? adrienne was right, it's difficult for him right now to expand his appeal beyond that demographic. look, i think the problem for him in the upcoming months is going to be does he survive the scrutiny over changing his position on medicaid for all -- or medicare for all? does he survive scrutiny of being on that harvard management consultant that kensi glide path. and people that have been surging with two .5 months to go, they don't have a great track record of being able to sustain that momentum. if i were klobuchar or harris looking at these polls, i'd be encouraged. ten men were shot, four of them fatally at a background football watch party in fresno,

california, last night in what police are calling a very likely targeted shooting. police say about 35 to 40 family members and friends were watching a football game when one or more people snuck on to the property and began shooting. in an overnight press conference, they told reporters that three men died on the scene, a fourth man died later in the hospital. all those shot were between 25 and 35 years old. the clashes between police and protesters are escalating in hong kong. over the weekend officers stormed a university that was economy held by demonstrators. the antigovernment protester had barricaded themselves inside the university for several days before officers moved in firing tier gas. and president trump is backing away from a proposed ban on flavored e-cigarettes with vaping on the rise among young people, the trump administration said two months ago they were planning to ban the products.

federal regulators had cleared the move. now trump has reversed course after pressure from political advisers and lobbyists to factor in potential pushback from supporters. >> so parents are concerned about their children with these flavored -- >> it's very concerning. this is ridiculous. >> first, they were against this. did melania have an antivaping campaign? >> yeah. >> be the best you can be. >> that's another one. >> the health thing means nothing, though. >> but it was a concern a couple of months ago and now lobbyists have said, no, we have some more money and some of you voters do it. >> not just lobbyists, it's his political team. brad parscale and others looking at the re-election have seen an overlap. they say people who use these products offered support for the president and some of them were single issue voters. >> this is like crisis for our children and donald trump has reversed course because --

>> it's vintage. >> lobbyists and his political interests. >> prioritizing health over politics. >> children's health at that. roger stone is guilty seven times over. what his criminal conviction means for all of the other people caught up in the president's web. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. only one thing's more exciting than than getting a lexus... giving one. this is unbelievable! >>it really is. the lexus december to rembember sales event lease the 2020 rx 350 all wheel drive for $419 a month for 27 months. experience amazing at your lexus dealer. great riches will find you when liberty mutual customizes your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. wow. thanks, zoltar. how can i ever repay you?

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it's going to be another busy week in the impeachment probe of president trump with several key witnesses expected to publicly testify. tomorrow we're going to hear from jennifer williams, an aide to vice president mike pence,

along with the national security counsel s council's vindman. >> donald trump tould callcalle never trumper, right? >> yes. >> but doesn't she work for mike pence? >> she works for the state department and vice president of the united states. that's a difficult position to have if you're a never trumper. she was on the july 25th call which is why her testimony is so important. >> but gene robinson, she's on the call and she's mike pence's person. so donald trump -- i just don't get it. >> how did mike pence not know anything? >> yeah, well, i think the explanation is, you know, the president is flailing. i mean, everybody who says anything negative about him is, of course, a never trumper. this is a ridiculous charge to level at somebody who worked for

mike pompeo and mike pence. it's just not -- it's not credible. but, then again, what of credibility to this president. her testimony will be important. vi vindman's testimony will be important. you look at first two public hearings, we've only had two so far, and i was wondering over the weekend, could they -- from the point of view of the democratic prosecutors, i'm at a loss to figure out how they could have gone much better in terms of laying out the case on wednesday and then that dramatic testimony from marie yovanovitch on friday. >> it was incredible. >> it was like a spy novel almost. >> it was. and to have the president live tweeting basically harassing her. >> exactly. >> or intimidating her in realtime during the hearings really brought the message home. >> i thought the first week was -- is compelling. >> oh my gosh. >> and such a stark contrast to trumpism. it was as compelling a contrast

as i've ever seen. and i thought the first week was devastating for the president, chris wallace said it, a lot of oth oth people ha other people have said it. based on the facts that are being revealed day by day, step by step, this is being laid out an extraordinary case. >> one of the things that set the week apart, i would think, would be dan goldman's questioning on the democratic side, dan goldman's question of each and every witness that appeared before the committee. because it was professional, it was concise, it was to the point, it was deliberate and explanatory. >> tomorrow afternoon lawmakers will hear from former ambassador kurt volker who served as a essential u.s. envoy to ukraine and tim morrison. on wednesday, the big one will be eu ambassador gordon

sondland. and on thursday morning, lawmakers will hear from fiona hill, a former national security council official who searched as the president's top russia adviser. >> i would just stay out of her way. i would stay out of her way. she's tough. >> at this point, though, it's really incredible how they're piecing it altogether. joining us now, former u.s. attorney and an msnbc contributor barbara mcquade. state attorney for palm beach county dave ehrenberg, and horn, author of soul of america and rogers professor of the presidency of vanderbilt university, jon meacham. >> john, given us an overview of this first week. look at the fact that the watergate hearings seemed to go on forever, well over a year. what was compressed into one week this first week i thought was extraordinary. >> it was. i had a friend whose mother was dying in the summer of 1973 and

he's convinced she stayed alive through labor day because she wanted to see the end of the hearings. in this case, she would have been able to go and meet her maker more quickly. i think the democrats have arranged the narrative, have told the story in a way that has been, as you say, compelling. but it's not really an arrangement when that's what happened. and i think that's one of the things that we have to remind ourselves is while we've been beaten up in the ring here by trumpism since 2015, there is this essential truth is which is, as john adams said, facts are stubborn things. here are the facts. i think we saw pretty clearly the first day what the two stories will be. there's the story of the state department of the career folks who are trying to execute a foreign policy in a complicated time. and there's the republican

chance se hansel and gretel bread crumbs. whatever he says, you know he doesn't mean what he says and we gave them the aid anyway. which makes the whistle-blower in some ways the potential saviour of the trump presidency. because if he hadn't gotten caught, lord knows what he would still be doing in terms of controlling, attempting to control congressionally appropriated and national sure the-related aid for his own personal benefit. i suspect, i could be wrong, that we've seen the stories here. there's what happened, he has clearly put himself in position of trying to bribe the ukrainian government or be bribed by it, however that works legally. and the republicans are going to say, well, yeah but it didn't work. >> barbara mcquade, that

question on what happened that jon meacham just raised, what, why, how who did it, last week's exercise from dan goldman, could you separate hearings like this from usual hearings when various members of congress just use their five minutes to give little speeches? >> yes, agree with joe's observation that dan goldman's performance stoot sto performance stood out as being effective. the typical process is five minutes alternating from each political party and what you see is no continuity in questioning, a lot of theatrics because no one can get any sustained questioning in. what dan goldman had the ability of the closed door transcripts. while those hearings took eight to ten hours to elicit testimony, he was able to take the greatest hits of that testimony and ask questions

about that. he was given 45 minutes also, so that he could develop a sustained line of questioning, he could allow the witness to answer in a fulsome manner. he didn't have to worry about someone filibustering to get to the end of the five minutes. in that way we were able to hear the story from the mouths of the witnesses themselves. it wasn't just a lot of prosecutor asking questions with yes-no answers. we were able to hear the rich detail from those witnesses in their own words which is i think what made it so compelling. >> dave ehrenberg, switching gears. i wanted to talk to you about your fellow florida man roger stone who was found guilty -- >> that's what we love. >> sorry. >> who was found -- >> he does wear that around palm beach. >> he looks great. >> guilty on style points too. >> the character of that man. >> he was found guilty on every charge on friday. so, dave, first we ask you simply your reaction. were you surprised by how sweeping these convictions were?

and then what sort of prison sentence do you expect him to face? >> another florida man in handcuffs. >> it happens. >> yeah, it does. i remember the pickers of roger stone outside the republican convention in 2016 proudly unveiling the hillary for prison t-shirt. now it's roger stone who's going to prison. and ironically, it's because of his own emails. and he's also going to prison with a large tattoo of richard nixon on his back. >> oh, boy. >> yeah, it's probably not going to give him a lot of street cred up in the big house. >> oh. >> now as far as the trial, this was a slam dunk. i wasn't surprised at all. federal prosecutors had a paper trail of lies from roger stone. i mean, here's a guy who said that he and his associate had no electronic communications with each other. he testified to that under oath. and then the feds produced 1500 emails and text messages between the two, including 72 text messages on the day he testified. slam dunk, case closed.

