>> jonathan from washington, always a pleasure. axios a.m., read it in a bit. that does it for us on "first look." "morning joe" starts right now. 19-year-old young black men. there are a lot of other young black men out there watching you this morning. what do you say to them about their responsibility in terms of families? you come from a very strong family and as you know the black community has a problem with young black children. what do you say to young black men watching today? >> at times, i was fortunate to have a family a strong family background. >> wonderful mom and dad? >> wonderful mom and dad, two older sisters. in some cases they don't have that love to latch on to. they have to be strong individuals and dig deep inside themselves and not look for other venues and a negative path to walk down, because there are so many of them in today's

society. i tell them, dig deep inside, be patient, be strong. hit the books, and work hard and continue to dream, because, that's another thing i think is wrong with today's society. people try to shoot down our dreams. you have a goal, something you want to accomplish, they put limits on it and tell us what we can and cannot do. i would say have faith in themselves. >> a young kobe bryant alongside tim rust on "meet the press." good morning, it is monday, january 27th along with joe, willie and me, white house reporter foreassociated press jonathan lemire. donny deutsch is with us, host of "politicsnation" and president of the national action network reverend al sharpton. so neither president trump nor john bolton is set to testify at the senate impeachment trial, yet we're still hearing directly from both. first the president, who was

recorded speaking to a group of donors at a private dinner 2018, among those at the table, these two guys. >> what conversations have you had with lev parnas and igor fruman? >> i don't know those gentleman. >> so, clearly, that was not true. and what was the president's directive when it came to american diplomat marie yovanovitch in his words, "take her out." then there's john bolton, who's new book confirms the centerpiece of the president's impeachment. it was trump who tied ukraine aid to investigators into investigations into democrats including the bidens. will the former national security advisers were called up to the capitol to say the same under oath? bolton also dishes on mike pompeo according to the book privately admitted that rudy giuliani's claims about ukraine were bogus. the secretary of state, however, was a bit preoccupied over the weekend lashing out at an npr

reporter over her questions about the administration's policy. npr stands by its journalism while president trump seems to hint at pulling the broadcasting funding. the iowa caucuses one week away from today and the weekend saw a ton of developments in the race. the new polls and new endorsements all just ahead, and to complete your information overload this morning in a grammy ceremony dedicated to kobe bryant, newcomb egg billie eilish had a major night winning five major categories. we'll get to all of that as well. what an incredible morning of news. >> really is, mika. just an incredible morning of news coming out of the white house, leaked transcripts of books. leaked audiotapes. so much more. emails that prove that the secretary of state bullied and lied to an npr reporter. the president's own supporters on capitol hill scrambling,

trying to figure out exactly how to move forward now that this john bolton bombshell has just absolutely shaken washington, but, willie, we have to start with the tragedy out of california, out of southern california yesterday. it's really impossible to overstate what kobe bryant meant to basketball, but more importantly, as we saw from the tributes coming out and even reporters and fans on twitter, what he meant to an entire generation. >> yeah. i was watching that clip of kobe talking to tim rust 20 years ago and honestly can't believe it. it will take a while to understand any of this. kobe bryant killed yesterday in a helicopter crash. watch players from 13 to 39 in the nba. people who played with him, the older players, there were games in the nba yesterday sitting on the bench in tears during the games. younger guys in tears who look

up to him and worshipped him. a guy like tre youae young, atl hawks talked about kobe being a mentor to him a guy on a poster on his wall and give him a phone call to help him navigate through life. stunning on many levels. mainly because he was on his daughter on a human level a family level, a young girl, 13-year-old gigi as known in the family, gianna, they were traveling to a basketball game. kobe with his daughter and he took great pride in teaching her the game. she loved the game of basketball. there's a clip that was circulating again yesterday that i think we have that was just from about a month ago. the two of them sitting courtside at an nba game, and there's kobe telling gigi, you know, how to get better? breaking down the plays. here's what you do. and to watch him grow from the 18-year-old who came into the nba to become that man, that father that we see right there, it's just, it's too much to

bear, but let's get people caught up on what happened. the world, of course sshs rea, reacting to the death of nba superstar kobe bryant killed yesterday in a helicopter crash. the 41-year-old superstar with his daughter gianna when in private chopper went down. believed to be on their way to a travel basketball game. according to police a call for a downed helicopter in brush fire went out just brb 10:00 a.m. authorities say seven others onboard including the pilot also killed in the crash. bryant, who lived south of los angeles in orange county often use add helicopter, his own, to avoid southern california traffic. he went to games by helicopter a practice he continued after retiring. one of the most influential basketball players in the 1990s and early 2000s racking up elite

titles playing over 20 seasons with the los angeles lakers that ended in 2016. bryant named most valuable player in 15 of the playoffs he played in. mvp many times. saturday night he tweeted congratulations to lebron james after lebron surpassed him at number three on the nba's all-time scoring list. bryant is survived by his wife vanessa and three other daughters. let's bring in best-selling author and columnist mike lupicacovered kobe bryant a long time. mike, your gut reaction to the news we saw cross yesterday, looked at a source and saying, my god, please, let this not be true. sadly, it was. >> willie, my youngest son called me in the middle of the afternoon and he said, dad, i think kobe bryant died in a helicopter crash, and then, of course, you're scrambling on television, scrambling through social media to find out it's

true and then you find it is true. willie, you spoke to it just now really well. you respond to this as a sports fan. you respond to this as somebody who watched him grow up, who was famous from the time he was a teenager. i'm relating to this as a columnist, but you can't avoid that he was with his daughter, that children died this time. so more than anything else, i'm responding to this as a parent, and the most heartbreaking pictures i saw last night were with him and gigi. him standing at practice just the other day, and it's quite -- here's what i've been thinking about this. these athletes, these celebrities, and kobe was as famous of stars we've had in american sports, they lead the most public, public lives ever lived in this country. so everybody felt like they knew kobe bryant, and that's why so many people are treating this

like a death in the family. >> let me ask about you, mike, and willie, you as well. about what made kobe so special? because i actually, i went to school on kobe bryant-ology because joey scarborough would take me to school every day, every day it seemed during the nba season, he had another story about kobe. whether encouraging, probably the 12th best player on the lakers to give his all and how he made everybody around him, and last night we were talking and he said, you know, bluntly, unlike michael jordan, kobe bryant looked outward. he looked outward to all of this teammates and made everybody around him better. even after he left the nba, he picked um t eed up the phone. called players having a tough time. there was a selflessness that kobe had on and off the court. is that what made him so special? what made -- i'll just say

this -- a whole generation of people like my oldest son and mika's oldest daughter feel like they lost a close friend when kobe bryant died yesterday? >> joe, there's been this extraordinary progression over the last 35, 40 years. first michael came along. michael was the main event for me. i saw the whole show. but then michael was followed by kobe. and we never thought we'd see anybody quite like michael jordan and then kobe came as close as you can possibly be. so he looked up to michael. and then because of the way kobe went from high school to the pros, who looked up to him? lebron james. and we've all seen the photos now of lebron getting off the team playing and being shattered. you know i would say this. i wrote this today in my column "the daily news." there's guys you know by one name, michael, kobe, lebron,

tiger. i happened to be watching the golf game yesterday when tiger came off the course and joe lacava his caddie broke the news what had happened because tiger couldn't understand what people had been referencing kobe as he walked around the golf course yesterday. >> yeah. and he was transcendent in that if you had the pro bowl on yesterday, there were nfl players choked up during this all-star game. so it made you stop and think to your question, joe, what was different? what was it about kobe that he wasn't just a great basketball player. we've had a lot of those. there was something else about him, and i think it was, deshaun watson, the great young houston texans quarterback. i met kobe. kobe's called me and talked me through hard time. wow. kobe bryant former l.a. lakers star calling deshaun watson, a quarterback on the houston texans. viewed himself as sort of a wise man not just of sports but as somebody to help guide these young guys because he went through it, and lupica said.

about as famous as you can be at a teenager and high school nba players was new. people had questions whether or not he could do it. he struggled first year a little bit, jonathan lemire, but became an all-star the next year and was for the rest of his time. had that killer instinct that goes to joe's question that michael has, that tom brady has, that tiger has, that he just had to win, and was going to do whatever it took to win. he was, i agree with lupica. i grew up watching michael jordan and thought no one would ever touch his greatness. kobe came about as close as anyone ever has. >> clearly modeled himself after michael jordan and a ruthlesss in the w in -- a ruthlessness how he played the game. killer ir eer instinct, jut out

draw after a big shot. knew he would be taking the last shot of a laker's game. he would take it. more times than not, he made it and obviously somebody became great very young. and a complicated off-court legacy but we saw him transas he got older as the family man we are seeing in the clips right now. a loving father and big promoter of women's basketball. >> he was, yes. >> and a clip going around of "the jimmy kimmel show" asked, he should have a son, should have a son, your son to pick up the basketball legacy. no. my daughter says, she's got this and he was really, really supportive of that. i'll say this as a celtics fan, the lakers obviously are our biggest, most hated rival. so i would always want kobe to lose. same time, your team was playing kobe bryant, the game always felt bigger. >> reverend al, you know, again, joey scarborough telling me the

cubby stories, heard, matt damon recounted fwhun game five of a championship series where the celtics were up 3-1, speaking of this rivalry, and matt damon and mark wahlberg called ari emanuel their agent and ours and asked for courtside tickets. ari was like, wait. come on. this is in l.a. you sure -- yeah, we want the tickets. courtside tickets, screaming, yelling, taunting phil jackson and kobe and phil jackson said something to them in the middle of a huddle i can't repeat. matt damon repeats kobe walked past with a smile, jaw jutted out like willie said and said, not tonight, boys. not tonight. and then he went out and completely demolished the celtics and did it with a smile on his face. >> that is why kobe bryant is such a huge figure to everybody, even outside of basketball. because he was that determined

winner, and he had that swagger with him that really personified the age and generation that he was a part of that went beyond the court. i mean, he helped to mainstream basketball around the world. look what he did with china. and i think the fact that when you go to his 18-year-old interview with tim russert on "meet the press," he was a role model, ended up with a training facility he had built around training people, but he was not the activist that was out there marching and do things like i would do, but he was the activist by saying, if you're disciplined, determined, if you have tunnel vision, you can break barriers, and he did. and he supported causes. he supported us in trevon martin's kashgs bcase, but did way he embodied that. we only had a few encounters here and there, but after i did

the eulogy at michael jackson's funeral came over foreme and said it's something when somebody is bigger than their one profession, their particular lane and how michael has really transcended things and you captured it, it was really good, rev. that haunted me yesterday when i heard about kobe because kobe really could have been talking about himself. i had no idea i would live to see the day that he himself would prove how you can transcend your given particular field. the whole world has some kind of relationship to kobe. last, but not least, how he broke barriers for women by being one of the big legendary basketball players to really embrace the wnba and see his daughter as being the one that could be the new kobe or the first gee gigi and usually men for the next son or the next guy. he would open and embrace

openly, no, my daughter. he's got there. and more importantly. she got this. women can do whatever men can do. >> so many layers to this tragedy. one is he had this entire new chapter he was starting. won an oscar last year for a short film he produced. my sister works at espn, worked with him on a series and said in the most positive way that he was as competitive about doing well with that series and playing the celtics in the nba finals and wasn't stamping his name on the door. a guy turning the page at 41 years old in this entire new life. >> there are few people that, to pick up rev's point transcending what they do, and their deaths hit us a certain way. princess diana, jfk jr., always will remember when we heard. the thing that for me and i think for most people put it to such a different level is the daughter. you can't as a human, as a parent, as a father, not react. that's when you see the -- yes,

