♪ this morning house lawmakers will once again pick up the debate over articles of impeachment against the president. democrats say trump must be held accountable while republicans claim it is the democrats who are abusing power, not trump. plus, the justice department's inspector general appears before lawmakers to defend his report that claims the fbi's investigation into trump's 2016 campaign was justified, even though attorney general bill barr is questioning that. and senate republicans are laying out plans for a likely impeachment trial. president trump wants to use it as a chance to portray himself as the victim of partisan attacks. senate republicans, though, just want to get it over

good morning, everyone. it is thursday, december 12th, i'm ayman mohyeldin alongside yasmin vossoughian. the house judiciary committee will continue in a few hours to continue debating the two articles of impeachment against the president, the committee is expected to send the measure to the full house. it is a vote that is likely to have the president impeached by next week. members debated for about four hours last night. here is some of what we've heard. >> i hope every member of this committee will withstand the political pressures of the moment. i hope that none of us attempt to justify behavior that we know in our heart is wrong. >> i want to speak directly to my republican friends. wake up. stop thinking about running for re-election. stop worrying about being primary. stop deflecting and distracting and treating those you represent as if they don't see what is going on, like they're not smart

enough to realize that you're willfully ignoring the facts to protect a corrupt and dangerous president. >> if we decide the president is above the law, then we will no longer live in a democracy. we will live in a dictatorship. trading the values of madison for the values of moscow. >> i know they're desperate. you know how i know it? adam schiff's own words yesterday. we can't go to court. that would take too long. an election is coming. no, adam, what you need to continue to say is, we can't beat him next year, the only thing we need is a 30 second commercial saying we impeached him. >> unlike the nixon and clinton impeachment, there is no crime that is alleged to have been committed by the president of the united states. your there are policy differences. there's no allegation of bribery in these articles. there's no allegation of extortion. >> we are marking up articles of impeachment for offenses that aren't crimes, that some members

of congress have never heard of before, much less know what it means. >> it is not just because they don't like the president. they don't like us. they don't like the 63 million people who voted for this president. all of us in flyover country, all of us common folk in ohio, wisconsin, tennessee, and texas, they don't like us. they don't like the president's supporters. and they dislike us so much they're willing to weaponize the government a few years ago it was the irs, more recently the fbi and now the impeachment power of congress. going after 63 million people and the guy we put in the white house. >> and that went until 11:00 p.m. last night, resuming today at 9:00 a.m. house democratic leaders are bracing for some defections ahead of the impeachment vote. multiple officials telling the "washington post" that lawmakers and senior aides privately predicting they will lose more than the two democrats who oppose the impeachment inquiry rules package that was laid out back in late september. according to the post, a core

group of centrists in districts trump won in 2016, they're having second thoughts, and several moderates have privately pined for other options including a censure vote, they know they're unlikely to get. some have considered what one moderate called splitting the baby, meaning back one article of the impeachment but not the other to try to show independence from the party. >> michael horowitz yesterday testified before the senate judiciary committee, where he reiterated the central finding of his report, that the decision to open an investigation of the 2016 trump campaign was in fact justified. >> we determined that the decision to open cross, was made by the assistant intelligence director and his decision reflected a consensus reached after multiple days of discussions and meetings among senior fbi officials. we reviewed department and fbi policies. and concluded that assistant

director of pre-staff's exercise of discretion, in opening investigation, was in compliance with those policies. we did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that indicated political bias or improper motivation influencing his decision to open the investigation. we found that cross-fire hurricane was opened for an authorized investigative purpose and with sufficient factual predication. this decision to open cross fire hurricane, which involved the activities of individuals associated with a national major party campaign for president, was under department and fbi policy a discretionary judgment left to the fbi. as we pointed out in our report, there was no requirement that the department officials be consulted or even notified of that decision prior to the fbi making that decision. >> horowitz stated that the steele dossier did not impact the launch of the investigation.