as far as witness tampering, he repeatedly it threatened credico and his dog saying in case credico needed to pull a frank patangeli. it's sad because credico did not testify, he took the fifth and we're deprived of his important evidence tying the trump campaign to wikileaks. as far as his sciencentence, he eligible for up to 50 years. they will probably score him ten years because this is his first offensive. he will go to court on february 6th. that's ronald reagan's birthday, as joe probably knows. >> i didn't, but thank you. >> roger stone worked for reagan and reagan would be so disgusted by the fact that stone and some of his fellow republicans allowed russia to interfere in our elections. >> and his dog, by the way. and his dog. it reminds me of a threat made

in succession since i cannot repeat since children are beginning to wake up. >> no, you cannot. >> speaking it of putting it in emails, gordon sondland actually kept a lot of trump administration officials in the loop in that whole, as i think it was john bolton called it a drug deal, drug deal to get ukraine to launch investigations that trump would later talk about it in his july phone call. so, barbara, poor slogordon sondland said nobody in the world. this guy is testifying this week and not only is he going to have to go back on the quid pro quo testimony, but now "wall street journal" breaks this story about these emails where he kept the omb in the loop, kept everybody in the loop. this may have been a drug deal, as blalt tolton called it, but a very well orchestrated drug

deal. >> and gordon sondland has some decisions to make. there are contradictions with his testimony from other facts that have come out since then even after he supplemented his testimony. so say i forgot some things and here's some important things i forgot and now that my memory's been refreshed, here's the real story. and now yet again he finds himself in a position of having to explain inconsistencies, including the phone call we learned about during bill taylor's testimony in the kiev restaurant where he was talking to president trump. this is after he had testified that he had no conversations with the white house or the state department about this quid pro quo. and so he does have some explaining to do. there is certainly probably some consideration going on about invoking his fifth amendment rights not continue to cripple nate himself, although since he's already testified about this subject matter, he has waived it with regard to most of this subject matter. there may be narrow areas of questioning where he could invoke it. my guess is he will have waived

it and will decide that the marginal benefit he could get from waiving it is marginal. he has to decide to come clean and tell the truth or thread that need. >> he's got clean it up. being quiet now doesn't seem to make sense. and jon meacham, nixon had the tapes but we've got emails. and "the wall street journal" reported on the day before the president was going to talk to zelensky, sondland emailed a group of administration officials including low level actors, mulvaney, chief of staff. perry. >> oh my. >> secretary of energy. to say that zelensky was going to assure trump that he would open investigations. sondland added that the ukrainian president was eager for them -- to place a call before parliamentary elections which mulvaney reportedly responded, quote, i asked msc to set it up for tomorrow.

>> yeah. >> this drug deal seems to pull absolutely everybody in surrounding the president. >> yeah. i suspect mulvaney and perry wish the spam filter had been working a little bit better. but, you know, there are always people in organizations who, you know, are eager to be first with good news of my old boss charlie peters used to say, it's amazing how fast good news travels up the chain and how slowly bad news does. and that tells you a lot, because that means that the ethos inside was that this was good news. that this was something to eagerly report that, in fact, the president had created this climate in which these investigations were essential. sondland got the signal so he wanted to be the heroic messenger running into the room. and it's just all there, right? >> it's all there.

and, gene, i mean, it is, again, as jon meacham said. they considered this to all good news. and if it were not for the whistle-blower forcing donald trump to release the money, this all would have actually had even deeper implications which almost assuredly would have supported impeachment and possibly even conviction. >> well, that's absolutely right. it's not actually a defense legally that it didn't work. i mean, if you -- >> not at all. >> it's still bribery if -- if ru, y, you know, you're a public official and the person who is slipping you the wad of $100 bills is a federal agent, whatever. it's still bribery if it doesn't go through. you know, nonetheless, that is the -- seems to be the

republican line of defense. they've moved the goal posts so far, you know, last seen crossing the mississippi. but that seems to be, you know, that's like the pacific coast, right? that's we're -- it didn't work, nothing to see here. meet with the president and his enablers were too incompetent to actually pull this off. that's -- that's not -- that's not a good defense, it's not a valid defense. but that seems to be very clearly where they're going to end up. >> if it were an offense, richard nixon would have never been removed from office. >> exactly. they didn't succeed. >> exactly. >> and then starting off the image of roger stone with richard nixon on his back. thank you very much. coming up, president trump makes an anne i nounsed visit to

walter reed. the white house says it was nothing out of the ordinary at all even though it wasn't on his schedule. we weigh in on that. we're back in just a moment. n . we're back in ju ast moment. - [spokeswoman] meet the ninja foodi pressure cooker, the best of pressure cooking and air frying now in one pot, and with tendercrisp technology, you can cook foods that are crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside. the ninja foodi pressure cooker, the pressure cooker that crisps. there's a company that's talked than me: jd power.people 448,134 to be exact. they answered 410 questions in 8 categories about vehicle quality. and when they were done, chevy earned more j.d. power quality awards across cars, trucks and suvs than any other brand

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i understand it wasn't a scheduled annual visit. can you tell us what it was? >> yeah, absolutely. we've got a really busy year ahead, as you can imagine, and so the president decided to go to walter reed and kind of get a head start with some routine checkups as part of his annual exam. that's all it was, it was very routine. we had a down day today and so he made the decision to head there. >> and there's no truth to the rumors that it was something else? because the rumors are flying. >> oh, the rumors are always flying, absolutely not. he is healthy as can be. i put a statement out about that. he's got more energy than anybody in the white house. that man works from 6:00 a.m. until, you know, very, very late at night. he's doing just fine. >> you know, stephanie, he's almost super human. i don't know how anyone can deal with what he's dealing with. i mean, i get frustrated with what's going on in washington.

i want to throw things at the television. but i don't. [ laughter ] >> you know, who was it? was it mnuchin who praised his perfect genes? was it steve manu chnuchin who had he super human genes? and they said he wiould live to be 200 if he ate better? >> yes. they found out the doctor was a super fraud. >> super fraud. and that all continues. and they're talking about he works so hard. he's got like one event -- i think he does one or two things a day tops. all right jonathan lemire, break this down. i mean, by the way, he's magically picked up -- he's two inches taller now than he was a couple of years ago. >> bone spurs. >> the bone spurs are growing and pushing him up. and also the way -- i'm sorry.

i know a guy that weighs about 240, 241, this guy, this guy is -- he's pushing 300. there is no doubt about it. >> oh, my. >> there's no doubt. there's no doubt about it. maybe he's 270, maybe he's 280. >> not that there's anything wrong with that it's just -- >> i'm not saying there is. i'm just saying we have a right to know our president's health. and he's done nothing but lie to us about it for several years. ronny jackson was the most laughable. but tell us, we don't know ha happened. what do you know? >> we don't. certainly the white house has credibility issues, so let's start there. >> i've never seen the press secretary before. >> on the president's health, but also other matters. so what happened saturday was strange. his previous two physical exams were announced well in advance. they were put on the schedule the day before, they knew where they were going. what happened saturday was not. there was a motorcade movement with the press pool. they were not told where they were going and not allowed to report it until they arrived at

walter reed. w this was not deemed in advance. this was deemed a partial physical, usually they're not divided in parts. at least not that i'm aware of. this is also something his last physical was in february. so we're not -- we're nowhere near the year mark for this next one to happen again. as a final note, while he was spotted walking into the motorcade on saturday on the way to water reed, had he no public events yesterday, he was not spotted. according to his schedule today, he has a couple of closed events. reporters won't see him again. the third straight day where no one will have seen him in the aftermath of whatever happened on zay saturday. >> he's meeting been intel briefing? >> but he's not having any events open to the press. >> in her recent column for the "washington post" entitled we need a second opinion on the president's health she writes in part this. the only thing of which we can be fairly certain about, president trump's mysterious

saturday afternoon trip to walter reed national military medical center is this, the white house is not telling the truth when it claims the president was there to begin portions of his routine annual physical exam. we know this because, well, because those people lie about pret pretty much everything. medical privacy is something that should not be granted the most powerful person in the world. as trump embarks on his effort to convince us that he deserves another four years in office, americans should demand something more than what they are getting. starting with a briefing from the physicians who treated him at walter reed. >> well that's not going to happen. let's bring in right now "morning joe" medical contributor dr. dave, political writer for the nbc times. national correspondent for the "washington post," philip bump joins us as well. dr. dave, even if you believe these skewed numbers that donald trump grew two inches higher or the past several years and that he only weighs 243, which seems

about 40 pounds short, but even if you believe those lies, he's still obese. so wouldn't his obesity or possibly his morbid obesity if we actually get updated numbers that show that, that has to be a huge health risk for him, especially at his advanced age. >> yeah, joe. there's actually a much bigger health risk that's not been well reported. it turns out that last year he had a coronary artery scale done with a ct scan that showed that he had increased about 400% from 2009 to 2008. the coronary calcium scale is an indication of risk for heart attack and stroke. he's now in risk, that's been well stated. it seems like last year early february, 2019, excuse me, the ct scan for his heart may have

been done before the physical exam. that being said, as a doctor i will tell you i like to have tests done before i see the patient if i know they're needed. so if, in fact, the very plausible explanation is he went in for a coronary artery calcium ct scan and is now awaiting that result. he's under active treatment for coronary artery disease. he is increasing his statin level, he just needs to tighten up his diet, lower his weight, as you said. but think we will likely find out that this was, indeed, the beginning of a physical exam that will end in february. that's my belief. >> so you say his health risks are that he's too heavy, he gets too little exercise. you also talk about his processed food diet. it seems like, again, at least healthwise the president is making things much more difficult on himself healthwise.