basketball players, human beings and going to his daughter's practice as a dad. and you know, it just reminds us how -- mortal we all are. he, as i said, there are very few people that transcend what they do for a living, and to the point, and mike lupica's earlier point that we knew him. we knew him. there is nothing you can do after this but say there are things in this world we don't understand why and how they happen. you have to have a faith, but prayers to his wife and three other daughters and it's incomprehensible. >> mike, all you had to do, lupica, watch the games yesterday, and the way every one of them let the 24-second shot clock expire first possession of the game because he wore number 24 for the lakers. more than that, as i said at the top here, you had 18, 19-year-olds who grew up worshipping kobe bryant. they're now yaw stars in the nba

in tears on the court. tyson chandler, back end of his career played with and against kobe bryant in tears on the bench. really something for me, anyway, to see the range of people who were so impacted, not just to say, oh, my gosh. that's terrible, but to be in tears on the court during an nba game speaks to the impact kobe had on a generation that -- more than one generation, actually -- of people in this country. >> willie, i've been thinking exactly about that. i've got three sons and daughter. i always tell them, the walkway keeps moving really fast in sports, and michael's now the good old days, but kobe wasn't the good old days. you know, my oldest son sent me a picture of an all-star game ticket that kobe signed for him when the all-star game was at madison square garden when he was a teenager, and he said to me last night, he said, dad, he was really nice to us that

night, and what's remarkable about kobe, for all of the difficulties he had as a young man, he did something that pete hamill once eloquently spoke about. the second act of his life, his career and his life, he lived a life and not an apology. i think that is another reason why people are responding the way they are over the last several hours. >> all right. music lupica, thanks for your perspective on all this. great to have you in. thanks, mike. joe, obviously a ton going on this weekend. there's a ton going on this morning, but, my gosh, that was a cultural bomb that went off on our phones yesterday, and then played out on television as i said we hoped it wasn't true based off that one source, but sadly it is. it's kobe and his daughter, his 13-year-old daughter, two other families that are grieving today. >> oh. >> and the family of a pilot as well. nine people altogether killed in that helicopter crash. >> horrendous. >> just -- heartbreaking and it is one of those moments that

donnie talked about. one of those cultural moments where everybody stopped. i know i, mika and i were in the middle of a very busy day at home and running around, you know, with kids and loved ones, and doing 100 things and when that news hit, we all just stopped and felt like we'd been punched in the gut, and sat down and, you know, mika, the legacy of kobe bryant, at least for me, what i take from his life is -- is, are all the stories that you heard of him reaching out to people when they were going through difficult times are being, the superstar that he was and still reaching out to people on his team who may have, you know, maybe been the worst person on their team and always encouraging them and giving them the confidence to do things that they didn't think they could do. that's a legacy hopefully for people that want to carry a part

of kobe's legacy. you can't call an nfl quarterback or a basketball superstar or another famous athlete who's going through hard times, but maybe we pick up the phone and call a loved one, or a family member, or a co-worker, who's going through a difficult time, because everybody's going through their own set of challenges, and, you know, that's something that kobe understood based on what we heard yesterday and hopefully that's something that more people will bring into their own lives. generosity of spirit. >> the inspiration from his daughters. say no more. incredible to be hearing all of these stories. we are also kicking off the week of an incredible news cycle here. week two of president trump's impeachment trial, and new revelations from former national security adviser john bolton's upcoming book that will adam in addition to the call for witnesses. the "new york times" is reporting that trump told bolton

last august that he wanted to continue freezing critical military aid to ukraine until government official there's helped with investigations targeting joe biden, his son hunter and other democrats. the "times" says this is all according to an unpublished manuscript. nbc news has not seen a copy of the manuscript or verified the report citing multiple sources familiar with bolton's account. now, according to the paper, bolton writes about how the ukraine affair unfolded over several months until he departed the white house last september. the "times" notes that bolton not only describes president trump's private disparagement of ukraine, but also new details about senior cabinet officials who tried to publicly side-step any involvement. for example, bolton says secretary of state mike pompeo acknowledged privately that there was no basis to claims by president trump's lawyer rudy

giuliani that the ambassador to ukraine, marie yovanovitch, was corrupt. bolton claims he also raised concerns about giuliani with attorney general william barr following the president's july 25th phone call with the leader of ukraine, and bolton writes that acting white house chief of staff mick mulvaney was present for at least one phone call where trump and giuliani discussed ambassador yovanovitch, despite mulvaney telling associates he would always step away when the president spoke to his lawyer. bolton's attorneys are blaming the white house for disclosure of the book's contents. one of bolton's aides say the ambassador sent a draft to the white house for review by the national security council saying bolt han not passed that manuscript to anyone else for review, period. president trump is denying those new bolton revelations outlined by the "new york times." he tweeted last night in part, i never told john bolton that the aid to ukraine was tied to

investigations into democrats including the bidens. in fact, he never complained about this at the time of his very public termination. if john bolton said this, it was only to sell a book. let's bring in the "new york times" reporter who broke this story, msnbc national security analyst michael schmidt. first of all, can you explain what we know exactly about the release of this, parts of this manuscript and who might have released it and why? >> i can't really get into how we found out about the contents that are in it, but, look, this is something that answers the question of what bolton would testify to. over the past several weeks and even months, there's been a sense and bolton's lawyer had said it to congress and then came out and said he was willing to testify, that bolton had a story to tell, but it wasn't clear what that story was. what was he actually going to say? how was he going to illuminate

this situation? reporting showed it takes on the eterrible defense of the trump impeachment. the president's lawyers repeatedly said there was no tie between the military aid and the investigations that the president sought. but here you have the president's former national security adviser with information that takes on that contention. the central contention of impeachment. >> you know, willie, john bolton's manuscript tells us what the president knows, and when the president knew it, and it also explains to anybody who reads it that it was the president of the united states who was running the conspiracy to extort ukraine in exchange for dirt on his domestic, political rival. this is open and shut, game over, for the president, as far as the facts go. >> and what the white house was worried about. the white house, by the way, had a copy of this manuscript, their

attorneys going through the classification review and aware this was out there. as you say, this lays out very clearly and brings into daylight the question again to the united states senate, you really aren't going to have witnesses now that you've got john bolton out in publicly saying what he says happened? the national security adviser, this is not some fringe player this is the man at the center of national security saying, here's exactly what happened. yes, it happened the way you suspected it happened and they're not going to sit and have him testify? i don't know how you hold that position at this point. but michael what have you heard from the white house since about that classification review? how long they had the manuscript? what they've known since they've had this in their hands for the last few weeks? >> so bolton's lawyer chuck cooper put out the letter that he sent to the white house on december 30th and it included the manuscript. we know they've had the manuscript since then. the white house has not said anything about the review process. they actually said very little.

the only thing that we heard from them yesterday was this late-night tweet from the president. several hours passing between when he went to the white house, when the story was published and when trump eventually came out. interesting sort of quiet trying to figure out what was goinging on? what was taking the white house so long to respond? the interesting thing here is that the white house may be able to throw up road blocks for the publication of this book. it's a review process to determine whether there's classified information. bolton has a publication date. a page on amazon going live yesterday that shows that it's from the middle of march. if you're putting out a book by the middle of march you probably need to be done with it around this time. given the difficulties of publishing a book. it's certainly a very short window that he has. so will the white house delay that classification review? will it carry on longer? and will that get in the way of

the actual book? we're not even talking about the testimony. >> jonathan lemire, how desperate is this white house to stop john bolton from testifying? and any reporting at all to suggest that senate republicans on the hill are going to look at this the way certainly the overwhelming majority of americans are going to look at this leaked transcript and say, we need to hear from john bolton so we can get the whole truth? >> that is the key question. a few days ago senator romney suggested that he was leaning towards voting for witnesses but that's not enough. other republican wos has would join in. certainly prior to this story, the mooshment was against that republicans weren't going to vote in the senate to call witnesses and extend the trial. we're on course for this to wrap up by end of week. the question, will this revelation change things?

a chance to talk to senators on capitol hill this morning before things begin and that is going to be the question that is put to them. certainly the white house has been leery of the john bolton testimony throughout. we've heard the president a number of times in recent weeks 0 try to downplay him and suggest you can't believe anything you have to say because he's a disgruntled employer suggesting he might invoke executive privilege because of national security reasons. even if there were to be a vote for witnesses bolton would not actually be able to testify. michael schmidt, let me ask you and congrats on the great scoop, illuminate a little more how the excerpts, the stuff you heard from the book cast light around the other players around the president? mulvaney saying he wasn't part of the discussions and the book suggesting he was in the room for this, and mike pompeo. in particular pompeo's views on what rudy giuliani was really up to? >> yeah. that pompeo was expressing deep skepticism about what giuliani was saying and giuliani's role

in influencing the president, and pushing for the ambassador of ukraine to be removed. the other significant thing in the book is what bolton says about his conversations with attorney general bill barr. bolton says he told barr after the call in july that his name had been mentioned on the call, and bolton also expressed concerns that he had about giuliani to him. now, that changes the timeline that the justice department has put out in terms of barr. the justice department has said that barr did not know about the call until the middle of august when it came up in context with the whistle-blower's complaint. now, here you have bolton saying that in the aftermath of the call, he told it to barr, and told barr his name had been mentioned. the justice department yesterday putting out a statement saying that that contention is not true. that barr, you know, learned

about it in a different context, but what you do have here is less than 12 hours after this story has come out, you have both the president and the attorney general saying the contentions in bolton the book are not accurate. >> michael schmidt, thank you so much. quite a start to the week. still ahead on "morning joe" -- a pair of presidential candidates pete buttigieg and deval patrick join the conversation. but first, the state of the race, lots of new poll numbers from iowa. is this thing bernie's to lose? >> i mean, bernie has had this stunning surge over the past several days. it's shaking up democrats in washington. that's for sure. >> more on that, and by the way, "morning joe" will be live in des moines one week from today for full coverage of that state's caucuses, and then it's on to the penstock restaurant in man chaster, new hampshire. register to be part of our

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i do not believe, i simply do not believe that the same old, same old politics is going to generate the excitement to create that turnout. [ cheers and applause ] you can't generate excitement when you're busy going to new york raising large sums of money from millionaires and billionaires. people want change! [ cheers and applause ] and i think that what our campaign is about is the ability to speak to working people, many

of them having become disillusioned with status quo politics. people are working longer hours for low wages are tired of the political establishment and want a government that stands up for them and not just the 1%. we can talk to those people. >> bernie sanders campaigning in iowa over the weekend with the iowa caucuses now just one week away. in the cbs news ugov poll out of iowa sanders is statistically tied for first with joe biden, 26% and 25%. pete buttigieg is in third with 22%. senator elizabeth warren follows in fourth with 15% and senator amy klobuchar rounds out the top five with 7%. and in the "new york times," the college poll, sanders is up six points from october to take the lead with 25%. buttigieg sits in second with 18%, and is statistically tied with biden and warren who has

17% and 15% respectively. klobuchar is in fifth with 8%. interesting numbers. joining us, national political correspondent for msnbc and nbc news author of "the red and the blue" steve kornacki and former director of strategic commune caucuses for hillary clinton's presidential campaign, adrienne elrod, an msnbc contributor. >> steve kornacki, we are finally, you're finally at the moment, as the patriots said at bunker hill where we can see the whites of their eyes. when we see these polls, iowa is upon us. nobody can no longer tuck them away and say, oh, these polls don't matter. it matters. we are with ten days, and here you have bernie sanders certainly surging in the "new york times" poll. joe biden a bit of a serge of his own in the other poll.

