it will hit with unequal force. our interest is for american elections to be decided by americans. one side is attached to facts in the way the other side just is not anymore. join chris hayes in front of a live studio audience. >> welcome, everybody to "30 rock." >> "all in" with chris hayes. l s so knowing that i can get in touch with them at any time is really comforting. grandma, you're on tv! (grandma) wow! what channel? (vo) the network more people rely on, gives you more. like plans your family can mix and match starting at just $35. so everyone gets the plan they need. and disney+ on us. plus, one of our best phones when you buy one. that's verizon.

welcome back, everybody. we've had a bit of a technical difficulty. you're joining us on this friday morning. ayman is going to be joining us in just a moment here. we begin with what appears to be another instance of quid pro quo by the president. the same issue that got him impeached in the first place. before meeting with new york governor andrew cuomo yesterday president trump put out a tweet that appeared to link his administration's decision to freeze new york's access to the trusted traveler program with the demand that the state drop a myriad of lawsuits against him. he wrote i'm seeing governor cuomo at the white house, he must understand that national security far exceeds politics. new york must stop all of its unnecessary lawsuits and harassment, cleaning itself out and lowering taxes. leticia james has filed a subpoena and a number of lawsuits against the trump organization. she responded to the president's

tweets writing in part this, when you stop violating the rights and liberties of all new yorkers, we will stand down. until then, we have a duty and a responsibility to defend the constitution and the rule of law. by the way, i filed the lawsuits, not the governor. house judiciary chair, jerry nadler drew a link between trump's tweet and a quid pro quo writing this, dear senate gop, this is what another quid pro quo by the president of the united states looks like. and president trump has now attacked the lead juror in the case that ended with his friend roger stone's conviction, trump tweeted this in part, now it looks like the four person in the jury in the roger stone case had significant bias. add that to everything else and this is not looking good for the quote justice department. the attack came a day after former memphis school board president tamika hart identified herself as the lead juror in a facebook post.

hart says she has been silenced out of concern for her safety but decided to speak out in defense of the four prosecutors quit the case after the department of justice overwrote her recommendations. hart posted to facebook this, as foreperson, i made sure we went through every element of every charge, matching the evidence presented in the case that led us to return a conviction of guilty on all seven counts. since identifying herself, president's allies in the media have dredged up old social media posts they claim post bias. hart did run for congress as a democrat in 2012 but stone's defense team knew that when they cleared her to serve on the jury. meanwhile, in a new interview with abc news, the attorney general says the president's comments and tweets make it quote impossible for him to do his job. bill barr insists he was not asked by the president or anybody else from the white house to intervene in the stone case. barr says he spoke to the u.s. attorney before the sentencing memo was turned in and advised

him not to recommend a seven to nine-year prison sentence but to instead defer to the judge. here's what the attorney general says happened after claiming the u.s. attorney defied him. watch this. >> on monday night when i first saw the news reports i said, gee, the news is spinning this, this is not what we were going to do. >> so you were surprised? >> i was very surprised and once i confirmed that that's actually what we filed i said that night to my staff that we had to get ready because we had to do something in the morning to amend that and clarify what our position was. i had made a decision what i thought was fair and reasonable in this particular case, and once the tweet occurred, the question is, well, now what do i do, and do you go forward with what you think is the right decision or do you pull back because of the tweet and that

illustrates how disruptive these tweets can be. >> you're saying you have a problem with the tweets? >> yes. well, i have a problem with some of the tweets. i'm happy to say that, in fact, the president has never asked me to do anything in a criminal case. however, to have public statements and tweets made about the department, about people in the department, or men and women here, about cases pending in the department, and about judges before whom we have cases make it impossible for me to do my job. >> and the white house press secretary released the following statement in response to bill barr's interview. the president was not bothered by the comments at all as he has the right just like any american citizen to publicly offer his opinions. president trump uses social media very effectively to fight for the american people against injustices in our country including the fake news.