>> according to the american heart association, he is adding moderate risk right now for heart attack or stroke. that's up from just a few years ago when he was at a mild risk. increase weight, increase cholesterol that he's trying to lower with crestor is a way to combat the reality that his heart risk is increasing. >> you say this could have been an early -- this could be face one of a two-phase physical. would youly begin th really begt six months after you had your last physical? >> yes, because he's under active treatment for heart disease risk. heart attack and stroke. they've increased his crestor which is a stat stin which is a statin. they're trying to lower it. >> if you're under that regimen

and this is a concern of doctors, if you have chest tightening, pain in the arms, lightning anything like that, you need to get to the hospital immediately, right? >> you do, absolutely. >> all right, dr. dave, thank you so much. greatly appreciate it. >> you're welcome. >> anybody want to talk about the president's health before we go to louisiana? jon meacham, let's just say up front here that while this president seems to lie about everything, the one thing that presidents have always lied about is their health. >> that's exactly the point. even franklin roosevelt, woodrow wilson, people speculated about device eisenhower's heart attack. president kennedy was the subject in a medical journal for someone that suffered from addison's disease and they lied

about it all the waitly to. even great presidents have lied about their health because they didn't want to deal with the political costs of admitting vulnerability. >> and physicians claim he came in at 198 pounds i'm sure as well, just like trump. >> well, you know, he was doing a lot of medicine ball endorsements back in the day. so if franklin roosevelt and john kennedy did it, you know, i think our worry should go to warp speed here. >> yeah. adrienne, i was having a conversation with alex while jojon meacham was finishing him speech. i'm like why are they looking at me? meacham's talking. then i find out, no, he's not. what alex was saying to me -- >> it was a great point he was saying. >> it was a great point. he said this must be especially rich for adrienne who had to sit through all the attacks of donald trump, of all the conspiracy theories about

hillary clinton having brain damage, hillary clinton having a stroke, hillary clinton stumbling after that 9/11 event. how rich. we have -- we have the guy who had hillary for prison in 2016 going to prison and we have a president who apparently had a health scare this weekend, though everybody's lying about it, a health scare this weekend. and it just seems that what goes around comes around for this white house. >> yeah, joe. and you sort of put it like that and put all these factors together, the lock her up chants, the pictures on trump's, you know, basically his publication, the nation"nationa enquirer" of hillary clinton looking sick or, you know, appearing that she was on the verge of death or something when that could not have been farther from the truth, we kind of new on this campaign in 2016 after, you know, that fateful night in 2016 when we lost that at some point karma would come back. that at some point these guys

would be held to justice and we're finally seeing that come to fruition. but there's certainly still a double standard when it comes to, i think, women who are running for office, the way they're posed in the press, with the way they're portrayed, their health and whatnot. and we're -- there should be far more outrage, i guess, joe, when it comes to the fact that donald trump went to walter reed. we all know that there's something going on. we all know that this is some cover-up from the white house. but there should be more outrage on this because women are held to a completely different standard when it comes to their health. if this had happened to hillary clinton if she were president, i wouldn't want to think about how the right wings of this world would be handling this. >> i also think about elizabeth warren and her campaign. she makes a clear point of being acrobatic on stage, back flipping, cart wheeling because she's definitely the most vibrant candidate out there and

making sure she's making that very clear everybody to. so this weekend on saturday donald trump once again embarrassed in the deep south with another democratic governor winning. and you wrote a column about it saying, basically, republicans, this guy can't help you. >> this is -- i think it's important to remember. first of all, donald trump made two trips to louisiana to get this republican candidate for governor across the finish line. he ended up losing, it wasn't a massive loss but he ended up losing. >> again, lost in the reddest of red states. >> oh, yeah, in louisiana. louisiana is not a place where you ever mention the same sentence the word purple. but this happened. but especially since it happened now when all these republican senators and members of the house are looking at this impeachment process and thinking, okay, where i do stand on this thing? this is a moment when donald trump needs those people to say, i can't buck him or else i'm in deep political trouble.

this is a moment when he got bucked by the voters of louisiana. >> rev, i'm looking to 2020 and those senate races. it's one thing if you're in a deep red house district that's not going to move. what if you're cory gardner in colorado? if you're susan collins in maine? if you're thom tillis, even though he might not figure it out yet, if you're thom till fl tillis in north carolina? if you're in any of these states and you're seeing what's happening, democrats winning louisiana, democrats winning in kentucky, democrats taking over virginia. >> right. >> since trump. trump has completely destroyed the republican party in virginia. you've got to be asking yourself, how do i survive the primary and still put enough distance between myself and trump to win the general? >> one of the things that's

interesting is that trump kept saying in kentucky and louisiana, i need you to come out, i need you to win this for me. and the prediction was that if the democrats had gone forward with impeachment, it was only going to energize trump's base. well, that has not happened in these elections. so if i'm susan collins and others who you mentioned, i've got to say this trump backlash of us coming out in big numbers to push back by supporting the candidates that he came in here and told us to support is not happening, and i think that that is a real fear that's going to have to rest in the white house. because there is no energizing of the trump base. you're in the middle of public hearings and he's losing where he went and told people to vote. if i'm a republican, i've got to say, wait a minute, not only do i have to protect myself, i may not even have to worry about him throwing a primary against me because it seems like it's all

bluff and there's nothing to back him up. >> jonathan, you're exactly right. you talked about how last hour he has nobody inside of the white house advising him to say stay away from kentucky. they elect democratic governors. don't call the most popular guy a socialist. and he went in and stumbled and bumbled and humiliated himself. >> the trusted advisers he has are jared kushner and there's no one to suggest mr. president, as much as you want to do a rally and that's important for you, you like the event but you think that makes you look strong and swaggering during this impeachment trial, this is not the best use of your time. stay away from some of these races. there's no one to do that. the distinction they make is they think there's an election here, his name's not on the ballot. that's the same excuse they made in 2018. as much he's was out there

storming for house candidates, at the end of the day there's a segment of the population that voted for trump in 2016 that will only vote for trump again in 2020 and they won't bother showing up at these off-year elections. do you think there's any merit to that? >> aside from the embarrassment of the loss, it's not that his people didn't come out. they did. but their turn out was swamped by the departure and deinfection of voters in the suburbs. >> right. >> that is the real warning sign. there were people who gave trump a chance in 2016 who kind of held their nose and said, you know what? i'm going to roll the dice, let's try this guy. i'm not a huge fan of hillary clinton. and a lot of those voters are now saying, man, i regret that. i'm sick of this guy, i want to try something new. what we see is the erosion in the suburbs and places you will side philadelphia and alabama in the moore race which the democrats won with a fusion of turnout from black voters and the suburbs. i think that strategy right there is also a roadmap for

democrats, right? we have this debate over should democrats go way left or should they faik foclk focus entirely n african american turnout? but bringing in the suburban people who are saying i am sick of this president, i want something different, i took a chance on him and i was wrong. >> let's look at what's going on in iowa, because mayor pete is experiencing quite a surge in the polls. he's up 16 points looking at, my goodness, the first in the nation caucus elizabeth warren is in second. but you know what? far behind all the front runners are far behind mayor pete. what's happening with this campaign, nick? >> this is fascinating if the you had to design a candidate in a laboratory do well in iowa. >> it would be mayor pete. >> it would be mayor pete. >> i agree. he could win. >> he could win iowa. in the democratic party, the

iowa caucus are a bit more predictive of the eventual nominee than the gop side where they often win the iowa caucus and play later on. what we're seeing is for a while we saw this four-way tie for first. it's still pretty close to that. this is one poll. but if, that in fact, he is break out it kind of makes you wonder is this a guy who has found his state? and in finding his state has found a way to had -- >> momentum. i don't disagree. >> gene, i agree that this guy was custom built for the iowa caucuses, just like barack obama was custom built for the iowa caucuses. i remember landing in des moines and having so many people come up to me saying i'm a republican, but i love this guy. i'm really excited about bamoba there was this good feeling about his campaign. they didn't want to just go and caucus for barack obama, they wanted to celebrate the fact

that they were doing that. and we're starting to hear some of the same things about mayor pete. they're not only voting for him and caulk cussing for him, they're excited about doing it. >> well, if we start getting that same feeling that we had before the iowa caucuses in 2008, you know, i remember being out in iowa and going to obama rallies and people would almost float out at the end of the rally. just -- just with this incredible -- he made people believe and he gave them, you know, yes, hope in a striking and impactful way. look, barack obama is a great politician, let's face it.

so my question, and we don't know the answer yet, is will people begin to react in that sort of visceral way to mayor pete or to any of the candidates? will they be inspired the way they were by barack obama? i'm -- you know, i'm not sure. i'm not sure that any of the candidates is going to -- or even has to this year, actually. that's a theory. obama was kind of a unique -- he's kind of a one off in a lot of ways. but, you know, are those numbers great for mayor pete? absolutely. they're great numbers for him. and we'll see if, you know, then there's the question is he peaking too early? but we'll see. if he can sustain. >> no doubt about that. jon meacham, the upside, we're not just sitting here talking

about barack obama and celebrating his general greatness, talking about how he inspired people in iowa. and in inspiring people, he got them to go out knock on doors, make phone calls, pull people from their churches, pull people from their synagogues, pull people from their neighborhoods and get them to go caucus. that's the important thing if mayor pete is -- proves to be this feel-good candidate that inspired voters. it will have a pretty significant impact in iowa. it looks like that's what's happening right now. >>. >> it does. and one of the things about american presidential history is we bounce from guardrail to guardrail. you go from bush to clinton, more of a shift there, than glenn to george w. bush, two very different baby boomers. i didn't think we'd live to see

a sharper contrast than george w. bush to barack obama until -- >> we did. >> -- than obama to trump. so a mayor of south bend who's 37 years old and gay and thoughtful may, in fact, be the other guardrail to who we have. i've been joking for three years this -- the next person we get would be aristotle, so maybe this is good. >> south bend's aristotle. >> so, phil, you look at those polls. a lot of different stories here, a lot of questions that are being asked, for joe biden, has the political bleeding stopped with joe biden? has elizabeth warren plateaued? you look at the polls over the past couple of weeks and it looks like biden has steadied and it looks like elizabeth warren's rise has stopped for now. >> looking at the national poll she's dipped again. i think the real question in iowa here is twofold. first is iowa is weird, right? it's weird the way they actually determine who wins these things.

