that's a huge change from in the past. >> thanks as always. we'll be reading axios a.m. in just a bit and you can sign up at signup.axios.com. >> "morning joe" starts right now. ♪ good morning, welcome to "morning joe." it's tuesday, november the 26 am. with us we have msnbc contributor mike barn knack he will, eddie glaude junior. president of the foreign relations authd th relations author of a book a world in disarray. and can we talk briefly about lamar jackson? >> please. >> lamar jackson best player in the nfl. >> lamar jackson best player in the nfl. the ravens probably the best team in the nfl. but lamar jackson far and away the single most exciting player in professional football. >> absolutely. >> just incredible watching him last night. >> they smoked the rams in l.a.

last night. he went off. >> the jackson five they're calling it, five touchdown passes. he's a sports changer. he will become now the new yardstick for a professional quarterback. >> as a steelers fan, eddie is very, very excited. >> we'll show some lamar jackson later in the show, but we have to begin with the court ruling against the argument the president is using to stonewall the impeachment investigation. a federal court judge has rejected the white house claim of absolute immunity ruling that former white house counsel don mcgahn must testify in the impeachment inquiry. the house judiciary committee subpoenaed mcgahn earlier this year for testimony on possible obstruction of justice in the mueller investigation. when the white house blocked his appearance, the committee sued and yesterday a federal judge sided with congress writing in her opinion this, quote, stated simply, the primary takeaway from the past 250 years of reported american history is that presidents are not kings. this means that they do not have

subjects bound by loyalty or blood whose destiny they are entitled to control. that rule by judge jackson in a federal court. official tells nbc news the justice department will seek a stay to stop the ruling from taking effect immediately. the white house in a statement said this decision contradicts longstanding legal press dens dent established by administrations by both political parties. will appeal and are confident that the principle advanced by the administration will be vindicated while the ruling only compels mcgahn's testimony, the trump administration has used the now rejected absolute immunity claim to defy congressional subpoenas for vice president pence, secretary of state mike pompeo, and acting chief of staff mick mulvaney. former national security adviser john bolton has not been subpoenaed but people familiar with his views are now telling "the washington post" he would testify if cleared by a federal court. danny, let me start with you

just on the nuts and bolts of this, what it means exactly. what judge jackson effectively said is don mcgahn has to go testify before the house judiciary committee, forget the immunity claim. but once he's in the chair, he can still claim executive privilege. i do have that right? >> that's right. on a case by case or question by question basis. what this ruling holds, it is a significant opinion, but it's not a surprise because the same court decided essentially exactly the exact same issue back in 2007. that case involving harriet meyers at the time did not make it all the way to the end of appeals, it was resolved otherwise. but there's nothing about this opinion that's that shocking because everything that the court holds or that compels the testimony or shoots down the kpl absolute privilege argument is based on case law. the administration is based on their own legal opinions, which have no binding legal precedent

at all. in a sense, the winner in this case was never going to be in doubt and if it goes up on appeal the result will be the same. the net takeaway is there is no absolute immunity for high-ranking executive aides. they have to show up and comply. then they may have executive privilege claims. but you can't ignore a congressional subpoena. that's the big takeaway. >> let's bring in yamiche and nbc news correspondent covering national security and intelligence ken dilanian. mike, we should point out, we're talking about don mcgahn because we've had so many names come through in the last several months. don mcgahn was the former white house counsel that left last fall. we're talking here about the mueller investigation which, in this case, is separate from the ukrainian investigation. but there may be some implications for the ukrainian investigation if it sets a precedent that allows someone like john bolton to go testify.

>> clearly. but in this sea of subpoenas, danny, that have been issued, many people who have been issued a subpoena have just totally ignore the subpoena? how does that happen? if i get a subpoena, eddie gets a subpoena, we have to respond to it. >> they're playing a game of chicken. what we're finding out is that the congress doesn't have a very good enforcement mechanism. so someone who received a congressional subpoena, and if they have the chutzpah, the amazing thing is once you get a new congress in, that subpoena disappears into the either disappears into the ether. that's what the operation admin is doing. they're saying if i hold out as long as i can, the need for the subpoena may dissipate. that's what happened with the meyers s&p subpoena. it never made it through the

court of appeals. it was resolved in another way and you had this freestanding court opinion for over a decade that left us wondering where exactly the law is on this issue. >> in the mueller report, ken dilanian, we know that don mcgahn testified for about 30 hours in front of the special counsel's office. we know that he testified that president trump asked him to fire robert mueller at one point in 2017. how significant is this ruling to that case? >> well, look, i don't actually think that this ruling is going to affect how congress deals with airing that matter before the public because it's going to be appealed, it's going to drag out. and, look, they're going to take a vote before thanksgiving on the ukraine matter. they're moving ahead. so congressman schiff keeps using this term ropeadope. he says i'm not going to be dragged into a long court fight hoping we get the testimony of these people. none of less, because of what danny said this is a hugely important decision that will last long after the trump administration is gone.

since 1971, the executive branch has claimed this right of testimonial immunity saying that congress has no right to call close presidential aides to testify. and what this judge said was that doesn't exist. that is not a thing. and so -- so, you know, as you said, mcgahn will, of course, even once this say peeled and goes all the way through and assuming that this ruling holds, mcgahn will then claim executive privilege on these because he was advising the president about how to respond and how to deal with the mueller investigation in his capacity as white house counsel. and executive privilege arguably does protect some sensitive conversations with the president. so we may never see mcgahn's testimony. but nonetheless, this is an incredible important ruling because -- especially in light of the recent speech that the attorney general made arguing essentially for unchecked presidential power and that these -- these many investigations by congress amount to harassment. now, that's a sort of a distorted view of an argument

that the executive branch has been making for a long time. and what this judge said is absolutely not, congressional investigations are enshrined in the constitution and they have a right to call aides to come and comply with subpoenas. >> it's a separation of powers argument is what judge jackson made yesterday in court, eddie. >> i want to under line what ken just said. oftentimes we confuse two things. there's the bad actor that's donald trump, and then there are the arguments surrounding donald trump around an imperial presidency. and then there's some folks like bill barr who is defending this radical understanding of executive, of executive power, and then there's folks defending trump and the way in which those two things converge. what we saw yesterday is a clear distinction. judge jackson invoked federalist 51 which was all about the separation of powers, right? so we have in some ways a clear annunciation that this idea of

unlimited executive power is just simply unconstitutional. it just has no merit. so that argument now is in full view as opposed to just simply being something driving behind the scenes the way in which people have been defending donald trump. >> the headline from judge jackson yesterday was presidents are not kings. that's the case she was making yesterday. >> it was classic federalist paper. this is a public civics class. i have a question for the lawyer types around the table. say people ultimately testify, who gets to decide whether executive privilege is claimed? if john bolton testifies, can the white house instruct him to assert executive privilege? does i ha does he have the right to say i choose to answer this question? >> they can instruct him and it would go immediately to the courts and that creates a problem. obviously an individual can say i'm not going to comply with that order. that, again, would go to the courts.

this is why these legal issues have been left so unresolved for so long, because in many cases congress says what's the point in the battle? let's try to negotiate something else so that he that we get something today as opposed to maybe something in the future. and just one thing to build on what eddie said, it's so interesting that the administration argued separation of powers means that we as the executive are untouchable. the court said no, no, you've got it exactly wrong. it's the opposite. separation of powers means that the different branches act as a check on each other and it is exactly our job as a judiciary to check you, the executive branch. >> yamiche, as i pointed out, don mcgahn testified to robert mueller that president trump asked him to go fire robert mueller, fire the special counsel and he refused to so. president trump has denied that in an interview since then. what is the white house reaction to this? do they show any concern about this or they think this is just another step along this path of impeachment the democrats are trying to pursue? >> the white house is obviously

concerned about this. don mcgahn is someone who was at the center of the white house and understood what was going on with the president, understood some of the orders that he was giving. but i think what's even more interesting or more concerning than don mcgahn's testimony since democrats really do want to focus so narrowly on this ukraine issue is what that will mean for the people that have been named by all the witnesses that came forward in these impeachment hearings. there was secretary pompeo, vice president pence, rick perry, all of these people that are not testifying as people under them like alexander vindman, lieutenant colonel vindman, he's someone working at the white house and decided to show up. but there are these higher up officials who understand what the president's thinking who don't want to come to congress. i think the white house and those people might somehow be compelled to be part of this impeachment inquiry. >> so, ken, let's talk about potential implications for the ukraine conversation. this, again, we're talking about

testimony for don mcgahn before the house judiciary committee. but what about for the house intel committee and a witness like john bolton, someone who's been sort of flirting with the idea of speaking publicly in one form or another, whether that's a book or testimony, and the impeachment inquiry remains to be seen. did this set some kind of a precedent in that conversation? >> well, it certainly does. to yamiche's point, it absolutely does. the judge even mentioned that national security does not create testimony -- testimonial immunity either. however, it would allow bolton to claim executive privilege. but you can argue a lot of what's covered in this ukraine matter does not implicate u.s. national security. democrats would say it's a criminal scheme. in the famous nixon sproocase, argued to give up the tapes because it doesn't trip a valid

investigation. that has got to be a concern here. john bolton, mick mulvaney, mike pompeo, all of these people who have resisted efforts to get them to talk about ukraine. that said, there's a long road of litigation here and democrats are on a much different timetable. realistically, will the courts decide this on the timetable the democrats need to get an impeachment vote and to get this information before the public, that seems unlikely. but it may affect future generations. this is a really important precedent being set by this ruling. >> there's legal timeline, appeals, stays, and then the political timeline. adam schiff signaling yesterday to his members, we want to get this moving, get something done and get a vote sometime before christmas. just as a practical matter, how long do this play out, this mcgahn question only? we have a stay right now. how long do this go on? >> we're only at the district court, which is the lowest trial court. from there they can appeal right to the d.c. circuit and there to the supreme court. they're at the very beginning of this road so it could take a

long time. in important issues like this, they will often expedite matters on appeal, but they still need to brief the issues. and the core -- look at this. we just had over a hundred page opinion issued by the district court. these kinds of things take time. so that's why congress knows that discretion may be the better part of valor. get what they can today, immediately through negotiation and only press forward if the other side refused and stone walls completely. that's how we get existing case law and future precedent. >> this will not be tied up, the mcgahn issue, before christmas when adam schiff wants a vote on impeachment? >> oh, it will be tied up but not in the way you're saying. it will be tied up in the courts. >> danny sa v, thanks so much. we talk about crime in progress, inside the steele dossier and the infusion of donald trump. we'll see you in a bit, ken.

