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 and rogers professor

of the vanderbilt university jon meacham. and kurt bardella is with us this morning. and nbc news and msnbc law analyst and editor and chief of law fair, benjamin wittes. donald trump likes to frame his presidency in historic terms, and that's exactly how it's playing out in washington right now. for only the fourth time in history, congress is considering removing the commander and chief from office. it's a process that's likely to have the 45th president impeached by next week. the house judiciary committee will reconvene in just a few hours to continue debating the two articles of impeachment. the committee is expected to vote later today to sent measure to the full house. each measure delivered in an opening statement yesterday, the session lasting for hours.

here is some of what we 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's going on. like they're not smart enough to realize that you are 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 say 30-second commercial saying we impeached him. >> unlike the nixon and clinton impeachment, there is no crime that's alleged to have been committed by the president of the united states. 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 no what it means. >> it's 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, 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.

few years ago was the irs, then it was the fbi. and now it's the impeachment in congress going over 63 million people and the guy we put in the white house. >> that's wonderfully funny. it's good entertainment in the morning coming from jim jordan. they don't like us? i'm sorry, jim, i am -- you're talking about a guy that went to state schools in the deep south and, unlike you, i'm still conservative. i still believe in small government and balanced budgets and free trade and pushing back on russia. so us? don't try that. this is about a president of the united states who actually likes russia, likes vladimir putin, likes doing whatever he can do to help vladimir putin, whether it's saying that ukraine's not a real country or trying to undercut the democratically elected free leader of ukraine

while vladimir putin has invaded that country. you know, you can roll up your shirt sleeves and take off your jacket as long as you want to. you can do this us versus them flyover space crap, i invented that, all right. me and a lot of other guys invented that while you were going around at ohio state and working with that guy quinn or quil or whatever his name was that was doing bad things to wrest lette wrestlers that he shouldn't have done while other people were turning their heads. let's not try that flyover space garbage, all right. it's fascinating, though, that all of the yelling and screaming, they never get to the fact, do they, kurt, they never get to the fact -- first of all -- that they didn't even like in a more extreme way against barack obama. you were there, you were on the committee, you know what the oversight committee did to barack obama. everything now that they're acting shocked and saying that the government's been

weaponized, that's number one. but number two, they never really address the underlying issue, and that is that donald trump as commander and chief used his position to extort support from a foreign country to interfere in an election and held up about $400 million of military defense weapons that congress already approved that was supposed to stop whom? vladimir putin from invading the rest of the country. but you say this morning in a think piece, i know willie will love this, that the house republicans have adopted the brick tamlin loud noises defense. loud noises, because that's all they have. they're making loud noises. >> we've seen time and again with all these proceedings republicans fall back on the same strategy which is to yell as frequently as possibly and loudly as possible in the hopes that nobody will notice that

they have not described this call with zelensky as a perfect call. that they've not once talked about defending the substance of what the president is accused of. they must not have read the impeachment articles here because it's straightforward what he's accused of. republicans like jim jordan wrote the book on how to weaponize oversight for what they did to the barack obama administration. the idea that they can turn around now and say this is shocking that people would issue subpoenas, that they want to have testimony. >> give us a quick example of that hypocrisy about how people like jim jordan, what they did on fast and furious, what they did on benghazi, what they did on these other investigations. >> well, something that was interesting that jordan said, he talked about the irs during the hearing yesterday. and they held a four to five-year investigation alleging that the irs was targeting conservatives. at the end of that investigation, by the way, it turned out, no, that wasn't happening. that's 100% false.

yet, they held these hearings. they held an administration official in contempt of congress for not cooperating with their made-up political driven hearing. and here is he again saying, well, we're going to ignore history and i'm going to use something that i know isn't true to try to justify what i'm doing now, which is defending the president at all costs. and, again, it's like i wrote today, that scene in anchor man when they're in the news director's office yelling about the hiring of a woman, they're saying loud noises, i don't know what we're yelling about. that's jim jordan. that's doug collins. that's louie gobert and that's all that they've got. >> in his whole routine of talking fast, he they're just afraid they can't beat donald trump, and we're going to talk fast and also i dislike georgia. >> sold. >> keep going. sold! but, again, this is -- this the netherworld. i guess maybe they'll play a

clip of that on a trump-supporting network. but we just showed polls a couple of days ago. joe biden's up by nine points over donald trump in a lot of the most recent polls. he's beating him in wisconsin, he's beating him in michigan. he's beat beiing him in pennsylvania. if you look at the polls right now, unless a democrat had his or her head buried in the and is for the past several months, i mean, nobody's thinking joe biden can't beat donald trump. in fact, it's looking just the opposite, like biden has almost a double-digit lead over trump in some of the most important states. >> yeah. it was a fascinating day yesterday. it shouldn't be a surprise that republicans were deflecting from the evidence that we saw in this ukraine hearing. all the witness who's stepped forward, nonpartisan witnesses, and told a story about what the president did. what was new in this example, anyway, was the culture war

aspect of it which was going back to echoes of the 2016 campaign and how donald trump got elected in the is these people, they hate you, they hate us, they'll do anything to overturn election. not addressing the evidence or the questions before them, but taking a bigger view, jon meacham, sitting in nashville, tennessee, this morning, that this is about a group of people in the democrats and coastal elites who don't like us and will stop at nothing to, as they say, overturn the election of the man 63 million people voted for. it's a culture argument more than anything. >> it is. and it goes back to the 1790s. the -- what richard hofstetter called the paranoid style in american politics, which is the use of a conspiracy. the idea that this is an ultimate struggle and there are people, there are forces that are unseen yet powerful who are trying to control your lives. and i hate to say this, but every element of american politics or just about every

element, left, right, whatever that meant in a given era, have at some time or another used this. because it's a natural human argument to make. where we are right now and where we were last night is one of the richest ironies, though, in that long span. because there's really in the modern era the conservative sense that there is a media legal deep state world against them. really begins with alger hiss, richard nixon and franklin roosevelt. they all walked into a bar -- just kidding -- and there's one parachute. but it began in 1945 when hiss was a young state department aide, conservatives came to believe that franklin roosevelt had sold us out, it was called

the stab in the back sellout of eastern europe, and this enraged a huge part of the country. richard nixon, a young congressman from california, takes on alger hiss successfully on the house on american activities committee, and so it began that there was this harvard elite that was trying to undermine the real america and it would require these noble figures from the heartland, california -- wasn't what california is now -- to defeat it. and the reason i call that rich irony is think for a second, that was all about defending us against russia. against the soviet union. so in this bizarre moment we're in, this fun house world that's not fun because it's real, the national security interests that shaped us for three or four generations have been turned

upside down while this cultural strategy unfolds. but it is a sequential chapter and a drama and i think the way we've overcome it in the past, the way we defeated joe mccarthy and grew out of that was enough people decided, you know what? this is not who we want to be all the time. >> joe, i just covered alger hiss on my bingo card for the morning. >> here's something i found more fascinating. i don't know what type of bars jon meacham goes to in rocky top, and i know they call it -- you know where i'm going? he goes these three people walked into a bar and there's only one parachute. i mean -- >> mixing a couple jokes there. >> it's okay. >> mixing a couple jokes, but that bar is on one high cliff. batman begins or something. >> this is good stuff. this works really well out in

the tapioca. >> beyond the bingo card, everything jim's talking about, everything jim jordan was talking about yesterday, it's so far afield from the evidence. and, again, the questions before congress about whether or not president trump abused his power and committed an impeachment offense, they are not in any way and they haven't from the beginning, we know that, addressing the evidence. they're not addressing the question. do you believe it's okay for the president to use his office to extort, to bribe a foreign country to get dirt for a presidential election? that is the question before them that they don't want to answer. >> yeah, they don't want to answer the question. again, the flyover space argument is so hilarious. i mean, when i -- so, when i represented flyover space, we supported, i fought for, the reason i ran for office was for balanced budgets. and donald trump and jim jordan are responsible for the biggest

national debt ever. the biggest deficits in an expansionary time ever. and like jon said, russia, we fought to push back against russia. we held hearings about it all the time with armed services chit tee committee. this is an administration that's embracing russia and pushing propaganda that the intel agencies actually warned them against doing another thing. we always criticized democrats for undermining the intel community. we were still talking in the 1990s about the church commission in the early 1970s because we thought the democrats were insufficiently supportive of our intel agencies. now it's jim jordan and other republicans that are slashing and burning and attacking our intel agencies all the time. free markets, i support free

markets. i've supported free markets. i fight against tariffs. always have been against tariffs. that's what people in flyover space, at least the flyover space i lived in for 45 years in florida, mississippi, alabama, and georgia, that's what we fought against. and, yet, you've got a trumpian party that is passing tariff taxes on to working class americans, hurting farmers all across america. this is -- this is not even my father's republican party, this isn't my republican party. and, jonathan lemire, they're talking about flyover space and trying play that us against them garbage. it doesn't cut that way anymore because you have conservatives now split, true conservatives, split away from this bizarre pro russia, pro big debt, pro big

spending republican party. even rand paul said donald trump and jim jordan's last budget, so big it was, perhaps, the biggest pork barrelled spending project in the history of the republic. >> there certainly could be some fractures on the conservative values like those. but this is the tax cut that donald trump has campaigned and most republican allies have used since 2016, the us versus them. turning everything into a fight. the idea we heard him at his rally in pat other nigpennsylva about how others would start whimpering and crying. and we can set aside this president likes to play the victim more than anybody. they hit back at me i hit back harder. that's what they're doing here. unlike the clinton and nixon impeachment moments, both of

them took it seriously. they participated in the process and they -- neededly so. they needed to have a serious response to serious matters. but by doing so it elevated the process. people around this process told me part of what they're trying to do is fight, fight, fight and dismiss, to not give oxygen to the other side, to down-play the whole concept. faint as, this their phrase, a political witch-hunt that doesn't have anything to do with the president. we know that's incorrect. we know it's a matter of law. it's a matter of the constitution and that's why the democrats and the house have forged forward. but that's how they're portraying it and they're heartened by recent polling that suggests the president's approval hasn't slipped much. now, he's still behind a nufbt democrats he could face in 2020. but they think, again, that he's

going to get impeached and th that's going to personally infuriate the president and they'll try to spin it into a win. and he'll go out and tour next year and suggest that he survived this and that will be the launch of his re-election campaign. >> it seems to me, mika, there will be fraying around the edges. there's some polls you look, again, collins talked about how there's no way to beat donald trump. i looked over the head-to-head matchups. biden's ahead by nine in one poll. up by 13 in one taken a couple weeks ago. you look head to head in states, he's ahead of donald trump by nine points in pennsylvania. he's ahead of donald trump in other important swing states. it helps actually explain not why the democrats are afraid of -- this is -- you got to give the auctioneer some credit here. it just -- he's so

extraordinary. you've got to give him some credit for trying to confuse everybody in tv land. but you look at these matchups, biden crushing donald trump by nine points. the socialist, as donald trump calls him, beating donald trump by eight points. pocahontas, as donald trump calls him, the one that he says what did he say? she has a fresh mouth? well guess what? fresh mouth is kicking your butt by seven points. >> there you go. >> even bloomberg, i know you're upset that bloomberg has about 50 times amount of money you do, even bloomberg's beating you. mayor pete's beating you. amy's beating you. yeah, mika, this whole auctioneer argument that somehow democrats are afraid they can't beat -- they know they can beat donald trump. it actually is in the opposite direction. donald trump is afraid that joe biden can beat him.

