>> mayor bloomberg, how did you get in here? >> well, i tipped the doorman $30 million. >> that is "snl," "saturday night live." fred coming back with the big gulp as mayor michael bloomberg. we have a packed house this morning. msnbc contributor -- a little closer than i'd like seated next to me mike barnicle this morning. jonathan lemire. former chief of staff to the dccc, adrienne elrod. she's an msnbc contribute tosor reverend al sharpton. david drucker, who is also a contributing writer at vanity fair. and in washington, susan page and former chief of staff of the cia and department of defense, now an nbc news national

security analyst jeremy bash. joe and mika have the morning off. we will get to bloomberg getting into the race. plus, the latest of the impeachment inquiry. adam schiff saying it's full steam ahead after the hearings and we now know why president trump was so upset with marie yovanovitch. he claims she refused to hang his picture in the united states embassy in ukraine. that's not true, as you might imagine, but we'll explain. let's start with a shake-up, though, at the pentagon. navy secretary richard spencer has been fired after a dispute over the case of a navy s.e.a.l. accused of wore crimes ar crime marc esper lost his trust in spencer over the handling of chief petty officer gallagher. gallagher had been accused of

committing war crimes in 2017. he was acquitted of murder but convicted in july of posing with the corpse of an isis prisoner for which he was demoted. president trump reversed that demotion and on thursday tweeted that gallagher would keep his trident pin as a member of the elite navy s.e.a.l.s. spencer told reporters he believed the review on his status should go forward. but contrary to those statements, in his resignation letter to the president last night, spencer acknowledged his termination stating, unfortunately it has become apparent that in this respect no, i longer share the same understanding with the commander and chief who apoind me in regards to good order and discipline. i cannot in good conscience obey an order that violates sacred

oath i took. >> this is all about ego and retaliation. this has nothing to do with good order and discipline. they could have taken my trident at any time they wanted. now they're trying to take it after the president restored my rank and after we just filed an ig exposing all the corruption that's been going on during my case. >> in a series of tweets last night, trump said gallagher will retire with all the honors he has earned, including his trident pin. he also announced that admiral and ambassador to norway will be nominated to take over as navy secretary. there's a lot to comb through here. jeremy bash, what exactly happened here as you look at this sequence of events ending with this extraordinary letter that sounded like a letter that mattis put out saying our vision nos longer align talk about the

president of the united states. >> eddie gallagher was acquitted on the most serious charges, but he was convicted of this charge, a lesser charge of posing with the corpse, which in the military culture is way over the line. it's hot dogging at its worst. and the navy s.e.a.l. community wanted to hold him accountable, so they have a peer review process and they analyze whether someone is worthy of holding that coveted trident pin. they were trying to allow the navy to work its process and dh chain of command. but donald trump reached into that process and said there will be no peer review. this guy will get his trident pin, he will be restored his rank. that really rang will senior department officials and they tried to push back and the president said get out of my way, i'm firing the secretary of navy. it's another example, will

littlwillly, over the president getting over his base on national security. >> when we were taking about the testimony of leachalexander vin you sort of predicted this. >> this story is clear it's just outlined. it's against chief gallagher who was acquitted of murder in a trial but found guilty of -- >> misconduct. >> terrible misconduct. >> he did a trophy photo with the head of a teenager. >> they're going to take the trident away from him. they're going to strip him from the trident who is who you are. it's a definition of who you are. >> big deal. >> when they do that with the permission of the head of naval operations, chief of naval operations, does the president of the united states then fire the head of naval operations? >> correct. >> that is going to be an incredible story, because it gets to everything we've been talking about for days here. we are living under a system of broken government. so many norms have been broken,

disturbed, disrupted that this country is now living under a system of broken government. >> that's almost exactly thousand played o how it played out. what did you see over the horizon to make that comment? >> i've seen what you all have seen, the americans have seen, the president is operating and this is a quote, the right do whatever i want. he has said that. he has a white house lawyer, the counsel's office who has said the president can't be prosecuted for anything while he's in office. so what he has done here, jeremy, if you could explain a bit more in detail the code of military justice. the uniform code of military justice, what it means to the military. what it means to try and alter it if you're a civilian, president of the united states, he has in effect altered the

uniform code of military justice. >> look, mike, fundamentally in the military it has to be grounded on discipline. it has to be grounded on uniformity, that's why people wear a uniform, that's why there's a hierarchy of rank. that's why when a commander gives an order he or he had can be assured that down the line, down the ranks individuals will follow that order. fundamentally we need that when they're sending people into the most dangerous, difficult situations. part of that discipline, i would say at the core of that discipline is the court's martial process or in the navy's community bringing someone to admiral's masses. the military takes discipline very seriously and if you step out of line you're going to face consequences. now, when the president or any civilian commander reaches in and says i'm going to offer my own discipline or sweep aside the discipline of the military, that undoes the whole system and undermines the commanders. it's not a pro military thing to do. in fact, i would argue it's a

very antimilitary thing to do for a civilian to come in and say here's my discipline and i'm going to mete it out the way i want to because people on fox news or my social media feeds are saying i should do that. >> this is a very messy story that's taken twists and turns over the last set of 2 or so hours. and some of the facts are still sort of changing if you will. we're learning as to what happened behind the scenes. but this is the president last week tweeted of course that gallagher should not lose his pin. over the weekend, the navy secretary spencer speaking at an event in halifax said i don't necessarily take a tweet as a direct order. we need more official dpiedli s guidelines. in fact, they conveyed to him that he could proceed as he wished. but at the same time he proposed a back channel to the white house that he would let him keep his pin. even though publicly he was saying he should be stripped of

it, but he was trying to work out a deal that he could keep it. that's what esper said last night that he lost confidence. now, the story keeps changing. there will be more details that emer emerge. but this is the president doing what he wants. this is donald trump, as jeremy said, reaching down into the division of pentagon saying it's my way. i will do what i want and regardless of the consequences to the code of justice or the morale among the ranks. >> and the president added yesterday as well, that not only was gallagher's trial handled poorly by the navy, but there were large cost overruns for the past administration's contracting that were not addressed to satisfaction adding another layer, in his eyes, to justification for firing spencer. >> you know, there might even be a larger issue here, because as we've heard day in and day out, the president's behavior is sometimes irrational, but it is

never really defining. you can't say this is what he's going to stick with because h s stumbles into something else quickly. if he can alter the military code of justice, what is to keep him from altering the civil code of trials with the power of his pardon? >> think it's important to understand is that the president also shaves at the limitations on the presidency. he comes into office and has to sort of learn how our system of government works. congress has an enormous amount of power to block him. executive branch is set up to sort of run on autopilot in a way that makes it difficult for presidents to work their will. so what most presidents have done when they do have a lot of power, whether it's foreign policy or military policy, and that's where presidents are generally unchallenged if they want to be, but they've sort of left this system run and act as a bit of a caretaker except on

policy. how do you really effect things versus how are things actually running? the president, because he wants to exercise personal power without being impeded has been very comfortable interceding in things like this. and i think, you know, one thing to look for politically, first of all, is do voters seem to care about this? because that's what the president responds to. and, secondly, if you look at the president's ratings with rank and file members of the military, it has been extraordinarily high. >> yeah. >> so leadership has had issues with him. leadership has clearly had issues with his national security policy. rank and file military members and their families have been very pleased with the president's leadership. if that sort of thing began to change, if he felt pushback there, in many ways trump is transactional. he doesn't have too many things that he necessarily believes in. he just wants to get over the finish line. if he saw some pushback there, then you might see some pulling

back on his part. otherwise, this is one area where it's going to be full steam ahead. >> we'll come back to this story in a minute. some of the president's defenders are taking part in smearing ukraine. we have confirmed reports from the "new york times" that u.s. intelligence officials briefed senators in recent works that russia engaged in a year's long campaign to frame ukraine for its own meddling in the 2016 election. united states official tells nbc news the information about the russia operation was considered classified until dr. fiona hill revealed it in her public testimony at last week's impeachment hearing. but being part of a putin disinformation campaign is not stopping the president or his defenders from pushing or engaging in the debunked conspiracy theory. >> the fbi went in and they told him, get out of here, we're not giving it to you.

they gave the server to crowdstrike or whatever it's called. which is a company ound ownwned very wealthy ukrainian. i want to see that serve. the fbi's never gotten that server. why did they give it to a ukrainian company? >> are you sure they did that? are you sure they gave it to ukraine? >> that's what the word is. >> senator kennedy, who do you believe was responsible for hacking the dnc and clinton campaign computer, their emails? was it russia or ukraine? >> i don't know nor do you, nor do any of us. ms. hill -- >> well, let me interrupt to say the entire intelligence community says it was russia. >> right. but it could also be ukraine. i'm not saying that i know one way or the other. i'm saying that ms. hill is entitled to her opinion, but no rebuttal evidence was allowed to be offered. >> rev, i can't stress enough how deep a conspiracy theory

that was until it reached the white house. it was a crowdstrike thing, crowdstrike's an american company, by the way, it's not a ukraine company. there's no physical server. we can go through this all again as we've done a million times. that was the president pushing on fox and friends. but, again, the second layer of these last three years has been the republican support. the president says something wild, conspiratorial, false, and he has an entire group of snores who come in behind him and support. senator kennedy knows better. he knows that's a conspiracy theory and he's ignoring all the intel agencies when he says that on tv. >> it's frightening when you see senator kennedy confronted by chris wallace saying the entire intelligence community says it was russia. he said the, ye, yeah, but it s be ukraine. in the face of a factual statement they still want to go to this alternative because they are trying to walk in lockstep with donald trump who has decided that he's going to have

an alternative universe that he lives in and we're all going to have to move over there. and if we don't, there's something wrong with us. i think that the thing that is most disturbing is when you have the congressman nunes sitting there and he is the one, the cheerleader, the head of the team that is opposing what the chairmanship is doing in the impeachment hearing. now we find out that he, himself, was directly involved in trying to go and see if they could get some dirt on the bidens. and no one in the republican party, no one in the republican leadership has seen that is at minimum a conflict of interest. he sat there the whole hearing process being the spokesperson, the lead on the opposition. and he was involved personally. and we're told probably taxpayer monies chasing down this whole

attempt to smear joe biden and his son. if had is not the epitome of trying to play the public against the truth, i don't know what is. >> rev's talking about the giuliani social lev parnas that devin nunes was making contact with ukraineianian officials to dirt on joe biden. adrienne. >> it's extraordinary, willie. we all remember when all of the intelligence agencies came together in a very rare statement several months before the election in 2016 declaring that russia is indisputably meddling in the 2016 election. as a former clinton aide, i saw this first hand, i witnessed it first hand. and the fact that you have all these republicans now who are going against what our intelligence agency said and saying, oh, maybe it's ukraine. willie, there are days that i wake up and feel like i'm living in an alternative universe, and this is one of those days.