meanwhile, we're weighing in on the firing of richard spencer following a controversial war crimes case. speaking to reporters yesterday, secretary esper explained he was, quote, flabbergasted to learn that spence her tried to make a secret deal with the white house concerning embattled navy s.e.a.l. eddie gallagher. secretary esper said he demanded spencer's resignation after learning he approached the white house about an arrangement to let gallagher retire as a navy s.e.a.l. if the president stayed out of the case. esper also said monday president trump gave him a direct order to drop disciplinary action against gallagher. in his first tv interview since being fired, spencer told cbs he spoke with white house counsel pat cipollone about the proposed arrangement on the november 15th. he says cipollone called back the same day to decline the offer saying the president would be involved. spencer acknowledged not telling esser about that proposal. >> i will take the bad on me for not letting him know i did that. but he was completely informed

as to this because his chief of staff was briefed on it. >> a spokesperson for the pentagon disputed spencer's statement telling "the washington post" no one on esper's staff was aware of spencer's pro posed deal. in that came deal, he also argued he was trying to head off an order from the president which he said he could not in good conscience obey? >> what i do stand for for the u.s. navy some of that's a prime tenant. this erodes that. >> what's wrong with following a lawful order from the commander and chief? >> nothing, everyone should follow a lawful order, that's good order and discipline. i could not, in my conscience, do this. >> speaking to reporters yesterday, donald trump defended his involvement in the war crimes case. >> i have to protect my war fighters. i've been gotten -- a lot of people, a lot of war fighters and people in the military have thanked us very much. with eddie gallagher, you know that story very well. they wanted to take his pin away, i said, no, you're not

going to take it away. he was a great fighter. he was one of the ultimate fighters. tough guy. these are not weak people. these are tough people. and we're going to protect our war fighters. >> i don't think he really understands the full definition of a war fighter. a war fighter say profession of arms. and a profession of arms has standards that they have to be held to and they hold themselves to. >> richard, i'll read some of the reactions. senator jack reed the top democrat on armed services said this is an outrageous, irresponsible interference by president trump in the military justice system. he went on and explained why he believes that. just your reaction to how this has all played out. >> there's no winners here. spencer's position was ridiculous. he was going to basically argue for a sham or almost show trial kind of thing with the outcome guaranteed, so that wasn't an answer. i understand why he got canned. but the president's position is unsupportable. and the sad thing, willie, it's not a one off.

the military is not the only institution he's gone after. he's gone after the foreign service, we saw that the last weeks. he's gone after the against community. he's gone after the federal reserve. he's gone after, you know, national security council. what he's basically doing is institution after institution he is going against the norms, the culture, the idea of professionalism. the idea of independence. so we thought the military was somehow off limits, it's sad, not just because the military is critically important, military's arguably the most successful institution in american society. i can't think -- when we look at where the military was, say, in vietnam and where it is half a century later, it is a model for talent development, for diversity, for professionalism, for excellence. we have been extraordinarily well served in this country by our military. and this is a corrosive act. this is a way of removing the military's ability to self-regulate, to self-police.

so this is a dangerous, dangerous precedent. >> yamiche, we just spoke to norms broken, standards lowered. this is throughout many agencies in this administration. and jack reed, senator reed's comment that was just referred to, i'd like you to speak to the level of concern that you hear along our elected officials who realize that norms broken, standards lowered is really universal now across government. >> well, there are two parts that you talk to democrats, they really are worried that what president trump presents is really a question about how our democracy functions in general. whether or not the institution that people have held up, i'm talking about the dojr t, are t department of justice, whether they will continue to work in the nation's best interest or whether or not a president can come in and put in an attorney general that's been personally

loyal to him, as democrats have argued that attorney general barr is to president trump, whether or not that with an agenda president trump has that he can test those norms and break those norms and get away with it. republicans when i talk to them off the record are also people who have been -- a lot of people will back the idea of rule of law who have shied away from the idea of abusing power but who find themselves having to back up and defend someone that they think is bending the rules if at best and at worse is the really putting them in a situation where they're having to defend what they think is really unethical behavior if not impeachable. so i think the republicans i've talked to, they don't move away from the president saying they're going to be strogt impeach him or anything like that. i think he will continue to have solid republican support. but there are republicans who definitely worried that this president in breaking these norms and in change the way that america functions overall might mean something bad for the future of this country. >> so, eddie, secretary spencer was asked that cbs interview

last night what message this sends. he says well the mess tage it sends is that you can get away with anything and president trump will come in and clear your name. it's a bad message to send. we got news from the beast that eddie gallagher would like to campaign with him in 2020, be on the stage in convention in 2020. president trump now effect fivly using the man he cleared as something like a political prop. >> right. it qualifies what secretary sperns w spencer was saying, it's not that anyone can get away with anything, but if you support donald trump you may be able to. and what we see is the president believes can he do anything he wants. no matter institutional norms say or what they might be, he believes that his power is unlimited and unchecked. and so for those of us who aren't in the military, i was talking to mike about this earlier, just imagine this as the president swooping in, just

a particular judicial case and overturning what the judge says. so it disrupts the way in which military justice functions. and here in the context of someone who was convicted of a war crime, of a war crime, someone who in some ways undermined the values of the navy s.e.a.l.s. and donald trump said it doesn't matter. it doesn't matter. >> you know, to your point and to what richard said about the american military, especially over the course of the last 20, 30 years, the retraining of the american military, the image of the eyes of americans and around the world, on october 12th, donald trump tweeted this. we train our boys to be killing machines then prosecute them when they kill. that is an exhibit of a fundamental total misunderstanding of what we do as a country to train our military. we do not train them to be killing machines. we train them principally to be

national security apparatus, but to be weapons representing the united states of america when they are overseas, good order, discipline, as spencer said. a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of the military. >> yeah. absolutely. and this is a perfect example of how we reduce our standing in the world and in some ways we reduce i think potentially the safety of american troops around the world. they're in all sorts of settings. in some cases they're peacekeepers. some cases they are providing stability and sometimes they're war fighters. but when they're war fighters they act with real cohesion and under laws and command and that's so corrosive of what the president is because he undermines that. he undermines the discipline, he undermines the chain of command, the relationship -- it's a hierarchical organization. that's exactly what he's working

against. for this short-term benefit he gets politically, the word that keeps coming to mind, is corrosive. institutions depend upon rules and norms and values and this works against it. >> all right. still ahead on "morning joe," we are exactly 11 weeks away this morning from new hampshire democratic primary. new polling there shows a tight four-way race. we'll dig into the new numbers. plus, former new york city mayor michael bloomberg maikes his first presidential campaign stop. but first, a look at the forecast. we're reporting over 700 kplooit flig flight cancellations and thr3,0 delays. we have everything. let's get into it. we're first of all starting with 23 million people under winter storm warnings. we've had 7 inches of snow in denver. collins, 14 inches of snow. it's a snow day in colorado and

that's going to spread through areas of the plains. and then tonight and into tomorrow, the west gets it hard, especially the mountainous areas. arizona, nevada, everywhere. here's the snowfall map. you can see how big this footprint is of snow. another 6 inches possible later on tonight in places like minneapolis minneapolis. warm side will produce severe weather. we have a chance of an isolated tornado if the you're flying out of st. louis, little rock when this line of storms come through, we'll have to shut things down, get a brief stop and resume. delays are possible throughout the region of arkansas and definition st. louis. let me give you the timing with the heavy snow in denver, we're going to have significant airport delays there. later today the snow begins in minneapolis. early flights are fine. then when that line of storms goes through, we could get delays st. louis, chicago, dallas, and a little bit there in houston. the good news is that the roads pretty much south of chicago are

going to be wet. 80 is the tresh chacherous road there will be a period of rain going through and strong winds so i don't think the rain will cause too many delays. but as far as the airports go, we could see winds gusting 50 to 60 miles per hour in chicago and also detroit. so that's going to cause significant problems. delays, maybe cancellations through the great lakes. breezier conditions in areas of the northeast, it won't be as bad as say chicago in new york, but we'll still have some issues out of it. and of course the roads, minor problems with that and with the windy conditions a lot of people are wondering what's happening with the balloons. we can't have gusts forecast over 34 in new york city. right now the gust forecast support to 40. that may change and they may have to be grounded.

right now, beautiful in new york city. that changes for wednesday. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. u'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. hi. maria ramirez!

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some are saying that they see your decision to run now as an indication that you feel that the current candidates in the field are weak and they ket can can't get the job done is. that accurate? >> let me phrase it this way. i think there's a greater risk of having donald trump re-elected than there was before. and in the end i looked in the mirror and said i just cannot let this happen. >> michael bloomberg is making a bet about democracy in 2020. he doesn't need people, he only needs bags and bags of money. >> i have nothing personal against mr. bloomberg, i really don't. but what does disturb me is the arrogance of the billionaire

class. >> senators elizabeth warren and bernie sanders reacting to former new york city mayor michael bloomberg's entrance in the presidential race. he made his first campaign stop in norfolk, virginia, yesterday. meanwhile, for the first time in decades it's a four-way race in new hampshire. the latest suffolk university boston globe poll shows senator bernie sanders at 16% and senator elizabeth warren at 14%. mayor pete buttigieg at 13%. he's up eight points since august. and former advice president joe biden at 12%. he is down nine points since august. this is essentially a statistical tie with all four candidates sitting in the polls margin of error of more than four points. the support for senator sanders appeared to be more solid than others. 64% of their supporters say their mind is firmly made up. biden is the next close northwest that regard with 37%. let's bring in pulitzer prize winning columnist and associate editor of "the washington post,"

eugene robinson. and political reporter for "the boston globe," james. james, what do you see in that poll that maybe the rest of us haven't seen yet, which is that mayor pete buttigieg flying up 8%, up eight points, and vice president down nine points. there was that poll last week up in new hampshire that showed mayor buttigieg with a league. some say the highly educated white voters gave him an edge that inflated his numbers, but here he is tied for the lead. >> yeah, there's a broader point and then a granular point. the broader point is that for so long many, including myself, thought that new hampshire would eventually just come down to this progressive grudge match between two neighboring senators of elizabeth warren and bernie sanders who of course won the 2016 primary. then joe biden comes in the race, obviously floating above

it, immediately becomes the front runner. now what we're seeing is the most complicated scenario in new hampshire that we have all cycle. and as i wrote and as you quoted, we've never had this many candidates clustered at the very top this close to the new hampshire primary in decades. and so while a lot of people are looking at iowa, that's clearly where a lot of voters thought this is going to be a make a break contest for them and they thought new hampshire would be this warn and bernie contest, i think this poll will change the nare tip of and for narrative here. remember the top number, 16%. anything can happen in terms of a candidate who's down at 2% or 4% like yang. and the number of undecides are 50% and haven't decided yesterday. the smaller point would be the one thing to look in this poll

are older voters. fascinating. from one poll over last poll to this poll, older voters have been fleeing joe biden. that's why he dropped to fourth place. he dropped nine points among older voters. meanwhile, pete buttigieg is the one who's gaining. he gained seven points among those older voters. right now they're the subgroup that's moving the most right now. >> isn't that interesting that mayor buttigieg leads the field with 22% support among voters 52 to 65 years of old. the young mayor from south bend, indiana, is the most popular with older voters in new hampshire. >> and clearly his jump up eight points, it's at joe biden's expense. there's a saying in politics and it began in 1968 in new hampshire that old people like young people. i mean, they just do. they're drawn to younger -- like willie? >> that's right. >> if i'm young there are san

old showed. i'm a middle-aged man. gene robinson, what do you see in these numbers other than the fact that this race is completely up for grabs as is the case in iowa. you've got a cluster of candidates at the top of polls there. what do you see in these new numbers? >> i see what you saw. i see a race that's completely up for grabs. i see a primary contest through the first at least two contests and maybe the first three if you count nevada that's totally fluid, that could go any way. and then you get to south carolina and maybe joe biden still has a firewall there and -- because of his support with african-american voters and we'll, at that point we'll see. but this is -- this -- we could be in a few months after these -- this first set of primaries we could be looking toward super tuesday and hoping

that we get some questions answered. this could look like a very messy, undecided race for some time through the primary season, i think. because voters clearly haven't made up their minds that they -- that there's one of these candidates or even two of these candidates that they want to finally duke it out to run against donald trump. the number of undecideds is striking. >> steve kornacki reminds us as this poll came out, the same poll, december 11th, 2003, howard dean 42%, john kerry 19%, wesley clark 13%. obviously a long way to go in these. >> a long way to go, it's just a picture of a particular moment. but i think what's interesting, particularly with the buttigieg numbers and the biden numbers, the kind of conversation we were having around the progressive side of the democratic party

that those votes would be split between warren and sanders, we're seeing that happen among the centrists. you have buttigieg, bide ren an now bloomberg. it's interesting how this ideological divide within the party has taken shape up to now and what it will look like moving forward as the voters have choices within those particular camps to make. we're in for a long ride. >> already it's a factor, but it's going to become a larger factor after the holidays are over and the beginning of the new year. which among these candidates, who can beat donald trump? that's the factor. >> no one has higher than 16%. the two progress sives together or 30%, the two centrists are 25 percent. this is truly distributed and it reflects the larger narrative. we began this with bloomberg. this is the scenario he benefits from, that nobody emerges. the first four primaries air wash and then you start moving

towards super tuesday. it's interesting watching his ads. bloomberg is running less against everybody else and much more against trump. he is the one who who is framing the issues so far more than anything else as a referendum on incumbent and on his fitness to serve. i know his numbers are low and he's not in these polls, but this reinforces the rational for his presidency. >> we're going to talk more about that after we sneak in a quick break. we'll be right back on "morning joe." right back on "morning joe." 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!