that's why he decided to hold up almost $400 million of military funding that would protect our democratic ally against further invasion by vladimir putin. that's -- that's sort of -- he got that backwards, actually. >> yeah. and democrats seem to be in a good position as things stand right now. benjamin wittes, we'll get to the ig hearing in a moment, but i wanted to ask you since the house judiciary committee is on track to impeach the president by next week as things are going, we've also heard from mitch mccop nnnell indicated he wants a short impeachment trial with no new witnesses called. it seems politically and legally the strategy on both sides is focused on speed. what do you make of that? >> well, the first thing i make of it is we'll see whether it

holds. you know, the strategy of the house impeachment managers will be they want to present their case. they will want to present this incredible story that they've developed in the course of he's house hearings and they will want to augment that story with the testimony of certain people who they sought to get testimony from in the house and failed because the white house stiffed them. and that, of course, is part of the basis for the second article of impeachment, the obstruction of congress. so they're going to want to try to present as much as they can. and the question for mcconnell is whether he can hold together 51 senate republican votes to prevent them from doing that. and i think that's a question, you know, quite apart from the question of, you know, how many

senate republicans may be willing at the end of the day to vote to convict the president. the question of how many senate republicans are going to vote to -- with democrats to allow a full presentation of the evidence is the question that will govern whether mcconnell can kind of get away with a very short, no evidence, or limited evidence trial or whether the house managers are going to be able to make a full and ka patience presentation of the evidence that they think they have. still ahead on "morning joe," a full breakdown of michael horowitz' testimony on capitol hill. what the doj's inspector general said about the origins of the russia probe. plus, we mentioned that reporting on joe biden considering just a single term. we'll dig into that. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. movie.

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28 past the hour. live look at capitol hill. welcome back to "morning joe." justice department inspector general 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 justified. >> we determined that the decision to open crossfire hurricane was made by then fbi counterintelligence divisions assistant director bill prestat

and that his decision reflected a consensus reached by multiple days meetings of fbi officials. we decided that his exercise of disgression in opening the investigation was in compliance with those policies. we didn't find testimony or evidence that indicated political bias or improper motivation influencing his decision to on the investigation. we found that crossfire hurricane was opened for an authorized investigative purpose and with sufficient factual predication. this decision to open crossfire 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 point out in our report there are was no requirement

that department officials be consult order ev consulted or notified prior to the fbi making that decision. >> well, willie, that part is about as straightforward as can be. no abuse of administration, no bias. there would be a lot of problems as it pertained to the fisa warrant process which the ig would talk about. but later on. but regarding the bigger picture, the question that trump administration and donald trump and all of his lackeys on capitol hill have been pushing the conspiracy theory has been now for several years that barack obama tapped his phones in trump tower and they launched this investigation with the specific intent of taking down a presidential candidate. that lie or those series of lies, that extraordinarily reckless conspiracy theory blown in a million little pieces

yesterday. >> yeah. the inspector general made clear and said so explicitly that the fbi did not seek continue to certify inform anants into the trump campaign. but congress asked horowitz do something that he's not good at. to hold two questions in his head at once. the fisa warrants, that should be alarming to anyone, if it's for you side on one moment it's going to be other side on the next. but the other piece as we just heard in the sound bite was that the fbi investigation into the trump campaign was properly predicated, that this was not a deep state conspiracy to go after and to take down donald trump and to prevent him from becoming president, et cetera, et cetera. >> so it's more than that. it's that the investigation was properly predicated, the conspiracy theories about spying on the trump campaign are false.

the conspiracy theories about misuse of confidential informants are false. conspiracy theories about the insurance policy, we had a conversation on this show a couple months ago about the insurance policy conspiracy, that is not true. you know, the strzok-page texts, the coup, all that stuff is garbage. there is two reports here, right, and it's in one volume. one report is about whether any of these conspiracy theories have any element of truth to them. and the answer to that question is a decisive rebuttal of all of it. i mean, just all of it.

including dozens and dozens and dozens of statements by the president of the united states dating back nearly to the beginning of his presidency. the other report, and i don't want to diminish this because, as you say, willie, it's really important, is whether the fbi conducted itself in the context of the foreign intelligence surveillance act applications here in a fashion that comports with what we should expect from the preeminent law enforcement agency in the nation tasked with this very sacred and delicate trust under the statute. and the answer so that question is, no, the bureau's conduct here is simply not what we should expect from the fbi in an investigation of, you know, carter page or an investigation of some unnamed muslim american who might -- there might be

suspicions is connected with, you know, a foreign terrorist organization. fisa is a really delicate instrument and we should demand more of the fbi in the conduct and preparation of fisa applications than we saw in this case. and so i think you're exactly right that we should be able to hold two ideas in our heads at the same time. they're both really important ideas. >> so, benjamin, if -- or actually i should say since the ig found there was no bias against donald trump in the starting of is this investigation and didn't suggest that there was throughout the investigation but there was high levels of what he said was incompetence, should our bigger takeaway from this beyond donald trump be that if they would do that in such a politically sensitive case, the chances are good that the muslim american who is being investigated or any

other american being investigated has to worry about the fbi running roughshod over the safeguards that were put in place to protect the rights of americans during the fisa process? >> so i would very much hope that the errors that are found here are not typical. and that said, you know, people like me for many years have been saying this is a really, really strong process, there's very careful review, and we should all have confidence in this process even as we, you know -- we should defend it and we should, you know, keep an eye on it and make sure it's being handled properly. so when i see accounts like this, you do sort of retroactive afteraction report on a fisa

application and you see misstatements, miscommunications, and omissions of this magnitude, it does raise a question for me of how typical this is. and that's why i think mr. horowitz does a service in determining here that he needs to do a broader audit of the fisa process, the handling of these title one fisas in more typical cases in order to figure out is this that the stress of this particularly high profile case made things worse, or that this is actually, you know, the kind of sloppiness that we should expect to see more generally? in which case we've got a real problem. >> horowitz also told the committee that he met in november with u.s. attorney john durham. you'll recall that durham is the prosecutor that the president and the attorney general are banking on to support the president's conspiracy theories

about the origins of the russia investigation. horowitz yesterday relayed his discussion with durham about the justification for opening the investigation. >> we did discuss the opening issue. he said he did not necessarily agree with our conclusion about the opening of a full counterintelligence investigation, which is what this was. but there is also an investigative means by which the fbi can move forward with an investigation, it's called the preliminary investigation. so there's two type of investigations, full and preliminary. they opened the full here. he said during the meeting that the information from the friendly foreign government was, in his view, sufficient to support the preliminary investigation. >> as "the washington post" notes, the distinction is a narrow one that typically has little bearing on the early

stages of an investigation. horowitz said that even if agents had opened a preliminary investigation rather than a full investigation, they still would have been authorized to use informants as they did in the first month of the case. but durham's monday statement in response to the ig report was much broader than that. he wrote in part, last month we advised the inspector general that we do not agree with some of the report's conclusions as to predication and how the fbi case was opened. wow. little different there, joe. >> yeah. >> what's going on? >> that sis a big wow because there's such a small difference between the preliminary investigation that he supported and that he said was justified from information from the friendly government and what the fbi eventually supported. such a small difference that, kurt, there's no way to read durham's statement as anything more than he was just being a

hack for barr. he was being a pr hack, air pr flak for donald trump as well. not a good look for a u.s. federal prosecutor. but, obviously, you look at that statement, it's really distressing because there air lot of people that actually had confidence that he was not going to be corrupted by donald trump. his statement and then what he said in private to horowitz are so different that there's no doubt he has actually been corrupted. he has been compromised. and now you look at that statement, it looks like he's nothing more than a white house flak. >> i mean, you know, i'll tell you, this is just another example of the white house moving the goal post. first, this ig report was going to be the be all end all. it was going to verify all the horrible things that trump has been tweeting this happened to him, the victim that he is. that didn't happen.

the report confirmed what we already knew, which means the investigation was open and legitimate and nothing to do with politics. in the report there are people within the department that are trump supporters that are cited in there. so that there's a political bias, that's a myth. we see durham take this completely unprecedented move, this is supposed to be an investigation he's work, this report that he's working on, he's in the middle of doing it, on if an investigator to come out and make that statement before the investigation is completed wreaks of bias. and another report will come out and surprise, surprise, it will say what donald trump and william barr want it to say. it will be nothing but propaganda. but that's par for the course that we see from this administration. anytime the facts don't align with the narrative that they've invented, they come up with the way to release something that they want it to say.

this is barr's precursor to the mueller report. we've seen devin nunes put out reports from the intelligence committee that are completely debunked, not based on fact but designed to advance a fictitious narrative. and now we're seeing it again with durham in trying to undermine the inspector general's report. it's amazing to see. when i worked at the oversight committee, republicans were the fiercest defenders of inspector general independence. they were the fiercest defenders of inspector general authority. they wanted to expand inspector general authority to be independent of the executive and now they're trying to undermine them. >> and how fascinating they were also the fiercest defenders of the whistle-blower statute. i mean, think about that. >> there you go. it is just kind of staggering to watch this all play out. willie. >> so, jonathan, let's talk about the view from the white house here. all the president's men have rallied around him in congress.

we've seen them in the hearing rooms, attorney general barr, secretary pompeo as well. from all the confidence projected from the white house and president that this will breeze through the senate and he will not be convicted. we know how donald trump thinks. he does not want this blight on his resume as having been an impeached president of the united states, but it could come as early as next week. >> it could. that's an important thing to remember here, as much as is around the president, they have rallied around the president. the president doesn't want this. he knows it's the first line of his obeneficiary ware to become -- his political obituary. to underscore what kurt just said, absolutely right. the durham statement is reminiscent of what barr did in that letter from that framed the mueller report before its release to shape the public narrative before we read the document and went and sifted

through and realized it was actually far more damaging that the attorney general portrayed. and i think you're also seeing this in the calculation going into the potential senate trial where the president and the white house wants to make it a st spectacle. they want to call joe biden and hunter bide end an and others. "the washington post" had a story yesterday where he was quoted as saying mutually destructive testimony. he wants to move this through the trial hopefully in a couple weeks in january. i want to note that i think it could perhaps be an inspector general or investigation into the gerrit cole signing which i know you discussed at some length yesterday. >> found a backdoor to that story. >> but it this feels like something that frankly is a matter of such national significance that the washington -- >> i thought you were free m

marketers. it's a great company. >> smith, during the steroid crisis and you had a lot of steroid freaks that were brought to capitol hill to testify, this is -- i put it again in between there, the 1919 black sox scandal, willie. i hope you will say on national television today that you will not support the new york yankees because -- >> never. >> -- you refuse to support a team that is willing to just buy their way. >> exactly. >> -- into the world series. it makes -- it makes us sad. this is the bloomberg equivalent of, you know, we got -- we got kids right now, jonathan will tell you, playing pepper just in the backyard in boston. they're playing pepper, whatever it takes to win. but this is so unbecoming for you and all yankee fans. will you disavow the new york yankees today?