so take these two polls and all the others that you're looking at right now and give us a state of the race one week out. >> yeah. funny. the last couple months here talking about iowa saying, gee, aren't that many polls. suddenly there are maybe too many polls out there. what does it look like for sanders? looks like sanders had a good couple of weeks, couple of months, really, since the heart attack back in october. bind a bit of a wild card here, because numbers vary so much from poll to poll with him. one big difference looking inside the numbers on these polls, really has to do with age. look at the youngest group of voters starting at 18 years old. sanders is generally blowing away competition. just his support just slowly but steadily drops the older you get. by the time you get to 65-plus, sanders is nowhere near the lead. sort of the opposite for joe biden. the younger you get, start at 18

years old, it's biden who's getting blown out and the older you get, especially getting to 65 years-plus, is where biden's sweet spot is. complete mirror image opposites, biden and sanders in terms of their support. the i war caucus, a cliche in politics to say turnout, it's all about the turnout, who shows up to vote, but the caucuses being so different than a primary, having to go out, commit a couple hours at a public meeting publicly declaring your preference, this sort of thing, you tend to see turnout lower in caucuses than in primaries. a different more specific type of voter typically turning out in caucuses and expectation of that caucus number higher than ever before. still probably different in the caucus states. a question whether that gives sanders potentially a leg up and again just look at the iowa polls. also a couple new ones out in new hampshire. one in fact with sanders up double digits and talking about this for months. the possibility for him or for

anyone of putting together what's been a powerful combination in democratic primary politics through the years, the one-two punch of when iowa, roll into new hampshire and come out those states 2-0. four candidates have done in the past, the past 45half century. all four went on to win the nomination. >> really interesting, willie. after new hampshire comes south carolina. see if bernie can translate in the deep south with older black voters. he and the rest of the fill problems with that other than joe biden, but you also have with iowa, so unique, because the second choice matters so much. >> right. >> we heard last week that there aren't a lot of second choices for brns. the bernie sanders. there are for joe biden and mayor pete. the race can be extraordinarily

close. >> and anybody says they know what's happening in iowa, it's not the truth. biden, bernie, buttigieg, elizabeth warren not far behind pap cluster of any four of those people you wouldn't be surprised if you saw them come out of iowa. and adrienne, bernie sanders, solid standing in the first two states. if he went 0-2, go into south carolina a place joe biden has a big lead large lly because of support from african-american voters, we could be looking at a different race than we thought we had. >> right. if bernie sanders wins iowa, he has a good shot regardless how he performs in iowa to win new hampshire. of course, go into nevada with a lot of momentum if you're bernie sanders. he's performing very well with latin x voters giving him a huge tactical advantage in nevada and goes into north carolina where joe biden is expected to win

because of large support among african-american voters and older white voters, the key blocks of voters in south carolina. it's important to keep in mind 5% of delegates awarded in the democratic primary process are awarded in the first four states get past super tuesday, awarded 40% of delegates. the first states matter for momentum, absolutely, there is still a lot of room for other candidates to perform well, especially in those delegate-heavy, super tuesday states that are also largely diverse. >> and reverend al, look at south carolina, joe biden's hold has a lot to do with how he fairs with the african-american community. pete buttigieg struggles with that. bernie win in iowa and new hampshire, how does he fair? >> he is now polling a lot better than he did with

african-american americans but nowhere near joe biden's numbers. i think a lot of that is going to depend on the argument he makes into the black community in terms of specifics. this whole debate in some areas about socialism and capitalism, blacks experience with capit capitalism is we haven't had action to capital. not that we haven't been socialists and capitalists. i think he has to fine-tune a specific program. cannot be an all-inclusive thing, because we have the wealth gap he's been very good at but also have the race gap, because people even in the low economic strata still lead different lives black and white and he's got to address that more clearly. so he can still have a problem with black voters if he does not get more specific, but undeniable has run a transformative campaign that seems to have momentum. his question also is electability, because as much as

you raised the question of his momentum, people want the candidate that can beat trump and with all traction in '16, cannot bring out a turnout to beat hillary clinton in the primaries. still has to convince people he can go with a larger turnout and, therefore, have enough turnout in the general election to beat donald trump. it cannot just be i'm anti-trump. got to be able to show in these primaries i can do better than 16%. >> so, donnie, over the last six months we've had the top four candidates being joe biden, bernie sanders, mayor pete and elizabeth warren. elizabeth, of course, had a pretty massive serge a month or two ago, and has long been expected to be extremely competitive in new hampshire. put up the new hampshire polls again, if we can, alex, and i just wonder how elizabeth warren

actually makes it past iowa and new hampshire if she doesn't score a win in at least one of them, because a couple of, three, four weeks ago it looked like she actually could be the one sweeping the first two states, but if she comes in fourth place in her neighboring state, where she's supposed to have a built-in advantage at 12%, i don't know how she soldiers on to south carolina? >> yeah. i mean, it doesn't take a mathematical genius to see the progressive end is coalescing around bernie and basically his game seems to be her loss. somebody else in the polls, not these polls but national polls i wand to remind you to keep an eye on. mike bloomberg. he is a 10 points in the morning consult poll and particularly, one thing if biden comes out first two, three and wins and bloomberg not a factor. the far end of the party prossively comes out a toss-up

or becomes bernie you'll see bloomberg start to rise. i do think there is kind of a, a gut within the party that says, look, historically look what happened in great britain. mccarthy, george mcgovern. far progressive win end of the party will not beat donald trump. keep an eye on mike bloomberg if that starts to happen. >> look at these polls and any poll, or any result in iowa and new hampshire that elevates bernie sanders, michael bloomberg thinks that's a big plus for him, that he will be able to do very well starting on super tuesday. whether that ends up being the case or not, none of us know, but certainly that's the theory of mike bloomberg's case. these polls very good news, much better than joe biden winning one or the first two states. so willie, you look at all the polls, and you see how everything's going, and it does

look like the momentum's behind bernie sanders, but it's obviously something that a lot of people in the dnc have to be very concerned about right now. he is an outsider every bit as much as donald trump was an outsider in 2016. >> oh, yeah. he's annoyed everybody up and down the democratic party. hillary clinton being the most obvious example who spoke out about him just last week, as a matter of fact. but, yeah. there are concerns and adrienne you can speak to it better than anyone having worked on hillary's campaign. bernie's been a thorn in the side of the establishment. exactly the way he likes it. how much concern would there be if, again, gaming this out a little, if bernie sanders wins iowa and then new hampshire and it started to look like there was a real chance he could be the nominee of the democratic party? >> well, you know, willie, that's going to be, left to be determined. you know, i think if bernie sanders can show he can continue to broaden his base and he can

get, get a lot people excited about his candidacy, which he's certainly done, also broaden that base to get older black voters to get some of the older latino voters, to broaden that base, we might be talking about something different. going back to what donnie said, if you see bernie sanders winning three of the four states in the first, the first four contests going into super tuesday, that you will see perhaps a lot of people lose a lot bit of faith in joe biden and put more energy into michael bloomberg. i believe two tracks in the democratic party. the progressive change track and there is the let's hold on to obama era policies, status quo track. so regardless of how well bernie sanders does in the first four states, if he does well, you will still see sort of a push and pull fight for the soul of the democratic party going through this primary process.

i don't think that if he does well and has almost a clean sweep in the first four that you will see the entire party apparatus rally around him. then again, this is where i think to what donnie said. you could see michael bloomberg start to really sergurge becaus people might look faith in joe biden. this is anyone's game at this point and keep in mind, by the way, bernie sanders while he has a tactical advantage he's been to iowa before. he probably came into this race with at least 1,000 precinct captains, and under his tutelage and is still competing with and operation of elizabeth warren known on the ground. everyone you talk to will say she has "the" best ground game in iowa and to an extent the best ground became in new hampshire. getting people to show up at caucuses is a totally different caucus. show up two hours hope they'll stay the whole time and you know, it's just a much more

organizational effort on the ground. so still anybody's game. going to be fascinating. >> anybody who was in iowa in 2004 understands that. we get off the plane and saw orange hats all over des moines, and it was howard dean's victory until it wasn't that night. a big shock, because a lot of young people very energized for howard dean going all over the state campaigning for howard dean, but, of course, things didn't work out the way most political pros thought. so steve kornacki, if these numbers hold, and they may not, because as adrienne said, elizabeth warren has the best ground game in the first two states. she's done everything right. you know, for about six, eight, nine months of this campaign. always said, get all the blocking and tackling right, but if these numbers hold, the question at the top of my mind

will have been, what happened to elizabeth warren? i just -- every poll you see minus 6, minus 4, minus 5, minus 7, minus -- it's just over the past month or so her support has dropped precipitously in iowa and new hampshire. do you see anything inside of the polls that explain why? do you have a working theory? what's going on? >> yeah. i think there are a couple things. first of all, the answer of, when, or question of when it happened, you can see october. when she got in the lead. i think it was -- that might not be a coincidence it was those couple days when elizabeth warren caught joe biden in the national poll. talk, hey, her trajectory upward six months caught him will she run away? leave him in the dust? hey, a road map to the nomination in sight for her. win iowa, win new hampshire, win nevada, build support elsewhere. hearing that talk in october. not coincidentally, two things

happened then. number one, got more scrutiny from the press, more critical coverage from the press. got folks asking for questions about medicare for all and put on the defense of medicare for all and democratic voters, we've said it over and over. look at polls, what's most important to you? ability to beat donald trump. i think democratic voters looking at elizabeth warren at the top of the polls and under a media spotlight like she hadn't had before, i think asked themselves, is this the debate we want to be having against donald trump for six months and the candidate we want to lead that debate and the answers we want to have? i suspect not satisfied in that moment because that's when her numbers dropped back and it's been the story three months now. sande erers slipped into that s. may be a disconnect between we and the press and national media talk about the candidates, lanes

and how voter perceive them. two national polls last week self-identified moderate and conservative democratic voters. who's your number one choice? they said, joe biden. second place, 20% in each, bernie sanders. so he's got some moderate and conservative support. i think part of his appeal to democrats is not progressive politics per se. might be something more basic about the kind of leadership style and personality he conveys. >> fascinating. thank you both for coming on this morning. still to come this morning, when she testified before congress in november, former ukraine ambassador marie yovanovitch said she felt threatened by president trump. now newly released audio recorders appear to have captured trump calling for her ouster saying take her out and get rid of her. that new reporting is still ahead. also we are going to have john heilemann top of the hour and more from jonathan lemire.

an update on the deadly ka rhone n coronavirus in china. it's spreading globally. five confirmed cases in the united states. the cdc says the cases have been reported in washington, chicago, california and arizona. across china, 15 cities with a combined population of 57 million people have been placed on lockdown. yet according to chinese media reports, about 5 million residents left wuhan. the city at the center of the outbreak, before the lockdown began. so let's bring in "morning joe" medical contributor dr. dave campbell for more on this. your thoughts, dr. dave on this? explain the severe concern about this outbreak and how worried should americans be? should they panic? >> good morning, mika. no. americans do not need to panic. the chinese are already

panicking as they should, because this virus is spreading all through the central parts of china, and it's a new virus. it has never been seen before. so it's mechanism of spreading is not quite known yet. what i would suggest, however, is that americans take this as a wake-up call for seasonal flu. we are not out of the flu season. we've already had 15 million cases of the flu in the u.s. 140,000 hospitalizations. 54 children have died. almost as many as have died from the novel coronavirus, and everybody's not vaccinated yet. even if you get vaccinated and get the flu, it lowers the complication rate from the flu. so we don't need to be overly concerned yet in the united states about the novel coronavirus, we do need to keep our eyes open for the seasonal

flu. we're right in the middle of the flu season still. >> dr. dave -- >> did you say we don't know yet how this is spread? >> well, we know that -- it's spreading the way that it's spreading in the past. there is a 14-day incubation period maximum. this flu, or this coronavirus is in china, five cases in the u.s., can now spread person-to-person and spread in people that have no symptoms. that's the big concern. that's what they state as a grave concern in china, is coronavirus can spread person-to-person with a sneeze, without the person knowing they're infected. >> wow. >> dr. dave, jonathan lemire. seeing cities taking steps to warn the public. for instance, here in new york, the mire warned chinatown,

public awareness asking people traveling from that section of china to check in with their doctors. seeing more aenecdotally, peopl walking around with face masks. in the past, limited in xoeb he scope in the united states. why should americans take this seriously and not say a virus i don't quite understand but won't actually impact me? >> because the mortality rate from this particular novel coronavirus seems to be around 3% or 4%. the seasonal flu mortality rate is less than 1%. even though this is not as deadly as sars and mers, it needs to be taken seriously from

the public up, precautions in place at airports, at hospitals. like mayor delazio pointed out, we can't let our guard down but can concentrate on the here and now, right now, which is the seasonal flu. >> dr. dave campbell. thank you. i'm sure we'll talk again to you about this. coming up, skd mike pompeo appears to take a page out of the president's playbook and goes after the media. specifically, a veteran npr journalist. >> and lies about the media and emails now that he's caught in his lying and bullying. what a secretary of state he is. plus joined by two democratic presidential candidates. former mayor pete buttigieg and former governor deval patrick. they'll both be our guests this morning. we're back in just a moment. t centers of america, they treat the whole person.