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we cannot afford four more years of president trump's

reckless and unethical actions. he is an existential threat to our country, to our values, and our national security. and every day it seems to bring another example of just how unfit he is to serve as our president and commander and chief. and this week was no exception. >> mayor michael bloomberg kicking off his campaign in norfolk, virginia, yesterday. gene robinson r let's play a little devil's advocation is i. he can pour unlimited funds into this race to interact it but a man who is sitting out the beginning of this campaign and waiting on super tuesday. does he really play i part in this campaign the way a lot of people are speculating he will? >> well, the answer is not yet, certainly, because, as you said, he's not on the charts at the moment. however, if the scenario we were just talking about turns out to be right, if democratic voters

really aren't sure, if they really don't know, if we get a completely mixed result from the first four primaries, then, you know, you can imagine a huge sort of blanketing media campaign by michael bloomberg in the super tuesday states, including california and texas. and you can imagine him playing a role in the campaign. i'm a bit skeptical as to whether the democratic primary elector rate electorate as we know it this year will warmly embrace michael bloomberg. he'll have a lot of questions to answer. one of them will be if you're elected will you divert yourself of these vast assets so we don't have some of the conflict questions and issues that we have with the billionaire currently occupying or the

alleged billion ar currently acc pi occupying the white house. he'll have a lot of explaining to do, but it's not inconceivable this year that, yes, he may have an impact and we'll just have to see. this is going to be one wild ride. >> no question about that. yamiche, we know the president's always thinking about the race, it's the reason he had rudy giuliani running around ukraine trying to get dirt on joe biden because he was thinking about his next race. what is the white house and specifically the president thinking right now as it watches this field beat each other up and watches the polls move through different states, see another billionaire enter the race in michael bloomberg. where do they see this democratic field and who do they fear most? >> well, the president has said that he still has his eyes on bernie sanders, elizabeth warren, and joe biden as the top contenders. but when you add michael bloomberg, you riley is eally h understand there are people who see michael bloomberg there is

from a democrat i was talking about yesterday, the real version of what president trump claims to be. it's from a democrat, but you have someone who say new york billionaire who has made his money and given away his money, who has been philanthropic and as one said in the democratic convention, that he sees a fraud when he -- he knows what a fraud is when he sees one. and he was talking about donald trump in that moment. essentially you have someone in michael bloomberg who could get under the president's skin because he could talk about the president's background in new york, cotalk about hhe could ta business ventures and not paying people and the fact that he isn't a billionaire because he's not released his tax returns. so michael bloomberg, even if he's not a direct threat, he's someone that president trump will hone in on because he's known him for a long time. that, i think the president is still most concerned with the democrats leading in the polls. pete buttigieg isn't someone i've heard that much about when it comes to campaign officials

for president trump. but he might be someone who the president begins to hone in on as well. >> so we've said it's early, it's early, it's early. a lot of things can change. we've pointed to the last polls that showed a race that didn't end one howard dean doing the things that the polls suggested he was going to do. what changes the dynamic in this race over these next 11 weeks? how does it shake out when you have four people essentially tied in new hampshire, what are the voters up there look at that will separate somebody from that pack? >> you know what's amaze something michael bloomberg is worth $53 billion and he doesn't control his own definite nip, at lea destiny in this presidential race. he needs something messy to happen. and to directly answer your question, i'm glad kornacki brought up 2003, because you know what happened in 2003/2004? john kerry wins iowa. and he wins iowa and he comes back and then wins new hampshire. i don't know how likely that scenario is going to be here,

but if we have a very, very messy race, with a lot of different dynamics going on, if elizabeth warren or bernie sanders win iowa, maybe even pete buttigieg win iowa, they may well win new hampshire as well. and then now we're off to the races and no one has ever lost the nomination who have won those first two states. and then mike bloomberg who? by the time he's probably i don't know how many hundreds of millions of dollars. so i do think that iowa will be playing a very critual roical r determining whether we have a one or two-person campaign. people want a winner similar to 2004. and then of course what new hampshire does. if it's very, very messy that's good for bloomberg. if it's not and we have a clear dynamic, there's questions about what bloomberg's play is right here. coming up, republican senator john kennedy of

louisiana tries to clean up his comments about the debunked ukraine conspiracy. still leaves a bit of a mess behind. we'll show you what he says next on "morning joe." we'll show you what he says next on "morning joe." any comments doug? yeah. only pay for what you need with liberty mutual. only pay for what you need with liberty mutual. con liberty mutual solo pagas lo que necesitas. only pay for what you need... only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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welcome back to "morning joe." eugene robinson has a new piece

out in the washington post titled trump insiders are finally speaking up. what took so long? in it gene writes this. i wonder why it took a still anonymous whistle-blower to launch the probe of holding trump accountable approximately why it took a war crimes case to focus the attention on trump's disregard for the rule of lieu law. i wander why it took so long for the insiders to begin telling us what they know. there's no shortage in one time administration officials who hint darkly at the danger trump poses to our national security. former chief of staff john kelly, rex tillerson, former defense secretary jim mattis yet refuse to speak plainly. are they afraid of trump for some reason? do they feel some sense of loyalty to a man who obviously has no loyalty to them? working for the trump administration has been a moral slippery slope. i applaud the desire of officials to serve their country and i believe i can understand how they rationalize staying on.

without them penn perhaps the betrails would have been worse. but the loyalty s were to the constitution and not to donald trump. anyone with relevant information about donald trump's work in office no longer has the right to remain silent. it may not violate any law, but history, i'm quite sure, will take a much harsher view. gene, i imagine you're thinking about someone like john bolton testifying in the impeachment inquiry? >> i sure am. and i've been -- it's actually not john bolton. in the column, look, he was there, he called the ukraine dealings a drug deal, according to fiona hill. he was apparently appalled at what he saw going on. so come tell us. he signed apparently, we're told, according to reports, a big money deal for a book which would have to be a tell-all bik

bo book to get that kind of money, couple million dollars, reportedly. zre does he really want to be remembered as the guy rather than tell the american people about the clear and present danger he sees from this president waited to, you know, to tell it in a book that he's getting millions of dollars for and for huge speaking fees that he's raking in? and how can he be in that position? so he's sort of exhibit "a" in the question of why aren't people speaking out. but others as well. even the witnesses who testified last week, they saw this stuff going on yet we haven't -- didn't hear from them until after the whistle-blower blew the whis. >> whistle. >> yamiche, gene is writing about and talking about a town filled with cowards from anonymous to republicans who you

know, who we all know will speak to you off the record about how dangerous this is, about how all of the norms and standards have been broken, lowered, or disappeared and will not put their names on it. >> well, critics of the president will say that when we look back at the trump presidency we won't just be looking at a president who maybe challenged the norms and maybe really put to test the democratic institutions, we'll be looking at whether or not there were all thesen able enab around him and allowed these things to happen. and whether those people are going to be named say question. we know that the president has people around him he wants to be fiercely loyal to him and those people have in some ways stuck around and helped him and enabled him to do things. you only have to look at the ukraine controversy to know that whether or not the president did was impeachable, we know there are other officials, mick mulvaney and others who are

around that the president was trying to get a foreign country to investigate a political rival and didn't find that something that was too wrong that they want to go after. i think what you have in what eugene is writing about say listing is a listing of the people helping president trump. president trump and his supporters will say this is what the people voted for. they voted for someone that was going to have the norm-breaking policies. but think uzbeen righeugene is >> we did have two weeks of history of people that did speak up. coming up next, pulitzer prize winning author and presidential historian, doris go goodwin joins our table when we come back in two minutes. our t come back in two minutes. we're reporters from the new york times.

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computers, their emails? was it russia or ukraine? >> i don't know. nor do you, nor do any of us. ms. hill -- >> well, 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 ms. hill is entitled to her opinion but no rebuttal evidence was allowed to be offered. i was answering one of his questions and he interjected a statement and asked me to react to it. what i heard chris say was, he made the statement that only russia what tried to interfere in the election. and i answered the question. that's not what he said. i went back and looked at the transcript. he said only russia tried to hack the dnc computer. now, chris is right, i was

wrong. the only evidence i have, and i think it's overwhelming, is that it was russia who tried to hack the dnc computer. >> that's what the consensus is. >> i've seen -- yep. i've seen no indication that ukraine tried to do it. if you'll look at the articles i talked about, you will see that there's a lot of evidence that ukraine did try to meddle in the election in 2016. >> there is not. of course republican senator john kennedy now saying it was not ukrainians who hacked the dnc but still saying ukraine did try to meddle in the election. welcome back to "morning joe." it's tuesday, november 26th. with us we still have msnbc contributor mike barn knack he will pouring over his notes. your fantasy team? >> yeah. >> eddie glaude junior. richard haass. and joining the conversation, doris kerns goodwin, senior yieter at palo altoco, jake

sherman, an msnbc contributor, and former justice department spokesman now an msnbc justice and security analysts matt himmer. joe a miller. joe and mika have the morning off. what is he doing in propagating the lie that ukraine meddled in the election, even after he tried to clean it up, he came back to it at the end of that interview? >> well, i don't know is the short answer. i have no idea. but i would say, listen there are say long-runnithis is a lon theory. republicans especially in the house where they tend to be a little bit more imaginative, let's say, on the house intelligence committee have said this over and over again that it wasn't russia or it was russia plus ukraine. and it's been a way to try to undermine the intelligence community, which president trump has at times tried to do.