>> never in my life. >> the way they spread this money around like pablo escobar? >> wow. pablo escobar, rurpg tnning the cartel. the red sox gave up that a long time. but as you talk about the steroids, i had passing through my mind the late great senator kennedy talking about sammy sousa sitting before him in those hearings. >> the thing is, in the senator's defense, sammy sosa couldn't pronounce his own name. >> thank you both for being on this morning. coming up, she may have dropped out of the presidential race, but senator kamala harris is still taking on president trump and his allies. we'll show you some of her pointed questions about attorney general bill barr and rudy giuliani yesterday. plus, new polling shows a tight race between mayor pete and joe biden in new hampshire. we'll dig in those new numbers

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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'd just like to add that under the law and under the inspector general act, it carves out for my authority the ability to look at misconduct by department lawyers from the line lawyer all the way to the top and the attorney general. the law has to change, senator. >> are you recommending -- >> absolutely. >> if i propose legislation that will change the law, would you support that? >> absolutely. >> 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 are the help giuliani offered to help fix criminal cases against them at doj. earlier today you said you are not investigating matters related to ongoing ukraine issues. does that mean that 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 ig'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? >> think anything like that would be very concerning. >> senator kamala harris back on capitol hill after suspending her campaign for president. joining us now, former chief of staff to the dccc and former director of strategic communications for hillary clinton's presidential campaign, adrienne elrod. she's an msnbc contributor. professor at princeton university, eddie glaude junior and msnbc political analyst susan del percio joins us as well.

good to have yaw you all. let's look at the latest polling which shows pete buttigieg and former vice president joe biden on top. buttigieg is new hampshire voters top choice at 18% followed closely by biden at 17%. senator bernie sanders comes in third place with 15% and senator elizabeth warren follows with 12%. all else are in single digits. and i -- >> wow. >> i'm trying to think of what's going on with elizabeth warren there, adrienne. >> yeah. mika, new hampshire voters tend to support someone who's from a neighboring state, which is why this is a little surprising the fact that she's kind of dipped. >> that's my question. >> into these lower digits. look, i was with some of mayor pete's team when one of these polls came out, the first poll that showed him on top in new hampshire and they were excited but also i think a little surprised by this momentum here. so, look, the horse race is

still going on. organization ground game really matters and we'll see how that plays out in new hampshire. but this is surprising and good news for mayor pete. >> absolutely. joe. >> yeah, adrienne, i was going to say again, in all of these polls, whether it's iowa, new hampshire, the national polls, it seems like we have three stories. think maybe we should say four, but the first one is mayor pete's rise in iowa and new hampshire, really seeing him on top in the new hampshire poll really is surprising. of course, joe biden stabilizing this month. he's stabilized in a significant way. it was only a few weeks ago that many of his contributors were saying he could finish fourth in iowa and new hampshire. this has been a really good month for biden. of course, the third story is elizabeth warren's drop. it might be temporary as you and others bring up. she's got a great ground game in iowa and new hampshire. boy, that really matters in the

closing week. but also you have to look at bernie sanders, don't you? bernie, it's so fascinating how much attention he received in 2016 and be he's really been so quiet this election cycle. but as elizabeth warren goes down, bernie sanders continues to rise. >> yeah, that's right, joe. i'll tell you, i think mayor pete's campaign is seeing what it's like to be the front runner two of these early states now. being in the hot seat, he's been under scrutiny from some of his mckenzie clients. he's been criticized from other campaigns. the media's paying more attention to him. i think if you're elizabeth warren and bernie sanders you kind of like hovering back in third, fourth place right now because you are under less scrutiny and it gives you a chance to quietly work your way back into that front tier status. >> now, is deval patrick still a part of this equation or -- i mean, what is -- >> he's still running but not necessarily part of the equation. >> okay. >> and he's not going to make the debate stage.

>> okay. >> i just -- maybe that impacts elizabeth warren? >> yeah, perhaps. absolutely. >> i don't know. >> i just think if you're not going to make the debate stage at this point it's hard to be competitive going into 2020. >> there's something else that's going to affect elizabeth warren a lot and why we see pete buttigieg and joe biden doing so well there. new hampshire is an open primary. so there's a group of voters that are not republicans, who don't like the president or just may want someone -- >> who want an option. >> an independent who are going to get involved in that primary. so where they most likely to go? biden or buttigieg because he's very appealing. so in that moderate lane, because he's also the one who tore down elizabeth warren initially on the medicaid for all and how much it will cost. >> eddie, you can draw a straight fliline for liz warren from when she announced the details of her health plan to the dip in the beginning.

but bernie sanders who is rising and hanging around the top has come out and said his quote from nar march, you're damn right, private insurance should be eliminated yet she's dipping and he's holding steady. what do you see in those rubs? >> numbers? >> i see the robust nature of senator sanders ground game. we haven't talked about the folks he has on the ground. they're doing that hard core retail politics. so there's a moment when warren skyrocketed to the top and she got the attention of a front runner. and while that was happening, i think under the cover of -- under the cover of that light, sanders' campaign was just doing what it does, right? so i think there's an interesting kind of moment here where we thought or where we think that sanders, oh, pete in terms of the sanders voter that he can't really grow. but what we're seeing is there actually is room to grow. >> former vice president joe

biden is denying the report that his campaign has discussed him making a one-term pledge, citing four people who regularly talk to biden "politico" claims that the former vice president himself suggested to aides that he would only seek a single term. here was his reaction on the campaign trail. >> you ever talk to any aides about a one-term pledge? >> never have. i don't have any plans of one term. >> thank you. >> i'm not even there yet. >> biden's campaign manager and communications director have also denied that the former vice president is considering a single term. what would be the appeal of that? i don't -- i don't get it. >> i don't know. we cut off a part afterwards he shoved the reporter against the door and said, what are you talking about, jack. >> no, he didn't. >> and did some pushups. he didn't do that. but come on, man, what are you talking about? it's malarky. speaking of malarky, jon meacham, malarky for any

presidential candidate to suggest to only serve one term, who wants to say elect me, i'll be a lame duck from day one. >> yeah. it appeals to since we've talked about alger hiss, willie, are you ready? >> yeah. >> it appeals to the -- okay, the cincinnatious drama. there's this strain -- >> pretty good. >> farmer thing. >> exactly. exactly. so this idea that you would go and you would serve and then you would sacrifice all personal ambition, hugely in america right now given where we are with the incumbent. but it tends to foreclose your opportunities. theodore roosevelt very early in 1904 said he would not run again after he succeeded mckinley and then won. and it drove him crazy, it shaped the rest of his life. and so you want to keep your options open and i suspect we

saw that with the minivan statement. >> yeah. well, you know, susan del percio, it's interesting how age has -- the view of age has changed so much through the years. ronald reagan in 1980, he was 68, i think, when he began running for president and, you know, a lot of people were talking about the need for ronald reagan to have just one -- one term. i remember when bob dole, when he lost in '88 they asked, well, what's the possibility of you running again in '96? and bob dole responded, yeah, that's about how old i'll be by then. but of course it wasn't how old bob dole would have been by then. he was actually pretty spry and young compared to a lot of these candidates who are now in the race. but it is remarkable that we have donald trump what is he 73? 74? biden's in his mid to late 70s.

sanders, mid to late 70s. had a heart attack and he seems to be stronger than ever before. and the weird thing, too, i don't know if you found this, but i found that it doesn't -- older candidates, a lot of times, get the support of younger voters. it sort of opposite and younger candidates are usually distrusted by younger voters. >> well, yeah. a lot of older voters don't like to see someone in their age range looking for president -- to be president because they want someone who's going to change things and make things better and has their future ahead of them, not someone who's looking behind them. and i just think it's a great point that you mention, joe, about bernie sanders. we had a candidate have a heart attack on the campaign trail. >> this is true. >> and he's number two and has raised the most cash. i mean, that's tremendous and that does go to his staying power in a lot of ways because he does have a base from 2016

that has allowed him to keep that ground game going. it's the top of the hour on this thursday, december 12th. again, this morning, the action focuses on capitol hill where members of the house judiciary committee are expected to vote on articles of impeachment for the president of the united states. joining the conversation, national security expert columnist at usa today and author of the book "the death of expertise tom nichols ". white house correspondent for pbs news hour, yamiche. and former chief staff for the cia and department of defense nbc news national security analyst jeremy bash joins us. and let's start with the showing of another divisive strategy from republicans defending the president, us versus them. >> they couldn't believe trump won, didn't want him to believe -- didn't want him to win and when he won couldn't tolerate the fact that he won. and all these smelly people elected him. this is bad stuff.