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enjoy life. life is too short to the get bogged down, be discouraged. you have to keep moving, keep going. put one foot in front of other, smile and keel on rolling. that's what really this camp is about. >> part of a 2008 interview with cbs after the creation of the kobe bryant basketball academy. welcome back to "morning joe." it is monday, january 27th and still with us we have white house reporter for the associated press jonathan lemire. donnie deutsch is with us this

morning and joining the conversation, senior adviser at move jon.org and msnbc contributor, and in iowa, msnbc national affairs analyst co-host of showtime's "the circus" john heilemann. >> john heilemann, we know you're an l.a. guy. l.a. sports fan. grew up there. tell us how much kobe bryant meant, not only to the lakers but the city of los angeles, in fact, the entire sports world, and what does this loss mean? >> you know, joe, i think you know. l.a. sports is defined by its great kind of operatic, soap operas of l.a. sports and when you have a team that dominates sports in los angeles the way that the lakers did, and have basically for my life during different phases you know, the kobe dominated the city the idea of the lakers.

lakers, more important in many ways to the city than the dodgers or baseball, more important, way more important than the nfl has been to the city, at least in our lifetimes. two different phases. the first phase, had the three peete at shaquille o'neal's partner and later in 2010. the guy won five championships in his career and never left l.a. in an era sports stars often in the era of free agency moved from city to city, kobe was a guy who only wanted to play in l.a. the lakers wanted him from day one. he came as you guys talked about already. straight out of high school when he did that. not that many players who came stright out of high school and into the nba. jerry west famously sent michael cooper is lakers great from an earlier era sent out to play as a high school player and kobe embarrassed michael cooper who at that point was 40 years old and still a good player. jerry west said this kid, 16, 17

years old, 17 i guess then, better than anybody on the team and west saw kobe as a way to build the lake for a new dynasty. the showtime lakers in the rearview mirror for a while and quickly three years in basically were on their way to that first three-peat and after shaquille o'neal leaves the team, kobe leads the team on his own to two more championships. 20 years with one team. dominant sports team in los angeles. brings them five championships in that period. so how big was kobe bryant to l.a.'s sports culture? as big a figure as anybody who played any sport in los angeles in my life, and something about, he was not, you know, not magic johnson. not universally beloved. not necessarily the friendliest laker. everybody often talked about his enormity of his ego. a kind of mystique around him flying on the helicopter, to the game, the games he would play.

what people in l.a. loved about him was he was such a gigantic personality and he was so competitive. only competitor you could compare him to in terms of pure drive to win was michael jordan who he always compared himself to. i think that larger than life quality and the fact that he group anltz evolved and changed. again, people in los angeles love the narrative, love the arc. in ways the fact he had troubles including sexual assault allegations in 2003, the fact he grew from a brash, young kind of obnoxious kid with a lot of talent and a lot of drive into a much more mature, the guy you've talked about. the guy who gave so much and became such a mentor to so many people is another reason why people in l.a. came to love him so much. quality of performance and the wray the life evolved over time made him kind of a classic hollywood figure in some respects. >> yeah. john, why the images of him and his daughter gigi, the

13-year-old daughter who died with him in the crash yesterday are just so incredibly heartbreaking, because he did make that transition from the guy you describe as a young man to become this very public father. you know? to root on his daughter at games. flying to the game yesterday. when the tragedy struck, to one of hader gaer games. great supporter of wnba and girls playing basketball. to your point of stacher in l.a. i stopped to make sure i read it right because magic johnson put out his statement said kobe is the greatest laker of all-time. coming from magic johnson. a lot of people think he's the greatest laker of all-time or ma karim or wilk, but magic said in fact it was kobe. what do you think it was? you're a great fan and student of the nba, we've been to a bunch of games together. what was it just about him making a good, a great basketball player, but something

transcendent about him that made people feel the way they felt very publicly on nba courts yesterday? in tears during a basketball game as they stood waiting for a free throw or sitting on the bench. something else about him that put him in that league with michael jordan. >> right. and willie, i think you know, the two things. one really was that because he came to the league so early, so young, as a child when he entered the league, and grew up and became a man in front of people's eyes was part of it. part of the watching him on the public stage. have enormous triumphs, enormous setbacks and seeing him evolve literally in front of our eyes for some of the emotional connection that comes. then there's the thing that defined him as player which was this thing. announced basically from the time he was 17 he wanted to be greater than michael jordan. at the 1996-97 to say that, absurdly arrogant and brash cocky confident thing to say, yet he did not ever shy away

from it in terms how he played. he wanted the ball in every key moment. pressure on he wanted the ball. had unending confidence that in whatever the level, whatever the moment was in the game didn't matter who they played against, didn't matter triple-teamed he was the guy, give me the ball. i will make that shot. the buzzer-beater that will beat the san antonio spurs in a playoff or championship game. so often in the most ridiculous circumstances, he would pull it off. make those plays. i think that, the purity of his desire to compete and his willingness to take on all the pressure the l.a. sports, l.a. lakers, comparisons with magic johnson, the fractious kind of teammateship and rivalry with shaquille aneal, the fact he stepped into all of that and said, i'm cool. i'm going to get this done and just did over and over again for 20 years i think if you're a student of great athletes, you've not seen someone with that degree of just, of just the

self-possession and competitiveness. he's in the top echelon of people that played any sport and as i say that evolution of the human being in fronted of our eyes. twin those two things together and you can understand why he occupied such a big place in so many people's imagination. >> so tell us about iowa, where within a week now new eigset of polls coming out. bernie sanders looking good. joe biden within a margin of error as well. bernie's hot in iowa, in new hampshire. 11th-hour surge for him in both of those key early states. joe biden hanging around along with mayor pete. never know what's going to happen with that second vote in iowa. but elizabeth warren dropping off again in both early states, but, of course, here's the rub. she also has the best organization on the ground in both states. what's it looking like in iowa right now?

>> right. even with these polls, joe, the one that the emerson poll last night caused a lot of people's eyes to bug out for a lot of reasons. one, sanders up 30 in that poll. amy klobuchar surpassing pete buttigieg. if you believe it, 13 points close to the level of viability and mayor pete at the dot um. i don't think anybody believes pete buttigieg is at 8 in this state. >> no. >> most people think, any of four of these candidates could win. number one. number two, that bernie clearly has a head of steam. over this weekend, after i've been trapped in washington all last week for the impeachment stuff, bernie sanders showed up here this weekend and campaigned around the state with alexandria ocasio-cortez and michael moore and turned out enormous crowds. i was friday night she was there without bernie sanders, aoc, more than 1,000 people in the

room, that support, sanders is on fire right now. definitely that sense is true. second thing. biden, with joe biden at all his events, somber, placid kind of, almost spiritual kind of events he's holding with much smaller crowds and yet continues to show up solidly in the polls, and i mentioned the two of them, because you think about two primaries within a primary or two caucuses within a caucus. progressive caucus and the main-stream center-left caucus. biden and sanders, the two now seem to have the stuff heading into these final days, and elizabeth warren despite winning the des moines register endorsement over the weekend, a big prices. you see consistently in polls she has stalled out and lost altitude. there you questions whether mayor pete for all his money and organization here whether as we get close to caucus day people are kind of going, i don't know,

you know, he's a little young. is he really ready for donald trump? maybe we should go to one of the people that we trust and that we are more familiar with and those two people, again, joe biden and bernie sanders depending on your ideological orientation. >> picking up on a through threads there. seems like buttigieg's momentum stalled here going into the caucus. the impact of the des moines register remains to be seen. that newspaper, its polling seen as the gold standard in iowa but editorial has not always picked, endorsement not backed the winner there. also the idea aoc and surrogates. that becomes really important again. a weekend all candidates at least a day and a half all candidates could be in iowa. not the case anymore. as of today, senators back in washington for the trial. caryn, go to you on this and ask your sense of the surrogate game and how the senators who can't be in iowa much these next few

days can possibly, you know, look to maintain support, build their support. and a second piece, amy klobuchar wclb w klobuchar. if she lost support, don't vote voters go to buttigieg or biden and become the victor? >> hit it on the nose. all those senators back in washington, d.c. for the senate trial i think amy klobuchar is the one hurt the most. we've seen a surge from her. she doesn't have the operation, i would ar gug thgue that eliza warren has, that bernie sanders has. they have surrogates out there. aoc out there, julian castro for elizabeth warren in iowa over the last couple of days.

they and their ground operation will hold that up for them and they have to be creative in other ways with social media and whatever else they can do to continue to connect with voters on the ground. i believe klobuchar has a little tougher time because she doesn't have the ground game the other two have. >> so, donnie, as we look at this crowded field and, yes, bernie is surging in reason polling. when you look at it. there are recall at least four people if they won you might be surpriseed by some more than others but not stunned if they came out of iowa with a victory. bernie, buttigieg, elizabeth warren and obviously joe biden as well. what does it say about the state of the party when you have bernie sanders doing as well as he's doing not just in iowa also in new hampshire. beyond the organization he has on the ground, but where the energy of the party is right now? >> tell you, the party better wake up, because if they think the faces of the party that's going beat donald trump is bernie sanders and aoc, they're smoking something.