>> mike, all you have to do is listen to dr. fiona hill in her testimony. she made a point in her opening statement a couple paragraphs in to say your ukrainian conspiracy they're requires garbage. i study this stuff for a living, it was russia, it was russia, it was russia. >> and what happened? >> we just saw it. >> yeah, that's what happened. so, susan page, i don't know about you, but i sit here nearly every day baffled, really baffled in wonderment as how so many people who you would expect more of, like senator kennedy like we just saw, steam sell the seem to sell their souls to a lie, to a myth, to a conspiracy from donald trump and who handcuff themselves in history and for now and forever. i no longer know what is going on in washington, d.c. you're there each and every day. i understand your charge with writing now most every day. but do you ever pause to wonder about the same things that i

just mentioned? am i alone here? >> you know, when we try to figure out to make sense of things, to make sense they've story and we look for historical examples that give us some framework to think about it, there really aren't any. we talk about watergate, which was in some ways a similar sort of impeachment proceeding. but the big difference, i think, between watergate and today is the state of the parties. and particularly the way the opposition party, the republicans, have not been jurors, they've been advocates. there has been -- the one stunning thing about the whole process, the mueller investigation followed by the house intelligence committee hearings is the failure to move really a single republican vote. there is -- mitt romney's been somewhat critical, but you still don't have a republican standing up in the role that you saw republicans stand up during the watergate era. and you don't have to look just back to be alarmed by this. look forward.

fiona hill, like robert mueller before her started out by saying what we ought to be looking at is the next 'election, not the last election. because the russia interference that marked the last election is going on for the next election. are we doing things effectively to avoid the same kind of situation that we faced last time as a democracy? >> jeremy, i want to pick up on susan's point there. it's not that just fee een hill tried to debunk these conspiracy theories, somebody else was talking about russian interference last week. vladimir putin. in an event in moscow, he said with the americans focused on the meddling the pressure is off. they're talking about someone else met eling, nddling are not how damaging is this going forward? account american people have any confidence that this government is taking steps to prevent the russians from doing this again? >> well, what fiona hill warned against was that the republicans

who are echoing the ukrainian -- let's not call it a conspiracy theory, let's call it what it is, a lie. the ukrainian lie, those are republicans who are echoing it are doing the bidding of russia wittingly or unwittingly. they are playing into the hands of a russian operation to undermine the 2020 election. and, of course, the reason why the impeachment is so important, this impeachment process is so important, is because we are a year away from an election and what trump was fundamentally trying to do was rig the 2020 election. that's why those who say well, let's just senscensure him, the no purpose, no. he's doing this again in concert with the benefit of the russian intelligence services. so we've seen this movie before and we know how it ends. it will benefit donald trump and that's precisely why he and his allies are doing this. >> and now we have senator lindsey graham opening his own investigation into joe biden and

ukraine. still ahead on "morning joe," former new york city mayor michael bloomberg is officially now making a bid for the presidency with the other 2020 white house hopefuls are saying about his late entry. plus, the new reporting that the top republican on the house intelligence committee devin nunes may be involved in the very plot the committee is investigating in ukraine. but first, bill karins has a look at some incoming thanksgiving storms. bill, what are you locking at? >> a very stormy pattern. two big storms. the east coast looks better than most. middle of the country and the west coast, it's going to be troublesome to get to travel locations by thanksgiving especially if you have to do traveling in the air. the storm that plagued is just about gone. now we're going to watch today. actually, out of all the days coming up, this is the best travel day by far. east coast is clear, lots of sunshine. middle of the country no problems. but the staorm is brewing in th

middle of the country. we're going from denver to minneapolis, a snowstorm. 80 is going to be treacherous. tuesday in wednesday it's going to be a snowstorm for you. wednesday, the busiest travel day, windy conditions on the east coast with rain. it's not going to power aur all there will be on and off rain and windy conditions and that storm will be exiting by thanksgiving day in the northeast. for new york city it looks windy and the balloons are going to be iffy. here's the airport forecast. fastforwarding to tuesday, huge storm into the west coast, san francisco to portland, significant days and cancellations. denver with the snowstorm tomorrow into minneapolis. chicago, st. louis, minor delays. the same goes for a lot of the airports on the east coast. i put new york city and laguardia and jfq just because of the wind alone. there's going to be a lot of

people that are going to have to have patience over the next calm couple of days and in the air. thanksgiving day, just plain old windy. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. ndy. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. (people talking) for every dollar you spend at a small business, an average of 67 cents stays local. shop small and watch it add up. small business saturday by american express is november 30th.

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mike bloomberg started as a middle class kid who had to work his way through college, then built a business from a single room to a global entity creating tens of thousands of good-paying jobs along the way. he could have stopped there. but when new york suffered the terrible strategy did i of 9/11, he took charge becoming a three-term mayor who brought a city back from the ashes. now, he sees a different kind of menace coming from washington, so there's no stopping here. because there's an america waiting to be rebuilt. mike bloomberg for president. jobs creator, leader, problem

solver. it's going to take all three to build back a country. >> former new york city mayor michael bloomberg as you just saw there has officially entered the 2020 presidential race. he also made a $31 ad buy for television commercials which dwarves the entire advertising budgets of rival campaigns. here's how shf some of the other candidates reacted to mayor bloomberg getting in the race. >> we do not believe that billionaires have the right to buy elections. that is why multi billionaires like mr. bloomberg are not going to get very far in this election. >> elections should not be for sale. not to billionaires, not to corporate executives. we need to build a grass-roots movement, that's how democracy is supposed to work. >> money will not win this election. connecting with people will. >> you know, listen, we got to get money out of politics. let me just be honest with you. i mean, i got to raise a ton of

money to be competitive and, you know, there's some people that started this race with $10 million. >> so, adrienne, mayor bloomberg $31 million out of the gate. other campaigns eyes popped and said $31 million to spend. he's skipping ahead. he's not going to play in iowa or new hampshire. he's going right at it in super tuesday. what, if anything, does mike bloomberg who is polling at 1% or 2%, what does he to do to this race? >> that's left to be seen. he's running first of all completely unconventional campaign. he's not playing in the first four states. he's playing completely on super tuesday. he's not going to be on the debate stage because he's not taking donations. going forward they'll take make sure that the donor threshold continues to increase so it becomes more of a challenge to get on that debate stage. is we have to assume that's not going to be part of his plan. but he's got unlimited amounts of money. question becomes, how does that play? can he overcome the stereotype that some -- the candidates and

voters are already saying, which is this guy's trying to buy his way into the race? what is the case that he's going to make to the american people? why should i be president other than these 17 people who have been running really since the spring, if not before? so that's what's going to be fascinating to see, is can he actually overcome the stereotype about having this billionaire from new york, now he, tryiyou his way into the election. he's a very successful tenured post mayor. he's used his philanthropy in a positive way, gun control, climate change issues. i assume he'll be running on that platform. he's got a strong team behind him, some of the best democratic strategists that we have in the party. i'm confident that they have a plan going forward that is based on analytics, polling data, that is based on a number of reasons that make them think there's a path to him winning this primary. >> the case for mayor bloomberg is competence. and what he's saying is i'm actually the guy president trump

preended it p pretended he was. not beholden to anybody because of all the money i have, et cetera, et cetera. but there are a lot of democrats, as you know, who are saying that's great, we could use all that money you have, but you don't have to get in the race. go after the president from the outside, but don't take from the others. >> i think that is exactly right. that's what they're saying. i think what he's saying, though, is that he thinks that, in my opinion, that there's going to be no clear winner after the first few early primaries and therefore he can come in and sort of like the grownup has shown up now and let's put this together and defeat donald trump. and if, in fact, you have one winner in iowa, another in new hampshire, another in south carolina and nevada, then he feels can he come in and dominate and show that he has a clear shot and that he is enough of a centrist to where he can do that. even in new york where he and i

tus will tussled a lot, we could work on certain areas. i certainly opposed the stop and frisk, and finally saw him admit 13 years later we were right. but i never forget he and i met with president obama and president obama asked him and i and newt gingrich to tour the country about education. and bloomberg put up the money for the tour, put up the funds to look into this. so he works in a way that is not going to be as easily targeted as the left or the right, particularly with right voters. because the right has never been right with blacks and the left has left us out. so we're open to an argument that makes sense. i don't know that bloomberg is that argument, but i don't think people ought to just say that south carolina blacks or any other blacks are going to go lockstep when all sides have really abandon a lot of the interests that our community is concerned about. >> david, unlimited money is the wildcard here. can he do whatever he wants.

he's worth $52 billion, so the bank account is wide open for this race. beyond that, what is the lane for the 77-year-old new york billionaire in this race? >> right. for everybody that is lamenting the crash and burn of the howard schultz campaign, we now have michael bloomberg who is running as a center left independent even though he's running in the democratic primary. i think in the democratic primary there is a market for somebody who is center left liberal and not far left progressive. and so it's not like there's no calling for that. i think the question for bloomberg is, one, can you even though we've thrown out convention so many times, can you win a primary, democratic or republican, by ignoring the early states? we have no evidence to suggest that you can show up on super tuesday, no matter how much money you have, and gain momentum and ath nation imaginar

party. you he sshow up on super tuesdad people have formed opinions. and i think he'll make an electability argument, whether he says it outright or not. but you have to ask as a matter of cultural politics, not economic policy or security policy, but on guns, issues like marriage, issues like abortion, can he compete with president trump in the right states with the right voters enough to eat into his margins, particularly with white working class voters so that he can do damage in wisconsin, in michigan, in pennsylvania? and the democrats, as well as they have been doing, have a lot of trouble right now in western pennsylvania, in wisconsin as we saw with the new poll, and even michigan. and don't forget florida. if he cannot make that argument successfully, then you have to ask other than the fact that he would be a competent leader from a political perspective, what is the argument for bloomberg?

>> you know, susan page, the argument for bloomberg might lie in one paragraph in his announcement statement, and it's similar to what the former vice president joe biden has been saying out on the campaign trail when bloomberg said in the statement that if donald trump is re-elected, we might never be able to repair the damage that he's already dup. and if you go out there anecdotally what you pick up, i'm sorry to upset people at home, impeachment isn't the issue. basically the issue that is driving this thing right now in the middle stages of the presidential campaign seems to be, hey, fix the roads, would ya, for god sakes do something about health care. do something about prescription drug costs. so where do you think mike bloomberg stands in that parade of candidates even with all of his money in terms of, hey, fix the roads? >> so maybe america's looking for a mayor, you're saying.

somebody who deals with the problems in their daily lives and certainly there's some history is there. i do think that bloomberg is doing something no one's done. giuliani tried to do it, jerry brown tried to do it after the early contests and get some momentum toward maybe a brokered convention. i'm 100% in favor of a brokered convention because i think that would be fun to cover. bloomberg has $31 million this week, $31 million next week, $31 million the week after that or ads. but what do democratic voters want in a presidential canned zmat that's not ideological, it's an ability to defeat donald trump. if he manages to do what you just suggested. if he manages to say to americans i'm the candidate who can defeat donald trump at a time when there's some nervousness about joe biden's strength as a candidate, there's

nervousness about elizabeth warren and whether she is too far left for america, that is the rather narrow lane that i think mike bloomberg is trying to drive down. >> there all vad mayor in the race, but he's the mayor of a city in indiana, not the mayor of new york. we've seen 2015/2016, this is a new twist to this one. we've never seen a candidate come in this late with any success and certainly we've never seen it's the money. it can't overstated. it's $31 million dropping today in this week and it's going to be an onslaught. he's a billionaire. bloomberg could drawf what he did. and we'll have to see if it's wall-to-wall coverage, diminishing returns, do people tune out the ads. and can you run a presidential campaign simply by advertise something bloomberg is not good on one on one retail interactions. neither was donald trump. but trump was out there night

after night with the rallies and folks got to know him through the rallies. bloomberg will have be out there in some way for voters to know him and trust him. but if anyone can do it with his money, it's him. >> as someone who ran against bernie sanders last time, how do you think bernie sanders and elizabeth warren are feeling about mike bloomberg getting into the racing a here's another billionaire who wants to spend all his money and spend all his money. is this what we're running against, they'll say. >> i think they're enjoying it because they'll get the case as to why they're running. we are trying to get big money out of politics and we're trying to focus on the people. the two of those candidates in particular have raised a lot of money, significant amounts of money from small grassroots donors. so they get to go out there and say not other we raising money from a small army of -- small -- in small donor amounts, but we're also able to build this army of people who are going to support us and sustain us

throughout this campaign. whereas michael bloomberg to ist taking donations from anybody and he's using his own money to buy this election. it's kind of playing right into their hands. but what do the voters want? do they care about is that? that's left to be seen. >> rev. >> i think we should not ignore deval patrick that could make an impact in this sense. if the iowa goes either way, when you get to new hampshire, you are looking at his backyard where he was governor as elizabeth warren was senator. if deval patrick comes in in the top three in new hampshire, it changes the race going into south carolina where you have a former black governor who proves some electability in new hampshire. so as much as i agree that liz warren and bernie sanders may be happy to see a bloomberg come in because it gives them a good punching bag, they've got to be concerned about the deval

patrick impact in new hampshire that could upset both of their games going forward. that, if i were them, i'd be up at night looking at patrick more than i would be celebrating bloomberg as my punching bag. >> patrick still has a big climb to get up there. coming up, john bolton is back on twitter claiming the white house locked him out of his account. the white house hitting back saying bolton's, quote, advanced age may be to blame. "morning joe's" back in a moment. to blame. "morning joe's" back in a moment. he could've just been the middle class kid who made good.