and it has been a backup mechanism for a lot of house republicans, a lot of congressional republicans. it's rare, though, to see senators who tend to be a little bit more grown up, perhaps, say the same thing. so it was surprising. and i think the cleanup duty is illustrative of that dynamic. >> i saw you tweeting about this yesterday, jake, something we've talked about now for weeks and months on this show, which is the franantasy, that the republicans are going to have their minds changed by the impeachment proceedings and turn on the president and vote to convict here. >> yeah, there's -- doesn't appear to be any evidence at hand that any republican in the house or the senate is going to vote to convict president trump, period, the end. we've seen no evidence of this. it seems to be some sort of fantasy among some in the media that somehow republicans are going to get what a lot of people consider to be religion on this. we don't see any evidence of that. we don't see any evidence that

any minds are changing. yes, public opinion has fluctuated back and forth. people have been for impeachment, against impeachment, depending on what poll you look at. but there's no evidence that anybody is going to do anything but what we expect, which is republicans are going to back the president here. and although, you know, the senate is a little bit more unpredictedab unpredictable than the house of representatives on that front, it doesn't seem like it's going to be anything besides republicans backing the president. >> doris, we haven't had you at the table since there was impeachment table where career diplomat after career diplomat told the same story where president trump tried to get political dirt in exchange for military assistance. we saw in that room republicans denying, effectively, the facts that were presented to them over the course of two weeks. >> yeah, it is the difficult situation we're living in today where it's not just a question of opinion or whether or not

there's an understanding of what's happened, facts themselves are what are true and what are not true and as part of the alternative narratives that we're living in. i mean, it just -- you know, we misspoke. i don't know if we request live can live in a democracy when you can't agree with what's happening underneath. >> it's not a knew thing for them to rally around the president. but can you put this in historical perspective which is what we're seeing with republican and republican following in line. >> the other thing that's not new is that zdisagreement on th facts. an old lady asked me on the plane the other day and said have we been in a worst time than this? i said well, lincoln had a debate with douglas, he falls on

the floor and you have to drag him out. he's so great in the republican paper they carry him out on their arms. she said that's not very hopeful that ended up in the civil war. i'm like, oh, right. >> there's a new pom oll out th shows effectively no movement on impeachment after those two weeks. 50% say should president trump be impeached and removed from office? that's the same number as october. so we saw and heard what we saw and heard over the last two weeks from those career diplomats. the american american public remains exactly where it was at lea least according to this one poll. >> in the real world outside of what we're doing here, whether you're getting gas or at the market, impeachment, they're not paying attention to it. they have too many things going on in their lives. and what doris was just talking about reminded me once again how

enormously depressing this is that we witness the death of fact, the death of truth. in particular, will littlie, yo talking about ukraine a couple minutes ago. and ukraine and joe biden, it's a lie. it began with a lie months ago. and evilly clever people linked the lie to one candidate, to one race, the race for the presidency, and now that lie, if you pick up any up in each and every day, the lie is covered as if it's perhaps true. >> right. >> it's just -- it's depressing. >> and the lie -- if you say it one, two, three, four, five, ten times then it's true. when what the opposite of what a lie escalated should be. >> the president is using this to stonewall the impeachment investigation. the federal court judge has rejected the white house claim of absolute immunity ruling that

former white house counsel don mcgahn must testify in the impeachment inquiry. the house judiciary committee subpoenaed ma begcgahn earlier year. when the white house blocked his appearance, the committee sued and yesterday a federal judge sided with congress writing in her opinion, quote, stated simply the primary takeaway from the past 250 years of recorded american history is that presidents are not kings. this means that they do not have subjects bound by loyalty or blood whose destiny they are entitled to control. that is judge jackson in the federal court yesterday. an official telling nbc news the justice department will seek a stay to stop the ruling from taking effect immediately. the white house in a statement said this decision contradicts long-standing legal precedent established by administrations of both political parties. we will appeal and are confident that the important constitutional principle advanced by the administration will be vindicated. while the ruling only compels

mcgahn's testimony, the trump administration has also now used the now rejected absolute immunity claim to defy congressional subpoenas for vice president mike pence, secretary of state mike pompeo, and acting chief of staff mick mulvaney. former national security adviser john bolton has not been subpoenaed but people familiar with his views are now telling "the washington post" he would testify if cleared by a federal court. all right. matt miller, break this down for us a little bit. we were discussing in our last hour this effectively compels don mcgahn, the white house counsel who left the white house just over a year ago last fall in october to sit before the house judiciary committee, but it does not compel him to say anything. effectively he did still invoke executive privilege. what do you make of all of this? >> think you're right. i think in the short-term this is not going to have much of an effect, at least as it applies to don mcgahn. the administration is going to appeal and he's not going to show up and testify before that appeal is decided.

number two, even if he does show up, as you note the administration can still claim executive privilege and at that point you could find yourself back in the courts trying to litigate whether he had to answer these specific questions. but number three, don mcgahn is not as important a witness to thehouse hou house six months a we know what he said to mueller and mueller put it in the report that we read. the theory of having mcgahn is you would have this public hearing where he would come forward and say it on camera to show the american people. we had two weeks draf matic public hearings. i'm not sure that don mcgahn right now is as important a witness as he would have been last summer. that said, i think this is a really important ruling for the long tem, forts next six months, the next year as the house tries to please the administration. because it was such an exhaustive dismantling of the position that the justice department has taken both claiming that the judge writing that this testimonial immunity, this absolute immunity that the justice departments that claimed

is something the justice department made out of thin air in the '70s and it's been repeated by administrations on both parties to be fair but there's no basis for it in actual law. that could really have an effect, if john bolton, looking for an excuse to testify, i doubt he isry think he's look h looking for an excuse not to testify. but this could have an effect going forward with witnesses going forward for as long as donald trump is president. >> there's a lot of interest in this decision but didn't seem like as much interest, correct me if i'm wrong, from chairman adam schiff who told his members we've got what we need, we want to vote before christmas and not wait out these appeals that could go on and on. we need though move forward here. >> there's a political reality that democrats need to move on

impeachment and need to do it soon, probably before the end of the year. they feel like democrats feel broadly fa th broadly that if they get stuck waiting for court decisions they could be waiting forever. they don't want to allow the administration to play what adam schiff has called ropeadope with continued appeals and delay tactics which would be difficult politically. democrats want to move. they say they have clear compelling testimony and evidence to proceed immediately and they leave open the possibility that if courts rule in their favor, they will take their testimony. now, i agree with matt 100%. don mcgahn is not material at the moment to what democrats are looking into. but, as a matter of precedent, there are other administration officials, mulvaney, that they want to testify. so this could be a mont tus decision do momentous decision down the line. we are almost at the end of the year.

we're not talking about impeachment vote months in the future. we're talking about two, three, four weeks from now right before christmas. and democrats feel like they can't wait and they feel like it's an urgent issue. >> matt, could you speak to a figure who looms in the background of this, the close background to all of this, the attorney general of the united states, bill barr and what has happened to the justice department that so much of it seems to have become a political tool rather than a tool for justice for all. >> you know, i think what's happened to the justice department over the last few years has been depressing for people like me who are veterans of the department and know that it's supposed to operate independently of the president. you look at the way bill barr has behaved internally, squashing an investigation into the president's behavior and then into his phone call with president zelensky and the way that he's behaved publicly where he's spun things for the president and given a speech recently proclaiming that almost absolute power for the

president. one of those partisan speeches i can remember by an attorney general. i will say, however, i don't know how long bill barr can continue to toe this road. these new revelations about rudy giuliani and the investigation into his associates in ukraine, i think for the last few weeks we have tended to look at these investigations on two tracks. one, the political track inside the house, which has been a top down investigation. the house looking at the president's behavior and then work its way down the food chain. the investigation the southern district of new york has been a b bottom-up investigation with the two associates of rudy giuliani moving their way to him. eventually they're going to make it to the top. when that happened happens, when the southern district of new york looks at all of this and determines these aren't two separate scandals this is one big scandal with rudy giuliani, his associates peddling influence on both sides of the atlantic, i don't know what bill barr does then if he tries to

quash it and sets off a revolt inside the department. i think his ability to keep a lid on justice department prosecutors keeping a lid on what they're supposed to do, i'm skeptical of how long can he do that, or i'm hopeful he cent continue to do that forever. >> there's a lot for a presidenti presidential historian to love yesterday. she stated the primary takeaway of 250 years of recorded history is that presidents are not kings and then cited federalist 51, federalist 69. get a little hamilton and mattis in there. it was a separation of powers argument effectively. >> it's so important to row mind of that what that history is. it's a rule of law, not men. we just have to remember what the ideals are behind these arguments that are now playing out in present time. i read a recent study about how few americans understood history.

alarming numbers can't name two branches of the government. many people think that judge judy is say a supreme court justice. the real goal has to be not simple will to lay out the facts, they have to show how they undermine the country. and what does abuse of power mean and obstruction of justice mean? it has to be explained as a story and grounded in the constitution. that's why yesterday just like when we read the separation of powers are not equal in brown versus board when they said you can't have equal schools, separation is not equal, that was a wonderful metaphor for understanding what is unconstitutional. we need metaphors, stories, and we need a narrative of why we need investigation now and impeachment now versus waiting till a year from now. there's a huge responsibility to tie it to the history.

we learn from the past. >> it makes a fascinating read by the way, about american history and separation of history. >> she's got a history locked inside of her. >> she does. richard, you're just back from china so we thought we'd go round the world with you and take a look at some of the big issues in asia, including the threat you say this administration poses to the u.s./south korea alliance. what are you look at? >> this alliance has kept the piece on the peninsula now for 70 years. and it's been offsetting the costs of stationing americans there, costs about a billion dollars a year for them. the other billion dollars we pick up. we gave them a bill for $5 billion. this is like going to the restaurant and essentially more than doubling what it costs. and the skraens aouth koreans ag what is gong here? they're already under stress from north korea. this means what does japan do

this if this begins to unravel? does that mean they're no longer safe? essentially we've had something that's worked for three quarters of a century. people are focussed on what we're talking about around this table. but meanwhile we are dismantling, i can't think of a better word for it. we're dismantling the foundations of stability in the region of the world that will more than any other part of the world dominate this sent tripce this is where china is, nuclear weapons in north korea. we are dismantling the system of stabilitization there. >> and this goes to donald trump's idea that is a transaction. they're not paying enough for them to defend themselves. >> they are spending 2.5% of gdp on defense. they're more than offsetting most of the costs or about half of the costs of what we're doing there. think it's more fundamental. this is donald trump's view that we get ripped off. that alliances rip us off.

that basically the costs of america's world role are far greater than the benefits. and it's as if he were running a business, it's as if he was only being looking at the cost side of the ledger r, he's never looking at the revenue side. >> you have any concern about the stability of nato? >> absolutely. comes out in the anoun nnymous . we've had more sustained fight with our allies than anybody. the president does a cost/benefit analysis. i'm a little concomfortabuncomf talking about it. but if you're someone like vladimir putin, why do you do what he's doing against a country, does he know for sure how donald trump and nato would react? would we institute so-called article 5, the commitment of collective defense? and more broadly, again, things are beginning to unravel in

europe. and this has worked for 70, 75 years, the whole post war structure the 'the first part was about two enormous world wars, very expensive. we have avoided that for 70 years. i feel like we're yanking out the foundation stones and almost like health care, we're repealing without replacing. what's going to be puts in his place? i don't see it. >> i understand that. let's go to the global south. what do you make of what's happening in bolivia and chile where you see folks who are simply resisting in a different sort of way. what do you make of that? >> it's interesting. everywhere in the world we're seeing people push against the status quo. if it was a leftist center government we're seeing them push aside. if it's right, we're seeing it in china and hong kong. turkey. it makes no difference. we're seeing an enormous antistatus quo populous bias around the world. what that suggests to me we still haven't recovered from the financial crisis. and by and large governments are not able to meet the expectations of their citizens

so around the literally in every region of the world we're seeing an antiestablishment push. we're seeing it in this country. donald trump's election is signs of that. the progressive strength on the democratic party. increasingly politics around the world are being fought from the end zones rather than from within the 40 yard lines. the danger of that is really dramatic shifts. the policies that have served us i think pretty well for three quarters of a century. the center's getting hollowed out around the world and we're in danger of going from one supreme to another. >> it's almost like the world is in disarray, if i may coin a term. >> i didn't hear you. >> the world is in disarray. >> say it again and again. >> thanks so much. great to see you. jake sherman, matt mill, he thank you both as well. coming up on "morning joe," it's still one of the biggest

mysteries of the steele dossier. we will talk to the men who commissioned the infamous dossier, the cofounders of fusion goodne fusion gps. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. orning joe" we'll be rhtig back. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. i wish i could shake your hand. granted. only pay for what you need.