>> it's 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, texas, they don't like us. they don't like the president, they don't like the president's supporters rand th supporters, and they dislike us to much they're willing to weaponize the government. a few years tag was the irs, and the fbi, and now they're going over the president and the guy we put in the white house. >> i love his flyover space nonsense considering that i've spent most of my life in alabama, mississippi, georgia, florida, northwest florida, redneck riviera. of course, things have changed because back when -- when i was in congress representing what

jordan calls flyover space, by the way i trade marked that word in 1993, jordan, while you were, like, with that wrestling guy quinn or whatever his name was. >> that's a horrible case. >> you guys should look that up. >> it's horrible. can you believe that? >> no. i don't know how you don't know something like that. >> what that guy did and nobody really did -- and to say that strauss, that's really horrible. >> that's worth a second look. >> yeah. we'll get to that. we'll get to that in a little bit. but -- but when i represented flyover space in congress, we actually pushed back on russian aggression. we didn't like russia invading other countries. weapon didn't apologize for russia. we supported the fbi. we supported the cia. we supported our law enforcement officers. we had to fight against liberals who often we felt weren't adequately loyal enough to our intel agencies, who undercut our intel agencies. that's what we in flyover space believed. and we believed in balanced

budgets. we believed in small government. we believed in less debt. we believed in entitlement reform. we believed in taking power out of washington, d.c. and bringing it back to the states and the local communities. but strauss or -- i'm sorry, jordan, jim jordan, donald trump, those republicans, they -- >> that's not what they're talking about. >> they have the biggest deficits ever, the biggest national debt ever. they passed the biggest pork barrel budget ever. and, they support autocrats. they bow down to kim jong-un. and they say to vladimir putin, you've invaded ukraine? keep on going. we're going to support a president who's holding up military aid until he can get a foreign leader to interfere in america's election in 2020. that's nice. i've just started. i'm just beginning, but tom nichols, they don't like us, they're smelly. that's what lindsey graham is

saying about these fbi agents in 2016. i'm sorry, but every time lindsey lies like that, every time lindsey becomes that big of a hypocrite, i just have to quote his words. and he's attacked donald trump so much and attacked him so much in 2016. but this is one of my favorites. i hope somebody will set it to music one day. he is shallow. he is ill prepared, said lindsey graham of donald trump, to be commander and chief. he doesn't know what he is talking about, said lindsey graham about donald trump. he says the worst things possible about immigrants and women, said lindsey graham about donald trump. and he's a complete idiot, said lindsey graham about donald trump. i'll beat his brains out. i'll beat his brains out, that's what lindsey graham said about

donald trump the same year that lindsey graham is now going back and looking at some text messages from people suggesting that somehow an entire investigation is -- was skewed and an inspector general's report can be ignored because there was some people in the fbi who thought the same thing about donald trump in 2016 as lindsey graham did. it is -- isn't it rich? >> you know, the thing with graham and jordan and others is this incredible and palpable sense of insecurity. this chip on their shoulder for people that were in the majority who got the president they wanted and yet they cleave to this sense of victimhood that really comes out of some very deep place. i mean, i don't understand senator graham. it seems like he just has been

drifting looking for the, you know, the constituency to attach himself to. but people like jordan talking about flyover country, this is really an amazing sense of grievance and insecurity. and what's really interesting is you'll hear the same people -- you'll hear people say the same thing from trump supporters in places like long island or orange county, you know, that they think of themselves as, you know, flyover country being disrespected by the elites while they're living in wealthy neighborhoods on long island or, you know, the northwest. it's remarkable that they are able to dredge this deep insecurity and just work from this well of grievance over and over and over again. >> talk about fly overcountrove while walking into the bmws or mercedes or something, it's really something how they have somehow managed to stay

resentful despite the fact they control the white house, they control a news outlet that just spits back to them whatever they want to hear. they control so much of media online. and yet they still try to just grab hold to that resentment. you know, jimmy kimmel has a little matchup also of our friend lindsey graham who again yesterday spend all day yesterday saying that the fbi did horrible things because they don't like him. they think we're smelly. i've been around lindsayey a lo don't think he's smelly. but what i do know about lindsey graham, that guy said sh soome things that suggest ed really really hated donald trump bad. at the same time these fbi text messages were sent. take a look. >> lindsey graham's point, i

guess, was that the parties involved in the investigation were biased against donald trump. they didn't want him to be president, which is a crazy point to make because i can think of someone else back then who didn't want him to be president too. >> he's a race baby, zine know phobic religious bigot. i think he's a cook. think he's crazy. think he's unfit for office. he doesn't represent my party. he's a jackass. as a political car wreck. at the end of the day he would be the most flawed nominee in the history of the republican party. donald trump is the most unelectable represent i've seen in my lifetime. he would be a terrible commander and chief. he doesn't have the temperament or judgment. he would get slaughtered as a party if donald trump's our nominee and quite frankly we would deserve it. >> why this, i don't know. i guess he had a change of heart. >> yeah. yeah. susan del percio's telling me it's all about his approval rating which shut up when he

started doing that. >> in 2017 his approval rating was around 48 to 52% with republicans. then he started playing nice with donald trump and now it's about 72%. and -- >> wow. >> that's what it was all about. he did not want to get pry heardhear primaried. >> what he read from peter strzok, the fbi agent interest 2016 where he was texting with lisa page and sid just went to a walmart in virginia, you could smell the trump support. he's sort of making hay out of that text message, jeremy. if you look inside these reports, obviously peter strzok and lisa page have been elevated to the key people in the russia investigation by president trump and by republicans they clearly have political opinions about the man that they were investigating. but if you look through the report, there were as many people in the fbi reportiooting

trump and celebrating his winning. so the cherry picking of evidence to create a diversion from the larger point about what we all see in front of us here, that the president abused his power. >> i think the inspector general had two principle findings which we should focus on. number one, is that there was no political bias. there was no political malice. there was no witch hunt from the was no surveillance of the trump campaign by the obama administration. that the investigation was open based on factual predication. meaning there were enough fookts warra facts to warrant the opening of an investigation and it was legally appropriate and within the discretion of the fbi. there was a second finding that there was a lot of incompetence within the bureau about how the fisa applications were filed with the court. that's a serious issue and you don't have to be a civil li

libertarian to see there were paperwork errors. but that's incompetence, not political malice. and the president and others want to sound the alarm there was a deep state conspiracy. the inspector general said, no, easy absolutely that's not true in the is a way to distract from the big story today which is that the judiciary committee will mark up those two articles of impeachment and i predict both of them will be on the house floor next week. >> while we're at that time, let's hear more from the inspector general right now. michael horowitz. >> 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 jump 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 an adequate predicate and you would not characterize that as spying, in fact you would not use such a word in your report? >> we don't use that in the report. >> you did not. >> 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. >> former attorney general eric holder has a new op-ed in the "washington post" entitled "william barr is unfit to be attorney general" and in it he writes this. attorney general william barr has made a series of public statements and taken actions that are so plainly ideological, so nakedly partisan and so deeply inappropriate for america's chief law enforcement official that they demand a response from someone who held

the same office. last month at a federalist society event, the attorney general delivered and ode to essentially unbright bridaled executive power dismissing the authority of the legislative and judicial branches and the checks and balances at the heart of america's constitutional order. even more troubling and telling was a later and little noticed section of his remarks in which barr made the outlandish suggestion that congress cannot entrust anyone but the president himself to execute the law. the american people deserve an attorney general who serves their interests, leads the justice department with integrity, and can be entrusted to pursue the facts and the law even and especially when they are politically inconvenient and inconsistent with the personal interests of the president who appointed him. william barr has proved he is

incapable of serving as such an attorney general. he is unfit to lead the justice department. there's a respect for the law that he simply does not have, many would argue. yamiche. >> that is obviously the view of a lot of critics of the president as well as democrats who say that william barr is contacting in a personal interest of president trump and not looking at the national interests. the other thing to note is that if you looked at the two statements that came out soon after the ig report you had attorney general barr almost talking about the white house's talking points. and by the white house i mean president trump's talking points basically saying this proves everything that we've been telling you. this tells us that everything's been biased. when then the fbi comes out with a statement that essentially says, look, this shows that will was a real reason why this investigation into president trump and russia had to be opened and that while there might have been some things that we need to change here, at the end of the day this investigation was something that would have been a dereliction of

duty if the fbi hadn't pursued it. you had the ag coming out and saying the exact opposite of what the fbi was saying. and the only people that benefits is president trump. >> absolutely. jonathan lemire. >> this has been an extraordinary display from this attorney general acting as the president has wished, as his personal attorney, his roy cohn if you will. we know how frustrated he was with jeff sessions when the former attorney general didn't play that well, particularly when he recused himself from the russia probe. so, tom, i want to get your take on this. on holder's op-ed to be sure, i think there are probably things with eric holder you disagree, but also with your just evaluating how barr has conducted himself in office, that federalist society speech that we made a big deal of on the show when it happened to what we seen last week where it seems like he's trying to sort of shade and establish the narrative around this ig report and the upcoming durham report where it seems like he's carrying the president's water. >> i think barr, the barr's

activity is really fascinating because i think it gets you inside the psyche of the trump enablers. i don't think most of the republicans in washington like donald trump or probably most of them don't feel very warmly toward him at all because he's made their life difficult. but i think what you see in somebody like barr is the notion that if trump goes down, then the dam breaks and, you know, the socialists and the, you know, the muslims and the overlords take over. that they really see themselves not as defending just trump, but somehow, you know, that speech by barr, he really positions himself as saying, this is the line, we are the last line of defense against these kind of leftist hordes. and i think that explains a lot about why people are going to the wall for trump, because they think this is kind of the last trench and that if this administration fails or falls,

then there's simply y're simply i think it's a deep fyre fear about demographic change, political change in america. it's about a republican party that didn't badger trying to ma brother trying to make an appeal to the next generation of voters and they're aging out of the electorate. so they're planting a flag in the trench saying donald trump is not perfect, we don't like him but we're going to the wall for him because after him comes the deluge. >> we may look back at 2020 as a last competitive election against the republican and the democratic party. as meacham says, a two-party duopoly that's run this nation for many years, chances are good for 2024. because of demographic changes, texas goes blue. and texas becomes a democratic

state. and all everything that donald trump and barr and stephen miller are doing now will actually work against them not only four years from now, but also i would say over the rest of our lifetime only because the demographic changes are going to be dramatic. and it's fascinating that the bushes, jeb and george w. in 1998 started telling any republican that would listen, you have to appeal to people who aren't white because that's the future, not of this party, that's the future of this country. and it's, perhaps, that's why george w. got like 44% of hispanics be in 2004. donald trump's taken a complete opposite direction and if you're a republican at the worst possible time historically just as those huge demographic changes, that wave is of about to crash. >> you know, joe, i think this is a really important point

that's very difficult for to us talk about because we're so obsessed with donald trump and impeachment. but we need to think of trump as an "avatar" for something deeper, and that is thissing an sthiet tom and you have jusanxi and you just registered. barr said that communities that don't respect and support law enforcement in the way that he suggests that they should should expect that the police might not protect them anymore. and we knew exactly which communities he was talking about. when jim jordan said they are afraid of us, we know who that us is. so there's a chilling effect. when we hear babies being caged on the border, when we see the cruelty up front, when we see a white nationalist in the office who has explicitly been outed as one and he's still there, what we see here is an ongoing to fight to keep hold of an america that looks like 1950. and if we don't get our minds

around that, how we can understand why someone in long island and someone in orange county who has their limousines still think that they can articulate a grievance because it's rooted in this shift in how the country sees itself. and when i hear jim jordan say they don't like us, when i hear lindsey graham say what he says, it's chilling. >> yeah. >> it has concrete effects. and one of the effects i think we can just look down at the border and see something concrete in terms of its outcome. >> so then for the presidential candidates and moving ahead, adrienne elrod, there's a lot of material to work with here. >> there is. >> but also a lot of potential pitfalls. can you explain those? >> sure. i think part of the problem or rather the challenge that some presidential candidates have right now on the democratic side is how to talk about the issues that matter to voters, health care, jobs, raising wages, education, improving the economy versus how to handle the big "e"

wo i word, impeachment. but you've got to figure out how to message appropriately. if you're a sitting senator who will be overseeing the impeachment trial, you should figure out how to answer these questions. you do have to address them if they're asked on the campaign trail, but you don't want that to drive the complete message. so it is a challenge. >> i want to pick up on eddie, tom, and joe's point about the demographic changes and what's happening in the republican party. i went back and was reading through the 12 autopsy report thatten that priebus put together the report. it is how far we are about how demographics are changing, we have to pass immigration reform, open to black and brown people, open to gay voters.