>> can we speak for a moment to the steele dossier, the steele file in this case? >> yes. >> i believe you had a pretty definitive statement about what impact that steele file had on the initiation of this investigation. what was your conclusion? >> in terms of the initiation of the investigation, it had no impact. >> no impact. >> no impact. it was not known, to the team, that opened the investigation at the time they opened it. >> but the inspector general characterized the request for surveillance on former trump campaign adviser carter page as misleading. >> what i want you to know that in january, 2017, the whole foundation, for surveilling carter page, collapses, es cull paer to information is ignored, they lied to the court about what the interview was all about, is that a fair summary so far? >> about the january 2017 -- >> i'll, they certainly misled,

it was misleading to the court. >> and he said his report did not vindicate anyone. >> former fbi director james comey said this week that your report vindicates him. is that a fair assessment of your report? >> you know, i think the activities we found here don't vindicate anybody who touched this. >> horowitz however defended his findings that investigators did not spy on the trump campaign. >> during your investigation, attorney general barr stated his belief that quote spying on the trump campaign did occur. end quote. and as you said, your investigation found no evidence that the fbi placed any confidential source within the trump campaign or tasked any confidential source to report on the trump campaign. that's correct, right? >> that's correct. >> we have the highest law enforcement person in our entire country using a word not just

once but twice, using the word spying, so clearly, your report found that the fbi's investigation was for an authorized and with inadequate predicate and you would not characterize that as spying and in fact you would not use such a word in your report. >> we did not use that in our report. >> speaking to attorney general william barr's disagreement with his report. >> did attorney general barr provide any evidence that caused you to alter this key finding that the fbi investigation had an adequate predicate? >> no, we stand by our finding. >> joining us here on the set, msnbc legal analyst danny cevallos and thank god the two of you are here, because amin, you may have to anchor the show guys. >> we are not sounding fantastic this morning. but welcome to you both. >> what do you make of the attorney's criticism as we heard from bill barr of the inspector general's report that doesn't

necessarily seem like the inspector general was necessarily surprised by the criticism of the report? >> even the inspector general says, as we've heard, the report doesn't really vindicate anyone. the big take away from the report is the conclusion that there was no political bias motivating the initiation of this investigation. however, there are a lot of problems with this investigation as a whole. and attorney general barr points that out. at least in an interview with pete williams. there are a lot of reasons to be concerned about the investigative techniques used here, and as a criminal defense attorney, stepping back, outside of the world of trump, we should be concerned that the fisa court which operates almost entirely in secret is using correct information, that information is not being presented to them, that is misleading, or altered, because as citizens, we rely on them, to be honest about what they submit to fisa courts and in conduct can these investigations. so for both sides, there's something for both sides in the ig's report, the fact that there was no political motivation for

the investigation, but for republicans, they can point to the fact that there were some serious missteps in the course of this investigation. >> so given that, what was the strategy here from republicans yesterday after many of the findings shattered some conservative talking points that have been peddled since 2016? >> i agree with the assertion that both sides were able to get something out of the horowitz report, but republicans we saw yesterday with that questioning, it was really at many times, senator lindsey graham's show in running this, and this is something that republicans have been hungry to have. michael horowitz, or anyone who can speak to this report, and shed more light on what they've been saying for months now, we want to investigate the investigators. they were excited to have a chance to speak about that, and really complain about what they see as the fbi's abuses, in opening the investigation into 2016 interference. but again, michael horowitz was not the witness that many had

hoped he would be. he didn't push back on a lot of the assertions that democrats had made. so we saw lindsey graham really get in there and grill him. there were the words spying thrown around a lot. he did not play ball with that. but we did see in the tone, as expected, that they really wanted to say hey, there is something wrong here with the fbi, this investigation was not justified, but he didn't really do that for them. >> the inspector general basically said this report does not vindicate anyone. but yet you have former fbi director jim comey saying this vindicates the fbi, you have the president of the united states basically saying this proves my point, they were spying on us, what do you make of this? >> this report, the way it's written, and its conclusions, allow both sides to essentially declare victory. because the report does two things at once. it says there was no political bias. but there were all of these problems. and republicans will say, well, those problems are bias. those weren't accidents. in the case of, for example, altering an email to make it 180

degrees opposite of what it meant, that's not an accident. that's something intentional. that intent bespeaks bias. so for republicans, the conclusion that this was, there was no bias, means nothing. look at the facts and say, there was absolutely bias, and that's going to be their take-away it from the inspector general's report. >> let's talk about the politics of this. there are some reports that some moderate democrats will potentially shy away from voting to impeach president trump. how might this hurt the party's united front? >> that is the big concern here. and there's been a lot of discussion behind the scenes with speaker pelosi trying to offer more support and see how she can help some of these more centrist democrats in those trump districts where trump won in 2016. people like again, you saw jeff ran drew, who already said he doesn't plan to vote for impeachment. but others like congressman anthony brindisi and alaine