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welcome back to "morning joe." beautiful live picture of the white house. coming up on 7:30 in washington, d.c. on a tuesday morning. joining us now, the cofounders of "politico" opposition research firm glen simpson and peter frisch. they're out with a new book entitled crime in progress. inside the steele dossier and the investigation of donald trump. and back with us for this conversation, nbc news correspondent covering national security and intelligence, ken dilanian. gentlemen, good morning. good to have you with us. >> morning. >> glen, fusion gps, the steele

dossier have become these buzz terms. we heard them come up in the impeachment hearing in the open hearings. i want to go back to the beginning of who hired you during the campaign to look into then candidate donald trump in 2015? >> right. originally we were retained by a conservative up in during the republican primaries. and it was an intra-republican competition. we worked for about seven months looking into donald trump during the republican primaries. that's important to remember and is detailed in length in the book because the republican talking points now is that this is some kind of democratic hoax or conspiracy. that doesn't make logical sense because the republicans paid for half of the investigation. >> so we're talking about september of 2015 the washington free beacon conservative outlet comes to you at the time like

many republicans opposed donald trump and was looking for dirt. what -- when did they stop their association with you and who picked it up from there? >> first of all, let's correct this a little bit. we weren't looking for dirt so much as understanding of who this individual was. >> sure. >> his business record. you know, this is the first time a real estate executive has run for president, i think. doris will correct me. >> you are correct. >> and, you know, so we actually amassed a lot of evidence of a -- i would call it sort of an ecosystem of compromise around donald trump and people affiliate with the former soviet union. people like felix sater who was a convicted criminal once stabbed someone in the face with a margarita glass, went to prison for it. and then we saw a poker ring being run by the russian mob out of trump tower. you know, which hosted. the likes of famous people. when you stack a lot of that up

we got to the point where we felt like we needed to know a little bit more. public records laws aren't so great in russia, so we turned to chris steele. >> that was around the time that we transitioned from republican client to a democratic client. >> which was who? >> the democratic national committee and the clinton campaign. >> at what point was is that? when did that transition happen? >> it was around may of 2016. >> may of 2016. ken dilanian is in washington with a question for you. ken. >> glen and peter, i've viewed the dossier as raw intelligence. and as you know raw intelligence can often be wrong in part, but still be very important. and viewed that way, the dossier was incredibly prescient document about what the prutirus were doing. i want to ask you about this, in terms of what trump was doing it got major things wrong. we know about the michael cohen meeting in prague. mueller found that never

happened. but they found that cohen was not conspiring with the russians at all despite the dossier saying that he was. the dossier said there was a well-developed conspiracy between the trump campaign and russia, obviously mueller didn't establish that. the dossier said that the russians had been feeding trump intelligence for years about hillary clinton and others. mueller failed to establish that. can you talk about -- do you think that mueller simply couldn't prove some of these things and that they actually may in fact be true? or what are your thoughts about some of these allegations that haven't proven out zblifrpg t? >> i think we have to think about the meta theme of the report, which is here was a report that said the russians are trying to effect the affect the outcome of an american election with the specific goal of getting donald trump elected as president. that warning about an attack on pearl harbor turned out to be correct. in light of current events, i

think no one can question of whether or not donald trump is capable of inciting a foreign government to help himself. in behind sight, it's like talking about pearl harbor and saying the report got it wrong because you said there was going for 150 japanese there and there was only 120. they were coming in from the north but they came in from the west. it's just deflection of the bicker poi bigger point. >> there's a huge distinction between unproven and untrue. we talk about this a lot in the book. there isn't a long list of things in the dossier that have been disproven. there are many things that have not been resolved as to whether or not they are true. >> can we go back to the root? who is christopher steele? where did he come from? and why did he have this uniquely piqued interest in donald trump? >> so we're former journalists. christopher steele has been doing rush russsia his entire l

he's a linguist, saved tour in russia for mi-6, the british intelligence service, and rose to run its russia desk before he left in 2009. he is one of the preeminent experts in the world on russia. he's also, he and his company orbis are highly trained in the detection of misinformation. he collected a lot around the dossier, but there's a lot he didn't put in there. we don't know what this is because he didn't clear his bar. >> like us, really didn't know anything about donald trump when we first commissioned him to try to figure out why donald trump was going to russia. he was, you know -- donald trump was a fairly obscure character in his world and ours. so his real expertise is russia. and trump wondered into the middle of something that was going on with russia, which is that russia had mounted a huge operation to begin meddling in

the politics of western democracies and attempting to disrupt the nato alliance, the atlantic alliance, the european union, all of which has been frightening successful. >> and just one other point on sort of the investigative hygiene here, it's really important to remember that when we tasked or hired chris steele, we didn't tell him who we were working for. he didn't know when he created that first report. >> ken. >> thanks, willie. guys, there was a broadly-held assumption that robert mueller would take a look at whether donald trump had prior business relationships with russian oligarchs, that he would follow the money and get trump's tax returns and explore relationships that could be seen as compromising once trump became president. but when the mueller report was published it became pretty clear that he didn't do that and it's not clear to me that the fbi counterintelligence division has done that either. you guys have investigated that somewhat. do you think that's still an open question? what can you tell us about what you know about whether or not donald trump did business with

russians? for example, his son once said -- told a golf writer allegedly that russian investment financed some golf course purchases that the trump organization made. do you think that's still an oo active and open question? >> we've seen indaesh icia of a separate investigation but it's beneath the waves so we don't know what's going on in the counterintelligence arm of the fbi. historically, as you know, counterintelligence investigations don't result usually in criminal charges so we may never know what they found or what they even looked for. but obviously it was a disappointment to see that mueller didn't go in this direction and we were hopeful that congress would step up and shed some light on this. we still think that's a possibility. >> it's also important to remember that most of the examples you mentioned deal with evidence that is sitting outside of this country and therefore beyond the reach of robert mueller and his team and their

subpoena power. >> but certainly we saw mountains of evidence, and this is detailed at length in the book, that huge amounts of mystery money from the former soviet union flowed through donald trump's properties. >> guys, i wonder if you could talk about what fiona hill said in her testimony. she's one of the foremost russia experts on the nsc until she left. and she said that the dossier went down rabbit holes and she suggested that christopher steele was played suggesting that, you know, the russians may have fed him misinformation to infect the discourse here. how would you respond to what fiona hill said? >> we saw that testimony. we've been asked about it. i mean, we would only say that, first of all, fiona hill, as you say, an outstanding russia expert. we're here to talk about our book, but you should read her book, it's outstanding. she, however, is not an intelligence official, she's not a professional in the detection of things like disinformation. and i don't know that she was

able to -- well, the republicans didn't really follow up on that point so we don't know really what she meant. >> a little mystifying about what they meant by that. she was in government when all these events occurred and when she was in government it wasn't her job to look into all of this. she's entitled to her opinion, but it's uninformed as to the specifics with the dossier. >> you're trying not to put conspiracy theories out but you're here to respond to it. so i'll let you, rudy giuliani on tv last week saying he has very strong evidence that the steele dossier, a lot of it was produced in ukraine. what's your response there? >> i mean, i have one word. a few words, that's absolutely false. glenn has a better story about rudolph giuliani which you might like to hear. >> i ran into him on the shut from the new yorking to d.c. last week. got out my phone. after we got off the plane and

turned on the recorder and said, mr. giuliani, ihm my name is glenn simpson, i introduced myself. i said would it surprise you if i told you i've never been to ukraine in my life? he said, oh, okay, guess i'll have to look into that. however, i don't think he's ill informed, misinformed or confused, i think he's just not telling the truth. it's just a made up -- it's another made up story designed to provide cover for donald trump. >> he is cranking the fog machine. >> we have just scratched the surface of the story, the entire story's in the new book, crime in progress inside the steele dossier and the infusion gps investigation of donald trump. glenn simpson, peter frisch, thank you both. good to see you. coming up on "morning joe," as the impeachment probe has ramped up, neil joins us to lay out the argument in his new book impeach. that's ahead on "morning joe." k impeach. that's ahead on "morning joe." managing type 2 diabetes?

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♪ welcome back to "morning joe." some exciting news, doris kerns

goodwin is teaching a master class on u.s. presidential history and the qualities it takes to be a good leader. you can find it at masterclass.com. how cool is this for you for those of us who get to watch it and study but for you to go back and be a teacher? >> i started off my whole career as a teacher and something happened when i got married and had kids and was teaching and writing, i couldn't teach and write. so i went to being a writer. but i miss the years i was no longer teaching at harvard. i was at a party and someone said what happened to doris kerns anyway, did she die? so i'm back. i'm a teacher again. >> people go on the website, masterclass.com, and effectively get hours and hours of doris kerns goodwin talking about presidents, it's filled with documents and video and all kinds of different elements. how much fun was it for you to sit and talk through history? >> the great thing is when you can express your passion, something your care about and you get students listening and this time listening online and listening in parts of the world,

that's the way you can inspire somebody, i think. all the people they've chosen for this master class, whether it's aaron stalken or annie, they all love what they're doing. when i think about the teachers i had in high school, that's what hainchanges you when someb has a passion for somebody. i can bring back my guys, teddy, lincoln, lbj, it's been fun and provide a leadership index for how we should look at that campaign, who has empathy, resilience, who has ability to create a them that can argue with them and question them? who shoulders the responsibility? who shares credit? then you look at the president and think who's got that both in the republicans and democrats. >> mike is complaining about the red sox bull pen, very informative, i think. >> you should see the huge online following my class has. doris, i was glancing at parts of this course. is the difference between iq,

how smart is this person, how smart is she, how smart is he, and emotional intelligence and a leader, emotional intelligence is really critical? >> it's the critical thing. you think about empathy as one of the most important qualities. that's part of emotional intelligence, your ability to understand somebody else's point of view. teddy roosevelt warned, and i bet you know this, eddie, that the rock of democracy will fail if people in other sections of the country begin seeing augthe other people in the country as other. that's why i believe in national service and get a way to get these people to see each other. and empathy is at the root of that. you can develop it and understand just if you go out like we did in the peace corps and see what's happening. just like resilience. academic intelligence is probably overrated, i can say to us. >> and moou hhumility is key.

>> that's key. you can't grow if you can't make missi mistakes. >> we've given away too much free content. for the rest of it you have to go to masterclass.com. up next, the power' unplugging. our next guess is an internet pioneer who makes the case for turning off all screens one day a week. i like that. tiffany joins us next on "morning joe." that. tiffany joins us next on "morning joe." i'm your 70lb st. bernard puppy,

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i don't use some waxy cover up. i use herpecín l, it penetrates deep to treat. it soothes moisturizes and creates a spf 30 barrier to protect against flare ups caused by the sun. herpecín l. it does more for a cold sore. welcome back to "morning joe." the founder of the web by awards, with a new book, 24/6, the power of unplugging one day a week. tiffany, good morning. you already have us talking and all worked up about the subject. >> it's a rich subject right now. >> we're all confronted with it in our lives.