we've got to stop talking to ourselves. they talk about ha stemmepistem closure in the report. >> even going back to the 90s, that's what republicans were talking about. tom understands working in massachusetts, like, that's what moderate republicans were concerned about. expanding the party. i fought in politics for decades now to broaden the perspective. it is about being more inclusive. and when i see things, for example, like denying people -- trying to deny people the right toe vote, i said if my party can't win on what we stand for, what's the point? and that's the key thing that i think republicans need to start worrying about, not trying to stop people from being able to vote or keeping people out or creating the us versus them. but rather trying to figure out how we're going to be moirn exclusive. because we are a diverse nation and we have a lot of things we

need to take care of. and currently the republican party under donald trump only seeks to divide us, and that's the biggest problem for the party. >> jeremy bash, the house judiciary committee is going to mark up these articles of impeachment today, could get a vote from the full house on impeachment as early as next week. then after the holidays moves to the senate for a trial there. what do you expect to see over the course of today? what's it going to look like in that room in the markup? >> well, i think you'll see chairman nadler with the gavel trying to control the process. and, of course, there will be offers to amend the text of those articles of impeachment. it's about an eight-page resolution. it's not very long, so i think you'll see, of course, republicans either trying to strike and replace the whole thing or make amendments. they might try to pick off a couple of democrats. i don't think they're going to succeed. i think the articles of impeachment will be read out and effectively voted out of committee on a party line vote. and i think the only mystery

left in this, willie, is whether or not on the house floor any moderate democrats vote against or don't vote for one or two of the articles. but i expect, again, that by this time next week the president of the united states will be facing eminent impeachment. >> jeremy bash, thank you very much. tom nichols, thank you as well. and adrienne elrod, thank you. you and susan have the greatest column. they have a column at know your value.com and the latest one is getting back on your feet after being knocked down. i know what that's like because i got fired from cbs and i thought it was the worst thing in the world. and it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me. and, joe, men get mad and they get even when they're knocked down. and women tend to internalize it. do you think that's a fair parallel as to how we react to getting fired or knocked down? >> you don't want to overgeneralize. as you and willie know all too well from working with me through the years, i'm very mindful. >> yes. >> very zen.

i try look inward. >> yes. >> instead of looking outward for scape goats. that's just who i am. but i don't know if tom nichols is still with us. he got out of the chair quickly. >> i'm here. >> speaking of getting knocked down and back up on your feet, obviously our thoughts and prayers are with our twitter friend and antagonist charlie pierce who had an accident. >> yes. >> and we're certainly thinking about charlie and wishing only the best speedy recovery. he's very fortunate, despite, boy, a really bad, bad accident. >> i messaged him briefly yesterday. he's up and about and as feisty as ever. so charlie, we hope you feel better and get back on your feet soon. >> all right. >> and we'll know that charlie is feeling better when he starts insulting tom and me again. >> we will look forward to that. >> we hope that -- we hope,

charlie, that happens sooner rather than later. we're thinking about you and praying for you. >> very nice. we'll also look for you guys' column. thanks very much for doing. that coming up, a member of the house leadership joins us. we'll ask the assistant speaker just how many democrats might defect on the impeachment vote. "morning joe" is coming right back. t back. ♪

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. joining us now, assistant speaker of the house, ben ray lujan of until. he's t new mexico. and also msnbc political analyst nick confessore. good to have you both on board. congressman, explain the strategy moving ahead as it pertains to the timing of impeachment votes. >> well, last night we saw the

hearing with opening statements from colleagues on the judiciary committee associated with articles of impeachment. we expect a vote today in the judiciary committee and based on those opening statements last night, it seems very clear to me that articles of impeachment will pass the judiciary committee and will be in front of the united states house of representatives on the floor as early as next week. >> okay. and, nick confessore, when you're looking at how this has played out, there's such a focus on speed. on the democrats side it's a focus on speed and simplicity. two articles, simple case, stay focused. but you also see with the senate and mitch mcconnell a speed issue there. >> mostly in these districts they can have the clown show approach to impeachment. for the senate, it's important to actually show that they're taking these things seriously on some level, but that in their

opinion it's not impeachable. so i think they have to figure out a way to thread that needle. they can't give the president the full defense that he wants, that it was all perfect, he did nothing wrong. there has to be a nod to some of those voters for some of those senators. but congressman, i have the question for you. so at some point in the past people in your party had said that impeachment as a partisan exercise, a party-line impeachment would not be effective. speaker pelosi made kpencomment that effect. i'm wondering if you think there's anything that could be done to get the republican vote this week and next week? >> what seems abundantly clear to me is the focus of the articles of impeachment as drafted should have akt trad ma attracted many of our republican colleagues. if they're going to take their constitutional and responsibility and oath to office seriously, none of them can agree with the president's

behavior. and i think that's why we're seeing so many of our republican colleagues want to debate about process and not defend this president's actions and not have a conversation about substance. it's abundantly clear. president of the united states has abused power. he obstructed congress. he invited a foreign country to get involved in our elections in the united states of america, and president trump put himself, his own personal political interests, ahead of our national security. it's absolutely wrong and that's exactly why democrats in the congress are moving forward withholding this president accountable. and has been made abundantly clear, no one is above the law, including the president of the united states. >> congressman, it's willie geist. good to see you this morning. there are moderates in your own caucus, democrats, who have now some pause about how they will vote if this does, in fact, go to a full house vote on the question of impeachment. people in swing districts, people in trump districts who

won narrowly. have sort of waited out and seen how the polling was going to go and maybe hoped that this would be overwhelmingly supportive of impeachment across the country. hasn't quite gone that way, it's still a 50/50 proposition here. what would you say to those moderates who are debating whether or not to take what could be a tough and perhaps fatal politically vote for them for impeachment? >> well, to every one of my colleagues, democrats and republicans that are still looking at all of the facts associated with this case, i'd invite them to take a close look at the articles, the focus of the articles of impeachment as drafted. how concise they are, the actions of this president which are not defensible, that there is a huge concern across america with this president's actions. and i certainly hope that as we move forward to next week that each and every one of our colleagues takes this weekend, visits with their constituents, makes sure that they're

evaluating this case. and, again, i've come to the conclusion that this president has committed impeachable offenses, the facts are clear. the facts are not on the side of the president. and it's my belief that democrats and republicans will come together next week and i'm confident that these articles of impeachment will pass on the house floor. >> jonathan lemire. >> congressman, two questions for you. first follow-up on willie's point about moderates and some reluctance there. is there any discussion about a censure vote rather than impeachment? and is part of that is house leadership whipping votes? you counting votes for impeachment? and then secondly, you also have to fund the government. can you give us an update on where that stands? is the government still going to be open as we head into the holidays? >> the first question, there is no whipping that is taking place. each member will vote their conscience. and that's where we are associated with the articles of impeachment. that is the vote that i expect on the house floor surrounding

the president's behavior and his violation to the oath of office. number two, democrats are working steadily to ensure that the government stays open. house democrats have done our job, we've passed appropriation packages. the senate had been stalling for months. but where we are right now is i'm confident that there will be legislation that will be moving next week to prevent a government shutdown to make strong investments all across the federal government and today alone democrats are going to be passing the piece of legislation to lower the costs of prescription drugs for american people. one of the many commitments we made during the 2018 election cycle when i had the honor of leading the effort to the win back the majorities in the u.s. house. and doing so we're going to expand dental care, vision care, and hearing care to medicare beneficiaries. this is a strong day. democrats are taking all of our responsibilities seriously including passion legislation

that will make a positive difference in the lives of american people. but here's the problem. most of these bills are sitting on mitch mcconnell's desk and mitch mcconnell who dubbed himself the grim reaper of legislation refuses to act to improve the lives of the american people. that's why we need the country coming together to demand action in the u.s. senate. >> all right. yamiche. >> good morning, congressman. my question is, i've been talking to sources, democratic sour sources who say there is a spirited discussion not to include any article of impeachment related to mueller. some lawmakers didn't want to relitigate it, some felt it was giving president trump a pass. can you give me any background on one where you stood on whether or not there should be mueller related articles and, two, how the caucus came to decide that this was the best way to move forward with these two articles? >> what's been clear throughout the investigation process is a pattern of abusive action by the president of the united states that violates his oath of

office. we've seen obstruction every step of the way. but what became abundantly clear when the whistle-blower came forward and president trump himself revealed those call notes. and, again, they should not be referred to as a transcript. the bottom of that first page it says abundantly clear, this is not a transcript, these are call notes. but what was made clear in those call notes is president trump himself was asking for a favor of the president of ukraine. and president trump himself was holding back military funding. ukraine, again, who was defending themselves against russia, russia who was an adversary of the united states of america. and that's exactly why there's been so much focus here. witness after witness that has come forward has shown the clear violation of abuse of power of this president with the election that was coming forward. president trump was trying to invite a foreign power to come into our elections in the united states of america going into 2020. it's a clear abuse of power and

it's a clear obstruction of congress. >> assistant speaker of the house, congressman ben ray lujan, thank you very much. yamiche, thanks very much for being on this morning, good to have you. still ahead, the justice department inspector general wasn't the only person facing tough questions on capitol hill yesterday. the head of the faa had to answer for boeing's troubled 737 max jets and why those aircrafts won't be taking to the skies anytime soon. "morning joe" is back in a moment. ime soon. "morning joe" is back in a moment. unpredictable crohn's symptoms following you? for adults with moderately to severely active crohn's disease, stelara® works differently. studies showed relief and remission, with dosing every 8 weeks. stelara® may lower your ability to fight infections and may increase your risk of infections and cancer. some serious infections require hospitalization. before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you have an infection or flu-like symptoms or sores,