luria who n-these other zridist where people have not said which way they will vote, and it seems like not an incredible amount, but one or two or three democrats in in addition to those who voted against the impeachment inquiry who will defect but it looks like it could be a concern that it is hurting the united front and a lot of republicans and democrats don't see totally the political upside to voting against impeachment when they had already voted in favor of the inquiry because it makes them look like wishy-washy as some members have said, and it shows that they have already supported the inquiry into impeachment, so there is a lot of debate over the next few days as to what the number of democrats detecting will look like. >> you can't help but think of the true victims of the entire situation, the men and women in the fbi, who are working every single day amidst what is going on, and especially with what is going on, the member of the

united states calling some members of the fbi scum, which is still incredible. >> thank you very much. we will talk to you again in a little bit. president trump gives his own explanation for why world leaders may have been laughing at him during last week's nato summit. >> plus the house passes a new multibillion dollar defense bill. we will talk about what is included in that new package. and what's not. those stories and of course a check of the weather with bill karins when we come back. er witl karins when we come back ( ♪ )

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welcome back. the senate foreign relations committee has passed sanctions against turkey for its operations in syria and its purchase of a russian missile defense system. the bill passed despite president trump's objections. and includes targeted sanctions against senior turkish officials, institutions and arms sales tied to turkish operations against kurdish forces in syria. four republican senators voted against the sanctions package, senators rand paul, tet cruz,

ron johnson, and tom udall. last month, president trump and select republican senators met with turkish president erdogan after turkey launched its incursion into northern syria. >> and president trump is offering his explanation of why french president macron and canadian prime minister trudeau were laughing at him at the recent nato summit in london. the president replying to another tweet, tweeting out, they were just upset that i demanded they pay their fair share for nato. their countries are delinquent. i raised $130 billion more from nato countries of the daily beast reports that president trump is still smarting about that moment between macron and trudeau. and according to sources, president trump lashed out at the french and canadian leaders, days after the nato summit had a closed door meeting with more than a dozen ambassadors to the u.s. the white house did not provide a comment to the daily beast, but a senior trump administrative official stated that the president has quote good relationships with president macron and prime

minister trudeau. >> can't help but think though what the president of the united states, going through an impeachment inquiry and having to deal with that overseas the the nato summit seemingly feeling like he is laughed out by world leaders, it is not a good optic, good split screen, either way. >> bill karins has more on the weather. take it away, for god sakes, take it away. >> cough drops, whatever you need. >> i want to see the drama. >> we have 30 minutes left in the show. >> the moment that amin wasn't going to make it in the last read, and if i step in, i may not have to make it, and bill may have to pick it up. >> we've had those moments. that's why we're over here. >> and let's get to the weather forecast. the wind chills are the factor today, today is a little warmer and the cold has made it to the southeast. atlanta, 28 this morning. it is a hat and gloves morning and jacket for everyone from the

great lakes to the east coast, including the northeast. fargo, negative 8. some of the coldest out there. we're also getting a little built of rain this morning. jupiter and fort pierce, outside of miami, ft. lauderdale, has some rain and it looks like an umbrella day for areas of south florida and the storm that moves up the eat coast, east coast, it will take a while. rain in southern portions of georgia, and a little bit in i--10, new orleans, and areas of the panhandle of florida. by the time we get to friday morning, that's when the rain really starts to push up the eastern seaboard, by friday evening, friday evening plan, washington, d.c., could be in the rain, starting to push the rain up along the mid atlantic, possibly even into new york city, and then it is going to rain hard, overnight friday and saturday morning, all of the northeast, and you wake up saturday morning, to wet weather from boston, northward and kind of showery and windy and drizzly, from philadelphia to new york city. it is going to be like one of those saturdays that is going to

be, you know, going to the mall, get an errand done, not an outdoor day at all. and sunday looks better in the northeast. as far as the rainfall, it looks like one to two inches from areas of georgia all the way to south carolina and an inch of rain in new england and if we're getting any icing out of this, it looks like western north carolina, our friends from astro to boon to hickory, maybe to roanoke, on 81, a coating of ice early friday. so keep that in mind for tomorrow morning. and as far as i mentioned, today is actually a decent travel day compared to what we've had lately, much of the country is looking pretty good. >> thanks, bill. still ahead, a former new york city mayor michael bloomberg wants to win the 2020 election and wants to make sure that democrats hold the house. what he is doing to help make that happen, coming up.