let's start with your thesis. 24/6 means what? >> my family and i for ten years turn off all screens from friday night to saturday night, and it's been the best, most transformative thing we have done. obviously, i love technology. my husband is a professor of robotics. we're in to it, but not the way we're living now, every second we're plugged into this network available to everyone and everything and it's brought so much life back to have one day where we're all together, all the screens are put away. we feel more creative. you can have more time for reflection. you're more present with each other. there's so many benefits, and you're more productive afterwards. we're not giving ourselves any space to be disconnected from the network. >> what brought you to the point where you said we have to do something here and take a day off? >> i had a period of days where i lost my father and my daughter was born, and it was one of those moments where it felt like

life was wrab grabbing you by the shoulders and saying focus on what is important. everyone on the book tour agrees they feel like they're on screens too much, they're not present. it's a very simple practice and bases on thousands of years old practicef the shabbat. friday night, we have people over for a wonderful dinner, and all the screens are off. for a full 24 hours, we're off the screens. it's literally our favorite day of the week, even our 16-year-old daughter, people can't believe that. they're under so much pressure, too. she's a junior in high school. she's got so much pressure, and she's in to politics, we're all excited to have a day of rest from what she'll say is homework and posting and all of it, which i think we all just haven't given ourselves that day in so long, you forget the feeling that i feel is liberated, really. and then saturday night, you have this dual effect where you reappreciate being connected and technology all over again, but having a complete day off to

think and feel and be and have your own thoughts because right now, we're so influenced by everything happening that you don't even have space to think for yourself. >> there's this amazing episode of "black mirror" called nose dive. >> i didn't see that one. >> you should take a look at it. it's about the way in which social media overruns our life and defined status and the like. what are you saying about our relationships currently when you call for a day off? this seems as if there's an underlying assumption about what being plugged in is doing to us and our relationships. >> i'm glad you asked that. it is. when i first started the webby awards over 20 years ago, the hope for the web was that it was going to be this open network connecting us to ideas and people all over the world, but what i never imagined is that everyone would be heads down, staring at their phones, disconnected from the people and ideas that are right in front of them. and because the business model

is such that it is basically tracking, you have thousands of engineers and behavioral scientists looking at your likes and dislikes and algorithms feeding you disinformation to make you click more, it's manipulating us also. basically, we're being manipulated and the whole business model is to keep us addicted to screens all the time. so the minute that you say, you know what, i'm going to -- technology has erased all these boundaries between work and pleasure and everything, but i'm going to create a boundary back and have a whole day i i'm not on the screen, not on the network, and it feels so good. and you know, what i say to people that are considering this is, what do you wish you had more time to do? and ask every person in your life that that you're going to ask to do it with you, your partner, your kids. everyone has that list, and nil the day with that, because there's so many days we just don't do anymore because every second we're flipping our wrist and looking at our phones. >> the thing you said about the

importance of taking time to think. i think about the leader yz have studied. they were pretty busy and yet -- busier than us, in a civil war, great depression, world war ii, yet lincoln took time out to go 100 times to the theater. he said when he sat in the theater, he could forget the war that was raging and transport himself back to shakespeare. >> put your mind into a different mode. >> teddy roosevelt exercised two hours a day, a hike in the wood, and fdr had a cocktail party every night in world war ii and the rule was you couldn't talk about the war. the one time he was able to think about something, he went on a fishing trip in the middle of the crisis with britain. because he was away from washington. it's good for us, it's good for leadership, it's good for everybody. we think we're so important that we can't be outside. >> i think that's part of it, we think we're so plugged in and we know everything that's going on. but when you never have a chance to step back and reflect, you can't see the big picture because you're so in it. having a complete day off each

week is a day i kind of rush towards, because i actually put aside things i want to think about. i'm going to think about that on saturday. i feel like i have the space. when it's only eight inches from your face, that's eight inches of thought distance. when you have a whole day in front of you, it feels incredible. >> what about the added element with this in front of your face, people walking around with this in front of their face, the element of loneliness in this country? it just adds -- you don't communicate with people. you communicate with this thing in front of your face. >> you know, i think so much of what's the divisiveness in our country is all the little moments that used to happen at the library, the coffee shop. the exchanges. now everyone is kind of faking their way through it, uh-huh, uh-huh. oh, yeah, and it's those little moments that stitch together the fabric of our society, and right now, we're all in our little universes on our phones. and we lose, and that contributes to the sense of loneliness. so all this connection is ultimately leading to disconnection. so when you put the devices

away, you connect so deeply. and i think connecting broadly is meaningless unless you have authentic connection, which i feel the most on my friday nights to saturday nights for the last ten years. >> that seems like a great week to start trying this. you have time off. take a day away from it. >> a perfect time. >> talk to your family. >> yeah, think about the online world puts you in a perpetual state of want. when you turn it off, you appreciate what's right in front of you. thanksgiving is a perfect weekend to try it. read the book. i have a lot of practical ways to convince people in your life in how to do it, but i promise it will make things better. >> love the idea. the book 24/6, the power of unplugging one day a week. tiffany sclahlaishlain, thank y. doris, thanks to you. >> still ahead, congress wins round one in a battle over the trump administration's efforts to stonewall the impeachment investigation. we'll dig 92 the ruling that challenged the president's claim of absolute immunity.

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good morning. welcome to "morning joe." it's tuesday, november 26th. with us, we've got msnbc contributor mike barnicle. eddie glaude jr., president of the council on foreign relations and author of the book, a world in disarray, richard haass, and msnbc legal analyst danny cevall cevallos. we have to begin with the court ruling against the argument the president is using to stonewall the impeachment investigation. a federal court judge has rejected the white house claim of absolute immunity, ruling that former white house counsel don mcgahn must testify in the impeachment inquiry. the house judiciary committee subpoenaed mcgahn earlier this year for testimony on possible obstruction of justice in the mueller investigation. when the white house blocked his appearance, the committee sued, and yesterday, a federal judge

sided with congress, writing in her opinion, this. quote, stated simply, the primary takeaway from the last 250 years of reported american history is presidents are not kings. this means that they do not have subjects bound by loyalty or blood whose destiny they are entitled to control. that ruling by judge jackson in court. and an official tells nbc news they will seek a stay to stop the ruling from taking effect immediately. the white house says this contradicts long standing legal precedent established by administrations of both political parties. we will appeal and are confident that the important constitutional principle advanced by the administration will be vindicated. while the ruling only compelled mcgahn's testimony, the trump administration has used the rejected absolute immunity claim to defy subpoenas for vice president pence, secretary of state mike pompeo, and acting chief of staff mick mulvaney.

former national security adviser john bolton has not been subpoenaed, but people familiar with his views are now telling "the washington post" he would testify if cleared by a federal court. danny, let me start with you, just on the nuts and bolts of this, what it means exactly. what judge jackson effectively said is don mcgahn has to testify before the house judiciary committee, forget the immunity claim. once he's in the chair, he can still claim executive privilege, is that right? >> that's right. on a case by case or question by question basis. what this ruling holds, and it is a significant opinion, but it's not a surprise. because the same court decided essentially the exact same issue back in 2007. that case involving harriet miers at the time did not make it all the way to the end of appeals. it was resolved otherwise. but there's nothing about this opinion that is really that shocking because everything that the court holds or that compels the testimony or shoots down the

absolute privilege argument or immunity, rather, is based on case law. the administration's position is instead based on their own internal olc legal opinions, which have no binding legal precedent at all. in a sense, the winner in this case was never going to be in doubt. and if it goes up on appeal, the result will probably be the same. the net takeaway is that there is no absolute immunity for executive officials, high ranking executive aides. instead, they have to show up, they have to comply. then they may have individualized executive privilege claims, but you can't ignore a congressional subpoena. that's the big takeaway today. >> let's also bring into the conversation white house correspondent for pbs news hour, yamiche elcinder, and ken dilanian. we're talking about don mcgahn here, because we had so many names come through in the last several months. don mcgahn was the last white

house counsel who left last fall. wro we're talking here about the mueller investigation which is separate from the ukrainian investigation, but there may be implications for the ukrainian investigation if it sets a precedent and allowed someone like john bolton to testify. >> clearly, but in this sea of subpoenas that have been issued, many people who have been issued a subpoena have just totally ignored the subpoena. how does that happen? if i get a subpoena, if eddie gets a subpoena, we have to respond to it. >> that's right. they're playing a game of chicken because congress has this broad power to subpoena, but what we're finding out in the last couple years is that they don't really have a very good enforcement mechanism so that someone who receives a congressional subpoena, if they have the chutzpah, the courage, can oppose it, and if they drag it out long enough, once you get a new congress in, that subpoena kind of disappears into the ether. that's what the administration issing to. they're saying if i hold -- if i

run out the clock as long as i can, the need for the subpoena may dissipate. that's what happened with the harriet miers case in 2007. it never made it all the way through to appeals. it was resolved in another way and then you had this free-standing court opinion for over a decade that really left us wondering where exactly the law is on this issue. >> so in the mueller report, ken dilanian, we know don mcgahn testified for about 30 hours in front of the special counsel's office. we know he testified president trump asked him to fire robert mueller at one point in 2017. how significant is this ruling to that case? >> well, look. i don't actually think this ruling is going to affect how congress deals with airing that matter before the public because it's going to be appealed. it's going to drag out. and look, they're going to take a vote before thanksgiving on the ukraine matter. they're moving ahead. so congressman schiff keeps using this term rope-a-dope.

he said i'm not going to be dragged into a long court fight hoping we get the testimony of these people. none the less, this is a hugely important decision that will last potentially long after the trump administration is gone. because since 1971, the executive branch has claimed this right of testimonial immunity, saying congress has no right to call close presidential aides to testify. and what this judge said was, that doesn't exist. that is not a thing. and so, you know, as you said, mcgahn will, of course, even once this is appealed and goes all the way through, and assuming this ruling holds, mcgahn will then claim executive privilege because he was advising the president about how to respond and how to deal with the mueller investigation in his capacity as white house counsel, and executive privilege arguably does protect some sensitive conversations with the president, so we may never see mcgahn's testimony, but nonetheless, this is an incredibly important ruling because it -- especially in

light of the recent speech that the attorney general made, arguing essentially for unchecked presidential power, and that these many investigations by congress amount to harassment. now, that's sort of a distorted view of an argument that the executive branch has been making for a long time, and what this judge said is absolutely not. congressional investigations are enshrined in the constitution and they have a right to call aides to come and comply with subpoenas. >> separation of powers, is what judge jackson made yesterday in court. >> i wanted to underline what ken just said, because oftentimes we confuse two things. there's the bad actor that is donald trump. and then there are the arguments surrounding donald trump around unitary executive, about an imperial presidency. it seems to me there's some folks like bill barr who is actually defending this rather radical understanding of the executive, of executive power, and then there are folks defending trump, and then there's the way in which those two things converge. what we saw yesterday is a kind

of clear distinction. judge jackson invoked federalist 51, which was all about the separation of powers. so we have in some ways a clear enunciation that this idea of unlimited executive power is just simply unconstitutional. it just has no merit. so that argument now is in full view as opposed to just simply being something driving behind the scenes the way in which people have been defending donald trump. >> the headline from judge jackson, again, was presidents are not kings. that's the case she was making yesterday. >> it really was classic federalist paper. this is a public civics classroom. i had a question for the lawyer types. let's say people ultimately testify. who gets to decide if executive privilege is claims? if john bolton testifies, can the white house instruct him to assert executive privilege. how does that play out? >> they can instruct him, and

then it would probably go immediately to the courts. that creates a real problem. obviously, an individual can say i'm not going to comply with that order. that, again, would go to the courts. every turn, and this is why these legal issues have been left so unresolved for so long, is that in many cases, congress says, well, you know, what's the point of the battle? let's try to negotiate something else so we get something today as opposed to maybe something in the future. and just one other thing to build on what eddie said, is that it's so interesting that the administration argued separation of powers means that we as the executive are untouchable and the court said you have it exactly wrong. it's the opposite. separation of powers means that the different branches act as a check on each other. and it is exactly our job as a judiciary to check you, the executive branch. >> yamiche, as i pointed out, don mcgahn testified to robert mueller that president trump asked him to go fire robert mueller, fire the special counsel, and he refused to do so. president trump has denied that

in interviews since then, of course. what is the white house reaction to this? do they show any concern about this? or do they think this is just another step along this path of impeachment that democrats are trying to pursue? >> the white house is obviously concerned about this. don mcgahn is someone who was at the center of the white house and understood what was going on with the president, understood some of the orders he was giving. i think what's even more interesting or concerning than don mcgahn's testimony, since democrats want to focus so narrowly on the ukraine issue, is what it will mean for the people named by all the witnesses named in the impeachment inquiry hearings. there was secretary pompeo, vice president pence, mick mulvaney, energy secretary rick perry. all these people that are not testifying as people under them, like alexander vindman, lieutenant colonel vindman, he's working at the white house and decided to show up, but there are higher up officials who are very close to president trump who understand what the president is thinking who don't