i mean, be real here. joe, ask you a question. do you think there is any -- if this party thinks that the face of bernie sanders, alongside him aoc will come close to beating donald trump, they are coming from another planet. you know, we sit here very isolated look at polls and look at this. am i missing something? have i become the grumpy old white man and missing what's going on in this country? >> yes, yes. >> donnie! >> seriously. aoc and bernie sanders beating donald trump? are we kidding? >> so i'm sorry, willie. what were you going to ask? >> say, donnie's not alone. jim messina, of course, ran the re-election campaign in 2012 for barack obama on the show on friday saying that bernie sanders is his opinion, the worst possible nominee against donald trump, of those remaining. >> well, i mean, i certainly would defer to jim messina. i just have to say, though, in the democratic field, if i were -- if i were picking the

two candidates that had the best chance to beat donald trump in wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania, maybe even ohio, joe biden and bernie sanders would be the top of my list, because in politics, and the republican party proved this in 2016, i've always told the story how bobby kennedy, a progressive hero for our time, for all time, bobby kennedy's voters in the primary a lot of them went over to george wallace. it had to do with fighting spirit and bernie sanders seems to have that fighting spirit. so, no. i don't think that bernie would be the absolute worst person to go up against donald trump, and in fact i suspect that caryn, i suspect it just may be possible that donald trump fears bernie sanders more than anybody other than joe biden, because, again,

it makes no sense. it makes no sense to any of us, but -- there were so many reports after 2016 that people in these areas that went for donald trump, that shocked the political pros in washington said, yeah. i voted for trump. probably would have voted for sanders if he'd been the democrat on the ticket. >> yeah. it's funny. really interesting, joe, when you look at polling and look at that first and send choice especially for bernie sanders and joe biden. they kind of, they share that. it goes, you know, back and forth between the two of them. so they actually have some similar, some similar support there outside of that progressive wing. look, i want to say to donnie, the grumpy old man, that -- >> okay, let's go all-in on that. all right? >> hold on a second. let me do it for you. the self-identified grumpy old,

whitemulti-millionaire -- go ahead. >> you said it, joe. i didn't. like you said, donnie, we are truly csiloed. we don't know. a week from today we'll have a better sense when real voters go out there into iowa and give us the data we need. iowa will shape this conversation. iowa will shape how the next couple of weeks will play out, and i think it's just hard to say who is going to be the best candidate. what i will say, though, is that whoever is the nominee has to be able to expand their base. they have to have a diverse coalition. they will not win the nomination, and certainly will not beat donald trump if they do not have a diverse coalition. >> i want to go to jonathan lemire and john heilemann for both of you guys, and i want to

ask you if your opinion is same as ours was last hour that michael bloomberg looking at these polls over the weekend must have had a big smile break across his face, because jonath jonathan lemire and john heilemann, wa whhat is better f michael bloomberg than a late surge in the first two states from either, from either elizabeth warren or bernie sanders? jonathan lemire, you first. >> this is exactly what mayor bloomberg's team wants, and has sort of hoped for. first i'll note that president trump has been tweeting quite a bit about bernie sanders trying to put his thumb on the scare almost in favor of sanders. your point is right, joe, yes, burnley play well in the trio of rust belt states a lot of us this could decide the election.

and donald trump says represent to americans he does not represent americans values. their talking point. michael bloomberg. the game plan. the idea the first four states scrambled with winners or someone like a either bernie sanders or elizabeth warren emerging winner and bloomberg becomes as this sort of moderate choice. if the democratic party sort of panics saying we can't nominate someone that far left, biden looks mortal wounded, bloomberg is the answer with his untold fortunes and if he makes a couple states on super tuesday, john heilemann he becomes someone who's formidable potentially going into a brokered convention. >> yeah. i agree with all that. i think the car crash in the first four states is one scenario for bloomberg. there's nobody who's clear and dominant and in particular joe biden not the clear, dominant front-runn front-runner. one scenario, second scenario, as joe said in first hour and

you just did, which is bernie sanders, now increasingly plausible, he wins. not predicting anything, but today sitting here, bernie sanders winning iowa, winning new hampshire, which remember he won by 22 points in the 2016. now because he's built up strength with hispanic voters a reasonable chance he could win the nevada caucuses. wins three of four and the bloomberg argument becomes two moderates in the party, joe biden's not getting it done and bernie sanders has now raised -- bernie sanders scenario where he won three of the first four contests would raise $150 million in february. and would be really on a fast track to claiming the nomination unless someone could stop him. i think bloomberg at that point would have a good case. joe biden demonstrating he couldn't stop bernie sanders. guys, you want to stop bernie sanders, look to me. that is still a scenario it's hard to imagine mike bloomberg getting to 1,991 delegates and

able to win delegates.scenario, milwaukee, and a fight for the soul of the democratic party in livetime television over the course of nights in july. and still ahead, former mayor pete buttigieg our guest and newly obtained reporting from the alleged april 2018 private dinner with his donors, president trump appears to say that winning the 2016 election would have been tougher if hillary clinton had chosen senator bernie sanders as her running mate. we'll play that sound for you. also, more on kobe bryant's global reach. we'll talk about the late star's impact on fans worldwide. nbc sports mike tirico joins us next on "morning joe." as a struggling actor,

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asand achieved new york city'sed cacleanest air quality in more than 50 years. as a leader in the fight against climate change, he helped shut down over half of the nation's coal plants, then led one of the biggest pollution reduction efforts in history. as president, he intends to reduce emissions by fifty percent within ten years. because if we want to stop climate change, we need to make a change. this is a fight-we can't afford to lose. i'm mike bloomberg and i approve this message.

talk about touching a basketball now, shoot with gianna, so --

>> obviously -- shench could challenge him. when we go out, my best thing, people come up to us, me and gianna, when you going to have a boy, kobe? gianna's looking at them. we need a boy to carry on your leg legacy. she's like, i got this. don't need no boy to do this. >> good parenting. >> oh, my god. it's the greatest thing ever. >> she could play, too. kobe bryant speaking in 2018 about his daughter gianna carrying on his basketball legacy. and joining us, mike tirico, and msnbc anchor stephanie ruhle. good morning to you both. mike, start with you. thanks for being with us. a guy you knew, covered a long time. help put into words for us as we've tried to do the last hour and a half or so why this hit like a cultural bomb yesterday when we read the headline? >> yeah, willie. kobe, just that simple. you say that one word, and

you're not saying, is it kobe smith? kobe johnson? you know exactly who we are talking about, and that's not just with laker fans or nba fans or american sports fans. it's global. this was significant news in spain, in italy, in china. it was big news. considering what's going on there with the coronavirus, this was still something very well reported. there were a run on kobe bryant memorabilia as places that carry it in china giving you a sense how global basketball is compared to our other major professional sports in north america and how unique his impact was. so i think that, the fact this was the start of a second chapter of his life, the fact that for two decades he lived his life, its highs and lows so publicly on the hollywood stage and just how tragic it all was it was a disbelief for all of us when we heard the news yesterday afternoon. all of those things together is

why that story led this conversation in the 6:00 a.m. hour this morning with the bolton story out there and what i said before with china, that gives you impact why kobe was so unique and special. >> mike, thinking about this over the last day or so. the standard he set for himself was an impossible one, and that was to be michael jordan. wasn't just from the outside. that was something he said early in his career as an 18-year-old. i want to be better than michael. he walked like michael jordan, even talked a little bit like michael jordan in interviews. his game modeled after michael jordan. fadeaway jumper and ability to attack the rim the way michael jordan did. he set the bar at michael jor n jordan, we all thought was an impossible bar and be darned if he didn't almost get there. almost as great as michael jordan. >> michael was number 23 and then kobe number 24. two numbers, of course, that one more that one more piece of motivation to go for that jordan legacy and a sixth title something he talked about after

winning the fifth title in 2010. you're right, willie. as kobe bryant was born to joe bryant, an nba player in philadelphia and then kobe went overseas and came back, he used the jordan model on and off the floor as a pattern for his game. if you think of michael jordan, there was a relentless pursuit of greatness, excellence and no moment too big. michael jordan wanted the ball in his hands and could deal with the consequences if he didn't succeed in those moments. and every time you watch kobe up to his very last game when broken down kobe bryant scored 60 points, kobe wanted that moment like michael did. >> i encourage everybody to go to youtube and watch just the last three minutes or something like that. last game, put a team on his back and scored 60 points to win. >> willie, i encourage you to watch that clip again you showed beginning of this segments. >> when i was going. >> that was a father just

talking about his daughter. a sports superstar. people said to him all the time, don't you wish you had a son? he's laughing at that. this father of four saying i don't need a son to carry on my legacy and was more than just a proud dad. her youth coach. the highest-paid career athlete for a team sport. $680 million this man made over 20 years and proudest moment, being a sports dad. more than a sports dad he helped youth sports and specifically women in sports. >> yeah. >> the wnba struggled over the years to gain popularity. kobe bryant was a vocal and visual supporter. at wnba games, at uconn games and supported youth sports here with a mamba academy and overseas. mike mentioned it. he understood the business of sport. he started the kobe bryant china fund way back in 2009 to support education in youth sports there, because they knew how big that market was. mike said he played overseas.

he lived overseas. at 6 years old his father playing professionally in italy when kobe learned italian and spanish and knew under his father's leadership he could build his name in china his jersey was the number one seller for five years. as popular as michael jordan and lebron james. lebron on saturday night had written, mamba for life, of course, kobe the nickname, on the side of his sneaker. there's 102 nba players currently wearing kobe's sneakers. >> stephanie, follow-up on the idea of kobe embracing and masters the gays of back. almost went very differently. an arrest for a sexual assault charge in colorado followed with bad tab bloids anloids and had act. how did he pull that off and his second step going to be? >> perseverance. with nike since 2004.

14 different shoes with them and one of the first nba players to go to china, tour china. had his own reality tv show sponsored by nike back in 2010. fans there love him. talk about people in philadelphia or l.a. people in china are mourning. yao ming put out a statement. you saw on china tv yesterday them making this anoint. >> i was struck watching nba yesterday. so moved. trae young, young all-star from the atlantic atlantic hawks in tears before and after the game talking the way mike many jordan helped guide him. the play it will play out rules of the road. i said earlier on the pro bowl, they pulled deshaun watson aside. quarterback for houston texans said kobe called me help immediate because he knew i had a road ahead of me. his impact reached farther than most people understood? >> i heard you mention that last

hour and you're exactly right to point out the uniqueness. kobe transcended across the nba to other sports to other athletes in other sports. whether it was advice or an admiration text he would send when they had a big moment. stephanie just talked about kobe's love of women's basketball, the wnba. there's a terrific player at university of oregon who's the best collegiate player, sabrina who became friends with kobe and they had been trading more than texts. in conversations and she said i do everything now for him. he has inspired me. so that breath of taking that mentality that he built and knowing that so many people watched him and were inspired to be great because they saw what he put into greatness. he's been now able to find an outlet for that, was able to find an outlet for that, sadly, by reaching out and sharing advice, sharing an encouraging

word. very rare in pro sports we see somebody do that to the length and extent he that. >> mike tirico, great to have you with us this morning, as i said. you know him and covered him so closely. a terrible tragedy for him, for his family, for his beautiful daughter and the other families onboard that helicopter, and for the country. mike, thank you very much. stephanie ruhle, thank you for your perspective as well. mika? coming up, 2020 democrats have just one week until iowa voters cast their primary ballots. presidential candidate, former massachusetts governor deval patrick joins the conversation ahead on "morning joe." and more with john heilemann in iowa. an interesting back and forth between the sanders and biden campaigns over a controversial endorsement that sanders recently received. we'll be right back. - [spokeswoman] meet the ninja foodi pressure cooker,

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hey, john heilemann, interesting back and forth between joe biden and bernie sanders involving the endor endorsement of a podcast host

known to dip into conspiracy theories and worse on his podcast? >> yeah. so joe roggin who has one of the most popular podcasts in the country, a new version of the old howard stern kind of model, gave a semiendorsement to sanders. sanders touted that endorsement and the left, people who are, concerned about issues related to race, to gender issues in particular transgender issues got upset at sanders because roggin said things, controversial things, about the transgender community. the left is upset about sanders and the roggin endorsement and joe biden then has weighed in with a subtweet as the kids say where he says over the weekend, came out and said transgender issues are the defining civil rights issue of our team, seen as a veil. didn't mention sanders but seen as a veiled shot at sanders over

this roggin thing where biden taking a rare opportunity he could have to be more in line with the left than sanders is. telling you how intense the fight is getting. one side, bernie sanders trying to take away some of bidens core support among older democrats attacking biden on social security. what what that's all about, eating into biden's support of seniors and now biden taking advantage of a slipup on sanders part alienating the young woke left and biden encroaching or sanders' turf there. and coming up, most democrat candidates descend on iowa, former govern deval patrick is back east. the white house contender in lockstep with new hampshire. he joins the conversation next on "morning joe." we'll be right back. - [spokeswoman] meet the ninja foodi pressure cooker,