what happened once they get past that first round and say the sanders people haven't hit the threshold and then where do they go, right? i think that mechanic changes things in iowa. with mayor pete, what happens with block voters in the democratic party? he has extremely low numbers consistently among african-american voters and that's a big problem for him moving outside of iowa and new hampshire which is largely white as well. that's what joe biden is banking on, his strong numbers with african-american voters once he gets to south carolina and super tuesday. that's where biden thinks that he can get some traction. the question for beaut geuttigit happens after he gets out of iowa and new hampshire? obviously obama built the coalition in 2008, can buttigieg do the same thing? >> but i think that the real issue is going to be how he can handle his reach out and his communicating and comfort level

with black voters. and he's going to have to deal with the south policing issue, particularly with bloomberg now bringing front and center policing and the black and brown community. and he's going to have to deal with the issue of homophobia. not only among blacks, but period. i think that he has got to deal with it head on. i've told him this. this is something he has to be intentional and deliberate about. he can't act like it will go away itself. if he can do that, i think that he can be very successful in his run. if he can't do it, he can be a flash in the pan. and i think that that is going to be his challenge. >> yeah. >> the one strength he does have that think people miss, he seems to be comfortable with who he is. as i've watched these debates, i've been to every one of them, he's one of the few on the stage that has figured out who he is and he's comfortable with it. everybody else gives me the feeling like they're searching for themselves. >> that's a great point. >> like i'm going to a therapy session. he's figured out who he is, now he's got to sell it to

everybody. >> i don't think he's a flash in the pan either way. philip, thank you so much for being on this morning. coming up next, we'll talk to congressman jim himes, aand a member of the intel committee will join us here on set. we'll be right back. ittee will join us here on set. we'll be right back. i'm ládeia, and there's more to me than hiv. there's my career... my cause... and creating my dream home. i'm a work in progress. so much goes into who i am. hiv medicine is one part of it. prescription dovato is for adults who are starting hiv-1 treatment and who aren't resistant to either of the medicines dolutegravir or lamivudine. dovato has 2 medicines in 1 pill to help you reach and then stay undetectable. so your hiv can be controlled with fewer medicines while taking dovato. you can take dovato anytime of day with food or without. don't take dovato if you're allergic to any of its ingredients or if you take dofetilide. if you have hepatitis b, it can change during treatment with dovato

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26 past of the hour and, joe, you know how like president trump will sort of bring someone in, they'll be buddies and then he drops them like a rock? have we seen that before? >> you're actually talking about everybody. >> okay. well next up, secretary pompeo. carol lee joins us now with new reporting. the president is meeting with pompeo today and her latest peach is called trump's impeachment ire turns on pompeo amid diplomats starring roles. >> good pr, carol.

>> well, look. what we learned -- so all of this focus has been on pompeo's taking heat within the state department, a lot of criticism for his handling of the ukraine controversy, for the way that he has not defended particularly ambassador -- former ambassador to ukraine marie yovanovitch. and what we learned is that he's taking a lot of heat from the president. and it started early on. the president wanted pompeo to go out and defend him on television over state department officials, the white house thought pompeo's initial interviews were not so great, that he looked unprepared and that didn't help things. then as time has gone on the president blames mike pompeo for hiring some of these state department officials that, in his view, are going to take down his presidency or at least try. and specifically he's really upset with his hiring of bill taylor who, as you know, was the person that pompeo had going over to kiev to be the top diplomat in ukraine in june and

has testified before congress. and so what we've seen is that the president increasingly gets frustrated. he also thinks that pompeo is not doing enough to block some of these state department officials from testifying. and so he confronted him about this at a lunch on october 29th. he went in angry, we're told, and pompeo defended himself and said, you know, i don't know half of these people, it's not my fault, it's a big bureaucracy, i can't control everybody, and we've gotten conflicting reports on what -- kind of where the status of the relationship is now. one person said they patched things up in the lunch. another one said that pompeo continues to be, quote unquote, iced out. but this is all coming at a time when pompeo is considering his own political future, whether or not he'll run for senate. and we know he has ambitions for potential presidential run at some point. these tensions are the first that we've seen in this relationship, whereas, the president, as you know, has had

tensions with almost everybody who's worked for him. >> all right. thank you. >> thank you, carol. >> are we surprised every single time when the president turns -- how can you be surprised? >> other than it turned out pretty well for jeff sessions who's running for senate now and -- >> just awful. joining us now a member of the house committee, and mia wiley and managing editor of the examiner, jay caruso joins us. >> congressman, "wall street journal" story broke yesterday, who needs white house tapes? we got emails. >> lots of them. >> we've got emafls sondland emaili emails of sondland emailing the chief of staff saying, great news, the investigations are going to move forward. i expect we're going to hear a lot about that this week. what's the implication of that?

>> you are going to hear a lot about that this week. last week was three extraordinary diplomats testifying. america saw what the state department is made of. this week is really -- i think the centerpiece is likely to be ambassador sondland. because what happens this week if i can riff a little bit on that famous question from watergate, what did the president say and who did he say it to? because other than the transcript that is there, we don't know the background conversations. now we have a couple of people that can talk about that. it's interesting on these emails. the president is refusing to provide any documentation, state department refusing to provide emails, all these documents. now apparently "the wall street journal's" getting them. that's going to corroborate case that this president was very clearly holding up aid and a meeting in exchange for these investigations. >> mia, talk about this past week, last week thought just substantively it was an extraordinary weekday after day after day. and whoever's setting this up is

doing an extraordinarily skillful job. now we're coming into week two with this new sondland evidence right before sondland shows up on wednesday. >> yeah, i completely agree with you, joe. i mean, the cadence of the week that i thought was so pivotally important was the fact that the story of the primary national security issues of the country became much more vividly clear than it had when we were only reading deposition transcripts, right? i mean, so the wilsits, startin with bill taylor, were able to say 13,000 ukrainians have died. this isn't a theoretical issue about national security and start to explain what the national security issues are. and the implications of holding up not just the aid money, i mean, i think this is important. we keep talking about whether it's a quid pro quo related to actual military aid.

but making very clear how pivotally important for national security even the meeting with donald trump and zelensky was to send a signal to moscow that the u.s. was standing beside the ukraine. and that, i think, is such an important setup to the notion of abuse of power for personal gain against the interest of the united states. that's what sets the foundation for impeachable. and that's high this comiwhy th is so important for gordon sondland, because he is the person from what we heard about the deposition friday afternoon that had direct conversations with donald trump. so starting to erode the plausible deniability that the president wasn't directly involved. >> and his memory is evolving, certainly. >> a lot of people talking about arms for dirt, quid pro quo. >> yeah. >> as mia said, when you strip it all away, what this is about

is the undermining of america's national security. >> absolutely. >> that simple. he undermined america's national security for his own personal gen fit. >> i benefit. >> using the phrase quid pro quo, another way of zrieping de it might be extortion, bribery. it's a crime. there's a focus on the crime, congressman, but there's so many sub categories of news happening as this all plays out. i'm thinking of the president live tweeting about the former ukrainian ambassador as she is testifying. i mean, clearly witness intimidation at the very least, is that fair to say? >> well, that continued through the weekend. >> yeah. >> attacking other witnesses that were going to be testifying in the future. >> look, we should be clear about that. apart from the damage done in ukraine, which may not be felt by your average american in pennsylvania, all that intensive, yeah, vladimir putin is watching this very carefully.

what vladimir putin is seeing is that the president of the united states will go way out of his way to accommodate not the american national interests, but the russian interest. this is really important. not necessarily for ukraine, although that's pretty important, but this is important about what putin thinks can he get away with vis-a-vis nato, vis-a-vis what's next after ukraine, in the middle east. and, yeah, mika, you're right. i know we're having this long debate about extortion versus bribery. bottom line, bribery is when i pay you do something corrupt. extortion is where i threaten you into doing something corrupt. frankly, in my opinion, it's both. >> it is both. >> hey, jay, jonathan lemire. wanted to get your take on the republican reaction, what was a devastating week for the president as the first couple days of the hearings rolled forward. there was one home where congressman ratcliffe after one of the sessions reporters went up to him and tried to ask him a question and he whipped out his phone and began talking into it although according to the

reporters the home screen was visible and there was no call in progress. >> i've done that walk through airports. >> did i that this morning when barnicle came up to me. >> but i want to get a sense as to what you are you're hearing as to what republicans thought about last week and what their approach might this week as gordon sondland and vindman testify in the next couple of days. >> i think what you saw so far, what you saw last week was a lot of muddying the waters. and that's what they're going to -- that's where i think republicans are going to want to continue to do. it is very easy to -- to completely dismiss what happened, but it's not plausible. so what you do instead is you kind of, again, you muddy the waters and say this is second and third hand information and now when it comes down to the person who is there, they're going to say then they'll go to -- extend it to that doesn't matter. these are bureaucrats, they don't get to set policy, the president of the united states gets to set policy.

they'll continue to, like, work around the underlying facts in a way where they can kind of cloud the issue and essentially kind of keep the polling at this where we see right now as this kind of this split, this 50/50 throughout the country. if they can keep it there at that level, then they know that it's not going to get to a point where there's going to be hardly any republicans who are going to convict in the senate. and thin you men you may have a about whether they'll file articles of impeachment. that's the strategy going forward with sondland. they'll try to undermine what he said, the things that he said or take a stance where it's not a big deal what he did or what the president did. >> so on jay's point, mia, just a straightforward question. is the conclusion here basically foregone? right? impeachment and acquittal in the senate? it doesn't seem like there's anything worse or more terrible that could come out in these hearings. the basic outlines -- >> do we know that? >> it's possible.