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welcome back. it's a story we covered in depth as it developed. a pair of deadly crashes involving boeing passenger jets. now as nbc's tom costello reports, the new faa chief is facing tough questions. >> after first speaking with the families of veictims from two 77 crashes, the new faa chief came under congressional fire. >> did the faa at some point in this process make a mistake? >> yes. >> thank you. >> yes. >> among them, failing to properly oversee the design and

production of boeing 737 max and failing to ground the plane between crashes which faa managers warned another max could crash every two to three years. >> the faa rolled the dice on the safety of the traveling public and let the max continue to fly. >> my highest priority is to make sure that nothing like this happens again. >> former boeing manager ed pierceston said he rerepeatedly warned of boeing safety lapses. >> i believe production problems at the factory may have contributed to the crashes. >> he said a link between his concerns and the max accidents is unfounded. >> no plane in history has been grounded for as long as the 737 max. getting these planes flying again will not april overnight. >> worldwide 737 matches grounded. america has 24. >> we're going to make sure this airplane is safe and airworthy

before any flies on it. >> today they said it will not recertify the max until january or later. >> boeing's sfloont the faa's plan. >> the faa also promising tougher oversight to come. tom costello, nbc news, tulsa. >> all right. up next, the president is on another twitter rampage as democrats prepare to advance articles of impeachment against him. more than 40 tweets and retweets within the last hour. stop watching television. including one against grate thunberg, the 16-year-old climate activist who beat him as tooims pers times person of the year. joe's track i don't want to go home for christmas is on the song's playlist. you can listen right now on spotify, but, joe, just asking for a friend, why don't you want

to go home for christmas? >> i'm just an artist. i'm taking the collective pain of decades. but you know what makes that pain go away? >> what's that? >> looking with my friend willie, sometimes we go under the comcast commerce tree. >> yeah. >> we do. >> and are inspired to go out and spend as much money as we can at the nbc store. what do you like better, the g ecommerce tree or the comcast tree? >> i think the comcast tree sparkles a little brighter because you walk right past it, get yourself a couple sunday today mugs, some "morning joe" fanny packs and you call it a holiday season. >> well. >> it does whip you into a materialistic frenzy which will kids will tell you, that's what the season's all about, right? >> when i see you today you might want to have a better answer to the question. we'll be right back with much more "morning joe." right back more "morning joe." (beep)

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i don't know if you heard this yet, but i just heard backstage. the impeachment hearings today reached a new low. did you hear about it? i heard at the hearing today one of the democrat's witnesses actually used the president and first lady's 13-year-old son to justify their partisan impeachment. democrats should be ashamed. enough is enough. this sham impeachment should end and congress should get back to work on the issues that matter to the american people. >> come on. come on. they're just -- >> my god. >> they're just such bad actors! >> awful, he's awful. >> doesn't he know the thing is if you are going to play a villain -- >> just go big or go home. >> -- i mean go back to the first "die-hard" and look what allen did. was he not the best? was gruber not the best villain?

but these guys -- i saw ted cruz yesterday. i'm like, dude, you need to go to acting class. nobody believes you but mike pence there. they hurt the child for partisan -- no, she didn't. she used a bad pun, but then he goes into -- then he goes into the whole, let's end this impeachment. card, card, please? word, word. debacle. they're such bad actors. >> yes, they are. but let me explain this. >> of course, that's the least of it. boy, i really miss alan rickman. >> that was him latching on to when she explained the difference between monarchs and presidents. it sparked outrage from even melania trump who wrote, quote, a minor child deserves privacy

and should be kept out of politics. pamela karlan, you should be ashamed of your very angry and obviously biassed public pandering, and using a child to do it. well, apparently -- who would do that? >> first of all, they didn't do that. but let's just pretend they did attack a child. who in the world would attack a child? that's heinous. >> you get the -- >> nobody would. >> -- feeling -- >> -- attack a child. >> -- that perhaps -- >> -- pause if so melania would have to bring out her be best artillery. >> this is not being best. >> no. >> the president apparently didn't get his wife's message. he just attacked teenage climate activist greta thunberg. he said, so ridiculous. greta must work on her anger management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a

friend. chill, greta. chill. that's after the 16-year old was named times magazine person of the year, beating out the president. something is clearly on his mind. he needs to stop watching television. >> i wonder, maybe he will do what he did at clubhouses, maybe he will make himself fake "time" person of the year. >> awful. >> think of the hi okay resilienciy. the professor didn't attack their child at all. it was a pun. but here donald trump is actually attacking a child. will melania come out and criticize him today? >> seems unlikely, joe. you're right. the professor made a bad pun, one she explained later and said she didn't mean any harm from it. but we know how obsessed the president is with "time magazine", the cover in particular. he has made fake covers that dot

the walls in his clubhouse in florida and new jersey. he lobbied for it since and he was disappointed when it didn't get it. this is a teenage climate activist that sailed around the issue calling attention to the issue. someone who has spoken openly about the fact she is on the autism spectrum and the president and ot people her peo the right have mocked her and gone after her. again, today the president turns to twitter among the barrage of tweets, mostly about impeachment and another where he promoted mar-a-lago where he will be going for christmas later this month, but he decided to i a tack her. i'm curious what good, old fashioned movie he would like her to see. perhaps "die-hard." it is a christmas film. >> of course flag stick a christmas film. >> it is a christmas film. >> of course. >> but somebody told me disparaged it yesterday.

i want to go on the record, it is a classic. go ahead. >> i'm with you on that. we will put the record what we said when it all happened a couple of weeks ago. leave president's minor children out of the conversation. just don't do it. that's right there. >> not even in harmless puns, yes. we agree. >> just leave their names out of your mouth. second thing is i talked to somebody in the room yesterday when "time magazine" had an audience with the president in the oval office earlier this year. they had an hour with them. all he wanted to talk about was "time" person of the year, and he effectively making his case to be "time" person of the year. there's a reason he made fake covers, it is all he wants. he didn't get it. the collateral damage is that he will attack a 16-year old who, by the way, he says she has an anger management problem. i get she is now a public figure, you don't think that it is real, but she also has

asperger's and is on the autism spectrum, so to attack the way she speaks in public is particularly gross, especially the fact that you are the most powerful person on the face of theeri the earth attacking a teenager. >> the house will pick up once again debate over articles of the president against the president. we will set up what is to be expected as lawmakers prepare an historic vote. "morning joe" is back in two minutes. rilled holes. they release medicine fast, for fast pain relief. tylenol®.

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at fidelity, we make sure you have a clear plan to cover the essentials in retirement, as well as all the things you want to do. and on the way, you'll get timely investment help to keep you on the right track, without the unnecessary fees you might expect from so many financial firms. because when you have a partner who gives you clarity at every step, there's nothing to stop you from moving forward. 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 is 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, ah, ah, you know. >> i'm pete buttigieg and i approve the second half of this message. >> that is jimmy kimmel's take on a political report that joe biden signalled he would serve only a single term. the former vice president denies it. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is thursday, december 12thth. along with joe, willie and me we have white house reporter for the associated press jonathan lemire. historian, roger's professor of the presidency at vanderbilt university, john meachem. "usa today" opinion columnist and senior adviser for the house government oversight and government curt. and law analyst and editor-in-chief of "law fair"

benjamin wittis. donald trump likes to frame his presidency in historic terms and that's exactly how he is playing out in washington right now. for only the fourth time in history congress is considering removing the commander in chief from office. it is a process that's likely to have the 45th president impeached by next week. the house judiciary committee will reconvene in just a few hours to continue debating the two articles of impeachment. the committee is expected to vote later today to send the measure to the full house. each member delivered an opening statement yesterday, the session lasting for hours. here is some of what we 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 reelection. stop worrying about being premaried. top treating them as if they don't see what is going on, that you are 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's no crime that's alleged to have been committed by the president of the united states. there are policy differences.

there's no allegation of bribery in these articles. there is 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. awful us in flyover country, all of us common folk in ohio, wys one kin, tennessee and texas. they don't like us. they don't like the president's supporters and they don't likes so much they're willing to weaponize the government. a few years ago it was the irs, then the fbi and now it is the impeachment power of congress going after the guy we put in the white house. >> that is just wonderfully funny. it is good entertainment erbiar in the morning. >> i know. >> coming from jim jordan.

they don't like us? i'm sorry, jim. i am us. you are talking about a guy that went to state schools in the deep south and is, unlike you, i'm still conservative. i still believe in small government and balanced budget and free trade and pushing back on russia. so us? don't try that. this is about a president of the united states who actually likes russia, likes vladimir putin, likes doing whatever he can do to help vladimir putin, whether it is saying that ukraine is not a real country or trying to undercut the democratically elected free leader of ukraine while vladimir putin invaded the country. you can roll up your shirt sleeves, you can take off your jacket as much as you want to, you can do this us-versus-them space craft. i invented that. me and a lot of other guys invented that when you were going around ohio state working with that guy quin or quill or

whatever his name was that was doing bad things to wrestlers he shouldn't have done while other people were turning their heads. let's not try that flyover space c garbage. it is fascinating though that the yelling and screaming, they never get to the fact, do they, curt -- they never get to the fact that they didn't even in a more extreme way against barack obama. and you were there. you were on the oversight committee. you know what they did to barack obama. everything that they're acting shocked and saying that the government has been weaponized, that's number one. number two, they never really addressed the underlying issue, and that is if donald trump as commander in chief used his position to extort support from a foreign country to support an election, and held up

$$400 million worth of defense funds that had been approved and it was to stop vladimir putin. you will love this, willie. the house republicans have adopted the brick tamlin loud noises defense. loud noises! that's all they have. they're making loud noises. >> well, i mean we have seen time and again with all of these proceedings reps fall back on the same strategy which is to yell as frequently as possible, as loudly as possible, in hopes nobody will notice they have not described this call with ze zelensky as a perfect call. they've not once talked about defending the substance of what the president has been accused of. they must not have read the impeachment articles here because it is straightforward what the president is accused of. you want to talk about weaponizing oversight? republicans like jim jordan wrote the book on how to

weaponize oversight for what they did to the barack obama administration. the idea they can turn around and say, wow, it is shocking people could issue subpoenas, they want testimony. >> give us a quick example of the hypocrisy, how people like jim jordan, what they did on fast and furious, what they did on benghazi, what they did on the other investigations? >> well, something that was interesting. he talked about the irs during the hearing yesterday and they held a four to five-year investigation alleging that the irs was targeting conservatives. end of the investigation, it turned out no, that wasn't happen, that is a 100% false. yet they held the hearings. they held and administration official in contempt of congress without cooperating with their made-up political-driven hearing. here he is again saying, well, we are going to ignore history, ignore fact, and i will use something i know isn't true to try to justify what i'm doing now, which is defending the president at all costs. again, it is like i wrote today