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joining us now, democratic presidential candidate former governor deval patrick of massachusetts. welcome back to the show. great to you have this morning. >> good morning. good morning. great to be with you. >> good morning, good morning. great to have you. so explain to us the strategy moving forward, the focus on new hampshire and how you plan to break through? >> well, we're spending probably more time in new hampshire. i personally and my wife as well in new hampshire and in south carolina than any other candidate, including all candidates who have been in quite a bit longer, because i think direct voter contact, listening to people, talking about the results we've delivered versus the plans that others have and that experience matters is making a difference. we're building fast. i'm excited about that. we're about to launch a bus tour later this week in new hampshire over the next week or so up until i think the 6th, and we're in all parts of the state

engaging democrats and independents and republicans alike, which is frankly the way i've lived my political and business life. >> so let me ask you the question that roger mudd was asked of another massachusetts politician. we'll see how you do with it. why exactly are you running for president of the united states? >> i'm running because i believe that we need not just plans but results. we need a record of delivering on our promises and doing so by bridging differences. this is a deeply divided country. as you know. as you and your colleagues have commented upon and as many, many people feel, but it doesn't have to be that way. the sufferingish the anxiety, frustration and even the anger that people are feeling in small towns and rural communities is exactly what i remember experiencing growing up on the south side of chicago and you see in many urban neighborhoods

today. rather than using that as an opportunity to divide us for political gain, as our current president has, we can use that and should as an opportunity to bring ourselves together and to lift ourselves unto a higher plain. i think people are hungry for that and i have lived my whole life as a bridge between differences and getting results as a result. >> governor patrick, willie geist. good to see you this morning. >> hey, willie. >> look at polling, nothing you don't know, in the state of new hampshire, 1% or less, where you focus most of your time and energy. what changes between now and ten days from now, when there's voting in new hampshire to give you a little boost and what are a audience should know? >> stop relying on a tool that fails us again and again.

we keep turning back to that tool. polls. this is too important an election to rely on applicative tools. give the voters a chance. i am voters are undecided, they're very, very open to the case i am making. they're listening hard, they're engaging, and we're building fast every day. and because i am present in new hampshire, differently than the other candidates because i'm not just trying to build my relationship with voters through 30 second ads in the last few weeks of the campaign, folks are paying attention and are engaging and i appreciate that. i have shaken hundreds of thousands of hands in the course of my public life. i've never, ever met anybody that actually participated in a political poll, so i'm not relying on that. i rely on engagement with national voters. >> john has a question from iowa. >> hi, john. >> good to hear from you.

we have been talking about senator sanders who is performing very strong close here in iowa. you will recall he won the state of new hampshire by 22 points against your friend hillary clinton in 2016, so i want to ask you, you know, what's the strategy if new hampshire is key to your future in the race, what's the contrast between you and bernie sanders that you want new hampshire voters to understand because there's a reasonable chance they're going to look at bernie sanders coming out of iowa with a head of steam, coming to a state where he performed well in the past. >> senator sanders contributed a lot to the political conversation in this cycle and the last. he's got a lot of plans. the difference between him and me and frankly many of the other candidates and me is that he has plans and i have results. we have actually expanded health care to 99% of the residents here in massachusetts. no other state can touch that, even today. we have a nation leading model

on addressing climate change. that's real, it is not hypothetical, it is real. we delivered results and created a whole clean tech economy that helped us come out of recession faster than most other states. criminal justice reform, job creation. the difference between me and many of the other candidates is in addition to those results, they've come about because we keep rejecting false choices. look, i am a proud democrat. i don't think you have to hate republicans to be a good democrat, i don't think you have to hate business to be a social justice warrior, i don't think you have to hate police to believe black lives matter. we do this in politics, all of these competing slogans. that's not what we need. we need to get down to the business of delivering. that's the difference between me and senator sanders and most of the other candidates in the race. >> donny deutsche, nice to chat with you. two numbers in the trump campaign, one, 11 points underwater under favor rablt where jimmy carter was, 56%

think the economy is being handled well. how do you position against that with 3% unemployment, record stock market, how did you tell the american people no, the economy is not that good? >> you know, the economy is great if you're an investor in stocks. if that's all or most of what you do. that credit belongs to whoever is in the oval office at the moment. but the truth is that the rosie, cheery economic indicators don't tell the whole story. unemployment is low, donny, as long as you count both or all three, minimum wage job so many have just to survive. inflation is low. as long as you look the other way from the cost of education or housing or health care, right, the very things that stabilize people, enable them to move to a path of economic mobility. the truth is that the poor have been stuck in poverty a long time. today, the middle class are a

paycheck or two away from being poor and deeply anxious about it. and the statistics don't capture that. so the question that willie was asking earlier, what i hear in new hampshire is precisely that, cheery numbers just don't describe their lived experience. and we have to pay attention to that and address that. our opportunity agenda is precisely about that. >> deval patrick, thank you so much for coming back on the show. see you soon. still ahead. we talk to another democratic candidate when pete buttigieg joins the conversation. new revelations from john bolton's upcoming book raising the stakes for president trump's impeachment. "new york times" michael schmidt joins us with brand new reporting. before we go to break, we've had staunts success rolling outcome back arrears, a book for woman in 40s, 50s and beyond.

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somebody they love to latch onto. you have to be strong individuals, look inside themselves, there are so many of them in today's society. i tell them dig deep inside, be patient and strong, hit the books, work hard, continue to dream. that's another thing i think what's wrong with big society, people try to shoot down dreams. if you have a goal, something to accomplish, they put limits on us, tell us what we can and can't do. >> that was a young kobe bryant alongside tim russert on "meet the press" in 1998. good morning. welcome to "morning joe." it is monday, january 27th, along with joe, willie and me, we have white house reporter jonathan lemire. donny deutsche is with us, host of politics nation, president of national action network, ref

recommended al sharpton. neither president trump nor john bolton is testified to testify at the senate impeachment trial, yet we're hearing directly from both. first the president who was recorded speaking to donors at a private dinner in 2018, among those at the table, these two guys. >> what conversations have you had with lev parnas and igor fruman? >> i don't know those gentlemen. >> clearly that was not true. what was the president's directive when it came to american diplomat marie yovanovitch, in his words, quote, take her out. then there's john bolton whose new book confirms the centerpiece of the impeachment, it was trump that tied ukraine aid to investigations into democrats, including the bidens. will the former national security adviser be called up to the capital to say the same under oath? bolton also dishes on mike pompeo who according to the book

privately admitted that rudy giuliani's claims about ukraine were bogus. the secretary of state, however, was a bit preoccupied over the weekend, lashing out at an npr reporter over her questions about the administration's policies. npr stands by its journalism, while president trump seems to hint at pulling the broadcast funding. the iowa caucuses are a week away from today, and the weekend saw a ton of developments in the race. new polls, new endorsements all just ahead. to complete your information overload, in a grammy ceremony dedicated to kobe bryant, billy eye lish had a major night, winning five major categories. we'll get to all of that as well. an incredible morning of news. >> really is, mika. incredible morning of news, coming out of the white house, leaked transcripts of books, leaked audiotapes, so much more,

emails that prove the secretary of state bullied and lied to an npr reporter. the president's own supporters on capitol hill scrambling, trying to figure out how to move forward now that the john bolton bombshell has absolutely shaken washington. but willie, we have to start with the tragedy out of california, out of southern california yesterday. it's impossible to overstate what kobe bryant meant to basketball. we saw from tributes coming out, even reporters and fans on twitter, what he meant to an entire generation. >> yeah. i was watching the clip talking to tim russert 20 years ago, i can't believe it. it will take awhile to make sense that kobe bryant was killed in a helicopter crash. all you had to do is watch the reaction of players 19 to 39 in

the nba, people that played with him, some older players, there were games in the nba yesterday, sitting on the bench in tears during games, younger guys in tears who look up to him, worshipped him, a guy like trey young, young all-star from the atlanta hawks who talked after the game about kobe being a mentor to him, a guy on a poster on his wall, would give him a phone call, help him through life, how to navigate. it is a stunning gut punch on so many levels, mainly because he was with his daughter on a human level, on a family level, a young girl, 13-year-old, gigi as she was known, gianna, they were traveling to a basketball game. he was with his daughter, took great pride in teaching her the game. she loved the game of basketball. there's a clip that was circulating again yesterday that i think we have from about a month ago, the two of them sitting court side at an nba game. there's kobe telling gigi how to

get better, breaking down the plays. here's what you do. and to watch him grow from the 18-year-old that came into the nba to become that man, that father that we see right there, it is too much to bear. but let's get people caught up on what happened, the world is reacting to the death of kobe bryant killed in a los angeles area helicopter crash. the 41-year-old superstar was with his 13-year-old daughter gianna when the private chopper went down. espn reports they were believed to be on the way to a travel basketball game. according to police, a call for a fire went out before 10:00 a.m. authorities say seven others on board, including the pilot, were also killed in the crash. bryant lived south of los angeles in orange county, often used his own helicopter to avoid southern california traffic. as a player, he traveled to practices and games by helicopter, a practice he continued after he retired. bryant was of course one of the

most influential basketball players of the late 1990s, early 2000s, racking up huge scoring titles, playing elite defense over 20 seasons with the los angeles lakers that ended in 2016. a five-time nba champion, bryant named most valuable player in four of 15 all-star games. he was the mvp in 2008 and twice mvp of the nba finals. saturday, he tweeted congratulations to lebron james after lebron surpassed him as number three on the nba all time scoring list. he is survived by his wife vanessa, three other daughters. bring in mike lupika that covered kobe. your reaction to the news, looked at phones from one source and said my god, please let this not be true. sadly, it was. >> yeah, willie. my youngest son called me in the

middle of the afternoon, said dad, i think kobe bryant died in a helicopter cash, then you're scrambling on television, through social media to find out if it is true, then you find it is true. willie, you spoke to it now really well. i mean, you respond to this as a sports fan. you respond to this as somebody who watched him grow up, who was famous from the time he was a teenager. i am relating to this as a columnist, but you can't avoid that he was with his daughter, the children died this time. more than anything else, i am responding to this as a parent, and the most heartbreaking pictures i saw last night were with him and gigi, standing at practice just the other day. here's what i have been thinking about this. these athletes, these celebrities, he was as famous a star as we have had in american

sports, they lead the most public, public lives that have ever been lived in this country, so everybody felt like they knew kobe bryant. that's why so many people are treating this like a death in the family. >> let me ask you, mike, and willie as well, what made kobe so special. i actually went to school on kobe bryantology, joey scarborough would take me to school, every day it seemed during nba season, he had another story about kobe, whether it was encouraging probably the 12th best player on the lakers to give his all, and how he made everybody around him, and last night we were talking, he said bluntly, unlike michael juror dan, kobe bryant looked outward to teammates and made everybody around him better, even after he left the nba, he picked up the phone,

called players having a tough time. there was a selfless nness he h on and off the court. is that what made him so special? what made, i'll say this, a whole generation of people like my oldest son and mika's oldest daughter feel like they lost a close friend when kobe bryant died yesterday. >> joe, there's been this extraordinary progression over the last 35, 40 years. first michael came along. he was like the main event for me. i saw the whole show. then michael was followed by kobe. and we never thought we would see anybody quite like michael juror dan. he came as close as he could be. he looked up to michael. then who looked up to him? lebron james. we have all seen the photos now of lebron getting off the team

plane, being shattered. i have been saying this, i wrote this today in my column in daily news, there's guys you know by one name, michael, kobe, lebron, tiger. i was watching the golf tournament, tiger came off the course, and joe lecava broke the news what happened. tiger couldn't understand what people were referencing kobe as he walked around the golf course yesterday. >> he was transcendent in that if you have the pro bowl on yesterday, there were nfl players choked up during the all-star game. it made you stop and think to your question, joe, what was different. what was it about kobe, he wasn't just a great basketball player, we had a lot of those, there was something else about him. i think deshaun watson, great young houston texans quarterback when he was interviewed said i met kobe, he called me, talked me through hard times. wow. kobe bryant, former lakers star is calling deshaun watson,

quarterback of the texans, viewed himself as a wise man, not just of sports, somebody to help guide young guys. he went through it as he said, when he was 18 years old, was as famous as you could be. the high school to the pros was new then, kevin garnett did it the year before, but an 18-year-old at his position going to the nba, people had questions whether or not he could do it, struggled the first year, became an all-star the next year. that killer instinct goes to the question that michael has, that tom brady has, that tiger has, that he just had to win, was going to do whatever it took to win. i agree with lup ka, i grew up watching michael jordan. >> we knew john bolton was willing to testify, we didn't know what he might say. now we do. "new york times" broke that

story. we'll talk to the reporter behind it straight ahead. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. from z ching "morning joe." we'll be right back. from z - [spokeswoman] meet the ninja foodi pressure cooker, the best of pressure cooking and air frying now in one pot, and with tendercrisp technology, you can cook foods that are crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside. the ninja foodi pressure cooker, the pressure cooker that crisps.