but let's say the basic outlines -- >> you never know what's going to happen in the trial. you never know what's going to do happen in hearings. nobody could have guessed what was going to happen in watergate. >> but watching these last two weeks, right, what we've seen is that the basic story hasn't changed, it just gets more and more detailed, right? >> but the details are critical. i'm actually with joe on this one, because think about friday. well, first of all, many of us, or at least i thought it will be useful to hear from the ambassador, but not that mind blowing, right? but donald trump's own behavior actually undermined the republican efforts of defense. if you remember the republicans press conference after they literally had to dodge the question about donald trump's tweets. they couldn't even respond in realtime to what those tweets meant because they were so abhorrent. and then we find out the thing we didn't know, when which was that there was going to be evidence of a phone call between

sondland and trump on july 26th, the day after. none of us knew that evidence was going to come out on friday until it came out. and now we're hearing that there are two additional witnesses to that call we haven't even heard from. so i think, you know, as neil says in his tweets, drip, drip, drip. drip, drip, drip is going to possibly turn into a flood. we don't know, but i think it is if we have learned anything from this process, what we have seen, "wall street journal" emails, where did these come from? state department. >> people are talking. >> people are coming forward despite what i would call -- we call it witness intimidation, it's abuse of power of the presidency to use his public twitter to basically send a message for folks to obstruct congress. that's a constitutional violation, in my view. >> right. so all of these things total up to we don't know. so you could be right, nick, but i think we've seen enough to

know we don't know. >> do we know more about this phone call from david holmes who i guess did a private deposition on friday? >> yeah. no, i wasn't in in that deposition so i can't comment on what he said. but i think mia's point is exactly right. if these open hearings have been characterized by one thing, this surprised me, it is that there have been surprises. so, you know, on day one i guess it was when ambassador taylor comes forward and says, hey, you know, my aide overheard this phone call, we didn't know that. this now turns out to be one of the centerpieces of this thing. there's an interesting dynamic going on right now. you talk about the emails coming outs and people coming forward. if you're in d.c. and listening to these people and talking to these people, a lot of people watched what that whistle-blower did. i know the republicans are hell bent on gets getting the whistle-blower in or reasons that escape me. everything he's said hafs. >> has been corroborated. >> he actually made things

better for donald trump because as jon meacham said last hour, if had not revealed this when he did, then donald trump would have actually kept extorting the ukrainians to a degree that the situation would have been far worse, far more people would have died in ukraine. >> yeah. and that's exactly right. and my point was that people are now looking at the whistle-blower, they're look at bill taylor, they're looking at marie yovanovitch who, i mean, if you were in that room, my god she was just exuding courage and nervousness. a lot of people are saying, wait a minute? what's my responsibility? if people who are relatively junior apparently in the intelligence community will risk everything to stand up for their country, there's a lot of people saying, what's my responsibility? and that is not a good moment for the president of the united states. >> congressman jim himes, thank you very much and mia wiley, thank you as well for coming on this morning. coming up, president trump's assent to the oval office generated excitement among america's business leaders. but poor policy choices have now

pushed ceo confidence to the lowest level in a decade. our next guest explains why trump is bad for business. next on "morning joe." we'll be right back. business. next on "morning joe." we'll be right back. ♪ hi honey, we got in early. yeah, and we brought steve and mark. ♪ experience the power of sanctuary at the lincoln wish list sales event. sign and drive off in a new lincoln with zero down, zero due at signing, and a complimentary first month's payment. the magic moment... congress really democratized wall street...

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we've been talk polls this morning. another one from south carolina shows joe biden still holds an overwhelming lead in that state. this time with a 28 point margin. biden has 45% support. in the latest cbs news you goff poll elizabeth warren comes in second with seven teen%, followed by bernie sanders 15, mayor pete buttigieg 8% up 4 points and kamala harris with 5%. >> it's so interesting, joe biden, if you look at so many states past iowa, new hampshire, joe biden is still way out no

front. here you've got a south carolina poll, a state that matters, it seems like this joe biden can survive the first two states he may be in good shape. >> yeah, i continue to caution people had they talk about iowa. if you go back to 2004 say perfect example. howard dean was leading in iowa up until about a week before the iowa caucuses. >> yeah. >> and he wound up finishing third. and new hampshire is another wildcard. but where scar -- where biden shows his strength right now -- >> wow, joe. >> that's a first. >> freudian slip. >> it could be one of those things. joe's a democrat anyway so maybe he should run for president. >> everybody else is. >> nothing wrong with being a democrat. >> there you go. >> all right. go ahead. >> where biden still has his biggest strength is with african-american voters. that's what you're seeing in south carolina. so -- and that's where pete

buttigieg still has a big weakness with african-american voters. it will be interesting to see over the next month and a half into january when people start paying more attention if we see these numbers shift. if not, biden could be in a good position once you get into those super tuesday contests, even with him showing polling not very well right now in iowa and just kind of like in the middle in new hampshire. >> and, rev, it brings up the question that a lot of people have said but we started talking about the past couple weeks. for republicans, a majority white party, overwhelmingly white party, it makes sense to start with iowa, new hampshire, grassroots, go up, knock on the doors, do it the way jimmy cart der it carter did it in '76. but for the democratic party of 2020, predominately whites should start in south carolina, then they should go to, i don't know, illinois. then they should go to

mississippi. i mean, those two states are so demographically unrepresentative of the democratic party that i can't believe they're still starting the races in those two states in 2020. >> the calendar certainly should be different. when you look at fact that you cannot win without the black folk and without the brown folk, but you're going to start the process in an ultra white state and back it up with a state that's almost as ultra white. >> yeah. >> it does not make sense. and i think that it clearly is a time to change the calendar where you start your primaries and your caucuses. and i think when you look at the polling in south carolina where joe biden is not only holding, but is increasing, it shows the contrast with iowa and with new hampshire. so you're really playing against yourself at the end. the thing i think people have to

deal with with joe biden's support in the african-american community especially if south carolina is you've got to give them a reason to leave joe biden. joe biden was barack obama's vice president, they know him. we have problems with the crime bill 20 years ago, but give me a reason. and you can't just say, okay, i'm just a new guy that's reason enough. because that is not going to shift a lot of people. >> you know, the democratic party has always been divided, as you know a lot better than i do between the bill clinton side of the democratic party and the bill bradley side of the democratic party. nothing wrong with the bill bradley side of the democratic party, but that's the part of the party that, you know, excites a lot of people on the upper east side of manhattan, does not excite as many people in the church pews in south carolina. this field is predominately tipped to the bill bradley side. you need both sides to win. obama got both sides. but tree dominately tipped. joe biden is pretty much

occupying that clinton side of the party by himself. >> and think that's very important, that's why i talk about dealing with a comfort level of voters like in the black church or wherever else you're going. and when you deal with somebody that people feel comfortable with, people will say, all right, they may have flaws but they relate to me, i can relate to them, they understand my life. that's a lot different than the elitist, the people that you and i talk about all the time. >> the goat milk -- what did -- what did sir -- >> latte liberals. >> avocado toast, that point he. that elitist sir john kennedy. >> a lot of liberals sometimes end up talking to themselves and difficult looting themselves where people are getting instant coffee and grits, they're not in that conversation. >> you know what rev and i have when we go to breakfast in south

carolina? sanka. a little hot water, you stir it up. that's all we need. i know sir john from louisiana -- big john kerry supporter by the way. >> joe sneaks his spoon in my grits and gravy, but not supposed to. >> earlier were were talking about whether or not president trump is bad for business, taking a look at different numbers that might be indicators. let's bring in from "fortune" magazine jeff colbin, his story "why trump is bad for business" which explains why ceo confidence is at the lowest level in a decade. i thought they loved him. >> instead of asking the question the way donald trump would ask the question, why wall street at all-time highs, i'll ask it a different way which is why is wall street hitting record highs at the same time, at the same time that ceo

confidence is dipping so much. >> that's a great question. it's an obvious question. the answer really is that wall street is deciding the risk ofry session is not as great as they thought. they had risk of recession built into the stock market all through the summer. >> and we have heard over the summer, 50% of economists said we would be in a recession next year. >> that's right. 75% of chief financial officers in corporations said we would be in a recession by some time next year. if you look at the numbers today, it looks like, well, maybe not. there doesn't have to be a recession. we're going to have a slowdown and nobody seems to doubt that. if it isn't a recession which was priced in, then the prices are going to go up a little bit. but the other important point is, this new -- these new highs that the market is hitting these days, they're only a little bit higher than where the market was almost two years ago in january of 2018. so when we say trump is bad for business, his first year, he was

great for business. his first year almost to the day. after that, he's wiped out all the great stuff he did in that first year. >> through the tariff taxes, the protectionism? we do, by the way, we do have a gloenl recession in terms of manufacturing because of the trade wars. >> and his behavioral uncertainty. >> you've really hit some of the biggest issues. it is primarily tariffs and trade war, immigration. business hates what he's doing with immigration. they want immigrants. and then overriding everything or overlaying everything, uncertainty. this incredible, unprecedented uncertainty about policy in general. business hates that. >> so furthering on the point about trade, let's focus on china in particular. phase one was supposed to have been completed earlier this month at the summit in chile

which was canceled. now the date seems to slip and slip, looking at december, maybe not until january. how risky is that if this continues to slide or falls apart altogether? the deal is not done yet. >> it's far from done. as you know, when trump first said it was in the works, he said, yes, we have a phase one deal ready, and then he said subject to getting it written. in other words, there wasn't any deal yet. there still isn't any deal. the difficulty is business, wall street would love to see a deal. but can trump make a deal without going back on his whole position that it is trade war with china and he needs a big win if he's going to make any concessions at all. that's really hard and there are people in the foreign service and people in business who think it's going to be very, very difficult. >> jake, wall street, people who make deals each and every day,

the president clearly thinks that's part of his core con constituency. but in terms of planning, it might not be. >> there's always trump's philosophy and then there's how he executes that philosophy. what geoff was talking about with respect to trade, what we're seeing now is more formers going bankrupt than ever before. trump is still lying. he tweeted over the weekend that china is already starting to purchase agricultural products. there's absolutely no evidence of that. they haven't even settled on the dollar amount. trump said $40 billion to $50 billion. china said they might agree to $20 billion. >> jay, i've got to stop you. i want you to look at the screen. this comes from the playbook of kim jong-un. i don't know if stalin could have tweeted this. our great farmers will receive another round of cash compliments of china tariffs, a lie, prior to thanksgiving.