the president has full faith and confidence in attorney general barr to do his job and uphold the law. joining us from washington congressional reporter for "politico," andrew desidario. thank you for joining us. that was quite an astounding interview. i think a lot of people were surprised to hear the attorney general speaking so frankly, and making basically a public rebuke of the president saying it's making it impossible for him to do his job at the department of justice. what was your initial reaction hearing this from the attorney general? >> my first reaction is this is a reaffirmation of what every republican in washington believes whether they say it publicly or not which is that the president's tweets and, you know, not just his tweets, what he says from the white house, from the oval office, from the south lawn, before he gets ready to depart for a trip, everything like that, you know, makes their jobs harder and for the attorney general, i think that's even more true than a republican

senator, for example. the question is, of course, whether this was a genuine rebuke of the president or it was more of an effort to sort of take the pressure off of the president. during a week when he's being accused of improperly interfering in a justice department criminal case involving one of his long time allies and friends. >> i do want to stick with this for a moment because i also think the sometimitiming is sus all of this and hearing from the attorney general in this way. do you think he was getting enough pressure from it seems the media and anybody outside that was looking in on this roger stone case, the four prosecutors that basically stepped down from the case because it seemed like the doj was, you know, rescinding what their recommendations were for the sentencing. do you think that he felt enough pressure that he felt like he had to speak out at this moment? >> i think the pressure came when those four prosecutors stepped down, whether they, you know, stepped down from the department all together or from their specific role.

that was, you know, the most public sort of rebuke of what the higher ups at the justice department were doing in stepping in and essentially saying, wait, this is not the sentencing recommendation we want to put forward for someone like roger stone in this specific case. that was the tipping point, and i think it's what caused at least on capitol hill, you know, a lot of angst among in particular democrats about what had happened at the justice department. >> what do you make also of the president's attack on the lead juror on the roger stone case? we also have basically served jury duty at one point or another. we know how the process works and we know most of the time, both the defense and the prosecution know exactly what the make up is of each one of these jurors. >> yeah, that's exactly right. look, i mean, one of the defining features of this presidency has been sort of the president's willingness to use his megaphone to defend his allies that have been ensnared as part of the mueller

investigation, whether it's roger stone or michael flynn or paul manafort, for example, that has been really a defining feature of donald trump's presidency, and he has sort of, you know, taken to his grievances via twitter to sort of vent about that, and what you saw from attorney general bar was that exact mentality, according to his words in this interview, that sort of makes his job a lot harder as he's trying to lead the justice department. so it's no surprise that he has been doing what he has been doing. >> andrew, thank you so much, stay close, we're going to talk to you again in just a little bit. >> thank you. president trump and former new york city mayor michael bloomberg getting into a twitter spat yesterday trading insults. first, the president mocked bloomberg's hype by tweeting a photo shopped image of the billionaire presidential candidate initially posted by the white house's social media director. president trump called bloomberg a loser who has money but can't

debate. the president tied bloomberg's physical stature to the presidential debate saying that the former mayor quote does not want to be on the debate stage with these professional politicians. no boxes please. bloomberg swung back at the president tweeting in this part this, we know many of the same people in new york. behind your back, they laugh at you and call you a carnival barking clown. during a campaign event in north carolina, bloomberg mentioned the president's attacks against him. listen to this. >> somebody said, you know, that he's taller than me, calls me little mike. and the answer is donald, we measure your height from your neck up. i am not afraid of donald trump. donald trump is afraid of us and that's why he keeps tweeting all the time. if he doesn't mention you, you got a big problem. >> so along with that, former

new york city mayor michael bloomberg also apologized again for the city's stop and frisk policy at a campaign event in houston while announcing mike for policewomblack america. at last night's event, bloomberg did not specifically bring up the 2015 audio clip of him bluntly discussing minorities but said he did regret defending stop and frisk. watch this. >> i wanted to save lives and respond with urgency the crisis that was plaguing our communities, and while many of the ways we tried to reduce gun violence and invest in communities were right, and reduced murder by 50%, there is one aspect, approach, that i deeply regret, the abuse of a police practice called stop and frisk. i defended it, looking back, for too long because i didn't understand, then, the unintended pain it was causing to young black and brown families and their kids. i should have acted sooner and faster to stop it.