but mike bloomberg became the guy who did good. after building a business that created thousands of jobs he took charge of a city still reeling from 9/11 a three-term mayor who helped bring it back from the ashes bringing jobs and thousands of affordable housing units with it. after witnessing the terrible toll of gun violence... he helped create a movement to protect families across america. and stood up to the coal lobby and this administration to protect this planet from climate change. and now, he's taking on... him. to rebuild a country

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welcome back to "morning joe." as the sun comes up over the white house this morning, president trump reportedly angry with former embassy to ukraine marie yovanovitch in part because she refused to hang his picture in the u.s. embassy in ukraine. >> look, the embassy, the woman, she wouldn't even put up -- she's an obama person, you know. i said, why are you being so kind?

well, sir, she's a woman, we have to be nice. this ambassador that, you know, everybody is so wonderful, she wouldn't hang my picture in the embassy, okay. she's in charge of the embassy. she wouldn't hang it. it took like a year and a half or two years for her to get the picture up. she said bad things about me, she wouldn't defend me, and i have the right to change an ambassador. >> let's put to the side she's a woman, we have to be nice for just a moment to go on and say lawyers for yovanovitch say the president's claim is false stating that the embassy in kiev hung the photographs of president trump, vice president mike pence, and secretary of state mike pompeo as soon as they arrived from washington, d.c. in 2017, "the washington post" reported that nearly eight months into trump's term the pictures were not being displayed in thousands of federal buildings because the government publishing office had yet to set of images from the white house. jeremy bash, i'll kick this one to you. this was a problem not just in the embassy in ukraine, but around the world that the photos hadn't come in. president trump, of course,

seized on the one that hadn't been put up and said marie yovanovitch had it out for him somehow because that portrait never made it up on the wall. >> so now we're trashing career foreign service officers who have dedicated their life to defending our country because of vanity, you wouldn't put my picture up. how low can this descend? i think it points out to the fact that the president was looking for any excuse to clear away the obstacles to what he wanted to get done in ukraine. he wanted to do a deal with the ukrainian government that would allow them to investigate joe biden, investigate his political rivals. and where is this going after two weeks of very impressive hearings by the house intelligence committee? willie, i think now that we've heard from 12 witnesses, we've received and seen scores of documents, emails, and text messages, i think now the houses that all it needs to give this case file over to the judiciary committee so they can draft the articles of impeachment. i don't think they'll take more

witnesses or more testimony. and i think we're going to see articles coming out of the committee and a floor vote before christmas. >> susan page, you have the president after two weeks of testimony taking desperate swings at the witnesses trying to suggest that they're political, they're never trumpers, that they're part of the deep state. this time in the case of marie yovanovitch, suggesting she didn't hang a picture on the wall. that's not true of course, and also saying but she's a woman so i have to be careful here about what i say, let's be nice. >> yes, i would like this experience of everyone being nice to me because i'm a woman. that would be great. you know, i think the house intelligence committee understood, house democrats understood that the president was going to attack the witnesses, whoever they were. and that's white witnesses were almost entirely career public servants, not people from partisan offices or partisan points of views, not democratic appointees, not people who had resigned in protest for president trump's election. and the exception was one of his

own ambassadors, gordon sondland. i do agree with the timing that jeremy just laid out, that i think while they would like to have the testimony of more witnesses, including the possibility of don mcgahn, we're waiting for that are court decision, perhaps, today that might clear the way for him to testify. i think they have decided they have what they need, there's no percentage in waiting for more testimony that may or may not come. and that we are going to see rapid fire in the next few weeks articles of impeachment, a vote in the house, it heads to the senate for a trial at the beginning of next year. >> yeah. chairman schiff on meet the press yesterday with chuck certainly suggested he's ready to move forward. susan age, thank y susan page, thank you very much. still ahead. all i'm asking is due to joe biden's scenario when which you did for trump, find somebody, not me, outside of politics to look and see 'it makes sense. >> that was lindsey graham two months ago saying he should not

be the one to investigate the bidens. he has now flipped on that and now vice president biden is hitting back. that story next on "morning joe." hittinbag ck. that story next on "morning joe." ♪oh there's no place like home for the holidays.♪ ♪for the holidays you can't beat home sweet home.♪ we go the extra mile to bring your holidays home.

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welcome back to "morning joe." on thursday, senate judiciary committee lindsey graham sent a letter to secretary of state mike pompeo asking the state department hand over documents on joe biden, his son hunter, obama administration officials, and former ukrainian president petro poroshenko. former vice president joe biden had this response. >> they're asking lindsey graham, they have him under their thumb right now. they know he knows if he comes out against trump he's got a real tough road for re-election rb, number one. i am disappointed and and quite

frankly i'm angered by the fact that he knows me, he knows my son, he knows there's nothing to this. lindsey is about to go down in a way that i think he's going to regret his whole sfwlief whlife >> what do you say to him? >> i say lindsey, i'm just embarrassed by what you're doing for you. i mean, my lord. >> david, what's going on here with lindsey graham? i mean, and i say this not as a rhetorical question, but is his primary challenger that strong? is he that worried about being re-elected in south carolina? he's gone -- because this is beyond what he's done before. he's not just defending the president of the united states, he's going after one of his long time friends in the senate in joe biden to do so. >> yeah. i was in a gag will some weeks back with other reporters talking to lindsey graham and this is the sort of thing he said he would not do. and he's chairman of the senate judiciary committee, he has the power to call witnesses, hold hearings competing with house

democrats. i think a lot of this has to do with running for re-election in south carolina. it's not that he has a formidable primary challenger, but he could. he could face issues back there. what are you doing to help trump. i also think as we're approaching a senate trial and given where the president edefense has gone in terepresid defense has gone, i think senate republicans, at least those that feel like this could be a problem, want to make sure they provide the best defense. and, look, i was talking last week to republicans about what a trial might look like. and the white house has decided not to pressure senate republicans, which you know the president can do and could have done via tweet, why aren't you just canceling this whole thing and moving for an early dismiss at? why don't you ask for this witness? ask for that witness in the he

with put pressure on republicans with their voters and their voters are still with trump. their voters have not broken at all. they don't doubt this at all. two things happen with what lindsey graham is doing. you help sow doubt about the case that democrats are making. you help keep republican voters in the fold. and you keep the president happy and keep him from kris sighti criticizing them in a trial that's going to happen at the beginning of the gop season. >> what do you think would happen do you think joe biden is corrupt? >> i would think that he would say he doesn't believe so. i've talked to other republican senators who believe that notwithstanding hunter biden standing on the board of burisma which was unseemly, that shpoke kin was a bad guy and had to go. although house republicans on

the against committee tried to use that. >> here's where lindsey graham comes from. i'm going to show everybody a clip from the 2016 campaign. huffing post fold lindsey graham around and he's talking about joe biden and the death of joe biden's son beau. >> if you can't admire joe biden as a person, then it's probably -- you got a problem. you need to do some self-evaluation. because what's not to like? i called him after beau died. and he basically said, well, beau was my soul. we talked for a long time. he came to my ceremony and said some of the most incredibly heart felt things that anybody could ever say to me. and he's the nicest person i think i've ever met in politics. >> ask that right? >> he is as good a man as god ever created and we don't agree on much. >> jeremy bash, that was july 2nd, 2015. here we are just over four years

after that, lindsey graham is leading the investigation into a conspiracy theory against joe biden. >> he is as good a man as god ever created. i mean, that's not just a political throw away line, that is a deeply-held, heart felt statement. and it resonates with those people who knew and worked with joe biden in the senate and throughout his 40-year public service career. whatever you want to say about joe biden, whether you like his poll virs don policies, like his campaigning, don't like his campaigning, everyone agrees this sis a decet public servant who has given his life work to the country and does not deserve to be the victim of vicious smear attacks, lies, and frankly unconstitutional and illegal activities by our government to undermine him. >> you can see the sincerity in lindsey graham's voice and his face there and you saw the

sincerity in joe biden's face the other day when he said how disappointed he was in his old friend lindsey graham. thank you both very much. coming up on "morning joe," former homeland security secretary jeh johnson will be our guest this morning. plus, brett stevens makes the case for why president trump should be impeached and removed from office. that in his new piece titled united states is starting to look like ukraine. brett joins us next on "morning joe" when we come back in 90 seconds. next on "morning joe" when we come back in 90 seconds. - [narrator] meet the ninja foodi air fry oven. make family-sized meals fast, and because it's a ninja foodi, it can do things no other oven can, like flip away. the ninja foodi air fry oven, the oven that crisps and flips away.

there's more work to be done, but at the same time we've already accumulated quite overwhelming evidence that the president, once again, sought for an interference in an election conditioned official acts, a white house meeting that ukraine desperately wanted as well as $400 million of bipartisan taxpayer funding to get these political investigations that he thought would help his re-election. so, you know, we view this as urgent. we have another election in which the president is threatening more foreign interference. but at the same time there are still other witnesses, other documents that we would like to obtain. but we're not willing to go the months and months and months of ropeadope in the courts which administration would more than love for douse. >> us to do. >> no public hearings scheduled any time in the future? >> we don't foreclose the possibility of others. >> that's adam schiff yesterday

saying the house will move forward with its impeachment inquiry into president trump. we have msnbc contributor mike barn nickal. jonathan lemire. adrienne elrod. the host of msnbc politics nation reverend al sharpton and joining the conversation, as you can see, columnist for the new york times, brett stevens. also sam stein. and robert costa who is moderator of pbs. this title is the united states is starting to look like ukraine. why president trump must be impeached and from office and how the president is trying to turn the united states in ukraine. brett writes this. we've been living in a country

undergoing its own dismal process of ukrainianzation of treating fictions as fakts facts and propaganda as journalism and political opponents as criminals and political office -- and fellow citizens as, quote, human scum and mortal enemies as long lot of friends. acting as this if all of this is perfectly normal. it's more than a high crime prr, it's a clear and present danger to our moral hygiene. we've heard privately and some publicly from will herd is i've heard some stuff here i don't like. i don't like that the president did this, but by god we're not going to overturn an election and remove this man of office for it. what do you say to that argument? >> i think the president is trying to transform the very nature of american governance in a way that is strikingly similar

to many years of ukrainian politics. lock her up, former president of ukraine did exactly that to his political opponent in -- 2011. the use of political office as a shield against -- as a shield against investigations and criminal prosecution and as a mechanism for self-enrichment. a process that i called another worldzation of politics in which all of these characters who are sort of off stage seem to be the real power brokers. and the final point is major russian interference in domestic politics. i think the real story here isn't what the president tried to do to or with ukraine, it's that he's turning us into ukraine. and at some point the american people, through their representatives in congress, have to make a decision, are we prepared go along with that or are we going to do everything we can to make it stop? >> what do you do with a senate that appears to be ready to go along with it? we heard john kennedy yesterday,

senator from louisiana on national television with chris wallace saying, well, maybe ukraine did meddle. you don't know that and i don't know that. the intelligence agency said we do know that. dr. fiona hill testified it was russia. what do you do with the united states senate that's prepared to go along for the ride with president trump? >> i remember in 1998 during my first impeachment rodeo then congressman lindsey graham saying the house of representatives is going to make a judgment and we hope that the senate, you know, has the fortitude and wisdom to rise to the occasion. obviously as political realists we know we're not going to get 67 republican senators. what i'm asking for is four republican senators. what i'm asking for say 51-49 vote majority saying this president does not deserve to remain in office. i think that will also send a powerful signal for the 2020 election. >> what are your hopes for those four senators? you think you might peel off mitt romney, susan collins, do you think that can happen? >> susan collins, lisa murkowski, maybe a senator from nebraska. one can imagine a few

possibilities. and mar alexander. >> sam stein, we know what the presidency of donald trump has done to the presidency. it has altered it. do you think anybody involved in this impeachment process in the house or the senate has a handle on how he has altered the country as well? >> i mean, no, i don't think so. and if i can, i want to go back to that adam schiff clip we played up front, which is a big question that's dividing democrats on the hill. and i'm curious for the panel's thought here. but wrapping this up in the next couple weeks and getting a vote out before the end of december, obviously they want expediency, they want to get to this done. they believe that the case has been made and certainly there's been a provocative amount of evidence that's been before. but is there a moral obligation to keep going, right? there's clearly more information that's out there, justice this past friday night we finally saw some emails from the state department that directly

implicated secretary of state mike pompeo, for instance, in talking with rudy giuliani about this stuff. is there not a moral obligation to -- for the investigators to keep digging here? mike pompeo will likely have a career past this administration. there's rumors that he's going to run for senate. i don't know if democrats are feeling any tension whatsoever here to keep going. but i am curious, maybe even bret can weigh in on this if he believes that it's worthwhile to keep going at -- instead of having a quick -- quick vote here in the house. >> see if it's worth trying to weight out, see if you can yet mike pompeo to sit or jude rudy giuliani. >> i suspect bolton's testimony would be damaging. everyone was in the loop. everyone was aware that congressional funds were being impounded for the most nakedly partisan and personal reasons.