and think, when they're in the news director's office yelling about the hiring of a woman they're saying loud noises, i don't know what waerp ee talking about. that's jim jordan, louie gohmert and that's all they've got. >> doug collins did this whole routine, they're afraid they cannot beat donald trump, but just like lsu beat the falcons, having a bad season, also i like georgia, just keep going. yeah, sold. but, again, i guess maybe they will play a clip of that on a trump supporting network. but we knowed toll as a couple of days ago. joy of joe biden is up by 10 minutes in the most recent polls. he is beating him in kiss con

sicon -- beating him in wisconsin and michigan. if you look at the polls, unless a democrat had his or her head buried in the sand for the last several months, nobody is thinking joe biden can't beat donald trump. in fact, it is looking just the opposite. like biden has almost a double digit lead over trump in some of the most important states. >> yeah. it was a fascinating day yesterday. it shouldn't be a surprise republicans were deflecting from the evidence we saw in this ukraine hearing and all of the witnesses who stepped forward, non-partisan witnesses and told a story about what the president did. what was new in this example anyway was the culture war past of you. it was going back to orders from the 2016 campaign, which they people hapt you and they'te you they'll do everything to overturn the election, they're taking a bigger view sitting in nashville, tennessee, that it is

about a bigger group than the coastal elites that don't like us and will stop at nothing, as they say, overturn the election of the man 63 million people voted for. it is a culture argument more than anything. >> yeah. >> it is, and its back to the 1790s, what was called the paranoid style in american politics which is the use of a conspiracy, the idea it is the ultimate struggle and there are people, there are forces yet unseen that are trying to control your lives. i hate to say this but every element of american politics or just about every element, left, right, whatever it meant in a given era, have at some time or another used this because it is a natural human argument to make. where we are right now and where we were last night is one of the richest ironies in that long

span because there's really in the modern era the conservative sense that there is a media/legal/deep state world against him. it begins with alger his, franklin roosevelt, richard nixon. they all walked into a bar -- no, just kidding. and there's one parachute. but it begin in 19 ha wh45 when was a young state department aide at yalta. it was believed that roosevelt sold us out at yalta, it was called the stab in the back, the sellout of eastern europe. this enraged a huge part of the country. richard nixon, a young congressman from california, takes on alger hiss successfully in the house on american activities committee and so it

began that there was this harvard elite that was trying to yupds mine the real america. it would require these noble figures from the heartland -- california -- it wasn't what california is now -- to defeat it. the reason i called it rich i n irony is think for a second. it was all about defending us against russia, against the soviet union. in this bizarre moment we are in, in this fun house that is not fun because it is real, what shaped us for three or four generations have been turned upside down while this cultural strategy unfolds. it is a sequential factor in a drama. the way we overcame it in the past, the way we defeated joe mccarthy who we decided, you know what? not who we want to be all the time.

still ahead, jim comey says he is vindicated by the ig report on the russia probe. the ig says, no, not at all. a full break down of michael's testimony. first, bill karins with a check on the forecast. >> good morning to you, mika. we have a couple of stops to talk about, one in the west and a big rain maker for the east coast. so it is beginning today. it will form out here in the gulf. we have a little bit of shower activity in south florida this morning, not too many issues out there. fast forward to this afternoon and this evening, the storm strengthens and rain moves on i-10 out of panama city, pensacola. heading into your friday, it will be a raining friday, a soing rain from atlanta through the carolinas. we may get a brief period of icing, our friends in boone, reason okay, just be careful driving through the mountainous

areas. it will warm up and it will be fine. saturday morning will be raining through the northeast and it will linger a bit during the day. it won't pour but cloudy and snow mixing in on the backside. airport delays in the north east on saturday. for today's forecast there's not a lot of concerns but i did mention the beautiful weather in the south. still cold in the warner rains. we had one storm come through on friday here as that would indicate travel warning up i-95. we mentioned the storm in the northeast. the storm in the west heads to the rockies. by the time we get to sunday, the end of the weekend, the east clears out, a little cooler, and then we watch some light snow in the middle of the country. so, yes, we are getting toward the holiday travel season and this weekend is not as bad as

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welcome back to "morning joe." justice department inspector general 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 justified. >> we determined that the decision to open cross fire hurricane was made by then-fbi counter-intelligence decision assistant director bill prestap

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 the assistant director's exercise of discretion in opening the 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 point out in our report, there was no requirement that department officials be consulted or even notified of

that decision prior to the fbi making that decision. >> well, willie, that part is about as straightforward as can be. >> yeah. >> obviously no abuse of discretion, no bias. there would be a lot of problems as it pertained to the fisa warrant process, which the ig would talk about later on. but regarding the bigger picture, the question that the trump administration and donald trump and all of us, his lackeys, on capitol hill have been purchasing the conspiracy theory that has been for several years that barack obama tapped his phones in trump tower and they launched this investigation with the specific intent of taking down a presidential candidate. that lie or those series of lies, that extraordinarily reckless conspiracy theory blown in a million little pieces yesterday. >> yes, the inspector general made clear and said so

explicitly that the fbi did not seek to insert informants into the trump campaign. but michael horowitz asked congress to do something it is not very good at, which is to hold two thoughts in its head at once. one is that there were terrible abuse of the fisa process. he laid it out and republicans focused on that part of it and it should be alarming for anyone, because if it is your side one moment it will be the other side the next. the other piece horowitz clearly said in the sound bite was that the fbi investigation into the trump campaign was properly predicated, that it was not a deep state conspiracy to go after and to take down donald trump and to prevent him from becoming president, et cetera, et cetera. >> so it is more than that. it is that the investigation was properly predicated. the conspiracy theories about spying on the trump campaign are false. the conspiracy theories about

misuse of confidential informants are false. the conspiracy theories about the insurance policy, we had a conversation on this show a couple of months ago about the insurance policy conspiracy. that is not true. you know, the strzok/page texts do not reflect a deep state conspiracy to take down the president, a coup, treason. you know, all of that stuff is garbage. there are two reports here, right, and it is in one volume. one report is about whether any of these conspiracy theories have any element of truth to them, and the answer to that question is a decisive rebuttal of all of it. i mean just all of it.

including dozen and dozens of statements by the president of the united states dating back nearly to the beginning of his presidency. the other report -- and i don't want to diminish this because as you say, willie, it is really important as to whether conduct edit self in the context of the foreign intelligence applications here in a fashion that comports with what we should expect from the preimminent law enforcement agency in the nation, tasked with this very sacred and delicate trust under the statute. the answer to that question is no coming up, the other big angle to all of this. the separate investigation spearheaded by william barr's handpacked prosecutor. hough the attorney general is looking to reshape the story. "morning joe" is back in a moment. stechlt " is back in a moment stechl

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♪ welcome back. the doj's inspector general michael horowitz told members of the senate yesterday that he met

in november with u.s. attorney john durham. you'll recall that durham is the prosecutor that the president and the attorney general are banking on to support the president's conspiracy theories about the origins of the russia investigation. horowitz yesterday relayed his discussion with durham about the justification for opening the investigation. >> we did discuss the opening issue. he said he did not necessarily agree with our conclusion about the opening of a full counter-intelligence investigation which is what this was, but there's further investigation means that the fbi can move forward with the investigation. it is called preliminary investigation. there are two types of investigations, full and preliminary. they opened a full here. he said during the meeting that the information from the

friendly foreign government was, in his view, sufficient to support the preliminary investigation. >> as "the washington post" notes, the distinction is a narrow one that typically has little bearing on the early stages of an investigation. horowitz said that even if agents had opened a preliminary investigation rather than a full investigation, they still would have been authorized to use informants as they did in the first month of the case. but durham's monday statement in response to the ig report was much broader than that. he wrote in part, last month we advised the inspector general that we do not agree with some of the reporter's conclusions as to predication and how the fbi case was opened. wow. a little different there, joe. >> yeah. >> what is going on? >> that is a big wow because there was such a small difference between the sort of preliminary investigation that he supported, that he said was

justified from information from the friendly government and what the fbi eventually supported. such a small difference that, curt, there's no way to read durham's statement any more than he was being a hack for barr, a pr hack, flack for donald trump as well. not a good look for a u.s. federal prosecutor, but obviously you look at that statement, it is really distressing because there are a lot of people that actually had confidence that he was not going to be corrupted by donald trump. his statement and then what he said in private to horowitz are so different that there's no doubt he has actually been corrupted. he has been compromised, and now you look at that at the same time, it looks like he's nothing more than a white house flack. >> i'll tell you, this is just

another example of the white house moving to goalpost. first, this ig report was going to be the be-you will, end-all. it was going to verify all of the horrible things trump has been tweeting happened to him, the victim that he is. that didn't happen. the report confirmed what we knew, that the report was open and it was legitimate and nothing to do with politics. in fact, within the report there are people within the department that are trump supporters cited in there. that report doesn't happen the way trump wants it to, so what do we see? we see durham making a move of speaking out while it is an investigation he is supposed to be con duckiducting now, for so to come out and make those conclusions before concluding the investigation reeks of political bias. we will see another report come out and it will say what donald trump and william barr want it to say. it will be completely not credible, nothing but propaganda

but that is par for the administration. any time the narrative their rows to a way they can feel. the surprise summary that didn't reflect what the true substance of what the report was, that's what we are seeing as impeachment plays out. we've seen devin nunes put out reports from the intelligence committee that are based on bunk and designed to advance a fictitious narrative. >> coming up on "morning joe" we are covering today's historic debate and expected vote in the house committee now leading the impeachment inquiry of president trump. ari melber and maya wiley join us next on "morning joe." unpredictable crohn's symptoms following you?