in the meantime, china is starting to buy big again, another lie. japan deal, done. our great farmers. i want to see the propaganda posters. this is five-year plan socialism. except we snow donald trump thinks in five-minute increments. >> collectivism is always bad until it's something trump does and he's using depression era farm programs to bail out farmers for the taxes he's imposed on the same farmers and consumers. it's kind of like they or robbing peter to pay paul and bragging about it at the same time claiming the tariffs are funding this which is absurd. it's gaslighting on a spectacular level. unfortunately, again, his supporters continue to buy into this. sadly the farmers are still kind of hopeful that something will change. there's nothing that shows that's going to happen. >> socialism, by any other name,

it's socialism. geoff, quickly, prediction for the economy between now and the electi election? >> slow. just poor. what he said on the campaign trail was we can get annual gdp growth to 4, 5, 6%. he got it to 2.9% last year and it's headed down. it will be close the two this year, close to two next year. by all the consensus forecasts, less than 2% after that. it's just slow and weak. >> the new piece is "why trump is bad for business." geoff colvin thanks for being on the program. jay caruso, thank you to you, too. president trump suffers back-to-back losses in gubernatorial races. first it was kentucky. this weekend we saw it happen again in louisiana. "morning joe" is back in a moment. joe" is back in a moment >> i stand before you tonight as

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even if it's a better car class than the one you reserved. so no matter what, you're guaranteed to have a perfect drive. [laughter] (vo) go national. go like a pro. see what i did there? you've got to get your friends, you've got to vote. because if you lose, it sends a really bad message. you can't let that happen to me! >> the top office in a deep red state turning blue overnight. democratic andy bashir declaring victory as kentucky's next governor. >> trump took a loss. you've got to give me a big win please. okay? >> reporter: the new political setback for president trump this morning coming from louisiana where voters re-elected the deep

south's only democratic go nor, john bell edwards after president trump held two rallies in the state. >> okay. so either kentucky and louisiana are secretly liberal or president trump is the problem. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it's monday, november 18th. with us we have msnbc contributor mike barnicle, white house reporter for the associated press jonathan lemire. host of msnbc's politics nation and president of the national action network reverend al sharpton and former chief of staff to the d triple scene former director of communications for hillary clinton's presidential campaign, adrienne elrod and pulitzer prize winning columnist and associated editor of "the washington post" eugene robinson. also house editor from the cook political reported, david wasserman. >> we're going to get to another loss for donald trump, but the front page of all the new york

papers talking about mike bloomberg switching on stop and frisk. rev, you talked to the mayor about that. >> what did you hear? >> many years we marched and rallies, i was in one in the lead against this policy saying it was rationally very much a problem because it was a disproportionate amount of blacks and browns being stopped and frisked. he resisted. so when he called me yesterday right after the sermon, i said to him whether it was politically motivated or not, because clearly he's getting ready to run for president we feel, it was an important statement because the national -- many cities picked up stop and frisk as a policy based on new york, the biggest city. we have a sitting president right now that advocates stop and frisk. being that bloomberg was a facilitator of that, despite his motive, i think it was good to

happen. at the same time, though, as one that comes out of a school of thought that you must be con stints, if we're going to hold him to that standard, and we should, we should also hold joe biden to the crime bills standard and bernie sanders who voted for it. now you've got to apologize? then let's be fair across the board. >> looks like we've got a week's worth of headlines today alone. big developments in the impeachment probe with more revelations almost certainly on the way. it is leading to signs of new cracks within top levels at the white house. president trump is attacking an aid to vice president mike pence after she said the president's ukraine call was inappropriate. the president is also fuming about mike pompeo for hiring the state department official's whose testimony threatens to bring down his presidency. meanwhile in a surprise move over the weekend, the president abruptly visited walter reid

medical center for what the administration called phase one of his annual physical. >> a couple weeks after last year's physical? come on. >> what happened? lots of questions here. but we start with more evidence that president trump doesn't have very long political coattails. >> little hands, little fingers, little coattails. >> his son, you lost again speech. john bell edwards narrowly won the second term as governor beating the republican challenger by 1.4 percentage points in a state that president trump carried by nearly 20 points in 2016. the wealthy businessman and long-time republican donor tied himself to prum. he often railed against undocumented immigrants on the campaign trail and portrayed edwards as a, quote, liberal, socialist-leaning governor. edwards, a conservative democratic managed to remain

fairly popular by frequently breaking with the national democrats. he signed into law one of the most restrictive abortion bills in the country, favored gun rights and stouted his willingness to work with republicans. after winning he had a decidedly southern message for the president. >> -- shared love for louisiana is always more important than the partisan differences that sometimes divide us. and as for the president, god bless his heart. >> oh, that's never a good sign when you hear that. i found that out the hard way. gop gubernatorial challenger eddy ris pony came up short -- >> boy, he worked hard. donald trump worked so hard to get him elected. threw so much behind this guy. >> threw so much behind this

guy. >> the people of louisiana will head to the polls. i'm here for a little different reason, called early voting. do you believe it? that's how much i like eddy. i'm here for early voting. i said a not a lot of people do that. they said in louisiana 40% of the vote is early voting. like i said, i think i'll come. but you're going out to replace a radical liberal democratic as your governor john bel edwards. you'll have a republican, tremendously successful man as your republican, eddie rispone. early voting is already under way and i think i'm coming back

here on thursday. do you believe it? i'm doing a double. >> he did a double, joe. he returned to louisiana a little more than one week later and started begging. >> in kentucky we elected everybody. the governor got brought up in a few short days, 19 points. i went, we made a speech, the whole ticket was there. everybody won big. the governor is a really good guy. but 19 points is a big thing and he lost by just a few thousand votes. the headlines, trump took a loss. i lifted him up a lot. you've got to give me a big win, okay? >> he's literally begging. >> he was begging. it's sad to watch a president beg. but, of course, he's lying about kentucky. the thing is, it's incredible. i don't know if anybody knows this or not, but matt bevin was up five points until donald trump went there.

you lost six points for him in one day. is that bad? >> it's bad. >> donald, you need to -- i'm from the gulf coast. how did you lose louisiana? >> that's bad. >> how could you do that? he's calling the governor down there, what, a socialist? that's the most conservative democrat in a long, long time, jonathan lemire, a long, long time. the president went all in. i want you to imagine a business owner whose daddy gave him $400 million. >> okay. >> then that business owner say, i'm going to start casinos in new jersey, right?

imagine that. imagine a guy whose daddy gave him $400 million. we're making this up right now. >> no basis in reality. >> $400 million in today's dollars. he decides he's going to start a casino business, he ends up $9 billion bankrupt. how do you as a republican lose kentucky and louisiana? that's pretty rough. what's the spin inside the white house? >> john bel edwards is a conservative democratic. >> pro life, pro gung. >> jbe is not aoc in this scenario. didn't distance himself from the president much. that was a pretty good kiss-off at the end, bless your heart. there are people around him -- there's no one around him to tell him to stay away from some of his races or tell him his line of attack is not going to work. the president won louisiana by 20 points. you're not going to go in and

paint the governor as a socialist and expect that to win. in kentucky the polling was closer there, there were a few people said maybe you should stay away from. he didn't. he's so desperate not to just feed off a rally crowd which energizes him like nothing else, but instead there's three southern governors erases, he lost two of them. coming up, 2 1/2 months until the iowa caucuses. pete buttigieg has serious momentum. one in four people back the south end mayor there. we'll preview what it means for this week's presidential debate, straight ahead on "morning joe." , straighthe aad on "morning joe."