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trump, a circuit court judge has upheld a south carolina republican party's decision not to hold a 2020 presidential primary. earlier this year, a former south carolina congressman filed suit, arguing that the party's decision to skip a primary, deprives him and others of the ability to vote for the candidate of their choice. in her ruling, the judge stated, that the law quote does not give plaintiffs a legal right to a presidential preference primary. south carolina is one of several states that have canceled gop primaries or caucuses next year, in an effort to help trump consolidate support. and 2020 democratic presidential newcomer michael bloomberg has pledged to $10 million to defend vulnerable democrats up for re-election, going to combatting an onslaught of paid democratic ads attacking support for impeachmenting the, impeachment

of the president. >> in 2018, mayor bloomberg was a critical ally in helping house democrats regain the majority. now the stakes are even higher. we welcome and thank mayor bloomberg about his report. still ahead, we will dig into what a potential impeachment trial in the senate may look like. president trump wants one thing. senate republicans seem to want something completely different. >> new polling where voters stand on the impeachment. back in a moment. nt back in a moment g. even a "three-ring fender bender." (clown 1) sorry about that... (clown 2) apologies. (clown 1) ...didn't mean it. (clown 3) whoops. (stilts) sorry! (clowns) we're sorry! (scary) hey, we're sorry! [man screams] [scary screams] (burke) quite the circus. but we covered it. at farmers, we know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪

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welcome back, everybody. i'm yasmin vossoughian alongside ayman mohyeldin. we begin with the latest on the impeachment push as the house inches closer to a vote. president trump and his allies are focusing on the likely senate trial. the president has pushed for a strong defense, suggesting he wants to see several witnesses testify including former vice president joe biden and his son hunter biden, house intel chair adam schiff and house speaker nancy pelosi but majority leader mitch mcconnell has signaled he doesn't want to engage in what could become a political circus as he is calling it. he instead wants a short impeachment trial, with no witnesses called. according to the "washington post," in a gop luncheon this week, mcconnell warned his colleagues against calling witnesses, referring to it as quote mutually assured destruction. wanted to look at some of the key numbers in the latest mon

mouth poll. 61% of voters say the president withheld information from congress to hinder the impeachment investigation, only 45% believe he should actually be removed from office. 71% of americans as you see there say their opinions of the opinion are already made up, regardless of any new information that may come out. and neither party faired well. 59% say democrats are more interested in bringing down the president, than pursuing facts at hand, while 61% say republicans are more interested in defending the president. as for the president's job rating, 43% approve, 50% disapprove. joining us once again from washington, white house reporter for axios, good to have you back with us, the debate of the articles of impeachment resumes at 9:00 a.m. today, take us lieu the key arguments last night. >> last night, as everyone expected it was 41 opening statements from the members of the judiciary committee, both

the democrats and the republicans. and we've heard largely what we've been hearing so far from both sides, making their case. so a lot of democrats explaining why they believe that the evidence that they have gathered so far, in their investigation, warrants the impeachment of president donald trump, and republicans saying that this is a political process, and that democrats trying to convey this as a solo serious problem are just lying is what ranking members are calling it. a little different from what we've heard is those like jerry nadler and other democrats on the committee i trying to make an appeal to republicans to vote their conscience and not too late to do the right thing, and trying to pull on the historical context of this and looking back on history, you don't want to be remembered as someone who did not support this historic moment of the impeachment process of president donald trump. but republicans really stood their ground, and continued to defend the president saying this is a political process, and

conveying democrats as being biased and the entire impeachment process as being biassed. >> let's look at some of the polling that i just laid out here, and when we're looking at some of these numbers, help us understand the political environment that has been cultivated, where you see a lot of voters believing the president has obstructed congress, but they don't want to see him actually face penalties, for that charge. >> it's, the polls were an incredible thing to view, and i think that engaging how american voters have been feeling throughout this process, it has really been a move in many way, a lot of people back home, it really contributes to the echo chamber that we've seen, a lot of people getting their news off of the social media and cable news networks and how had is playing out. i spoke to a lot of historical experts and constitutional law professors and putting this in context and how do americans feel about the clinton

impeachment and the nixon impeachment, and they are saying especially in the years since watergate and clinton, the media and the political environment that we're in today, it has become so much more polarized, that is really difficult to try and change american's views on this. so even though people have seen that as the polls show, they do think that the president did create some sort of obstruction of congress, and did not cooperate and potentially abused his power, they don't believe that he should be removed. and so this is key to what a lot of these hearings are about. these hearings that we have been sitting through, each of them now, is trying to sway the public sentiment here, and really these hearings haven't done that yet. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. the justice department inspector general defended the findings of the investigation into the origins of the 2016 russia investigation before the senate judiciary committee yesterday. with republicans echoing the president's attacks, on the fbi.