want to come to congress. so i think the white house are worried those people might be compelled to be part of this impeachment inquiry. >> ken, let's talk about potential implications for the ukraine conversation. this again, we're talking about testimony for don mcgahn before the house judiciary committee. what about for the house intel committee and a witness like john bolton? someone who has been sort of flirting with the idea of speaking publicly in one form or another, whether that's a book or testimony. and the impeachment inquiry remains to be seen. does this set some kind of a precedent in that conversation? >> well, it certainly does. to yamiche's point, it absolutely does. the judge even mentioned that national security does not create testimonial immunity either. however, it would allow bolton to claim executive privilege. but you can argue that a lot of what's covered in this ukraine matter does not really implicate u.s. national security. democrats would say it's a criminal scheme. and in the famous nixon supreme

court case, you know, nixon had to give up the tapes because the judge ruled that, you know, executive privilege doesn't trump a valid criminal investigation. so that has got to be a concern for the white house here. john bolton, mick mulvaney, mike pompeo, all these people who have resisted congressional efforts to get them to talk about ukraine. that said, there's a long road of litigation here, and democrats are on a much different time table. realistically, will the courts decide this on the time table that democrats need to get an impeachment vote and get this information before the public? that seems unlikely, but it may affect future generations. this could be a really important precedent that is being now set by this ruling. >> still ahead on "morning joe," just a day after being fired, former navy secretary richard spencer is defending his conduct and now hitting back at president trump over his involvement in a controversial war crimes case. we'll get to that. but first, bill karins has a check on the thanksgiving forecast. hey, bill. >> good morning, willie. easily the worst

pre-thanksgiving travel forecast i have given in my 20 years. let's take you to denver. you can see the snow-covered roads. reports of i-25 and portions of i-70 that are now closed in a few locations. blizzard conditions developing just outside of denver. seven inches on the ground in denver. 14 inches of snow in ft. collins. let's show you the wider view and tell you what's going on. 23 million people with winter storm warnings or advisories. two storms. one over colorado that slides into the plains later today and nails minneapolis later tonight, and then a huge storm in the coastal areas of california and oregon later today. now, we'll show you the other option. the warm side of this storm system could produce even severe storms. at the same time, we have this horrific winter weather with already 300 flights canceled out of denver. we could have flight problems out of memphis, st. louis, little rock today. you're at a slight risk of severe weather. 10 million people at risk. let's time this all out for you, so we're going thru the day today. let's fast forward to 6:00 p.m.

notice, minneapolis, you're okay until this evening. your snow begins after 8:00 p.m. most significant airport delays and cancellations, denver, and minneapolis later on tonight. when the line of storms goes through chicago, st. louis, to little rock, that's where we could have problems, and driving on the roads, especially interstate 55, just rainy so it won't be horrible. the worst drive, i-70 and i-25, and then i-80 during the day today has the potential to get shut down. what does this mean for areas of the northeast and great lakes. the storm weakens, mostly a rain event. we'll still have problems at the airports when the winds pick up. we have high volume with the busiest travel day of the year. the new york airports could have delays. minor problems in areas like logan and all the way down through philadelphia and d.c. chicago, watch out. not that rainy or snowy, but you're under a high wind warning for wednesday. winds could be up to 50 miles per hour. that's not fun at all, and on the roads, i-90 will probably be one of the worst drives. mostly rain in the northeast. by the time we get to wednesday and thursday, this is about as

ugly as it gets as far as everywhere here in the west. this is where the next storm comes in, in l.a., san diego, veg vegas, phoenix. and finally, the last thing, and maybe the thing a lot of kids care about the most. will the balloons fly or not? right now, the wind forecast is unfortunately 35 to 40 miles per hour. and if it's over 34, they'll ground all the big balloons. it's going to be a close call. we still have about two days. hopefully that will change. new york city, we're waiting to see how it ends up with the beautiful balloons. the rockefeller christmas tree, they're taking selfies. look at the guys up there. that's a once in a lifetime shot. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. [ applause ] thank you.

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navy secretary richard spencer following a controversial war crimes case. speaking to reporters yesterday, secretary esper explained he was, quote, flabbergasted to learn that spencer had tried to make a secret deal with the white house concerning embattled navy s.e.a.l. eddie gallagher. secretary esper said he demanded spencer's resignation after learning he had secretly approached the white house about an arrangement to let gallagher retire as a navy s.e.a.l. if the president stayed out of the case. esper also said monday president trump gave him a direct order to drop disciplinary action against gallagher. in his first tv interview since being fired, spencer told cbs he spoke with white house counsel pat cipollone about the arrangement on november 15th saying he declined the offer saying the president would be involved. >> i will take the bad on me for not letting him know i did that, but he was completely informed

as to this because his chief of staff was briefed on it. >> spokesperson for the pentagon disputed spencer's statement, telling "the washington post," no one on esper's staff was aware of spencer's proposed deal. in the same interview, spencer also argued he was trying to head off an order from the president which he said he could not in good conscience obey. >> what do i standard for in the navy. that's a prime tenant. this in fact erodes that. >> what's wrong with following a lawful order from the commander in chief? >> nothing. everyone should follow order. i could not in my conscience do this. >> speaking to reporters yesterday, president trump defended his involvement in the war crimes case. >> i have to protect my war fighters. i have gotten a lot of people -- a lot of war fighters and people in the military have thanked us very much. with eddie gallagher, you know that story very well. they wanted to take his pin away and i said no, you're not going to take it away.

he was a great fighter. he was one of the ultimate fighters. tough guy. these are not weak people. these are tough people. and we're going to protect our war fighters. >> i don't think he really understands the full definition of a war fighter. a war fighter is a profession of arms. a profession of arms has standards they have to be held to and they hold themselves to. >> richard, i'll read some of the reaction. senator jack reed, military veteran himself said this is an outrageous irresponsible interfeens by president trump in the military justice system. he went on to explain why he believes that. your reaction to how this has all played out. >> no winners here. spencer's position was ridiculous. he was going to basically argue for a sham or almost show trial kind of thing with the outcome guaranteed. that wasn't the answer. i understand why he got canned, but the president's position is unsupportable. and the sad thing, willie, is it's not a one off. the military is not the only

institution he's gone after. he's gone after the foreign service. we saw that the last few weeks. he's gone after the intelligence community. he's gone after the federal reserve. he's gone after, you know, national security council. what he's basically doing is institution after institution, he is going against the norms, the culture, the idea of professionalism, the idea of independence. we thought the military was somehow off limits. it's sad, not just because the military is critically important, military is arguably the most successful institution in american society. i can't think -- when we look at where the military was say in vietnam and where it is half a century later, it's a model for talent development, for diversity, for professionalism, for excellence. we have been extraordinarily well served in this country by our military, and this is a corrosive act. this is a way of removing the military's ability to self-regulate, to self-police. this is a dangerous, dangerous

precedent. >> still ahead, new polling shows a tight race in new hampshire. the first in the nation primary, but the numbers suggest nothing is set in stone at this point. "morning joe" is back in a moment. we made usaa insurance for members like martin. an air force veteran made of doing what's right, not what's easy. so when a hailstorm hit, usaa reached out before he could even inspect the damage. that's how you do it right. usaa insurance is made just the way martin's family needs it - with hassle-free claims, he got paid before his neighbor even got started. because doing right by our members, that's what's right. usaa. what you're made of, we're made for. usaa

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some are saying they see your decision to run now as an indication you feel that the current candidates in the field are weak and they can't get the job done. is that accurate. >> let me phrase it this way. i think there is a greater risk of having donald trump re-elected than there was before. and in the end, i looked in the mirror and said i just cannot let this happen. >> michael bloomberg is making a bet about democracy in 2020. he doesn't need people. he only needs bags and bags of money. >> i have nothing personal against mr. bloomberg. i really don't. but what does disturb me is the arrogance of the billionaire class. >> senators elizabeth warren and bernie sanders reacting to former new york city mayor

micha michael bloomberg's entrance into the presidential race. he made his first campaign stop in norvoke, virginia. but it's a four-way race in new hampshi hampshire. the latest poll shows senator bernie sanders at 16%, senator elizabeth warren at 14%. mayor pete buttigieg at 13%. he's up eight points since august, and former vice president joe biden at 12%. he is down nine points since august. this is essentially a statistical tie with all four candidates sitting in the polls, margin of error of more than four points. support for senator sanders appears to be much more solid than others. 64% of his supporters say their mind is firmly made up. biden is the next closest in that regard with 37%. let's bring in pulitzer prize winning columnist and msnbc political analyst eugene robinson, and political reporter for the boston globe, james

pindell. james, what do you see in the poll that maybe the rest of us haven't seen, that mayor pete buttigieg flying up eight points since the last poll and vice president biden down nine points. there was a poll last week up in new hampshire that shows mayor buttigieg with a lead. some said the sampling of that poll, the group of highly educated white voters gave him an edge that perhaps inflated his numbers, but here he is tied for the lead. >> yeah, there's a broader point and then a granular point. the broader point is that for so long, many including myself, thought that new hampshire would eventually just come down to this progressive grudge match between two neighboring senators of elizabeth warren and bernie sanders, who of course, won the 2016 primary. then joe biden comes in the race. obviously, floating above it. immediately becomes the front-runner. now what we're seeing is the most complicated scenario in new

hampshire we have all cycle, and as i wrote and you quoted, we have never had this many candidates clustered at the very top this close to the new hampshire primary in decades. so while a lot of people are looking at iowa. that's clearly where a lot of candidates thought this was going to be a make-or-break contest for them, and they thought new hampshire would just be this warren and bernie contest, i think this poll in particular is going to change the narrative a little bit and force other campaigns to say wait a minute, what's actually happening here in new hampshire, and remember, the top number there, 16%. anything can happen in terms of a candidate who's down at 2% or 4% like andrew yang. and the number of undecideds are at 21%, and 53% haven't even decided on a final candidate yet. i'm sorry, the smaller point, to answer your question, the smaller point would be the one thing to look at in this poll are older voters. fascinating. from our last poll to this poll, older voters have been fleeing joe biden.

that's why he dropped to fourth place. he dropped nine points among older voters. and meanwhile, pete buttigieg is the one gaining. he gained seven points among the older voters. right now, they're the subgroup moving the most. >> isn't that interesting that mayor buttigieg leads the field of 22% among voters 56 to 65 years old. so the young mayor from south bend, indiana, is the most popular with older voters in new hampshire. >> clearly, his jump up eight points since the last poll is at joe biden's expense. there's an old aphorism in politics and it began with uyean mccarthy's campaign in new hampshire, old people like young people. they just do. they're drawn to younger -- >> why you like willie? >> that's exactly right. >> if i'm young, this is an old show. coming up on "morning joe," our next guest is making the case for president trump's

impeachment. former acting u.s. solicitor general neal katyal joins us to outline what president trump did, when he did it, and why he says it meets the constitution's standard for impeachment. "morning joe" is back in a moment. i'm finding it hard to stay on top of things a faster laptop could help. plus, tech support to stay worry free. worry free...boom boom! get free next business day shipping or ...1 hour in-store pick up shopping season solved at office depot officemax