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♪ >> let's get to the latest iowa polls where mayor pete buttigieg is seeing a clear surge of

support. in the cnn/"des moines register" poll, mayor pete is up 16 points since september putting him in first place with 25%. senator elizabeth warren comes in second, nine points behind with 16%. former vice president joe biden and senator bernie sanders follow, both tied at 15% each while senator amy klobuchar sits at 6%. >> we'll look at the poll in a second. adrian, let's keep those numbers up. there are three things that stand out here. one, of course, pete buttigieg, he's in a great place right now, nine points ahead in this poll. he is surging. you look at his favorables, they're higher than everybody else's. this guy is in good shape and i'm not sure it's going to be easy for them to attack pete the way they attacked elizabeth. the second line, elizabeth warren has definitely plateaued over the last month.

she was on an upswing. i'm not saying it's certainly fatal for her. there's no doubt medicare for all and the math behind it has caused democrats to take a second look there. joe biden, also, he's down -- biden has plateaued in a lot of polls we've seen over the past week, and there's bernie holding in there at 15%. but no doubt mayor pete is on the rise and for now at least senator warren has plateaued. >> you're exactly right. this is great news undeniably for mayor pete in this poll. this is the first time we've seen him on top, nine points aboth elizabeth warren. you couple that with the fact that mayor pete has the strongest ground game in iowa, over 100 people on staff, 20 field offices. you couple his strength in this poll with the strong ground game and that is a recipe for success in iowa. i do want to point out there is a little good news here i think

for joe biden in this poll because when you get into some of the deeper questions in the poll, one of them being which -- what is the most pournt priority for you as a voter, as a caucus goer? the number one priority is electing somebody who can beat donald trump, and that person still in this poll is joe biden. 25% of caucus-goers said they still believe he's the most electable against donald trump. so again, you couple that with the fact, as you mentioned, joe biden is staying steady, plateaued at 15%. that's good news for him. he's doing well in some of the early state polling as well. most notably south carolina. i think the biggest challenge for mayor pete, you mentioned, how does he get a more diverse coalition, attract african-american voters. that doesn't matter so much in iowa, but it does matter if you're going to be successful during the duration of this primary. wednesday night i'm looking to

see who goes after mayor pete. there's got to be somebody who attacks him. i don't know what they attack him on. he's been the mayor of south bend, doesn't have a voting record. somebody on that stage is going go after him. i don't think it's going to be joe biden or elizabeth warren. they have notoriously not gone after, not lodged attacks on their opponents. is it going to be abe klobuchar, cory booker? we'll see. >> my warning to any democrats who attack mayor pete, you've attacked other people on the stage that aren't intellectually nimble. he's into nextly nimble. so you better prepare your attack. he will turn it back around on you. he's different than the others. he's a skilled political athlete. let me ask you, rev, you know this better than anybody. somebody can walk into a black church and they're immediately embraced and they're a part of it. other people walk in the black

church and they seem like they're on mars. i'm not naming any names, but we saw one or two people who looked like they had been dropped in from mars at elijah's funeral. so mayor pete right now is sort of in that second group, and the question is, if this guy does win iowa, does well in new hampshire, he's got to make that turn to south carolina. he's had trouble connecting. i know you talk to him a lot. how does he make that turn? >> he has to talk to people. you're right. you have to show a comfort level among people of color if people of color are going to be comfortable voting for you. that's the challenge. and i think that part of the issue he is going to have to deal with is a policing issue in south bend. >> can we talk about the other issue, too? he's gay. nobody wants to talk about that on tv. you and i are going to talk about it right now.

for older black voters who are conservative with a small c, who the same day barack obama got elected in 2008 helped vote down in california the marriage equality amendment, that's a challenge for him. how does he get past that challenge? >> it's a challenge and not only a black challenge. for older voters. >> right, white and black. >> the question is he's got to confront it. he has to say, and i've said this to him, yes, i'm gay, yes that is my orientation and everybody in here, you may not support my life, but everybody in here has members in your family that is gay and are you saying they shouldn't be president? you've got to face it, deal with it directly, has been my counsel to him. he has to deal with the south bend issue. you're absolutely right, in south carolina there's a difference between those who show they're comfortable? a black church or those, i'm a

preacher and they act like they're running in here from the police or something. they don't belong in here. what are they here for? are they hiding from somebody? >> nod a good look in a political campaign. >> right. >> coming up, among the many unanswered questions linked to the impeachment probe, what might be happening right now if the whistle-blower hadn't come forward? jon meacham tackles that next on "morning joe." s that next on "morning joe." help.

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♪ >> another busy week in the impeachment probe of president trump with several key witnesses expected to publicly testify. tomorrow we're going to hear from jennifer williams, an aide to vice president mike pence along with the national security council's top ukraine expert, alexander vindman. >> can i ask about jennifer williams? i'm confused. i'm confused, jonathan lemire. donald trump called her a

never-trump per, right? >> yes. but isn't she -- doesn't she work for mike pence. >> she works in the state department and for the vice president of the united states. that's a difficult position to have if you're a never-trumper. she was on the july 25th call which is why her testimony is so important. >> look at him tweeting. oh, my gosh. >> gene robinson, she's on the call and she's mike pence's person. i just don't get it. >> i think the explanation is the president is flailing. everybody who says anything negative about him is, of course, a never-trump per. this is a ridiculous charge to level at somebody who worked for mike pompeo and mike pence. it's just not credible. but again, what is credibility to this president? her testimony will be important. vindman's testimony will be important. you look at those first two

public hearings and remember, we've only had two public hearings so far. i was wondering over the weekend, could they, from the point of view of the democratic prosecutors, i'm at a loss to figure out how they could have gone much better in terms of laying out the case on wednesday and then dramatic testimony from marie yovanovitch on friday. it was like a spy novel almost. >> it was, and to have the president live tweeting, basically harassing her or intimidating her in realtime during the hearings really brought the message home. >> i felt the first week was compelling. >> oh, my gosh. >> such a start contrast to trumpism. it was as compelling a contrast as i've ever seen and i thought the first week was devastating for the president. chris wallace has said it. a lot of other people have said it. this second week is lining up to be just as compelling and devastating. again, based on the facts, based

on the facts that are being revealed day by day, step by step, this is being laid out an extraordinary case. >> one of the things that set the week apart, i would any, would be dan goldman's questioning on the democratic side, dan goldman's questioning of each and every witness that appeared before the committee of the it was professional, it was concise, it was to the point, it was deliberative and explanatory. >> tomorrow afternoon lawmakers will hear from former ambassador kurt volker who served as a special u.s. envoy to ukrainian and tim morrison, a former white house national security official. and then gordon sondland, who has acknowledged delivering are quid pro quo message to ukraine. on thursday lawmakers will hear from fiona hill, a former national security official who served as the president's top

russia adviser. >> i would just stay out of her way. she's tough. >> at this point it's really incredible how they're piecing it altogether. author of "soul of america" and rogers professor from vanderbilt university, jon meacham. >> give us an overview of this first week. look at the fact that the watergate hearings seemed to go on forever, for well over a year, what was compressed into one week this first week i thought was extraordinary. >> it was. i had a friend whose mother was dying in the summer of 1973. he's convinced she stayed alive through labor day because she wanted to see the end of the hearings. in this case she would have been able to go and meet her maker more quickly. i think the democrats have arranged the narrative, have told the story in a way that has been, as you say, compelling. but it's not really an arrangement when that's what

happened. i think that's one of the things we have to remind ourselves is, while we've been beaten up in the ring here by trumpism since 2015, there is this central truth which is, as john adams said, facts are stubborn things. here are the facts. we saw pretty clearly the first day what the two stories will be. there's the story of the state department, of the career folks trying to execute a foreign policy in a complicated time, and there's the republican hansel and gretal bread crumbs, it seems to me, whatever he may have said, you know he doesn't mean what he said and we gave them the aid anyway which makes the whistle-blower the potential savior of the trump presidency. if he hadn't gotten caught, lord knows what he would still be doing in terms of controlling,

attempting to control congressionally ap eighted a /* /* appropriateed aid for his own personal benefit. i suspect, i obviously could be wrong, that we've sort of seen the stories here. there's what happened. he has clearly put himself in the position of trying to bribe the ukrainian government or be bribed by it, however that works leigh legally, and the republicans are going to say, well, yeah, it didn't work. >> coming up we'll talk with the denver radio host who says he was taken off show mid show after criticizing president trump. "morning joe" is back in a moment. trump. "morning joe" is back in a moment maria ramirez?

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even in our currently polarized nation, it's my hope that the facts will win the day, that the truth will always

matter, that journalism and journalists will thrive. >> that was former fox news anchor shep smith on his final broadcast last month on the importance of facts, especially in today's political climate. she p left fox news after he was, according to "the daily beast," tired of being attacked by prime time colleagues on his own network. >> for telling the truth. >> those colleagues are more supportive of the president. this weekend radio host craig silverman found himself in a similar situation. he says he was fired, or so he thinks, from denver's knus in the middle of a live broadcast for being critical of the president on the mostly pro trump network. salem media group says otherwise. they tell the "denver post" that silverman was not fired and was interrupted because he had been appearing on competing networks.

silverman said his other appearances were not in violation of his contracted and has since tweeted, he received an email from the network asking th him to stay. >> first of all, let's tell everybody, you're an independent contractor, you didn't have an exclusive deal with them. what happened was you were criticizing -- you had been criticizing the president. you were in the middle of a segment. i think you were talking about roy cohn, they come? the room and they go, you're finished. tell us about it. >> good morning, joe, good morning mika. first of all, mika, i'm not exactly conservative. i'm independent. i ended my show in independence. i've been around this community my whole life and people know my politics, but i love debating conservatives, and i did vote for donald trump in 2016.