i didn't and for that i apologize. >> a day after the 2015 audio clip resurfaced, the bloomberg campaign had announced three endorsements from the congressional black caucus. still ahead, michael bloomberg wasn't the only person president trump was lashing out at yesterday, he also had words for his former chief of staff john kelly. that's coming up next. at's comi. at's comi. my body is truly powerful. i have the power to lower my blood sugar and a1c. because i can still make my own insulin. and trulicity activates my body to release it like it's supposed to.

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audio back up and running. well, we didn't do it of course, but our technical geen yniuses . we're not necessarily sitting next to each other. now from the fallout from white house chief of staff john kelly who uncharacteristically eviscerated president trump on foreign and domestic issues. according to the atlantic, kelly unleashed his misgivings about trump's behavior, sounding at times like the anti-trump, on

topics of immigration, a key initiative in which he was responsible for advancing, kelly says trump's border wall doesn't need to extend quote from sea to shining sea and disapproved of trump's language about migrants, explaining most are merely looking for jobs. in fact, they are overwhelmingly good people. they are not all rapists and murders, it's wrong to characterize them that way. i disagreed with the president a number of times. the retired marine corps general faulted trump for meddling in the case of eddie gallagher, a navy seal convicted of posing with a corpse. the commander in chief intervened there in my opinion was exactly the wrong thing to do. had i been there, i think i could have prevented it. on north korea, kelly said the country's rogue leader will never give his nuclear weapons up. president trump tried, that's one way to put it, but it didn't work. i didn't think kim would do anything other than play us for a while, and he did that fairly

effectively. >> president trump responded to the barrage of criticisms from his former cabinet member tweeting when i terminated john kelly, which i couldn't do fast enough, he knew he was way over head. being chief of staff wasn't for him. came in with a bang, went out with a whimper, like so many exs, he misses the action and can't keep his mouth shot. his incredible wife karen once pulled me aside and said strongly this, john respects you greatly. when we are no longer here, we will only speak well of you. wrong, but former national security adviser john bolton who has recently spoken out about his time in the white house to kelly's defense, tweeting john kelly is an honorable man. john and i have disagreed at times which is common place at senior levels but he has always served his country faithfully. conservatives have a responsibility to reject baseless attacks upon him. let's switch gears bring in

msnbc meteorologist bill karins with an update on your weather. an arctic blast has moved in through the great lakes and heading into the northeast during the day today, so if you're outside this morning, it's going to be a little chilly, and gets colder as the day goes on. one of the days especially in many areas that you want to start the car up before you have to get in, and then you have a nice warm ride to work or school. the snow showers last night, there was a couple of them here and there. many areas are snow free, though, and as far as the windchills go, the worst of it is now in areas of iowa and also all the way back through minnesota. yesterday we were about negative 30 to negative 40. windchill advisories for 26 million people. minneapolis right now feels like negative 22, st. louis at negative 16. the cold moved to the south. northern mississippi, feels like 17. little rock, 17. we're still pretty mild in the mid atlantic where yesterday we had record highs in the areas

like savannah, georgia. that will move in during the day. burlington, vermont, at negative 13. the forecast for today, chicago only 16, but it's sunny. at least, you know, as long as it's sunny or never feels too bad. new york city will only be 32. boston around 24, and as far as the weekend outlook goes, saturday morning will be the coldest of the winter for many areas of the northeast. it's a cold start but with a lot of sunshine. the afternoon will be okay. maybe some snow showers in the great lakes, and then by the time we get to sunday, the map is pretty clear, not many problems at all. as long as you can deal with 24 hours of cold, then it's going to warm right up next week. >> i was hoping it was going to be a little bit rainy so i didn't have an excuse to go out for valentine's day. . thanks bill. >> not off the hook. >> always looking for excuses. i'm coming back to you, by the way, ayman. >> come on over. >> i'll be there soon. much more from attorney general bill barr's interview, and what senate majority mitch mcconnell is saying about it. the shake up in the white