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in just about 20 minutes the

house judiciary committee will reconvene to continue debating the two articles of impeachment against president donald trump. the committee is expected to vote later today to send the measure to the full house, and so next week the 45th president could become just the third president to ever be impeached. with that as a back drdrop the president is up to 60 tweets and retweets this morning. >> wow. >> somebody should take away the phone. couldn't melania say be best? his tweets include an attack at a teenager, the teenager climate activist, greta thunberg. writing. greta must work on her anger management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend. chill, greta, chill. that's after the 16-year old was named "time" magazine's person of the year, beating out the president. greta has now changed her twitter profile to read, a

teenager working on her anger management problem currently chilling and watching a good, old fashioned movie with a friend. well, good sense of humor i guess. >> i guess so. you know, mika, this is, again, after somebody used melania and donald's son's name in a sentence not meant to be offensive at all, the first lady used it as a partisan attack and donald trump, of course, did the same thing. mike pence did the same thing. so i'm just wondering, donald trump, president of the united states, most powerful person in the world, has attacked this morning a child who has asperger's, who is on the spectrum. i want to hear the vice president just as upset that donald trump actually purposefully attacked and mocked

a child with asperger's, someone on the spectrum, when that's not what they were protesting earlier that happened out of the committee. of course, this is a guy, jonathan lemire, who as you said, he is a guy obsessed with "time magazine". he is obsessed with being on "time magazine". he often makes fake "time magazine" covers and puts them up around his clubhouses, which upsets those of us that have actually been on the cover of "time magazine". you will remember this one, john. this was me -- >> i like purple. >> this was me soon after i won the '87 masters. again, ripped off. nobody remembers because it was nicklaus that won '86. i like purple. of course, i think i spoke for an entire generation when i said that in the late '80s. you can take it down now.

but the preposterousness of donald trump obsessed with "time's" person of the year that he actually attacks a child, the cruelty of attacking a child that again as asperger's, who is on the spectrum, after that faux outrage displayed by him a couple of weeks ago. >> first of all i have been waiting for you to autograph my copy of your cover story, but please do. yes, this is the pet's hypocrisy on a number he have level. he is attacking a teenager a few weeks later after we saw the faux uproar when we saw the use of his son's name. it was not meant to be insulting. the person who did it apologized, saying she didn't mean offense. he has attacked a number of times now, greta. by the way, she is good on twitter and it is a good clap back we see this morning. it is a fixation on things like ego and status and he still associates a lot of that with

magazine covers, and in particular "time magazine". i have heard him at rallies. he would poll the crowd and ask them what sounds better, should it be "time" man of the year or person of the year? he votes for man of the year. >> of course. >> which i think reveals his thinking. it is something that he was upset when he didn't win it last year. i think when he has before, when he was elected, and i think it is something that bothers him. the two leading candidates with greta or house speaker nancy pelosi. i think we would have gotten a similar outraged response from the president had pelosi won as well. back with us we have professor at princeton university eddie glide junior. joining the conversation msnbc chief legal correspondent and host of "the beat" on msnbc ari melber and legal analyst for mng news and msnbc maya wiley. a lot happening today, joe, and a lot focused on timing.

very effective, fast timing that the house is trying for with this. >> and that mitch mcconnell apparently is going to follow up with, try to expedite it through the senate as quickly as possible. maya, what do you -- set this up for our viewers today. what are you going to be looking for today? what should we expect to see today? >> i think we're going to see much the same of what we saw last night. unfortunately, which is not really as much a debate as much as being able to appeal to the audience from various positions. i keep going back to this notion of donald trump attacking greta. you know, a person who demands and needs attention in that way is also someone who demands and needs power and who uses it in certain ways. there really is a connection between these behaviors. the only thing i wonder is whether or not we're going to

hear more from democrats in particular looking at and tying specific behaviors of donald trump that show this pattern of abusive behavior. you know, the record is already pretty full and clear and we've been talking a lot about all of the evidence that relates to the ukraine scandal in particular. but as the democrats did in the articles of impeachment, they really left clearly in the articles references to his patterns of abuse of power and his patterns of obstructing justice in congress. that gives them room to really put this in a broader framework. i think that's just a question as to whether or not they'll start to do that a little bit more today. >> and, ari, the house democrats have made a very clear choice that they're more focused on speed than perhaps depth, the depth of the argument. talk about not only the logic

behind that, because it is going to frame the entire impeachment hearing, but also talk about the behind-the-scenes struggles, the battles between the faction that believe they needed to just limit it to ukraine and move it as quickly as possible and those who believe actually as i did that it needed to be a more expansive, historic record of all of this president's abuses through the years. >> well, one way to think about it, as you know, joe, that speakers pelosi started on zero articles of impeachment. thought that out for a while, and that ukraine moved her up to two. so because i think ultimately while she says she carefully follows the caucus and that's clearly one of her skill sets, she was the person that moved up and was never co-signed on to the original mueller argument. so i think that's one way to think about it. you are absolutely right. anyone who says that the obstruction outline in the mueller report is impeachable or that other issues are

impeachable, who has said that before, which is the majority of the democratic caucus, who now says we're impeaching the president but we're not including that, does have explaining to do, particularly if your larger argument is we're doing it for the constitution for good reason, not for political gamesmanship. i don't think there's a false equivalency between the sides given what we have seen. there are people on that panel who have explaining to do in both camps if they can't account for their votes. more broadly what we will see here as it kicks off at 9:00 a.m., i mean the markups as viewers remember -- markups are typically things that are not covered, they're not evening hearings, they're not of wide interest. this is different because you are marking up the instrument of the attempted removal of the sitting president. that's a big deal, joe, whether or not people think they can predict the outcome. i would observe the people predicting six months ago there would be no impeachment, which would be wrong. i don't know why predictions are back in vogue.

i think we sthave to suit up, watch the senate hearings and trials that come out of it and see what happens. >> this is an historic moment, only the third time this has happened in american history, and yet there's something almost airless about the proceedings. there isn't any since that minds can be changed here, there will be a real debate. so what is the purpose? is this for the history books? is this for democrats to say, look, this is why we're doing this, because i don't think there's any real clear political upside for either party right now in this. it is really about what actually happened. this is for the historical record. >> such an important question, nick. i don't know that -- i certainly can't speak for congress. i think the way that i look at it is because it is so historic, as you say, that they don't want to skip over the traditional proceedings of something of this weight and importance. i think the thing about

governance and state craft is that it does require some of our rituals. i think ritual does matter, particularly in a country right now that is having a very serious debate over whether or not the article of impeachment in our constitution still has meaning. because, you know, at the root of this conversation is does it still have meaning. i mean when you have members of congress from the republican party start -- still saying things like, well, we still haven't seen a crime, and their own constitutional law expert who testified before the house judiciary committee said, well, yes, you could have an abuse of power that's impeachable without a crime. i mean that's kind of astounding, right? so it really is the case that in a sense the power of impeachment itself is being debated. >> well, eddie, you know, i think about this in terms of

your specialty which is figuring things out, how do we know what we know. we have a bias of what we can see. as we look at this room, we were just looking at the pictures, this is something that the cameras are allowed. they're not allowed in federal court where mr. giuliani's ukrainian-linked clients have been indicted. the cameras are not allowed in prison where the president's campaign manager worked for ukrainian interest, who is caught up in other aspects of it is currently incarcerated or the president's former lawyer is incarcerated. this is what we can see. it is important for americans to understand wherever you come down on this, because you still want to hear the rest of the evidence in any potential trial, there's a lot we can see on camera and a lot more in the plot being excavated. >> right. that leads me to ask you this question since you have this expertise about the other hearing that happened yesterday. hearing that happened yesterday. of moves that the republicans

were making around the ig report and the way they were emphasizing the reports critique of the fisa court and how they were deploying that. what is the relationship for our viewers between what we saw in the senate yesterday, what we saw yesterdayat evening, and i think the senate hearing was about a report that donald trump and bill barr long promised that was exhaustively done that found no witch hunt, no broom, no witch hat, they didn't find anything like that. when youan look at the men you did you find a ton of bias and prejudice for the opening of the probe, they found no biens. that was a huge body blow to the hopes that this t would reinfor

and the secret warrants are revealed napar is great to fine and fixea if you can, but no wih hunt. you have an effort, it's like if you have been in a fight with someone, perhaps a loved one or partner. if you did do the dishes, take out the dishes, but if there is a dire to fight anyway, sometimes people can find a way to say you were on time today, but one other time or other times in the past you weren't on time. we're debating your expectation of a past thing. so when the republicans say there was at some point in history ain problem or unfairne that may or may not have been untrue but it was not in the new hunt. joining us now, from outside of the house judiciary hearing room, garrett haake, what do you

know more about what it will playout today. >>t we will hear them read tod, and while it is called a mark up, you expect the articles will ulttly emerge today unblemished. it will go on as long as they want it to, because this is something where democratsbe hava document and a resolution they're a ready to take to the floor, but the process here allows for unlimited offering of amendments. i think you will hear republicans, some will be germane to impeachment. you can force them to take awkward or uncomfortable votes, and unlimited high jinx today. when you're in the minority in the house, you don't have any

power, but you can slow things do you and make things uncomfortable and one last chance for judiciary committee republicansud to do that today, expect to see that all morning and up afternoon. that is until they decide that this vote will be a fore gone conclusion taking place. >> a house vote, also the issue of funding the government, and the usmca, how does that all fit together? >> so many things coming together here until tallahassee friday, but there are two meetings on capitol hill here today. and all trying to finalize a spending bill, but they have a possibility, and they don't want

it to be the last thing they vote on. i think we'll see the vote on the floor troublely on wednesday. you will see the usmca vote, and some vote before everybody gets out of town. the opportunity to go home for christmas tends to clarify the mind of the voters. >>. >> i guess these all stay in parallel tracks and they don't impact each other? >> we'll see. the new trade deal into the new year, but nancy pelosi will make sure, as garrett said, make sure the last vote they take will not be on impeachment. it will be on some other issue. they got the ig's report,

getting another report and he is running around saying he may issue his own report. many in the white house, they blame him, but he stirred up the president on aup ukraine, that brought some of the conspiracy theori theories. they are coming to the fore form. they exbraced him. giuliani went to ukraine again last week. finding out more about biden and

his son. findinghi material he say that' will exonerate the president and he will not reveal yet what that material is. says that the president himself wants him to prepare some sort of report. they said that they're not going to say that. we knee william barr soured on him. prachs he will just be hand delivering it. my phone lights up every time the president tweets, and my battery is about out because we're coming in on triple digits on tweets from the president this morning who is carefully watching the impeachment hearings. so ari, it is -- it does seem

that we have a pair of mr. magoos. giuliani in hot water over ukraine, goes to ukraine, makes things more difficult, causing a manic among many white house advisors, and it is not removed from donald trump the day after robert mueller testified and picked up the phone and started this crisis with ukraine with his quid pro quo call if seems that these two can't get out of their own way. >> and we're watching the judiciary members get into place, joe, the answer is so bad that he single handedly did what the democrats, the prosecutors, had not done.

he got donald trump impeached. he went out and did all of this. now donald trump is the client, the client is always more responsible than the lawyer, but it was both. talking to bar mentioned in that call, and we're often asked how does this compare to history and wat watergate and the other things we have been through, this is watergate but the tapes have bet brother duction value. the tapes are publicly released speeches and statements. everything he did is with the state department. that time it seemed bad but unlikely, and it turned out that was bad, true, or worse.

ambassador sondland says under oath there was no shadow. we're all bad apples, we're a whole pile of bad apples, that is a watergate tape with better sound quality. >>r knowing trump's behavior patterns, it has been especially in new york the loudest voice gets the biggest headline and gets to drown out the truth, a story, or cover something back. he has been the president of distraction and that has really been one of the biggest marks of this presidency in addition to being the president who is the president for themselves and not thees people. what is fascinating here is it