watch this. >> they couldn't believe trump, wanting to win, and when he won, couldn't tolerate the fact that he won. and all of these smelly people elected him. this is bad stuff. >> this report is a scathing indictment of the fbi, of the agents that were involved. >> this pattern of facts make moose s me angry and it makes everyone who expects law enforcement to be nonpartisan and faithful to the law, it should make them aniy as well. >> meanwhile kamala harris was focusing on attorney general bill barr who has publicly contradicted parts of of the inspector general report, even going so far as to ask if he should be investigated. >> you have the power and the duty to investigate misconduct committed by the attorney general of the united states, who is doing the bidding of the

president, to undermine our intelligence community, and i trust you take that duty seriously. >> i do. and i just would like to add that under the law, under the inspector general act, it carves out, from my authority, the ability to look at misconduct by the department lawyers from the line lawyer all the way to the top and the attorney general. the law has to change, senator. >> so are you recommending the law -- >> absolutely. >> if i propose legislation that would change the law, would you support that? >> absolutely. >> minutes later, senator harris asked horowitz if he had any concerns about rudy giuliani's work in ukraine, on behalf of the president. and questioned whether he would consider conducting a review. >> it was recently reported that the president's personal attorney, rudy giuliani, asked ukrainians to help search for dirt of the political rivals of the president. in exchange for the help, giuliani offered to help fix criminal, against them at the

d.o.j. earlier today you said you are not investigating matters related to ongoing ukraine issues does that mean you have decided not to investigate these incidents? >> no. as i think mentioned in a recent letter, and i've been in touch with fellow i.g.'s who have been asked by members to look at those issues, we will look accordingly, at any action that we have the jurisdiction to review. >> do you agree that if true, giuliani's scheme is alarming? >> i think anything like that would be very concerning. >> so earlier in the hearing, horowitz also confirmed that the justice department is actively investigating alleged leaks from the fbi's new york field office to rudy giuliani about the hillary clinton email investigation in the final days of the 2016 presidential campaign. and the white house office of management and budget has released an explanation for withholding vital military aid to ukraine. in a new legal memo reviewed by the "washington post," omb

general counsel mark powletta claims the office withheld the money as a temporary need to see whether the spending complied with u.s. policy and not a political effort to block congress's spending decision. the letter explains that the office frequently puts temporary holds on money already signed into law and the aid was pause, in response to an administrative directive, quote, pending a policy decision, beginning back on june 19. now the budget office extended a temporary hold on the aid eight times in august, and september, the memo states that the money was released almost immediately after the final pause on september 10th. and according to an administration official, he authorized the repeated delays while awaiting a decision from the president. the new memo represents the administration's fullest explanation to date as to why the money was originally withheld. and u.s. prosecutors are seeking to revoke bail for lev parnas, an associate of rudy giuliani, for lying about a $1 million

payment from russia, and proposing, quote, an extreme list of flights, prosecutors pointed out while most of the money was used for parnas's personal expenses, it raises new questions about rudy giuliani's associates. parnas and fruman were charged with trying to funnel foreign money into u.s. political campaigns as well as working to remove the former ambassador to ukraine marie yovanovitch. yovanovitch testified last month as many of us remember as part of the impeachment inquiry into the president withholding of u.s. military aid to ukraine. back in october, parnas and fruman were arrested at the airport, one way tickets, out of the country. and president trump's former lawyer, michael cohen, asking for a reduction in his three-year prison sentence, according to cnbc cohen's attorneys have filed a court motion seeking to reduce his sentence to one year or release him to home confinement and community service. they cite cohen's cooperation with investigators about the

president in a plea to the federal judge and cohen's lawyers also claimed that the justice department led by attorney general barr did not act in quote good faith and had previously interfered in the decision not to credit cohen's cooperation in his sentencing last year. much more still ahead, everybody. joe biden addressing claims that he discussed making a threat to serve only one term if elected president. we're going to have those new remarks coming up. >> plus, we will go live to london for that crucial vote in the u.k. polls are now open in a general election that could finally put brexit to rest. >> your first look at "morning joe" is back in a moment. more. there's my career... my cause... and creating my dream home. i'm a work in progress. so much goes into who i am. hiv medicine is one part of it. prescription dovato is for adults who are starting hiv-1 treatment and who aren't resistant to either of the medicines dolutegravir or lamivudine. dovato has 2 medicines in 1 pill to help you reach and then stay undetectable. so your hiv can be controlled with fewer medicines