the president's -- the president's political interests. i think that's stunning and it ought to be on the record. look, if you -- adam schiff is making a political calculation he doesn't want this eating up too much air time, especially as we go into the elections. but if you say we have a duty to history to set a marker as to what the president did to establish all the facts and that should play out a little bit more. >> bob costa, you're on the hill a lot, you cover the senate and you know republican senators, you talk to them. two questions to you about them. first, to bret's point, do you see any scenario where even four republican senators might defect and vote for removal from office? and, second, going back to our last segment with senator lindsey graham calling for this investigation into joe biden, what are do you make of that? are you surprised considering that the evolution of graham that he would go that far for someone he considers a friend? >> good questions, jonathan. i think if you look at the first part, my whip count remains

pretty much zero when it comes to republicans willing to cross the line against president trump. part of the challenge for democrats when they're talking to senate republicans behind the scenes is the timing. because this is likely to go into an election year and having this come right up before the iowa caucuses and the new hampshire primary, many republican senators that i've spoken to the democrats are talking to feel reluctant to cross that line and say to their democratic colleagues, let's just have the election, it's much more likely that since this is going to be a short two to three week trial. republicans called to dismiss the trial early on. and then you'll see some senate republicans give speeches that are sharply critical to maybe mildly critical of president trump's conduct. but unless the courts rule, which is expected to come today, that don mcgahn should steph at the former white house counsel, that could lead to bolton maybe being called not only in a house inquiry but in the senate trial as a witness, unless you had something that's truly explosive from the republican eyes, it's

hard to see republicans crossing over. and senator graham, he is someone who people wonder how could he give that video and then take his current position? people who know senator graham say right now he still believes can he try to contain president trump on some of his policy agenda, like on immigration. and he has become a true believer in many of these conspiratorial arguments against the government and against federal officials. and they say even when he's in the cloakroom that's how he's speaking. >> so, bob, are you saying that senator graham actually believes it was ukraine that meddled in the 2016 election and not russia despite what all the intelligence allegations have agencies have said? >> no. as a reporter i'm sometimes taken back at how they truly share the grievance against president trump, against the political establishment, against

different people in the diplomatic core. this is something that i thought as first as a reporter was a talking point, and then they just continue to carry this on as an argument. and senator graham is one of those elected officials who does so. >> so how much of the grievance is against the political establishment and how much of it is a perceived grievance against the media? >> it's partly against the media. but as we know senator graham as a good rapport with people at the capital and the campaign trail. i went down his campaign launch a few months ago in south carolina. and when i was standing there, you really understand how he operates in south carolina. those voters in the republican primary in south carolina. he was looking at a possible primary challenge in south carolina are in full force with president trump. he knows where his voters are at in that republican party in the palmetto state and that's where he wants to be. and so it's not that surprising

politically. people wonder how could graham do this? how could the senator take this position? just go to south carolina and you'll see pretty quickly why he's taking the position he does from a politicaler political pe >> he does not believe in the conspiracy theory but he's leading the investigation into the ukrainian conspiracy theory. in a series of tweets, john bolton said friday he has regained control of his personal twitter account claiming the white house refused to provide access to it after he resigned in september. >> are you concerned that they're trying to stop you from testifying? >> i don't know. you'll have to ask the white house. but i can say definitively we have regained control of the twitter account. twitter detached the white house software. >> we have regained control of the twitter account. he tweeted this on friday, in part, speaking up since resigning as national security adviser, the white house refuse

dollars to return access to my personal twitter account. out of fear of what, i may say? president trump and the white house have rejected bolton's claims that they shut down his account. >> john bolton has just got back on twitter. his account was frozen for two months. did you guys freeze his account? >> no, of course not. of course not. no, i actually had a good relationship with john. we disagreed on some things and some methods, but i actually had a good relationship. >> ambassador bolton today, this nonsense about twitter wanting his dedicated, you know, handle, that was never in the possession of the white house, was it? >> it was his permanesonal acco that he used while he was at the white house. >> i don't know a lot about it. sometimes, i'll use my father as an example, somebody who's of an advanced age may not understand that all you have to do is reset twitter and reset your password if you've forgotten it.

i'll leave it at that. >> going right to the advanced age. i'm not making this reporting up, that ambassador bolton may have forgotten his password. >> the white house said they had nothing to do with this. if you forget the password, that's something easily done. saigt si setting aside his twitter, how important is he to the democratic case? should they hold up impeachment proceedings? should they delay moving forward to get bolton to testify first? >> that's a timeline question that i think only chairman schiff can answer right now. to a number of points folks have been making earlier, there's a lot of different timelines. how many people is it worth continuing to try to pursue to get answers? >> some of those folks who have been deliberately and many times name checked in previous testimony. let's not forget over the course of those several days just last week we heard about john bolton, we heard about mick mulvaney, we

heard about mike pompeo. several accounts lining up to name them again and again in terms of the role that they play. john bolton is particularly interesting because to dr. fiona hill's testimony, he was the one that referred to some of these dealings to try to hold up aid and the white house meeting for political purposes and investigation into domestic political rival as a drug deal that was going on. so that's a reference we've heard again and again. yes, obviously he would have something to add to this inquiry, wherever it's going from here. but on the other hand, you know, folks you talk to on the hill and democrats i've talked to say there's a calculation here. and do you hold up proceedings, extend the timeline just to try to get additional testimony that could potentially be helpful to your case? or does that -- their refusal of people to participate end up becoming part of an obstruction case to be made as well? you know, we injured a company members of the house judiciary committee after day three of the

public hearings last week. obviously if they move forward with articles of impeachment that would be the committee that then takes that case on. and they were saying words like bribery echoing what speaker pelosi had said, words like obstruction. we know now the probe into whether or not president trump misled the mueller investigation is something the house is also taking up, could that become part of this impeachment proceeding as well? so it's not yet clear how narrow or how broad democrats want to go on this. and politics is probably going to dictate that timeline. >> rev, there's no question the testimony from john bolton would be significant, important, get it on the historical record. but when you look again at these republicans, we already had bombshell testimony from ten different tem, lieutenant colonel vindman was bombshell testimony in terms of what it revealed. gordon sondland, fiona hill, again, again, down the line. it's important to get it on the record. but will testimony from john bolton suddenly make all these republicans go, you know what?

you're right. we should impeach president trump. >> john bolton can be significant in terms of public opinion going further toward an impeachment or removal. he will mean nothing to the republicans in the senate which is going to be the jury here if, in fact, there is a trial. and i think the calculation on whether to wait for bolton and others will be political. you have to deal with the house that many of them have primaries, how long do they want to continue. and then those five or six that are in the presidential primaries, how long they want to go. i hate to surprise the youth caucus here of jonathan and willie, i guess i'm over here with you, mike. but there is some politics involved in this when they do their strategies on the hill. and i think they're looking at

the timeline. and they're look at evidence that may not matter in the long run in the u.s. senate anyway. >> so if elizabeth warren and bernie sanders and kamala harris and cory booker and the rest are back in washington while biden is out on the campaign trail, that becomes a problem for them as they trying to become president. >>ing it could help the lower-tier candidates like cory booker and kamala harris. they've had strong moments these judiciary committee hearings on the hill, it's going to be different now. i think they could have some strong moments where they remind voters, you know, what they're standing for, why they're in this race. they're holding democracy accountable. and they're pushing back on trump. i think it could help some of those guys. i ran hillary clinton's surrogate operation in 2016. the candidate cannot be in every

single place they need to be at one time. so you deploy surrogates and figure out how to run a strategic kban strategic campaign in the early states while your candidate is back in washington. >> but they may have to be a three-point shooter because you may only get a shot once or twice in the proceedings. if you miss that shot and iowa and new hampshire, it's a net zblos that loss. >> that's it, sam. if it were to begin right after new year's day, that clock starts running. a large part of the media is going to block out anything in terms of the iowa caucus in terms of reaching ordinary people. what do they do? >> that's a legitimate concern, right? if you are tom paris or bernie sanders or elizabeth warren, you have obvious issues with having to be -- having candidates to be in washington, d.c. while this whole thing is happening. you can't be in two places at once. i understand that. on the other hand, this isn't

just about impeachment. i mean, the investigative process here is going to discover and has discovered stuff that will affect our laws and how we conduct diplomacy well beyond donald trump. i mean, what we need to find out is do we need to craft a whole new set of disclosure laws? do we need to make it more restrictive so that people like rudy giuliani can't conduct american diplomacy? do we need to have stricter laws to make sure that the office of management and budget can't just unilaterally cancel foreign aid or has to publicize a reason for doing so? there air whole host re a whole questions emanating from this process that aren't directly related to impeachment. and there are a whole host of characters who will have lives after trump that we need to know what their involvement was in this process. mike pompeo is likely going to run for senate in kansas. isn't it incumbent upon the investigators to get a good sense of what he was up to and how deep involved he was in this before he presents himself to those voters? mick mulvaney, i don't think this is his last political

rodeo. he may run for office again. he's clearly involved in this as well. so there are questions that have nothing to do directly with donald trump that are pertinent to our politics that i do think the investigators do need to get answers to before we just move on. >> so, bob -- excuse me. bob costa, that roster that sam just listed, mike pompeo, mick mulvaney, you've had colonel vindman last week, you had ambassador yovanovitch, you've had fiona hill. has anything, anything that's occurred in those hearings rattled the white house? >> i'll tell you what's rattled the white house and some congressional republican sources is the office of management and the budget and mick mulvaney in the is not just as sam said so well about impeachment and ukraine, this is about executive power versus congressional power. the more members of congress read today's story in the front page of the "washington post" and sunday's stories about

congressi congressional appropriations being held up by the executive branch on a temporary basis, it's law, there already are laws that say when congress appropriates certain funds, that money has to go through. but the idea of holding it at any extended period has to go through congress, it's congress appropriating the people's mun, taxpayer money. that has congress sitting up and wondering what exactly happened sneer that here. >> snoo that's wmembers reading texting me saying it's congress's time to get our hands on those budget documents. >> sam is right, there are a lot of questions that mike pompeo ought to have to answer especially based on the new testimony we heard expecticonne him to this ukraine shadow deal. but you listen to chairman

schiff on meet the press yesterday, he sounded like a guy who said he has what he had to move forward. he said the evidence is overwhelming, we will move forward if we have to here. >> yeah, that's right. you're absolutely right. i think chairman schiff made that case very clearly. i think one of the political considerations here that we may see them weigh moving forward bri, by the way, they're busy with other work. they're trying to pass another short-term spending bill to keep the government open. but trying to figure out how broad to take this and how much to push for some of these people to come forward and offer testimony who have so far refused to so under white house guidance, they run the risk of either extending the timeline so far that it becomes increasingly political damage are, or that peop damaging, or some of that support has started to tick up or down depending on what's what goes on. there's conflicting polling

there. but public interest and support for that query will matter as well. plus, if they do decide to say this other probe we have going on, whether we see if president trump actually misled robert mueller's investigations in the russia probe, we know they're looking into that as a result of testimony that came out in the roger stone trial, rather, they risk sort of feeding into this narrative that it is just a witch-hunt, that it is this broad investigation and they'll go wherever they need to do go to be able to move forward with it. all of that will come down to politics and the timeline. it's an election year, you can't have a more conflicting set of factors here. but so far the message from chairman schiff is we have enough to move forward. >> thank you very much. we want to mention her special for pbs news hour this wednesday evening entitled the plastic problem. you can check that out at 10:00 nine:00 central on pbs. it that's by the year 2050 there

will be more plastics than fish in the oceans and what we did can do about that. still ahead this morning, the president's intervention in a controversial war crimes case divides the military and ends with the firing of the secretary of the navy. we'll talk to a member of the armed services committee and a former lieutenant commander in the united states navy reserve, senator gary peters when "morning joe" comes right back. senator gary peters when "morning joe" comes right back. i'm your 70lb st. bernard puppy, and my lack of impulse control, is about to become your problem. ahh no, come on. i saw you eating poop earlier. hey! my focus is on the road, and that's saving me cash with drivewise. who's the dummy now? whoof! whoof! so get allstate where good drivers save 40% for avoiding mayhem, like me. sorry! he's a baby!