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the constitution provides an article 2, section 4, that the president, the environment, and all civil officers of the united states should be removed from office on impeachment for and conviction of treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors. i started looking at whether the president has violated his oith of office, specifically by putting his personal interests above those of the country or by committing other acts obviously criminal. the framers did not intend impeachment as a political device to be used when the majority party is unhappy with the president and wants to get rid of him. the bar is much higher than that and ought to be. >> that was an indiana

congressman named mike pence in 2008 reading out the terms for impeaching a president. joining us now is a neal katyal. he's out today with a new book entitled "impeach, the case against donald trump." also, yazman vossoughian, and care karine jean-pierre. >> we were lamented the fact you wrote this in three weeks. it takes the rest of us three years to write books, and while you have a day job, by the way. there's been -- this is sort of a good moment to settle out. it's thanksgiving week. we had two weeks of intense public testimony. what is the bottom line for you in the case against donald trump? >> so, i'm glad you started with those clips because the book begins with exactly that. i call it the mike pence standard. and pence said in order for something to be an impeachable offense, it's got to be when the president puts his personal interests above those of the

american people. and i wrote this book as a very simple book, you know, you don't need a fancy law degree or a history graduate degree. it's written like a novel just to outline what did the president do and why is impeachment the necessary result. and basically, the question i think everyone should ask as they go into thanksgiving dinner, and i don't think this should be partisan. this should be simply, if it were obama who did all of this stuff with ukraine, would you be in favor of impeachment? and i think as long as people think about that, that's the essence of what the rule of law is. justice, lady justice is literally blindfolded. the idea being it doesn't matter whether you're rich or poor or a democrat or republican, same set of rules should apply to you. >> by the way, if you ask republicans in that intelligence committee hearing room, they wld say the same thing, of course, if president obama did this, they would say it quietly, maybe not out loud, of course, we would vote to impeach. what do you say to their public

argument, anyway, some of them say, there's a lot of bad stuff in here. i don't like the way the president conducted himself. i don't like rudy giuliani running around the world, running some kind of shadow deal, but on the merits, there's just not enough to impeach this president. what do you say? >> when they say there's not enough on the faths, that's been thoroughly disproven by the two weeks of testimony as well as just the original transcript of the call. what i think they are really saying is, oh, this crime isn't bad enough. and that, boy, i mean, when you go back and one of the reasons i wrote this book is to go and examine what our founders said in 1787 at the philadelphia convention. many of our founders didn't want to put impeachment in the constituti constitution. they said you can have a re-election campaign. that will check abuse by the president, and what madison and others said is no, what if you have a president who goes and conspires with a foreign government to get help in his election campaign? what if you have a president who cheats? that's the case of impeachment. that's what this thing is for. and so what i say to those folks

is, if you don't impeach here, you're saying every other president can do this in the future and cheat and win an election. that will undermine gravely our democracy. >> so neal, expand on that for us, because i think that's incredibly important point you bring up in that you argue if this president is not held accountable, that our democracy in this country will not recover. and it seems as if that is the direction in which we're heading in, in that he will likely be impeached in the house but will not be removed from office in the senate. subsequently, in himind, not necessarily held accountable. >> i really want to push back on that. i know this is what the republicans are saying, oh, polls aren't changing. he's going to be fine and so on. but it's only been two months since the ukraine story even entered our consciousness, and already here, we're seeing weeks of hearings. popular opinion moving up to 50% of people saying that the president should be impeached. i do think when -- i mean, democrats have always been so afraid to put the question to

republicans in the senate and say do you really want to stand for this? and i think finally for the first time, it looks like we're heading towards that. i know a lot of people are pessimistic and say, oh, the senate will never remove, but i have a much more optimistic view of america. i started in 1776. i think ofpho all these moments have underestimated -- >> even when you see mitch mcconnell saying straight ahead into camera y have made my decision? we have heard him say that publicly two weeks ago. >> i understand that, but once we actually have a trial, once the evidence is out there, it's going to be very hard to vote for this. it's like nixon. with nixon, it was the same thing in which opinion poll after opinion poll, congress member after and senator after senator said i'm fine, i'm going to support him, but at the end, that support crumbled. when you're dealing with something like this here and thinking, boy, i entered public life in order to make the world

better, and even if they have a different conception, but they really want to stand for this? a president who cheats to win an election? because that's what the evidence is showing. >> eddie, that's the calculation mitt romney, lamar alexander, susan collins, lisa murkowski, they will have to make with themselves. do i want to be on the record based on all the evidence neal has put out there, do i want to be on the record for history as having said this is okay? >> right, and it seems to me given what we have seen up to this point, many of those very folks are making choices that seem to suggest that they are going to, shall we say cave to the moment. as opposed to look towards history. and neal, i understand your faith in the courts. we know that the courts have made some bad decisions. we think about questions around civil rights and how the court in some ways set the stage post-plesy v. ferguson for the reassertion of jim crow, but there's some examples to say we might shouldn't have that kind of faith. but let me ask you this

question, as we think about impeachment. how might the decision of judge jackson and the supreme court's decision around taxes, the stay around his taxes, how might that impact the impeachment process. ? >> i think it does in two respects. one, judge jackson's opinion yesterday requiring white house former counsel don mcgahn to testify i think is written in such a broad way that it will -- it's saying people like john bolton and mick mulvaney, the acting chief of staff, have to come testify. there are also people they're thinking about, congress is thinking about subpoenaing, and boy, that decision yesterday says the rule of law, the rule of law, the rule of law. i think, is going to really put pressure on them to testify. and number two, when mcgahn testifies, and it may be a while because it looks like there will be an appeal. when mcgahn testifies, that itself will generate new evidence in the impeachment inquiry. >> karine has a question for you. >> hey there, neal. so the democrats, the democratic

case, it was pretty much overwhelming. and you make such a compelling case in your book as well as you just laid out. and i know you said that it shouldn't be partisan, which i totally agree with you. but when you do look at the polling, republican voters are just not moving. that dynamic has not changed. so what is like a clear, concise message that you would tell democrats and others to tell republican voters on the case for impeachment? >> i would say the president tried to cheat in secret to help win his 2020 election. and if you accept that, if you think that's okay for this president, every other president can do it. it would be one thing if this president said, i made a mistake. expressed contrition, you know, said i'll never do it again. he's done the reverse. he's gone to the white house lawn and said hey, i want to do it again with china and the like. and in a democracy, you know,

the last thing we should be -- the last thing that should be happening is that our political candidates are getting help from foreign governments in our election system. and doing so in secret. that is as un-american as it gets. >> so neal, you sort of look over the horizon in case the president is not convicted in the senate. you say here are some ways we can prevent this from happening again, with legislation. what are some of those ideas that you lay out in the book? >> i think the most important one is to revamp the special counsel regulations which i had the privilege of drafting when i was 28 years old. i think we have seen, you know, some problems with them. in particular, the most important one is that it really didn't require reporting to the congress whenever there was any interference in the investigation. and it looks like the attorney general did some stuff with this investigation, including just the way he spun it when it was over, that i think fundamentally transformed the story, and i

think obscured a lot of the truth of what mueller found. so i think that's one thing. another is, you know, a simple idea that congress should pass a law requiring presidents to release their tax returns. i don't think states can do it, like california, but i certainly think the congress can do it. >> lindsey graham has sort of launched now this counterinvestigation, chasing down the ukrainian conspiracy theories. i want to get your take, thursday of last week, it was lindsey graham. he's chairman of the senate judiciary committee, sent a letter to mike pompeo, the secretary of state, asking him to hand over documents on joe biden, his son hunter, obama administration officials, and former ukrainian president poroshen poroshenko. biden responded to the request from graham, and then graham responded to biden. >> 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. number one. i am disappointed, and quite

frankly, i'm angered by the fact. 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 life. >> what do you say to him? >> i say lindsey, i just -- i just am embarrassed by what you're doing for you. my lord. >> it's not going to work. i like joe biden. you know, all i can say is that joe didn't pull any punches when he ran against mccain. that's the way the system works. i like him fine, but we're not going to have two systems where you just look at the republicans and you get a pass. we're going to ask questions, what was your son doing on that board? why was he receiving $50,000 a month? my conscience is clear. i love joe biden as a person. he is a really decent man. he's a lot of tragedy in his life. but i have a conscience very

clear right now and i have a duty. if the house is going to shut it down, the senate is going to pick it up. >> nothing to do with friendship. when joe biden was the vice presidential nominee in 2008, he tore the bark off john mccain and sarah palin. nobody asked him, hey, will that hurt your friendship? it hurt my relationship because that's the job he was assigned. >> neal, it's one thing to fall in line with the president on this impeachment question. it's another to pursue and to lead the effort to chase down a ukrainian conspiracy theory to help the president. >> so when lindsey graham talks about his conscience and duty requiring asking these questions, i mean, give me a break. if his consps and duty required asking those questions, i would like to see his conscience and duty ask the questions of this president about cheating in a foreign election. cheating to get help by a foreign government in his 2020 election. i would like to see him asking all sorts of questions around

that, and he's not. and you know, this is occurring against the backdrop of a white house that has gagged every executive branch employee from testifying, from providing documents in the impeachment inquiry. if senator graham is so curious about kind of, you know, these questions and thinks that's his duty, boy, that's where his duties should begin. we're talking about the president of the united states, not some former vice president, but the sitting president of the united states being alleged to have committed impeachable offenses and crimes. these are crimes, bribery and the like. >> so karine, we're not surprised anymore from lindsey graham to senator john kennedy, who we showed earlier dabbling in this ukrainian conspiracy theory to devin nunes leading with his opening statement every day of those hearings, attacking the with his daytime, chasing conspiracy theories, this is not what they got, but to chase shiny objects off in the distance.

>> they're arguing with conspiracy theories. theories have have been debunked. and the thing that i really, that strikes me so bizarre ly i if you look at the last couple weeks the big governor races that democrats won, it is two states that trump went into and nationalized and made it about impeachment, put it on the ballot. one of the races in kentucky, he had an add on impeachment. and they lost a state that trump won by 30 points in 2016. if you're a vulnerable senate

right now. i don't understand how you cannot vote for impeachment and say that the president is not above the law. that is a senator they will have to answer. we're going to continue on "morning joe." are crispy on the outs

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according to a new cnn poll taken after last week's second week of impeachable hearings. the polls response is nearly identical to that before the hearings. the american public made up their mind, people knew what they would say, and they were asked. >> this is a kms best argument. they're not trying to say he didn't do that. the polls are moving from april to now in the direction of

impeachment but they're still early on. we're still in chapter one. i think it is a fundamental mistake to say oh, people made up their minds, let's let the process unfold and see. >> what do make of the associates attachment, now we're learning of subpoenas that have been issued. we don't know who they have been issued to, we have not heard anything. some of the violations possibly including campaign finance violations. >> as opposed to by the way what the president try today do. you do it with the way they're

doing it now, as they have been, and now they're starting to look into what they did. >> let's pan out. we're in this moment, we have the process, as you finish the book, where where we as a country. what is the process. it feels like we're on a knife's edge. >> that is what the founders thought. what did they think impeachment would be. they thought it would be ugly. it does ask that fundamental question. and that is an ugly process. i think we're seeing that the democrats are conducting that

p process in the way, many of them are trump administration employees. these are trump's own people saying there was a quid pro quo and there was something wrong. >> you mentioned these are obama people. kellyanne kaconway, of course there was a federally -- the idea that a president's employee would say that about a judge, a sitting judge, there is nothing more corrosive than that. this is not an obama judge, i happen to know her, she is very powerful, very respected, and her opinion yesterday that does demolish the president's arguments, it is based on an

opinion written by john bates. another distinguished and lovely judge. and i think this has to stop. this attack is so dangerous. >> not the first time from this administration. the book is impeached, the case against donald trump. that does it for us this morning, stephanie ruhle picking up our coverage right now. >> good morning, it is tuesday november 26th, and here is what is happening, a district judge orders former white house council don mcgann to testify rejecting the argument that he should have blanket immunity says a white house argument runs counter to the constitution. it is