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we go the extra mile to bring your holidays home. welcome back. former vice president joe biden denying a report that his campaign had discussed him making a one term pledge, citing four people who regularly talked to biden, "politico" claiming that the former vice president himself suggested to aides that he would only seek a single term. hear was his reaction on the campaign trail.

>> have you ever talked to any aides about a one-term pledge? >> never have. i don't have any plans of a one-term, i'm not even there yet. >> biden's communications director has also denied the president is looking at a single term. and mater pete buttigieg and former vice president joe biden leading the pack while senator elizabeth warren support slips away. a survey shows buttigieg as new hampshire voters at top choice by 18% with joe biden at 17% and bernie sanders in third place at 15% and elizabeth warren following up at 12%. a check of the weather now with nbc meteorologist and our savior, bill karins. >> the only time you're ever going to say that. >> you know why lucky is not here mike barnicle, and i said he would be fine with the

airplane and his flight was at 10:45 and he got off the ground at 3:00 in the afternoon. >> you are quite lucky mike barnicle. >> i have a text from him that i refuse to read. >> not appropriate. >> could be bad language. >> and little co does anyone kn we all attack you on those weather days where we're all caught offguard. let's get you out the door. a cold morning. it is not snowing or anything. no travel concerns but bundle up. wind chills have plunged into the teens in areas of the ohio valley, the mid atlantic and the big cities in the low 20s now and a lot of the, suburbs will be down in the teens of the negative numbers in the northern plains. today is a decent travel day. small delays in orlando. also possibly miami. some rain in areas, ft. lauderdale, this morning, and the northeast looks just fine. cool, crisp, kind of winter-ish today. chicago, today is the relef day after the cold the last two days. you actually get up to 42 degrees. not bad in st. louis. a storm system on the west coast

that has brought some areas of rain in san francisco and to the inter mountain west. and let's look at the weekend forecast. we will see the rain developing and up the east coast. rather quick moving. that's the good news with it. we could have significant delays of trafg and we go into friday, i-95, georgia, south carolina, and late in the day, we will get into areas of the mid atlantic. now, there is just enough cold air brewing, in hickory, roanoke, western portions of virginia, north carolina, we could get a little bit of icing. there is a winter weather advisory posted there. a little snow in the northern plains. the pacific systems continue to roll into the west. let's take new saturday. the rain will be the worst early in the day and improve in the northeast as we go throughout saturday afternoon and the heaviest rain from boston, northward, during the morning hours on saturday and kind of just a wintry mess, on the backside of this storm, not a huge impact in the ohio valley but just a little bit and by the time we get to sunday, the pacific storm begins to move

into the middle of the country with a little bit of light snow, it is windy in the northeast and much colder but at least not kind of rainy and dreary, and so overall, we will see two storms, back to back storm, the first storm we were talking about through the southeast and the next one comes behind it. it will stay kind of damp and wet on the east coast and the next storm will be tuesday for the eastern seaboard, so now we start to talk about getting into the christmas travel holiday schedule, too. >> not far away. >> love that. >> it is christmas around the corner. and i want to say thank you to everybody who has been tweeting at us and giving us advice how to fix our voices and also tellings us to go home. >> thank you, bill. still ahead, new reporting on why the wall street bonuses will be shrinking this year. and dig into first lady's michelle obama's best selling year and the pressure it is putting on her husband to keep up. we're back in a moment. ♪everybody