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switch now and get a $100 prepaid card when you add comcast business securityedge. call today. comcast business. beyond fast. welcome back to "morning joe." we turn to week two of president trump's impeachment trial and new revelations from former national security adviser john bolton's upcoming book that will add spaid ammunition. he said he wanted to continue freezing critical military aid to ukraine until government officials there helped with investigations targeting joe biden, his son hunter, and other democrats. the times says this is all

according to an unpublished manuscript. nbc news hasn't seen a copy of the manuscript or verified the report which cited multiple sources familiar with bolton's account. according to the paper, bolton writes how the ukraine affair unfolded over several months until he departed the white house last september. the times notes that bolton not only describe's president trump's private disparagement of ukraine but also new details about senior cabinet officials that tried to publicly side step any involvement. for example, secretary of state mike pompeo acknowledged privately there was no basis to claims by president trump's lawyer, rudy giuliani, that the ambassador to ukraine, marie yovanovitch, was corrupt. bolton claims he raised concerns about giuliani with attorney general william barr, following the president's july 25th phone call with the leader of ukraine, and bolton writes acting white

house chief of staff mick mulvaney was present for at least one phone call where trump and giuliani discussed ambassador yovanovitch despite mulvaney telling associates he would always step away when the president spoke to his lawyer. bolton's attorneys blame the white house for disclosure of the book's contents. one of bolton's aides say the ambassador sent a draft to the white house for review by the national security council. she said bolton has not passed that manuscript to anyone else for review, period. president trump is denying those new bolton revelations outlined by "new york times." he tweeted in part i never told john bolton that the aid to ukraine was tied to investigations into democrats, including the bidens. in fact, he never complained about this at the time of his very public termination. if john bolton said this, it was only to sell a book. let's bring in the "new york times" reporter that broke the

story, national security analyst michael schmidt. first of all, can you explain what we know exactly about the release of this, parts of the manuscript, who might have released it and why? >> i can't get into how we found out about the contents that are in it, but look, this is something that answers the question of what bolton would testify to. over the past several weeks and months, there's a sense, and bolton's lawyer said it to congress, then bolton came out, said he was willing to testify, that bolton had a story to tell, but it wasn't clear what the story was. what was he actually going to say. how is he going to illuminate the situation. what our reporting showed is that it takes on the central defense of the trump impeachment. the president's lawyers have repeatedly said there was no tie between the military aid and the investigations that the

president sought. here you have the former national security adviser with information that takes on that contention, the central contention of impeachment. >> you know, willie, john bolton's manuscript tells us what the president knows and when the president knew it, and it also explains to anybody that reads it that it was the president of the united states who was wanting the conspiracy to extort ukraine in exchange for dirt on his domestic political rival. this is open and shut game over for the president as far as the facts go. >> and this is what the white house was worried about, the white house by the way had a copy of the manuscript, the attorneys, going through the classification review, they were aware it was out there. as you say, it lays out clearly, brings into daylight the question again to the united states senate, you really aren't going to have witnesses now that you have john bolton out publicly saying what he says

happened, the national security adviser, this is not some fringe player, this is the man at the center of national security saying here's exactly what happened, yes, it happened the way you suspected it happened, and they're not going to sit and have him testify? i don't know how you hold that position at this point. michael, what have you heard from the white house since about the classification review, how long they had the manuscript, what they've known since they had it in their hands the last few weeks. >> so bolton's lawyer, chuck cooper, put out the letter he sent to the white house on december 30th, that included the manuscript. they've had the manuscript since then. the white house has not said anything about the review process. they said very little. the only thing we heard yesterday was a late night tweet from the president several hours passing between when we went to the white house, when the story was published, when trump eventually came out. some interesting sort of quiet we were trying to figure out

what was going on, what was taking the white house so long to respond. interesting thing for the white house may be able to throw up road blocks for publication of the book. it is a review process to determine whether there's classified information. bolton has a publication date, a page on amazon going live yesterday that shows it is for the middle of march. if you're putting out a book by middle of march, you probably need to be done with it around this time, given the difficulties of publishing a book. it is certainly a very short window that he has. so will the white house delay that classification review, will it carry on longer, will that get in the way of the actual book. we're not even talking about the testimony. coming up on "morning joe," what's behind bernie's last minute surge. steve the rage kornacki, he is so mad. standing by to break it down. "morning joe" back in a moment. n "morning joe" back in a moment - [spokeswoman] meet the ninja foodi pressure cooker,

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i do not believe, i simply do not believe the same old same

old politics is going to generate the excitement to create that turnout. you can't generate excitement when you're busy going to new york raising large sums of money from millionaires and billionaires. people want change. and i think that what our campaign is about is the ability to speak to working people, many of them having become disillusioned with status quo politics, people that work longer hours for lower wages are tired of the political establishment and want a government that stands up for them and not just the 1%. we can talk to those people. >> bernie sanders campaigning in iowa over the weekend with the iowa caucuses just one week

away. in the cbs news yougov poll, standards is tied for first with joe biden. pete buttigieg in third with 22, senator warren with 15, and klobuchar with 7. in "new york times," sanders is up six points from october to take a lead with 25%, buttigieg in second with 18%, statistically tied with biden, and warren with 17 and 15% respectively. klobuchar in fifth with 8%. interesting. joining us, national political correspondent and author of "the read and the blue" steve kornacki. >> steve, we are finally at the moment as the patriots on the

hill, you can see the whites of the eye. you see the polls, iowa is upon us. nobody can tuck them away, say the polls don't matter. it matters. we are within ten days. you have bernie sanders certainly surging in the "new york times" poll, joe biden, a bit of a surge of his own in the other poll. take the two polls and all of the others that you're looking at now and give us a state of the race one week out. >> it is funny, last couple months we have been here talking about iowa saying gee, there aren't that many polls, now there are too many polls out there. what does it look like for sanders, looks like sanders has had a good couple of weeks, good couple of months since a heart attack in october. biden, a bit of a wildcard, the numbers vary so much from poll to poll with him. one of the big differences when you look inside the numbers of

the polls, it has to do with age. you can look at the youngest group of voters starting 18 years old, sanders is generally blowing away the competition. just his support slowly but steadily drops the older you get. by the time you get to 65 plus, sanders is nowhere near the lead. the opposite for joe biden. younger you get, when you start at 18 years old, biden getting blown out. older you get, you get to 65 plus, that's where biden's sweet spot is, a mirror image, opposites of each other, biden and sanders in terms of support. one of the questions with the iowa caucus, such a cliché to say it is all about the turnout, who shows up to vote, but the caucus is being different from a primary, having to commit to a couple hours at a public meeting, publicly declaring a preference, you tend to see turnout lower in caucus than primary, a different more

specific type of voters turning out in caucuses. expectation that the caucus number will be higher this year than ever before. there's a question whether that gives sanders a leg up, and you look at the iowa polls, a couple new ones out of new hampshire, one had sanders up double digits. i have been talking about this for months, possibility for him or anyone putting together what's been a powerful combination in democratic primary politics through the years, the 1, 2 punch, win iowa, roll to new hampshire, come out 2-0. four candidates have done that the past half century, all four went on to win the nomination. coming up on "morning joe," so excited. "hardball's" chris matthews. >> no way. he is up next? >> first, presidential candidate pete buttigieg joins the conversation. >> that's big too. >> we love him. "morning joe" back in a moment.

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it is 35 past the hour. welcome back to "morning joe," along with willie, joe and me, joining us now, democratic presidential candidate, former mayor pete buttigieg of south bend, indiana. great to have you back on the show on this monday morning. >> good to be with you. thanks for having me. >> mayor pete, i wonder, i will start with a question about the fund-raising email i am looking at that came from your campaign, from your deputy campaign manager, which says a lot of things, but also this. bernie sanders performs the worst against president trump compared to all major candidates. i guess my question to you is how so? >> well, we've seen polling data

come back showing that i would be the best candidate to take on donald trump, and i think one of the things many voters i have encountered on the trail have in common. by the way, not just true blue democrats, but independents and republicans sick of the president. one thing in common the importance f defeating the president. it is not just ideology, it is a lot of things. what we know for sure, we are not going to beat donald trump by recycling the same political mind-set that brought us to this point, what i am offering is something completely different and i am insisting what it takes to govern is also what it is going to take to win. i am the best candidate to turn the page, move us into a different future. that's such a priority right now, knowing that this is our one shot, our only shot to defeat this president. >> mayor buttigieg, talking about polling that has a tight

cluster from poll to poll, between sanders, biden, you, elizabeth warren there too. it could be any four of you, amy klobuchar had one good poll yesterday as well. what's the separation point for you. you have been in iowa a lot, talked to people, been to vfw halls. what will separate you, a young mayor from south bend, indiana from senator sanders or someone established as former vice president of the united states? >> well, i think again it is the opportunity to turn the page and it is the imperative to win. remember, in the last half century every time the democratic party captured the white house, certain things have been true about the nominee, without exception. it has been somebody who is new on the national scene, hasn't run for president before, does not have an office in washington or hasn't had it for very long, is opening the door to a new generation of leadership. that's been true 100% of the time when we have won. we need to think about that to be sure we defeat donald trump.