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welcome back to "morning joe." joining us now, member of the arms services committee, democratic senator gary peters of michigan. he's also a former lieutenant commander in the united states naval reserve. also with us, the co-host of "morning joe" first look, yasmin. senator, i will begin with you this morning. let's talk -- well, not the resignation, the termination of

the secretary of navy richard spencer. as you look at this case from your seat on armed services, what exactly happened here and what are the consequences? >> well, i don't know all the details as to what happened in his particular case, it seems as if we have conflicting reports depending on who's reporting on what happened. but i am very concerned about it. in addition to be on the armed services committee, i'm the ranking member of the subcommittee that oversees our official operations forces. i've been engaged in this issue talking to the commander of special war pafare for the navyd our navy s.e.a.l.s who are incredibly individuals, incredibly talented individuals. but we do know that there are some good order and discipline issues that are very problematic within that community right now. i know the naval leaders are very concerned about that. they've been taking action on a number of fronts. and that was related to this case. and to have the president then

interject himself in what is a military justice issue and an thash go issue that goes to the core of the military which is good order and discipline is very troubling. and i'm concerned what it sathaa very bad precedent for the future. >> senator peters, let me ask you as a lieutenant commander in the u.s. navy reserve, you understand that the president of the united states is commander and chief, has unique powers over the military. if he wanted you to dress up as big bird on thanksgiving day parade and ordered you to do it, you would have to do it. but, there is also the uniform code of military justice that has been significantly altered by the president, both with his tweets and with the direction that he took the navy. what does that do to the uniform code of military justice and what does that do to line officers out in the field? >> well, it damages, you're

right. part of the reason we have a great military is because we're highly trained, we're professional, and the uniform code of military justice guides that. we're a nation of laws and the rest of the community understands when the u.s. military fights they fight with the highest level of professionalism and are guided by the rule of law. and when you have a commander and chief of who seems to believe that that code -- that doesn't really apply if he decides it doesn't apply, to me, it's really about moral issues. certainly, as you said, he has the legal authority to do what he did. but, to me, it's about undermining the moral authority of the u.s. military that is so damaging and is so -- really puts us in a weaker position going forward against our adversaries and also in gendering the such our allies. >> it's jonathan lemire.

i wanded to a i wanted to ask you about senator lindsey graham. he said he's going to open up an investigation into the ukraine conspiracy theory although he doesn't believe in it. meanwhile, senator kennedy said he didn't know who was involved with the election interference in 2016, perhaps it was russia, but perhaps it was ukraine. he said he didn't know, no one knows despite the u.s. intelligence committee saying it was russia. what do you say to these senators the next time you see them in the senate? >> i don't think reason is applying here because clearly we know where the intelligence community has been on this issue. in fact, it's been unified that the russians were the ones engaged in the activity against the united states in our election. they're likely to be engaged again in 2020. so it makes no sense for me to say, but there still could be this ukrainian issue that just -- it's all a distraction. i think that's what we're seeing from both of these senators. they're trying to distract from

what are very clear facts that have come out. we need to pursue those facts. this is a very, very serious issue and we should be looking at actual objective evidence and facts. and, but if you don't have facts on your side, you engage in distraction. and i think that's what we're seeing from some of my colleagues is that they haven't been able to put forward any counterevidence and so they think they can be successful if they distract the american public with conspiracy theories or other types of activities. >> senator, if this impeachment heads to a senate trial, you, sir, are up for re-election. how much do you worry that your republican colleagues will be making a decision in this impeachment process based more on their re-election in 2020 versus the facts that have been laid out over the last month or so? >> well, i would hope they don't. and this is a serious constitutional issue. our founders were very clear that the impeachment process was put in place to be a check on the abuse of power.

they were very concerned about a very strong executive because, obviously, they had just fought a revolutionary war against a monarch. they were concerned about the executive power that would be used to corrupt the democratic republic. and that's why they put this in place. if you look at the debates, they also placed it in the senate because they thought the senate would be the most objective place to actually rise above the passions of politics and wouldn't be bound by the executive. but obviously things have changed since then and now we have popular elected senators who seem to be very concerned about particularly primary politics right now. so it has changed from the -- our founders intent. but i think we have to get back to that founders' intent and understand that we have to rise above all of this and do what's right for the country. we're setting a precedent for future presidencies in this country at a time when democracies across the globe are under assault. we need to rise up and show that this democracy, this

constitutional republic in the united states is strong because we make decisions above politics and do what is right. >> senator, bret stephens here from the "new york times" i think there's a lot of conventional wisdom that because it's almost impossible to imagine a conviction in the senate that a trial is just a guaranteed political loser for democrats leaving aside the constitutional issues. do you agree with that conventional wisdom? >> i think it's too early to say. i think as you go forward if the articles of impeachment are drafted and they come to the senate and a trial is held, the american people will have an opportunity to see that evidence and to see that case presented and we'll have to see how it plays out. but i think ultimately whatever happens has to be -- has to be based on facts and has to be based on an eye on history and how important this historical precedent will be for future generations and for the health of our constitutional republican. >> all right, senator gary peters of michigan, thanks so

much for your time this morning. thank you. >> appreciate it. thank you. coming up, michael bloomberg officially running for president, there's an argument that america doesn't need another billionaire on the ticket. he joins our conversation next on "morning joe." cket. he joins our conversation next on "morning joe." ♪ (loud fan noise) (children playing) ♪ (music building) 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. hour 36 in the stakeout. as soon as the homeowners arrive,

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he helped create a movement to protect families across america. and stood up to the coal lobby and this administration to protect this planet from climate change. and now, he's taking on... him. to rebuild a country and restore faith in the dream that defines us. where the wealthy will pay more in taxes and the middle class get their fair share. everyone without health insurance can get it and everyone who likes theirs keep it. and where jobs won't just help you get by, but get ahead. and on all those things mike blomberg intends to make good. jobs creator. leader. problem solver. mike bloomberg for president. i'm mike bloomberg and i approve this message.

there's a live picture of chicago for some reason, but i like it. get in the christmas spirit already on thanksgiving week. joining us now, nbc news political analyst. great to see you. >> good to see you. >> you brought a young guest with you that we're very excited. >> about. >> did i. >> let's talk about mayor bloomberg. you have strong fweelgs another -- and you're not alone, by the way, about another billionaire entering this race who has already poured $31 billion in advertising in his own money. there's no end in sight in terms of what he can put into the race. elizabeth warren and bernie sanders saying, as you might imagine there is another guy frying to buy his way to the

white house. >> let's start with what are the chances thing? 1 out of 5,000 americans is a billionaire. that's now distributed billionaires are in the general population. 1 out of 9 democrats running for president is now a billionaire. right? you're 55,000 times kinda likelier -- >> with tom steyer. >> yes. and then john delaney is still in the race. i think it raises the question of in a time when more and more americans, including some on the right, are fed up of the consequences of manic hyper capitalism destroying the american dream, threatening the planet, destroying opportunity structures in their towns and communities around this country, people not being paid properly, people not having the kinds of public services they need to live a decent life, the idea that a phe is the solution to t

is laughable. i think people are waking up to the idea that it's possible to start imagining a future in which the people making dig decisions for america don't have to be rich saviors. don't have to be a donald trump or a mike bloomberg. there's an enormous difference between them. but it's people thinking about people who don't buy the elections can save us from this moment. >> one of our richest presidents was franklin roosevelt. john f. kennedy came from a wealthy familiar. >> i one of things that they did that was different, fdr was traitor had to his class. he created public policies that were good for average americans and not great for rich people. and what's so remarkable today, you have so few people at the

very top who are able to muster the same courage to do the same. if michael bloomberg had not just right now but in his mayorty and ever since advocated for a set of public policies that would truly change the power eoccasiquations in americ distribute power and wealth to the 1%, i would say, look, doesn't matter what his background is, he has done the work to show that his views and his labor overwhelms background. but all of these people that you see in public life at very top, whether it's in philanthropy or running for president, tend to rep their own interests and one as politicrats. bloomberg has come out with taxes saying it's going to be the venezuela of america. and what you have here is ignoring the lesson of fdr, ignoring the ways in which a rich person could if they're

thoughtful and they're running to protect their own class. >> i can just say with all due respect what i'm listening to is why the democrats run the risk of losing in 2020. there's a world of difference between someone like mike bloomberg who came from modest circumstances, made his money honestly and has given away a tremendous amount, not just financially but also in terms of his own public service, and someone like donald trump who inherited tons of hundreds of millions of dollars from his father in the is a america. this is a land that believes in free enterprise and believes in in that if you have a great idea you can make it and be magnificently reward. and when you make it to the top, you give a tremendous amount back. mike bloomberg has given back $6 billion. that's more than donald trump has probably ever had. >> right. >> even come close to having in his lifetime. this is just the same sort of categorization of people, i think, that donald trump engages. there's a world of difference

between not only a bloomberg and a trump, but also, you know, among these people. like what their ideas are. don't you want a democrat that represents middle class interests rather than soak the rich, they're all bad? they're against us and have a kind of a spirit of class warfare in the democratic party? >> couple things. first of all, you don't need to tell me this is america, i'm from america so i understand and there's different values at stake in america and we can all claim different values. the values ai'm talking about ae also american. when you have someone like mike bloomberg, he's different than donald trump. i believe there's a difference in starting your own business and inheriting money. but the argument i'm stating in this book, i'm happy to send you a copy, because you sound pre, not post. even if you have given a bunch away, you have benefitted from a system of 30, 40 years in this country. if you look at the data, the 1%

of the .1%, it's too much. if you look at the 1% holding the wealth of america, the 1% getting 49% of the income, the data that you and i both know, the issue is unless you are showing as a very wealthy person that your breaking down that system, you are, in a sense, complicit in that system. and michael bloomberg has shown zero appetite -- >> but there -- >> i let you finish. to fundamentally alter that system. so say that to my america is not an america in which most people who work 40 hours a week at the bottom half of the country do not anymore feel like they can move ahead, get education, get health care. that's not my america. my america is not a country in which, you know, the 400 wealthiest families play a lower effective tax rate than any other social klas class class i country. we can talk about what america is, but the way it's working for a lot of people at this table anymore doesn't work anymore. the american dream is a phrase. and the idea that the saviour is

a politicratr it's not donald trump and it is simply trying to suggest that maybe we can actually trust people who come out of popular movements, people who actually grow out of communities to govern this country for the next few decades. >> but i wonder what your thoughts on what we have been talking about for some time, which is this democratic base which is what we were talking about off camera before we came back from break is exciting the democratic base, about voter turnout. for is long they were touting bernie sanders and small donations. mayor buttigieg got into that small donor category, elizabeth warren as well. how do you apply that to mike bloomberg who will be self-funding his campaign and i don't necessarily see as exciting the democratic base? i could be wrong on that, i don't know. but i'm reacting to see -- >> mike bloomberg does not excite the democratic base. but what is clear, what is clear that most democrats want century the candidates.