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welcome back, everybody. it is election day in the u.k., and polls are know open in a general election that many are hoping will break the laws down over brexit, and we have more from outside parliament in london for us and i think the key word here is hope. >> right. >> because that logjam has not been broken as of yet. set the stage for us. >> well, yasmin, it is a bitterly divided country, a very divided parliament, claims of outside interference, and as well as misleading social media posts, it sounds a lot like an

election over election over there, but that's the election here. and most of it comes down to brexit. brexit and britain in your hands, and that is what this election was called for and that has been the key topic of the campaigns. boris johnson and the conservatives saying they want to make brexit happen now and get on with it. but his opposition, jeremy corbyn and the labor party, they want to renegotiate the withdrawal agreement and put it t to a second referendum. let the public decide if they want to go with the deal or stay in the eu. the conservatives have led in most of the polls up to the election day but that lead has narrowed as we've gotten closer to election day. boris johnson says it remains on a knife edge. we see hill and johnson voting today. but the polls opened a few hours

ago. they'll be open until later this evening and then into tonight and tomorrow we should get a clear direction of which direction this country is heading. will brexit happen or is there the potential for the uk to remain in the eu? or if neither side get a majority, could we get down to smaller factions having their opinion of brexit? we'll have to see how this all turns out starting tomorrow. >> thank you. coming up next, everybody, a look at axios's one big thing. and on "morning joe," debate over the president's impeachment continues in the house judiciary committee this morning with a vote expected later today. we're going to set the stage for that. plus, a new argument from senator lindsey graham. he claims the fbi did not try to warn the trump campaign about the russian interference in the

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welcome back, everybody. joining us from washington with a look at axios a.m., the cofounder of axios, mike allen. good morning to you. >> morning. >> talk to us about the axios one big thing today. >> the axios one big thing is wall street bonuses shrink. so courtney brown got some projections from new york city which of course cares about these bonuses because of taxes. and it's finding that they're likely to be down 9% this year after last year, even though the stock market continues to boom. now, why does this matter? two things. one is this sends a ripple effect through the tri-state economy up there, if you're a steakhouse or ferrari dealer, hamptons real estate agency, wall street bonuses mean a lot to you. why do they matter to us? two things. one is we're seeing the wall street firms go to delivered kinds of compensation or other compensation, for instance,

stock instead of cash for a bonus. but here's the second thing. since the financial crisis, these big firms have realized these massive, big-ticket bonuses have esthetic and other problems, so that's why they're restructuring some of these payments trying to curtail them. a little perspective here, bonuses alone for most wall street people in the after wrath last year was $150,000, was more, of course, that bonus was more than the average person in new york made. the average compensation on wall street last year, $422,000. that's five times what the average private sector worker makes. >> wow. amazing numbers there. we mentioned earlier former new york city mayor michael bloomberg, his donation and pledge to defend vulnerable house democrats. what more can you tell us about this spending? >> yeah, so mike bloomberg is going to do a lot of state and

local spending. he's also supporting stacey abrams efforts based in georgia to protect the integrity of elections. and this builds on mike bloomberg's work in the last cycle where, on the democratic side, he was by far the largest individual giving in midterm races. and mike bloomberg is making friends. this shows that there's a rational for his campaign beyond him as an individual. he sees the house democrats as a backstop, a counterweight to president trump. and the raw politics of it. when he gets to a convention the most likely scenario of mike bloomberg is going to thrive to go into a convention undecided. that's when the political insiders, the super delegates matter. in a moment like that, i think a lot of state and local friends could be a big deal. >> tell us about what you're reporting about former first lady michelle obama. >> so the first lady's best selling year. so "the new york times" best

seller list for december 22nd, christmas eve eve eve list, shell hit one year on the best seller list for becoming her memoir. and her audio book, 13 straight weekends. the first lady read this herself, 19 hours of that, "becoming ". and a little buzz we pick up around town about this. you know how competitive president obama have he has a memoir coming, update not out yet on that. and the first lady has set a very high bar for him to try to match with his own sales. >> thank you very much. we'll be reading axios a.m. in just a bit. you too can sign up for the newsletter at signup.axios.com. >> that does it for us this morning. i'm yasmin alongside ayman. "morning joe" starts right now. america is in crisis.

big problems require big solutions. we need a leader to lead us for almost as long as it takes. joe biden has been working hard for the american people for years and is willing to work a couple more. >> i agree that everybody wants -- my time's up, i'm sorry. >> you can count on joe biden to get the first half of the job done. >> i'm joe biden and i'll say i'm -- you're -- >> i'm pete buttigieg and i approve the second half of this message. >> they'd be okay with that, right? >> that's jimmy kimmel's take on a pl"politico" report that joe biden would serve only a single term. the former vice president denies it. good morning, welcome to "morning joe." it's thursday, december 12th. along with joe, willie and me we have white house reporter for "the associated press" jonathan lemire. historian