and the great thing about that, that means turning the page, moving to the future for the purpose of governing is not only compatible with winning, it is the best strategy. my job over the next week is to get that message out, so we're going to continue having those encounters with voters, we're on the air waves, organizers, volunteers are pounding the ground. i also very much need a fund-raising surge to be sure we can power through. if somebody is interested or supportive of that vision and wants to make sure we win, counting on them to go to pete for america.com and chip in. >> mayor pete, donny deutsche. great to talk to you again. we are talking backdrop against the impeachment, looks like he will be acquitted. how do you know knowing that's not kitchen table issues for voters, yet at the same time we have a corrupt administration who will get away almost with murder but certainly with abusive behavior. how do you thread the needle, not walk from it, not overplay

it and make it relevant to voters? >> i rarely get questions about the impeachment process. i don't think it is because people don't care, i think because of the sense created by the senate gop it is a foregone conclusion, almost designed to make us feel disempowered. it is disspiriting to see this is not going to be a trial with witnesses or evidence, at least if the senators get their way, and they seem to be sending a message to us that we have to accept it. the good news is we can take that very frustration of watching that process and turn it into a kind of energy on the ground because the thing about being alive in 2020 and eligible to vote means at the end of the day we have a say on this. no matter what happens on the floor of the senate, beginning with the iowa caucus, this is a chance to send a message that that won't be tolerated, that it is not okay to lie or cheat or to involve a foreign country in

your domestic political purposes, and that's something that most americans absolutely get. it is just one of the many cases where something can have the majority of the american people and not be reflected in the american senate. >> mayor pete, we had a discussion last hour about polls, why iowa voters and new hampshire voters might be breaking one way or another. somebody said as we get closer to polling dates that people may look at you and say he is too young, too inexperienced, he doesn't have what it takes to be president of the united states. what do you say to those people that right now are looking at the candidates, still up in the air, look at you and say maybe this is a guy in 2024, or 2028, but not now, he is just not ready. >> the things i'm talking about can't wait four years or 8

years. the next president faces challenges different from anything we faced in past years or decades. not only do we have the kind of conventional security threats that we have been faced with, kind of things i worked on in the military, global health security challenges, climate security challenges. here at home, dealing with impact of technology on our democracy as well as on our d economy. we have to deal with what's on us that's changing the nature of politics, has thrown us into a disarray in the political and societal live in the united states, and can't wait. we have to get on top of this quickly. my campaign is a view to the future, the ability to turn the page, deal with those things, and at risk of repeating myself until i am blue in the face, that's the best way to win against a president the likes of which we have not seen in my lifetime. >> mayor buttigieg, jonathan

lemire. there has been talk about your struggles to get african-american support. another place you're trailing fellow candidates for the nomination is latino voters. in nevada, polling 8% among hispanics, joe biden is 18, bernie sanders is 21. that's going to be a significant portion of the voting turnout there of the first four. how are you planning to address that? >> one of the thing we do he is engage them, talk about economic empowerment, immigration reform, issues we're hearing about in an electorate that's not a monolith. differences of fellow citizens, puerto rico, experiencing on the island second class citizenship and challenges on the main land are radically different from mixed status families, may have mexican heritage, those fleeing

repression in venezuela. we need to make sure we're connecting with people based on where they are, and what we have to offer, but what everybody has in common is the desire for the kind of empowerment and better future that my campaign and vision for the presidency is going to offer. let me say this, too. something i noticed is consistent with latino voters and black voters i talk to, whether across the south or here in the midwest, and really everyone looking at the process is the overriding imperative of making sure we defeat donald trump. we can all go out and talk about how we can win an election, first chance to prove it and demonstrate it is in the caucuses in iowa. we know the momentum will help us in south carolina and beyond. >> hey, mayor pete. you said back in october that

voters should decide trump's fate, not congress. why have you changed your mind? what changed your mind on that? >> i don't remember saying those words. i will say it has been clear a long time this president deserves to be impeached. it is also very clear this senate is sending every signal that they're not going to do their job. i guess what i would say, if the senate is not doing its job, it falls to the american people. we have a chance to send the message, no matter what they do. look, there's very unserious attitude among the senate gop when it comes to that process, but we don't have to take it sitting down. it is 2020. this is the year it is up to us. the question is are we ready to send that message. >> former mayor pete buttigieg, it is always great to have you on the show. we're counting down to iowa. i guess we'll see you there. >> good luck. >> sounds good, see you soon. up next, "hardball's" chris

matthews joins us. >> my favorite show. some people say i love the beatles, you say i love chris matthews at 7:00 each night. >> 7:00 eastern. be right back. >> 7:00 eastern. be right back. i remember thinking about things i did and wondering if that was the last time i was going to do that thing. i thought i'm not letting anything take me away from my family that loves me and needs me without a fight. when i came to cancer treatment centers of america, it felt so different from any other hospital we'd ever been to. whether it be spiritual, physical, emotional, they take it all into consideration

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so this morning, we have been debating whether a bernie sanders nomination would mean for the democrats chances against trump. it may make president trump nervous. here's a portion from that newly obtained recording obtained by nbc news from the alleged april 2018 private dinner with his donors. >> you know, i got 20% of bernie vote, people don't realize that because of trade, he is a big trade guy, you know, he basically says we're getting screwed on trade, and he is right, and i'm worse than he is, and we can do something about it, i don't know if he could

have, but had she picked bernie sanders, it would have been tougher. >> he can be seen in early parts of the video, neither he nor the white house disputed that the recording is authentic. joining us, host of msnbc's "hardball," chris matthews. he has a new podcast premiering today that we're going to tell you about in a moment. joe, more chris. >> there's never enough chris matthews in the day. that's what you always say. now we'll have it. chris, bernie sanders, he is a fascinating guy, a fascinating politician. we have been talking about him this morning. a lot of times people don't vote their ideology. donald trump in that tape, you can tell said i didn't want them to pick bernie, trump didn't want to run against bernie in '16, wanted to run against hillary. you know pennsylvania, you know

that youngstown voter, that scranton, pennsylvania voter. does bernie relate to voters in a way others in the democratic field may not? >> i don't think so, but i don't know. i think people that are desperate to get rid of trump will reach for any life raft thrown at them. i don't know. i'll just say i don't know about that one. i think they respond to biden and a good running mate. might go for some of the other candidates. my question is like the question polsters ask, who cares about people like you. my question is more direct. suppose you're on the road hurt, you fainted, whatever happened, which of the candidates would stop their car and get out and help you. which of them. can yourself that question. you have your candidate, i think. i'm not sure about all of them. i think biden wins that easily,

elizabeth maybe, i don't think bernie wins it, do you honestly? i'm not sure. >> well -- >> the questions cut to the gut, but they are the question you have to ask about. will this person help me when i need them because the rest is bs. it is all speech writing. >> so i may say yeah, i think bernie would help me. >> joe, you're covering yourself. >> thank you so much. thank you. but i do understand that empathy. i remember after eight years of bill clinton somebody telling me the next election is always a contrast. after eight years of george w. bush, what a contrast with obama. after eight years of obama, what a contrast getting donald trump. i'm thinking after four years, you may be onto something here, it may not be about let's find the tough guy, it may be let's

find the guy who really cares about us. and if that's the case, i think joe biden is the big winner. >> i also think there's something missing in this campaign, joe, mika. we all love the contest, i love it. i don't have any problem with the horse race, it is high stakes, health care, war and peace. but it is a contest. i haven't seen any responsibility nate from any of the candidates, just once say something that surprises us, something like ronald reagan, won't use my opponents's immaturity and youth against me. or i paid for that microphone. something that jumps out and said damn it, i am alive, the lights are on, somebody is home. instead, everybody, buttigieg was just on, everybody is on automatic pilot. it is the same old thing, written by staff. you know that. there's no i am here, listen to me. i just saw something. and i think we used to get it

from the great candidates. i remember george w. bush, when al gore walked up in the debate, said something about dingell norwood, some we are crapola, and george bush, it was like up and down, he had him. every guy in the world said that's a normal guy. and that guy is a geek. a lot of other issues. normal versus geek is powerful stuff. i think that's how george w, with all his flaws and lack of preparedness to be president to say the least, took four years to realize he was president and it wasn't dick cheney. took him four years to learn that. it is interesting that responsibility na >> chris, how is joe biden

doing. >> he is ahead in iowa. i thought bernie was spiking there. bernie had the war issue, came out of that backdrop, politics is about the topic, not the argument, the topic. for awhile it was a rant of foreign policy. during that, people said bernie was right about iraq, vietnam, joe biden was wrong as hell about iraq, and won't explain why he was wrong. so bernie spiked during that, he had some music, spirit. i am against this stupid war that even w realized was a stupid war, even w realized it in four years. and biden was wrong. and bernie spiked. now we're going back to the question, who is going to get rid of trump, which is the critical question, i think. >> switching gears, the other headline of the day is revelation of "new york times" about john bolton. >> why not subpoena the manuscript right now. get the house back in session,

nancy pelosi call it into session, issue a house wide subpoena, get that and throw the manuscript in the face of the republicans. not sure it will change their minds. >> do you think this is enough to move republicans to vote for witnesses? >> i think you could have a video of trump ordering holdup, unless they give us the dirt. we came back like a british guy overseas, if i speak louder, locals will understand me, no, they don't. republicans don't want to hear it. don't argue with someone whose job don't matter to be convinced. t matter to be convinced. >> i want to go back to the race a second. talked about it last hour. i believe whether bernie comes out strong or just a mixed bag that bloomberg is waiting there. the only way he is not doing it

if biden sweeps. >> all new york people are obsessed with bernie like hillary. i don't know if that's the media capital world talking. >> tell you what's talking, mumt ee billions of dollars. i was up there, saw an operation. >> do you see numbers moving? >> he is 10%. guy who has not been in any of this. let me finish a second. there's a self fulfilling prophesy of media numbers trump had with unearned media that all of a sudden they were covering him four hours a day, his numbers went up. when you have that in the other states, not the first four states, you start to see numbers tick. then they're like look at the numbers. >> talk about california. jerry brown knows california told me you can buy up numbers. if you have enough money to go to l.a. market that covers cable and everything, three-quarters of the state, one market, buy up your numbers. get bloomberg out there against

bernie, california democrat party is left, you get a battle between hard left leaning primary vote, bloomberg coming in and beating him, yes, that's it. that's when it happens. >> all right. chris, i want to hear about the new podcast entitled "so you want to be president" with chris matthews. you breakdown the six most important lessons learned from presidential campaigns that win. across six episodes, chris talks with campaign veterans that had front row seats to presidential history, explain why these lessons matter, how they separated winners from losers. first two episodes are available now. listen and subscribe for free, wherever you get podcasts. chris, i know why this will be amazing and podcasts will be amazing, because you love this stuff. >> i talk slower in the podcast. >> you do? >> yeah. jenny woodruff, and the guy that

developed the carter campaign and put iowa on the map, first lesson, win iowa. the only ones that didn't win were local people. if you're a national candidate and win in iowa, look out for that person, they can win, probably will win. >> i can't imagine you talking slow. >> always great to have you on. can't wait for the podcast. let me say, i think bernie would stop to help us on the side of the road. thank al gore for years of committed service. >> covering all the bases. >> thank you, mr. president. >> special coverage at 11:00, starting with chris matthews. one last thing. it was a historic evening for billie eilish. won five grammy awards.

what's her brother thinking. >> he told her this was going to happen. >> the 18-year-old is the second artist in grammy history, first woman to take home album, record, and song of the year as well as best new artist on a single night. what's her mom thinking. >> you have to see james cordon in car pool karaoke. goes to her house. still lives in her childhood home. her brother is next door. her brother said i'm going to make you the biggest pop star in the world, i believe in you, and it happened last night. what an extraordinary night. jonathan lemire, your song? >> joe, my take away is -- >> what's your favorite lizzo song. >> i am more aware of her

catalog. but the 2021 grammy awards, is that the one where independent council of funk finally gets its due? >> let's not get into the predictions. >> we'll wrap that up. thanks. >> that was a desperate moment for him. he doesn't know a single song. >> he had nothing. that does it for us. chuck todd picks up special coverage of the impeachment trial of president trump right now. today, the white house ramps up its defense of the president. >> the evidence is actually overwhelming that the president did nothing wrong. >> with a major showdown booming over witness testimony. >> if they're successful in depriving the country of a fair trial, there's no exoneration. >> it is a pivotal moment in the impeachment trial of donald trump. and good morning. i am chuck todd. william to msnbc special