they don't want elizabeth warren kind of soak the rich populism. they are afraid that joe biden isn't going to be an effective standard barrier for that centrism that they want. but at the same time the kind of net roots populism soak the rich side of the democratic party isn't going to win the election just as it didn't win the house for democrats in 2018. when the house was centrist, democrats were able to speak to middle class voters thinking about pocketbook issues, but it wasn't coming out of the sanders/warren side of the party. i think if the mayor -- if mayor bloomberg has any chance, it's that sometime next year democrats are going to say, oh, we're stuck with elizabeth warren and she can't win this for us. >> so here's my question for you. mike bloomberg is a self-made billionaire. he came from nothing, he built his wealth on his own. he's given money to charities and created philanthropies, he has a climate change arm of

that. he's got gun safety, he's done so much for his wealth. so if you are a self-made billionaire and you seek to run for the presidency, like how can you go about it? what would make it you feel more comfortable with somebody like mike bloomberg taking this plunge? i don't think that self-made billionaire should be exempt from running for president, but i'd like to hear your thoughts on that. >> that's a great question. i think it's not something you can do three days before running for president. you can't go to a church and apologize for stop and frisk right before you have to run for president. but to the earlier point that bret brought up about fdr, you can live a life leading up to running for president. >> but why do you think mike bloomberg hasn't done that? >> because he made new york much more friendly for the people who sit that the table of new york a thousand ways which is why he doesn't have that kind of support. if mike bloomberg had been the guy to stop and frisk instead of the guy to drive it, we might be having a different conversation.

if he had made it way more affordable for regular people instead of superstars we might be having a different conversation. if he had said i made $50 billion but, frankly, having that public policy that makes that a priority while many people in the city of new york are in a hunger situation, i think that might have been a different moment we were talking about but, unfortunately, mike bloomberg is now at a moment where he wants to run for president and is dealing with this primary environment and he doesn't have the life record to show that he is more interested in the common good than in the interests of his own people. i'm not saying everybody at the top is unable to do it. there are people who are able to tran send. there are billionaires advocating for wealth taxes, abigail disney made a statement recently. there are people able to rise above that. i don't think he's one of them. >> billionaire savior we're

talking about is currently polling at 1% nationally. it may never come to this debate. >> no, this might be a moot point. he's taking an incredible long shot here to skip four early states. i mean he has the money to do it, i think anand is right in certain respects. the first steps he's taken as he emerged on the national scene again is to apologize for a record that he knows won't sell in a democratic electorate. that said there are nuances to the discussion. mike bloomberg does have a couple progressive policy priorities that do stand out. i mean he's plowed into gun safety and environmental justice and public health in ways that i think do actually compete with others on the stage but whether those are the animating issues, i think, is up to the electorate. bret has points here too.

what seems clear to me is that taxing the rich does poll pretty well if you look at the polling data. where warren has found some trouble if you just go by the polling data is in advocating for medicare for all as it's played out. people have gotten a little nervous about what that would mean for the private insurance options and debate the merits but it's clear that that's what -- not the taxing the wealthy, i think even bloomberg has in his initial ad said he wants to tax the wealthy so it's clear from a public policy standpoint it's quite popular. i will add this. one candidate threads the needle and that's barack obama which is someone who has come from this, you know, self-made man obviously poor upbringing, not a member of the plutocracy but he did endear himself to that donor class in a way that no one in that lane currently has done and i think that's the sweet spot for the democratic voters but

right now you've seen this bifurcated field, insurgents and den for driven establishment types an no one has been able to thread it effectively. i'm not sure bloomberg can do it. >> interestingly enough president obama said pump the brakes on the revolution, guys. we want incremental change. >> he has and i think it's been a very interesting intervention from him still dabbling on the sidelines. i want him also to say things about the president, by the way, because i think he's one of the great moral voices that has felt a little silent. >> anand wrote the cover story for "time" magazine right now. thanks. and good to see you. the latest installment of our candidate checkup series. senator cory booker talks with "morning joe" medical contributor dr. dave campbell about his vision for the future and staying fit on the campaign trail. still to come on "morning joe."

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i know some of you think i'm shaking because i'm nervous but this is just my signature quake quivering bang. >> america, i see you and i see the faces you all make when i talk. you're scared. scared i'll say something off color or even worse on color. >> hi, guys. i'm billionaire tom steyer and i'm running for president for a simple reason, it's fun. and it gets me out of the house. >> did somebody say billionaire? >> mayor bloomberg, how did you get in here? >> well, i tipped the doorman $30 million. >> that is "snl," "saturday night live," fred armisen coming back with the big gulp as mayor

bloomberg. we have a packed house with us this morning. msnbc contributor a little closer than i'd like him to be, mike barnicle with us this morning. white house reporter and former director of strategic communications for hillary clinton's presidential campaign, adrienne, msnbc contributor, host of msnbc's politics nation and president of the national action network, reverend al sharpton, for "the washington examiner," david drunker, contributing writer at "vanity fair," in washington, washington bureau chief for "usa today," susan page and former chief of staff at the cia and department of defense now an nbc news national security analyst, jeremy bash. we'll get to michael bloomberg entering the race kicking it off with an advertising blitz and latest impeachment inquiry into president trump.

intel committee chairman adam schiff saying it's full steam ahead after overwhelming evidence from the hearings and we now know why part of why president trump was upset with marie yovanovitch. he claims she refused to hang his picture in the united states embassy in ukraine. that's not true as you might imagine but we'll explain. let's start with a shake-up at the pentagon. navy secretary richard spencer has been fired after a dispute over the case of a navy s.e.a.l. accused of war crimes in iraq who was later acquitted. according to a statement from the defense department, secretary mark esper lost his trust and confidence in spencer over the handling of the case of edd eddie gallagher accused of committing war crimes while deployed in 2017, acquitted of murder but convicted of posing with the corpse of an isis prisoner for which he was demoted. president donald trump reversed that and tweeted gallagher would keep his trident pin signifying

his status as a member of the elite navy s.e.a.l.s. a day later spencer told reporters he believed the review process over gallagher's status should go forward, but contrary to public statements the defense department says, spencer had privately proposed to the white house that his rank be restored and allowed to retire as a navy s.e.a.l. n his resignation letter last night, spencer acknowledged his termination stating, unfortunately, it has become apparent that in this respect i no longer share the same understanding with the commander in chief who appointed me in regards to the key principle of good order and discipline. i cannot in good conscience obey an order that i believe violates the sacred oath i took. earlier on sunday he was on fox news where he attacked his chain of command. >> this is all about ego and retaliation. they could have taken my trident at any time they wanted. now they're trying to take it after the president restored my

rank and after we filed an ig exposing all the corruption going on during my case. >> in a series of tweets last night president trump said gallagher will retire with all the honors he has earned including his trident pin and announced admiral and ambassador to norway kenneth braithwaite elizabeth warren be nominated to take over. jeremy bash, let me take a step back. what happened here? ending with this extraordinary letter that sounded like mattis put out, our visions no longer align talking about the president of the united states. >> eddie gallagher was acquitted on the most serious charges he faced but he was convicted on this charge, a lesser charge of posing with a corpse which in the military culture is way over the line. it's hot dogging at its worst and the navy s.e.a.l. community

really wanted to hold him accountable and so they have a peer review process and they analyze whether someone is really worthy of holding that coveted try dent s.e.a.l. pin and the navy secretary was trying to allow the they've to work its process and work within the chain of command, what all maria leaders want but donald trump reach thood that process and said there will be no peer review. this guy is going to get his try dent pin and be restored his stephanie and rankled leaders and tried to push back and the president said get out of my why i'm firing the secretary of the navy. another example of the president elevating politics and elevating his own political base over good order and discipline and fundamentally over national security. >> the testimony of alexander vindman, you sort of predicted this. here's mike last week. >> in this story, it is against

chief edward gallagher who was acquitted of murder in a trial but found guilty of -- >> misconduct. >> terrible misconduct. >> bad -- >> they'll take the trident away from him and strip him of the try dent which is who you are. it's a definition of who you are. >> big deal. >> when they do that with the permission of the head of naval operations, chief of naval operations does the president of the united states then fire the head of naval operations? >> correct. >> that is going to be an incredible story because it gets to everything we've been talking about for days here. we are living under a system of broken government. so many norms have been broken, disturbed, disrupted that this country is now living under a system of broken government. >> it's almost exactly how it played out. what did you see over the horizon to make that comment. >> well, i saw what we all saw, what many americans have seen,

we've seen a president continually each and every day he's in office operate and this is a quote he has used the right to do whatever i want. he has said that. he has a white house lawyer, the counsel's office who has said the president can't be prosecuted for anything while he's in office so what he has done here, jeremy, if you could explain a bit more in detail the code of military justice, the uniform code of military justice what, it means to the military. what it means to try and alter it if you're a civilian commander in chief, president of the united states. he has in effect altered the uniform code of military justice. >> yeah, look, mike, fundamentally in the military, it last to be grounded on discipline. it has to be grounded on uniformity. that's why people wear a uniform and there is a hierarchy of rank

and why a commander gives an order he can be assured down the ranks individual also follow that order. fundamentally we need that when we're sending people into the most dangerous, difficult situations and part of that discipline, i would say at the core of that discipline is the court's martial process, the ability to discipline their own. the military takes discipline very seriously and if you step out of line you'll face consequences. now, when the president or any civilian commander reaches in and says, i'm going to offer my own discipline or sweep aside the discipline of the military, that undoes the whole system. it basically undermines the commanders and not a pro-military thing to do. in fact, i would argue it's a very anti-military thing to do for a civilian to come in and say here's my discipline and i'm going to mete it out because people on fox news or on my feeds are saying i should do that. >> this is a very messy story that's taken a lot of twists and

turns over the last 72 or so hours. and some of the facts are still sort of changing, if you will, we're learning more as to what happened behind the scenes. this is -- the president last week tweeted, of course, the guy -- he should not lose his pin and over the weekend the navy secretary spencer speaking at an event in halifax said i don't take a tweet as a direct order n fact, white house officials conveyed to him that he could proceed as he wished. but at the same time he was -- had proposed a back channel to say he would let him keep his pin even though publicly he was saying he should be stripped of it but trying to work out a deal to let him keep it. that's what esper said last night he lost confidence. now, the story keeps changing. there will be more details but the truth is this, this is the president deciding to do what he wants. some of the details here though are murky, this is donald trump

again as jeremy said reaching down into a division of the pentagon and suggesting that it's my way here, that i will do what i want and regardless of the consequences to the code of justice or morale among the rank. >> still ahead on "morning joe," the president and his defenders repeat vladimir putin's talking points despite being told they are vladimir putin's talking points. we'll dig into the relentless effort to push the ukraine conspiracy theory. but first bill karins with a lock at the forecast. >> the good before a lot of bad. today is the best day for travel. we have a storm system in the rockies. we'll get light snow and a little bit of stuff in the day. salt lake city to denver. the east coast, midwest, south all the way through the west coast today, fantastic. so now let's get to the troublesome weather. we have winter storm watches and warnings that extend for 2,000 miles from california through the rockies. already through nebraska back up to minnesota.

here's storm one, tonight snow begins in denver, spreads through the plains tomorrow. tomorrow night it looks like minute, northern portions of wisconsin, a lot of those areas will get to 6 to 10 inches of snow then for wednesday the busy travel day, that cold front and the rain makes it to the east coast and windy, but what's not going to be a huge like rain event. it's not going to cause significant cancellations but airport delays possible. this is how i see it playing out, huge storm, storm two that comes into the west coast tuesday/wednesday. significant impacts from that and in the middle of the country, denver, minneapolis tomorrow then by the time we get to wednesday at the airports the busiest travel day i think we'll get sporadic delays on the east coast, i don't think we'll have a lot of cancellations but major issues probably around chicago dealing with snow then over to windy conditions so, yeah, getting to thanksgiving is difficult. i haven't even got to the part where we have another storm getting back. new york city, we're worried about balloons, wind forecast does not look good.