my status on the air is really interesting right now, but i'm glad to be with you and explain it as best i can. >> so explain it for us. >> what happened? >> you were fired. what happened? >> right. at the exact moment that my program director came through the studio door after cutting my microphone, he said "you're done." i was in the process of replaying a great interview i had with roger stone in which he talked about roy cohn and roger stone and donald trump all together in new york city at reagan headquarters in 1980. it was very revealing. i was explaining who roy cohn is and tieing him to bill barr now, when all of a sudden i was allowed to speak no more. >> craig, jonathan lemire. question for you. beyond this one particular incident, is there a culture at salem media group, in your

estimation, where there's an expectation that you and other hosts should speak positively of this president? is that said to you either explicitly or implied? >> definitely so. i've met bill boyce on occasion. i was at the white house in july 2017, got to interview a lot of important people, including mick mulvaney. but before i was allowed to go, bill boyce asked, did you vote for trump, and i said yes, i did. i was invited on a very interesting trip. we had a party, a salem party in the bowels of the capitol. mitch mcconnell, kevin mccarthy, hundreds of congress people, but they were all republicans. look, god bless the conservatives, especially here in colorado, a lot of great people. but people know that at knus, the salem affiliate here, you can expect almost unanimous

support of donald trump. but he reached a tipping point with me, he jumped the shark and my audience has been hearing about it since charlottesville, helsinki and of course with this impeachment inquiry. my desire is let's talk about the facts, and i've imposed ground rules, nobody is going to say hoax or sham or witch hunt or more violent words like queue or civil war. my audience was digging it and they took me off the air. >> on that point, there are certain conservative networks with that kind of openness to the facts. i wonder, going forward, you think there's an appetite for conservative viewers and listeners around the country to hear a fair and balanced account of what's happening with the impeachment debate right now? >> right, i love talk radio. listened to it growing up. i've been a part of it for decades, and it's just a shame

that we can't have good honest discussions about it. i did go on another radio show because there's a conservative in town who can actually intelligently debate these things which i think is marvelous. joe, you're a lawyer. the adversary system works. let's talk about the facts and argue about it and let the jury and the public decide. >> i agree. i agree. and i am an attorney, but not a good one. craig silverman, thank you so much. it was great hearing from you. >> thank you. >> it is interesting, that there are people that tune in, mike, they don't want to hear -- on both sides, they don't want to hear compete interesting. as he was saying, we should have a debate in the free market place of ideas, but that's now how people select their talk radio shows anymore. >> joe, it's not only talk radio, nick, jonathan, they're both here. we're living through an age where truth and facts are being

diminished daily. i never thought in my lifetime, which has been considerable, that we would have the president of the united states leading the charge to diminish both. attorney general william barr defended president trump's use of executive authority on friday and attacked democratic lawmakers for trying to limit his presidential power. during a speech at a conference hosted by the conservative federalist society, barr said democrats, quote, essentially see themselves as engaged in a war to cripple by any means necessary a duly elected government. >> immediately after president trump won election, opponents inaugurated what they called the resistance, and they rallied around an explicit strategy of using every tool and maneuver to sabotage the functioning of the executive branch and his administration. >> the fact of the matter is that in waging a scorched earth,

no holds barred resistance against this administration, it's the left that is engaged in the systematic sledding of forms and undermining the rule of law. >> he's just a liar, and for people in that audience clapping at that, you're disgraceful, shameful, that you are defending -- federal society, when i was in law school it stood for something different, it stood for the constitution, the rule of law. you people are applauding a president and his attorney general who are making the argument that madisonian checks and balances do not apply because donald trump is the president. you are applauding an attorney general who is actually promoting an executive who is saying that article ii gives him unlimited power. when you handed me out flyers at

the university of florida college of law, didn't say you were going all in for a tyrant, didn't say the purpose of this organization is to promote conservative values on the bench, but in the alternative, we may actually support autocrats in training who say, i have unlimited power because of article ii. this is shocking. it's hard to be shocked, mike, every day in the trump era. but the federalist society and the attorney general of the united states are out promoting the idea, donald trump's idea that article ii gives a president unlimited power simply because they talked about the resistance. i wonder, where was barr, by the way, other than making hundreds of millions of dollars, where was barr when mitch mcconnell said that his only job over the

next four years after obama was elected president, was to make him a one-term president? where was bar? does that mean the democrats can shred the constitution? i don't understand. >> joe, everything you've said about bill bar and hr said on a ii is on point. except if you read the speech. some of the elements including his theory, his view in the freedom of information act which is vital to the process of putting news stories together. >> that's true. he was suggesting it's an ann annoyance and imposition on the executives to have to answer information requests from the media, from the press and that congress is not seen fit to give themselves the same kind of checks and balances. i would say in response to that, i would welcome a foil law that covers congress. if he thinks that's unfair, let's find a version that meets

the constitution that can pass, absolutely. i'll love to have a foil law for congress. >> bill barr's constitution is completely different. article ii gives the president unlimited powers. again, this does such violence to what we conservatives always hailed as madisonian checks and balances, a limited executive -- limited executive power. this is outrageous. coming up, "morning joe" viewers know evelyn farkas for her analysis on all things foreign policy, but the former pentagon official is directing her focus on issues most closer to home. she joins us next to explain that. as we go to break, at noyourvalue.com, our monday motivation, how to own your voice live right now on knowyourvalue.com. knowuryovalue. at fidelity, we make sure you have a clear plan

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hi honey, we got in early. yeah, and we brought steve and mark. ♪ experience the power of sanctuary at the lincoln wish list sales event. sign and drive off in a new lincoln with zero down, zero due at signing, and a complimentary first month's payment. if gordon sondland says the president told him conditioned aid to ukraine on investigating the investigating the bidens are you going to say he is wrong? that he is lying? >> look, i know you have been asking and others have asked

hypothetic hypothetic hypothetical questions. all three witnesses were asked did you see any impeachable offenses or bribely. not one person said they saw one of those crimes be committed. >> that very badly mischaracterizes what they said. they were asked, william taylor for example was asked whether or not these were impeachable offenses and he said i'm there as a fact witness, i'm not there to pass judgment. >> joining us now is heidi blake who is out with a new book "from russia with blood." also with us former d.o.d. officials, dr. evelyn farcus who has a big announcement this morning. >> she was actually hired for

that denver talk radio show -- >> no, that's not it. >> so you did research. there is 15 deaths that were treated as suspicious and you have linked them back to vladimir putin. >> yes, that goes back to an investigation by my team at bzzs feed that linked 14 suspicious deaths and we gathered that u.s. spies gathered intelligence linking them to russia, we uncovered a mountain of evidence ourselves, and in all of the cases they have treated them as unsuspicious and shut down any investigation. >> we all heard about the deaths back in russia of journalists, political opponents, but 14 deaths in the uk attached to

putin. it begs the question why so many deaths in britain? >> that is right, i mean nowhere has russia been able to pursue their overseas killing campaign we grosser impunity. this is a pattern which goes all of the way back to russia and putin is notorious for killing critics of his regime. he enabled them for the russian state abroad preponderate united kingdom was a pom lar playgropu playground. and the british government was particularly keen to welcome this super wealthy class. and because the united kingdom has been so keen to continue to cultivate close relationships with the kremlin in the past 15

years there has been an unwillingness to act when the kremlin has cut down it's critics on british soil. >> speaker pelosi, we know the inquire i have focused on ukraine but all roads lead to russia. there is a shadow of russia behind everything. how do you see this? how do you think he is watching this impeachment inquiry play out and how does he influence what the president thought of ukraine. >> the chaos and turmoil consuming america as it gains steams absolutely leads back to russia. that results in the mueller investigation, and tied u.s. politics up in knots for the first couple years of the trump presidency. now the government is paralyzed by the impeachment inquiry and

this was all about donald trump and his boys in ukraine trying to construct an alternative narrative by propagating the idea that this is ukrainian officials that meddled in this election. and that is how they got themselves into this situation. now you have all of the oxygen being consumed be another effort to meddle and it sows disunity and chaos across the country. >> how do you think vladimir putin views the impeachment inquiry into trump. >> normally you would say since he helped elect him, he would

like it, but any destabilization, any weakening, they just want us weak. we're still the number one political and economic power worldwide. we're the ones that can stand up and rally other countries, in theory, sfliegt. >> useful idiot. >> heidi could you go back again to a point you were talking about. why in the wake of state sponsored assassinations one government in specific, great britain, is either unwilling or unable to really go at this in terms of let's deal with this? why why? >> i think western leaders, since putin came to power, has been eager use the opportunity to bring russia in from the cold and try to integrate them into

the -- >> do they not know putin? >> i think it has been increasingly clear in recent years that he never intended to join the club, he has just been plotting a war. but that was not clear at the beginning. putin made a good show of wanting to join the fold, and saying they are continuing to cultivate relations. >> so the interference in our elections inspired you to do something very different with your life. give us the big news. >> i'm having a very know your value moment, seriously. i came on it started on this show i don't know if you remember but i was in the obama administration, i was the deputy assistant secretary of defense. and when we started first hearing about russian interference, but it wasn't even then at that time so clear, it was donald trump and his

campaign having weird relations with the russians. i came on here and i said woe, we need to look into this more. i got attacked by the right wing and from then on i have been fighting hard against what the trump administration is doing not just in terms of inviting foreign interference but eroding our rule of law. i feel like it's a moment for all hands on deck. the representative in my district is legendary. i have all right legislated at the federal level for almost a decade back in washington, and i can help protect american deknock si and do all of the things that i know thousand do. protect against terrorism, protect against kim jong un, and bringing home troops.

>> heidi, if you want to come back in the future and announce you're running for office, you can do that as well. from russia with blood, that is your next reed. -- read. >> when you feel like things are getting out of control, step up and run. time now for final thoughts. joe, why don't you take it. >> i'm a man of few words. ly simpl i will simply say i agree with the federalist, you have an attorney general basically saying that checks and balances are no longer relevant because the democrats are mean. >> a new constitution according to bill barr. >> just the week ahead. three days of open hearings on the hill, the impeachment investigation and the democratic debate on wednesday night. >> and sondland on wednesday.

>> big week. >> thank you mika, thanks joe, it is monday, november 18th and we're at the start of a hugely consequen consequencetial week. eight separate witnesses will be testified on live television about the president's alleged scheme to trade congressionally approved taxpayer money for political favors. jen bennet is on capitol hill jeff what do people need to pay attention to the most? >> i would say pay close attention to the testimony of gordon sondland, the ambassador to the eu that emerged in other witness testimony and is a key player in this entire ukrainian pressure campaign. sondland had to amend