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♪ i wanna fly like an eagle ♪ to the sea fly like an eagle >> let's turn to the latest report that suggests some of the president's defend remembers knowingly taking part in a russian operation to smear ukraine and to divide the united states. nbc news has now confirmed reporting from "the new york times" that u.s. intelligence officials briefed senators in recent weeks that russia engaged in a year's long campaign to frame ukraine for its own meddling in the 2016 u.s. election. the information about the russian operation was considered classified until dr. fiona hill revealed it in her public testimony at last week's impeachment hearing. but being part of a putin disinformation campaign is not stopping the president or his defenders from pushing or

engaging in the debunked conspiracy theory. >> the fbi went in and they told him get out of here. we're not giving it to you. they gave the server to crowdstrike or whatever it's called which is a country -- which is a company owned by a very wealthy ukrainian and i still want to see that server. you know, the fbi has never gotten that server. that's a big part of this whole thing. why did they give it to a ukrainian company? >> are you sure they did that? are you sure they gave it to ukraine? >> well, that's what the word is. >> senator kennedy, who do you believe was responsible for hacking the dnc and clinton campaign computers, their emails? was it russia or ukraine. >> i do not know, nor do you, nor do any of you. miss hill -- >> let me interrupt to say the entire intelligence community says it was russia. >> right b. -- but it could also

be ukraine. miss hill is entitled to her opinion but no rebuttal evidence was allowed to be offered. >> i can't stress enough how deep a conspiracy theory that was until it reached the white house. it was a crowdstrike thing. crowdstrike is an american company, by the way. there is no physical server. we can go through it all again. that was the president pushing it on "fox and friends" but the second layer has been the republican support. the president says something wild, conspiratorial, false and he has an entire group of senators who support. senator kennedy knows better. he knows thats that's a conspiracy theory. >> it is frightening when you see senator kennedy confronted by chris wallace saying the entire intelligence community says it was russia. he says, but it still can be

ukraine. in the face of a factual statement they want to go to the alternative because they are trying to walk in lockstep with donald trump. who has decided that he's going to have an alternative universe he lives in and we're all going to have to move over there and if we don't there's something wrong with us. i think the thing that is most disturbing is when you have the congressman nunes sitting there and he is the one, the cheerleader, the head of the team that is opposing what the chairmanship is doing in the impeachment hearing and now we find out that he himself was directly involved in trying to go and see if they could get some dirt on the bidens and no one in the republican party, no one in the republican leadership is seeing that is at minimal a conflict of interest. he sat there the whole hearing process being the spokesperson,

the lead on the opposition and he was involved personally and we're told probably at taxpayer moneys chasing down this whole attempt to smear joe biden and his son. if this is not the epitome of trying to play the public against the truth, i don't know what it. >> rev talking about the giuliani associate lev parnas made the association that devin nunes was meeting with ukrainian officials to get dirt on joe biden. i saw your fists shaking with rage as senator kennedy spoke. extraordinary. >> it's extraordinary, willie. we remember when all the intelligence agencies came together in a very rare statement several months before the election in 2016 declaring that russia is meddling in the 2016 election. as a former clinton aide i saw this firsthand and witnessed it firsthand and the fact you have all these republicans who are

going against what our intelligence agency said and saying, oh, maybe it's ukraine. willie, there are days i wake up when i feel like i'm living in an alternative universe. michael bloomberg enters the race with low polling numbers but a ton of money and talk through his presidential prospects when we come back on "morning joe." (people talking) for every dollar you spend at a small business, an average of 67 cents stays local. shop small and watch it add up. small business saturday by american express is november 30th. - [woman] with my shark, i deep clean messes like this, this, and even this.

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mike bloomberg started as a middle class kid who had to work his way through college then built a business from a single room to a global entity creating tens of thousands of good paying j jobs along the way. he could have stopped there. but when new york suffered the terrible tragedy of 9/11 he took charge becoming a three-term mayor who brought a city back from the ashes. but now he sees a different kind of menace coming from washington. so there's no stopping here. because there's an america waiting to be rebuilt. mike bloomberg for president, jobs creator, leader, problem solver. it's going to take all three to build back a country. >> former new york city mayor michael bloomberg as you just

saw there officially has entered the 2020 presidential race. he also made a $31 million ad buy for television commercials which dwarfs the entire advising budgets of rival campaigns. here's some other candidates reacting. >> we do not believe that billionaires have the right to buy elections. that is why multibillionaires like mr. bloomberg are not going to get very far in this election. >> the election should not be for sale. not to billionaires, not to corporate executives. we need to build a grassroots move. that's how democracy is supposed to work. >> money will not win this election. connecting with people will. >> you know, listen, we got to get mon out of politics. let's be honest. i mean, i got to raise a ton of money to be competitive and, you know, there's some people who started this race with $10 million. >> so, adrienne, mayor

bloomberg, $31 million out of the gate. he is skipping ahead and won't play in iowa and new hampshire. going right at it in super tuesday. what if anything does mike bloomberg, you know, polling at 1%, 2% depending on the poll, what does he do to the race >> that's left to be seen. he's running first of all a completely unconventional campaign. he's not going to be on the debate stage because he's not taking donations and going forward the dnc will make sure the threshold continues to increase so that it becomes more of a challenge to get on that stage. we have to assume that's not part of his plan but he's got n unlimited -- unlimited amounts of money. the question becomes how does that play? can he overcome the stereotype that some of the candidates and voters are already saying, this guy is trying to buy his way into the race. what is the case that he's going to make to the american people? why should i be president other

than these 17 people who have been running, you know, really since the spring? >> right. >> if not before. that's what's going to be fascinating to see can he actually overcome, you know, the stereotype about having this billionaire from new york, you know, trying to buy his way into the election and have to keep in mind he's had a successful tenure post-mayor. i mean he's used his philanthropy in such a positive way, gun control, climate change, a number of issues so i assume he'll be running on that too. he's also got a strong team behind him. >> meanwhile, senator cory booker out on the campaign trail in new hampshire this weekend. >> i heard somebody say to me a stage in iowa, i want you to punch donald trump in the face. i ago at him and go, dude, that's a felony. we're not going to win this election by being more like him. >> "morning joe" medical contributor dr. dave campbell recently traveled to newark, new jersey, to catch up with the democratic senator and presidential hopeful in the

latest installment of our candidate checkup series. ♪ >> reporter: we hopped the river to visit senator cory booker in newark, new jersey, where in his former position of mayor he served as a major catalyst for change and social justice. we spoke about his vision for the future of our nation and how staying entercentered is crucia on the demanding campaign trail and started by discussing how much the public should know about a presidential candidate's health. >> a presidential candidate should be a lot more transparent about their physical health. >> how do you stay in shape on the trail? can't be easy. >> it's not. my health regimen this last year has sort of hit that wall of constantly traveling, jumping on planes and so i try to stay

centered with muscle and cardio work when i can get it. >> how do you manage and process stress and what do you do to relieve it. >> what i went through in newark, a pressure cooker, taking on a big political machine, had threats on my life, had just very dangerous situations. that was a stress that was in many ways what prepared me and drove me back to some of my core training in meditation, prayer, how do you center yourself? that kind of mental train something something that has served me well now. >> tell me about your current health. >> i spent a big part of my life, you know, from the time i was a teenager all-american football player in new jersey and just intense, intense athletic competition all the way to division 1 football at stanford. the older i'm getting i understand the diet is -- that's my big challenge and working out actually helps me. when i go running, jogging, it's like it fires my brain. i sometimes write my best speeches running and have some of my best ideas so keeping that

workout going and controlling and balancing out my diet, that's what is the most important thing for me. >> let's do quick rapid-fire questions. how do you keep your mind fit. >> meditation, prayer. >> your exercise routine. >> cardio and resistance training. >> how do you balance nutrition and comfort foods? >> constant struggle. >> so i know you don't drink. >> no. >> i can be pretty sure you don't smoke. >> you know, i made a decision as an athlete and it stuck, and i just never ever did either. >> what can others learn in this country from your switch to being a vegan? >> it has for me been really wonderful switch in my life. >> what are some of your favorite meals? >> still give me great impossible burger and fries. >> do you cook at home? >> what i do is cooking -- >> does it count as cooking? >> if you're going to ask my girlfriend she's upstairs. she would laugh at the question. i love steaming vegetables at

home. i love making a good fruit shake, you know, throwing a bunch of different fruits in the blender. >> before we leave maybe we can get one of those. >> i would love -- we could make a great -- we should go. >> they're admirable. and clearly a key to his success. >> if we take the impact of obesity on the health of americans, how can cory booker translate what you're doing as a person to help the rest of this country? >> our whole system is subsidizing the things that make us sick. the farm bill incentivizing certain things and not others that would make us healthier. my kids walk into a bodega and a twinkie product is cheaper than an apple. these are things that i have challenged as a senator but, boy, make me your president because i do not think that we should be having a multiplier effect of investing in the things that are making us sick.

>> as the senator walked us around the neighborhood, it became clear how he got the reputation of one of the most social and approachable mayors in the country. it's also evident that the poverty, high crime rates and gun violence in newark deeply affect him and form the cornerstone of his vision for our country. >> i asked emergency room doctor what is are the medical costs n nonfatal gunshot wound when they rush a person to the hospital. they were telling me numbers like 100, $200,000. so think about this. we can invest a fraction of that into preventive programs, evidence-based programs that work but yet we are a society that would rather spend the hundreds of millions of dollars it costs for the medical care of people being rushed in. we now send our children to school with the implicit message we can't protect you. there are more shelter in place drills and active shooter drills in american schools than fire drills. the number one cause of death in my community for black boys, 7,

8, 9, 10 years old is murder. and so this is why i feel such a conviction around this gun violence issue. i refuse to let my nation cascade down into fear. we are stronger than this. as president of the united states, i will muster that national will to pass laws to protect americans. >> what should be mainstream for mental health in our poorest communitys? >> my health care plan says that part of the essential care of any american so your insurance should cover this has got to be mental health care. >> it's tough because there is this implicit bias, it's embarrassing for meme to talk about it, to admit. how do we get past it. >> we watched donald trump using platforms in ways we've never seen presidents do before. he has in just twitter followers bigger than any network in commanding views, so imagine you were using these platforms not to demean, degrade and divide but using them to pulse people out of the shadow and shine

lights on issues and hopefully inspire more common purpose, common cause to help us rise as a country together. >> you have the character and the temperament to be president. can you beat donald trump? >> yeah. this is where i'm going to be very different than maybe you might expect. i don't think you beat darkness with darkness. i am here. the fourth black person ever popular elected to the united states senate running to be the first person ever to be in the white house who's a descendant of slaves and slaves built that house. i'm here because the civil rights movement wasn't just black people fighting for their rights, it became the american people fighting for civil rights. when we come together as a country, there's nothing we can't do. i think we beat donald trump by pulling together. in fact, i know right now that that's donald trump's worst nightmare is somebody that's going to stand strong but knowing that we're going to tear down your hate by unleashing the best of america before you and that's why i say, we make a mistake in this election if we

keep talking about what we're against and not talking about what we're for. >> coming up on "morning joe" the next steps in the impeachment probe including a key ruling expected today that could compel former white house counsel don mcgahn to testify. former homeland security secretary jeh johnson is standing by and joins our conversation next on "morning joe." ♪ as a struggling actor, i need all the breaks that i can get. at liberty butchemel... cut. liberty mu... line? cut.

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he took charge of a city still reeling from 9/11 a three-term mayor who helped bring it back from the ashes bringing jobs and thousands of affordable housing units with it. after witnessing the terrible toll of gun violence... he helped create a movement to protect families across america. and stood up to the coal lobby and this administration to protect this planet from climate change. and now, he's taking on... him. to rebuild a country and restore faith in the dream that defines us. where the wealthy will pay more in taxes and the middle class get their fair share. everyone without health insurance can get it and everyone who likes theirs keep it. and where jobs won't just help you get by, but get ahead. and on all those things.or.. problem solver. mike bloomberg for president. i'm mike bloomberg and i approve this message.

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senator kennedy, who do you believe was responsible for hacking the dnc and clinton campaign computers, their emails? was it russia or ukraine? >> i don't know. nor do you. nor do any of us. miss hill -- >> let me just interrupt to say, the entire intelligence community says it was russia. >> right. but it could also be ukraine. i'm not saying that i know one way or the other. i'm saying that miss hill is

entitled to her opinion but no rebuttal evidence was allowed to be offered. >> that was senator john kennedy talking on fox to chris wallace. joining us now former secretary of homeland security under president obama, jeh johnson and nbc news white house correspondent jeff -- >> good morning. >> morehouse men. >> which one is old injure. >> i won't go there with you. >> let me ask you, we have a lot to get into with you but want to ask about that comment from senator kennedy because it's not just him but that's the one we have in front of us. a guy who i was saying to you earlier we had on the show a lot in the past and he'd come and criticize president trump when he thought it was -- he had done something worthy of critique. relatively honest broker with us. and i think from the moment he stood on that stage with president trump in louisiana and called nancy pelosi dumb, he went all in on this but now what he's doing is pushing, again, a

conspiracy theory. lindsey graham is on board starting his own investigation into the ukrainians' conspiracy theory. what's your read having been in politics and knowing what you know about what happened in 2016, what's your read. >> my read is it's irresponsible. he is a united states senator. he does know. he knows from the statement that the director of national intelligence and i issued on october 7th, 2016. he knows from the very detailed and methodical indictments into russian hacking and russian disinformation issued by the special counsel and he knows from the senate intelligence committee chaired by his fellow republican richard burr that the russians, the russian government at the behest of vladimir putin was behind the interference in our democracy. and i believe it is irresponsible for a united states senator to say otherwise particularly at a time when we're trying to restore the

voters' faith in our democracy and trying to send the russian government a sufficient deter re deterrent from it happening again. i saw this and i was pretty worked up. >> following up on exactly that, vladimir putin last week in moscow said that he thought this was great news, that the united states was now focused on ukraine meddling and therefore no longer russia. are you seeing any evidence, any steps at all that we're -- the united states government is any way better prepared to stop a russian interference next year? >> the good news is the department of homeland security has over the last three years, i think, done a considerable amount of work with state, seconds of state who run state level elections to strengthen the cybersecurity of election infrastructure. a lot of good work has been done at the state level and national level when it comes to hardening

our election infrastructure cybersecurity. in terms of the disinformation campaign, i think we've got a long way to go and there is no line of defense to prevent this 100% and the only way to prevent a nation state actor from doing this again is to make the behavior cost prohibitive which in my judgment we have yet to do and when you hear statements like senator kennedy's, he's sending the message that this will be tolerated, this democracy and that's not a good thing. >> let me ask you point blank because you did help author that report about what russia did. let's just take for a moment this theory that ukraine somehow meddled in the election and they -- russia was framed and the dnc was involved. >> straight out of the kremlin talking points. >> did ukraine have any impact, any influence, any maligned influence on the 2016 election. >> no, not to my knowledge, no. >> afc all russia. >> it was all russia at the behest of vladimir putin at the very top.

to tilt the election in favor of donald trump and against hillary clinton. there's no doubt about it. we're heard that from both sides of the aisle, the united states senate, from the special counsel. from our entire intelligence community. the view is unanimous. >> so you've been covering the impeachment proceedings honorably, thoroughly for like probably too long in your own mind right now but the republican side, the house republic republicans just talk about covering them in terms of the dialogue you get from them that is so out of whack with the reality that we hear that the secretary just spoke to about the facts of the case. >> what's interesting about it, president trump wants republicans on the hill to defend him the way he wants to be defended. and so far he wanted republicans to defend him on the merits. a lot haven't gone that far, certainly not those in the senate. more so in the house, the ones that have. but what you are getting is this

sense that the president did not wrong and that this whole impeachment thing is a farce and a scam. you do hear republicans make that point. what's interesting to me about the democrat position is that well before nancy pelosi fully embraced this impeachment inquiry, is that she had said that one of the reasons why she was cautious about impeachment was because she knew it would be an arduous process and divisive. and democrats would have to expend a ton of political capital trying to pursue impeachment. and we are now in that position that she feared that we would be in. democrats amassed a mountain of evidence that answers all of their questions in the affirmative, did president trump use his public office for personal gain, yes. did he abuse the power of his office? yes, they say. did he try to obstruct congress in covering it up? yes, and yet republicans won't look at that evidence on the merits and see the same case. that's precisely where she warned we would be. >> that word divisive over the weekend some feel it came into play and the actions.

the president with regard to navy s.e.a.l. eddie gallagher. >> yeah. >> and inserting himself into the process of justice. there is a uniform code of military justice prior to becoming homeland security secretary, you were general counsel in the department of defense. could you speak to what his insertion in altering the code of military justice does down the line in the command structure? >> well, let's start at the command level. there are six words fundamental to a military command whether it's a group of ten guys on a fast response cutter or an entire combat and command. unit cohesion and good order and discipline. and a commander has to maintain good order and discipline in order to make us the finest fighting force in the nation and in the world. our military is the best at what they do not just because they're the most powerful but the most disciplined. and what the president has done and i don't know the details of

the particular case but what the message that is sent to guys out in the field is that behavior like this will be tolerated. and for a commander at the unit level you cannot have that message sent to your people and, you know, in almost every other circumstance the president stays out of military justice because we're so concerned about undue command influence trickling down the chain of command into the force and so this was truly an extraordinary reaction and i suspect the navy s.e.a.l. community, special ops communities will have to spend a lot of time putting the pieces back together as a result of this. >> jack, we recently learned last week that devin nunes met with the ukrainian prosecutor even though he's a ranking member on the committee that has jurisdiction over impeachment. didn't recuse himself from the hearings. can you talk a little about the reaction on the hill and i think you've been doing some reporting on this as well.

>> lev parnas, the indicted associate of rudy giuliani says he was told that nunes met with viktor shokin, the ukrainian prosecutor in late 2018. nunes refutes all of it. i looked into the congressional record because this is publicly available information and the record shows nunes was in europe from november 30th to december 3rd. the records don't say with whom he met or if teves in vienna as parnas aallegations. do you have some democrats saying nunes should face an ethics investigation and if he were to face an ethics investigation it would be his second ethics investigation in as many years so nunes for his own part says that the facts are on his side but so far based on the facts that we have, the facts indeed are not on his side. >> there is a lot more there. i know you'll keep digging. jeh johnson, thank you, nbc news white house correspondent geoff bennett, thank you. morehouse well represented. the incredible personal story from a former speech writer for president obama.

when adam frankel was 25 he found out the man he thought was his father was not. adam then had to reveal that family secret to the father who raised him. his story is next on "morning joe." we made usaa insurance for members like kate. a former army medic, made of the flexibility to handle whatever monday has in store and tackle four things at once. so when her car got hit, she didn't worry. she simply filed a claim on her usaa app and said... i got this. usaa insurance is made the way kate needs it - easy. she can even pick her payment plan so it's easy on her budget and her life. usaa. what you're made of, we're made for. usaa ♪for the holidays you can't beat home sweet home.♪♪ we go the extra mile to bring your holidays home.

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when adam frankle was 25 years old, he found out a shocking truth that lead him on a journey of self rediscovery and learning how trauma reverberates across generations. joining us now is adam frankel. he is author of "the survivors." a story of war, inheritance, and healing. this is such an incredible story. what was the secret that your mother told you when you were 25. >> well, thank you for having me. she told me that i am not my dad's biological son, and she kept it not only from me, my dad, and both sides of my family, but just pulled the rug out from under me.

>> and revealing the secret to you put you in the uncomfortable position of having to tell your father, who was not your biological father, but i could not deal with this for almost a decade. i buried it, and it was so upsetting and i didn't want to deal with it and frankly i had an unt to not to deal with it because several months after areaing it, i was asked to be a deputy on the obama campaign. this was in 2007 and working on a presidential campaign in the white house is a pretty good job if you don't want to deal with personal issues because you're pretty busy. so i was so consumed with that that i didn't have time to focus on this and it allowed me not to focus on it, and it was only in

the white house that i started to grapple with it and had an identity crisis while in the whou white house. >> what is the why? why did she do it? th >> that is an excellent question. s she has struggled with depression and mental health issues. her grandparents are holocaust survivors and there is research on how trauma can leave an imprint on dna. i went back to her parents to try to understand her parents, how the trauma reverberated to my mom and her siblings and started to understand the family's alarm elarger story. so understand how this could have happened.

s she began an affair with my b biological father. and it helped me understand her pain and it helped me forgive her. >> it is a beautiful and heartbreaking book, it goes without saying, and it is just an incredible story with so many layers including the fact that your grandparents are holocaust survivors. did she tell you why i better share this with him or this is the time. >> she didn't come out and tell me, i figured it out and i confronted her on it. >> how did you figure it out? >> i was living at home working on ted sorenson memoir.

and i asked her why they got divorced, and they were giving different answers. i kept taking their answers back to one another and realized there was something my mom didn't want to share with me. i kept pushing and pushing until ultimately i asked her who is my father. and she told me the truth. >> and you put it away for about eight years before you went to your dad and you found out. he said he suspected he knew, he thought it could be a possibility. yeah, you know, he -- i mustered up all of the courage i had, and i was terrified of talking to him about this because i knew he was not going to walk away from me, he loves me, but i was terrified of the slightest change in his eyes or the tone

of his voice when he talked to me. telling your father that you're not his son doesn't seem like a phone conversation. so i went to see him, and i, you know, i was balling. i could not get the words out. and as i was saying this is what mom told me all these years ago. i could hear through the hearte that he said i knew it was a possibility, and he made the decision that it didn't matter. and he said is that all? >> how do you, when you find out the secret initially at 25 years old. i'm just thinking if that had been me, i'm thinking about every party and every thing that happened for 25 years. my biological father was a

presence in my life growing up and i have known him all of my life. i stayed with my half sister, and i stayed with her, she didn't know i was her half brother. we had had family time together, me, my mom, and his family, but none of us knew we were all related. >> was it hard to exka -- excavate all of this? >> you're learning new streecre probably. >> it was so painful to do. i knew it was important to my healing and i hope that it is hope tofl other people, because with the surge of family disclosures, 25 and me, ancestry.com, and look, everybody has trauma in their own lives or their family's

lives, one of the things that has been such a revelation that we're all aware of is that fact and whether or not in my family it is war trauma, mental health issues, abuse, and i hope if we can once that aunder and the way it moves, maybe we can process it. >> i have to ask about one other player, president obama, you had a very close relationship with him throughout his campaign and his first term, what was his reaction. >> i went to see him at his personal office about a year ago, and when i worked with him it was nearly all business all of the time. all of our conversations were about speeches and work. but this conversation was different, and i was very moved because he was interested, he was epithetic, and as i said i'm

writing a book at intergenerational trauma, he said that sounds like a real beach read. >> when you told him about the secret, he said how did you figure it out, is your dad black? >> that is great. >> the book is the s"the surviv" i really love when you toll td story about when your dad said "is that all"? that is very nice. a great book. that does it for us this morning, stephanie ruhle piu pi up the coverage now. >> the navy's top official is out of a jeob. a public battle with donald

trump over the fate of a navy seal charged with war crimes. twice donald trump has intervenes with chief petty officer gallagher. and the president is already being investigated for pushing the powers executive powers in . they were first to report that secretary spencer was considering resigning last week. >> it has been a head snapping turn of events. he tweeted that the navy should not get involved in this case. they said they would do a