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welcome back, everybody. i'm yasmin vossoughian, alongside ayman mohyeldin. and our microphones are up and running. >> take two. >> we begin with big news from the white house. a senior official telling nbc news that hope hicks the former white house communications director and top press aide to president trump's 2016 presidential campaign, she's back at the white house to work with trump's son-in-law and senior adviser jared kushner. a former white house official

familiar with the decision saying hicks' title is expected to be counselor to the president and her new responsibilities will include the 2020 reelection campaign. hicks resigned back in 2018 just one day before testifying before the house intelligence committee in its investigation into russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. also back at the white house, john mcinti, according to the press secretary is personal aide to the president according to two law enforcement officials. he was originally fired from the white house in march of 2018 and was under investigation for serious financial crimes. "politico" reporting that both additions to trump's team signal a pattern of reinstating and promoting those closest to the president after purging staffers as insufficiently loyal or part of the alleged deep state plot to get him. attorney general bill barr is trying to reassert the justice department's independence in the wake of the roger stone controversy with

this rare rebuke aimed at president trump. >> public statements and tweets made about the department, about people in the department, our men and women here, about cases pending in the department, and about judges before whom we have cases make it impossible for me to do my job. i'm not going to be bullied or influenced by anybody, and i said whether it's congress, newspaper, editorial boards or the president, i'm going to do what i think is right, and, you know, the -- i think the -- i cannot do my job here at the department with a constant background commentary that undercuts me. >> so the white house says the president wasn't bothered at all by the attorney general's comments. here's how senate majority leader mitch mcconnell

responded. >> the attorney general has said it's making it difficult for him to do his job, i think the president ought to listen to the attorney general who's an outstanding law enforcement officer. he's a top person in the country. the president made a wise selection in picking bill barr, i think he ought to listen to him. i think the attorney general knows what he's talking about. i'm not the attorney general, but i have confidence in bill barr. i think he's doing a good job, and i think he's told the president this is not helpful making it did i fefficult for h do his job. >> joining us now, msnbc legal analyst, danny cevallos, congressional reporter for "politico," andrew december dsi. i don't think there's a single person who has made a public rebuke while serving under president trump the waybill barr did in this interview yesterday. >> the question is whether you believe it's a genuine rebuke or

not. in terms of the political impacts, you see republicans reverting to a familiar refrain about the president's tweets, yes they do make their jobs harder and yes they wish the president would tweet less, and then, you know, attorney general barr's comments also haven't really sort of mollified any democrats. democrats are saying, this doesn't change the basic facts of what bill barr has done to in their view to protect and shield donald trump legally and politically. so in terms of the actual fallout, i'm not sure how this will actually change anything here in washington, but it is certainly a very rare rebuke, whether genuine or not from a top cabinet official. >> let me pose that question to danny. danny, you heard the attorney general's comments saying it's impossible for the president -- sorry, it's impossible for him to do his job with this constant background noise and commentary coming out of the white house about all kinds of officials working in our judicial process. do you believe he was genuine or is he just trying to give himself a little bit of public

cover given the close alignment that appears to be happening between the president's commentary and actions from the justice department? >> the jdoj is a unique agency n the executive branch, staffed by attorneys who are supposed to exercise independent judgment as to justice, so while the president technically directed the doj, at the same time, they're supposed to exercise a degree of independence, so bill barr has to make clear for him to be able to do his job that these tweets are interfering with that independence, but it doesn't answer to me the major question which is okay, if president trump's tweets are nothing more than an irritation, and they didn't influence you in this particular roger stone case, then why did you file this memorandum one day after your line prosecutors filed a carefully reasoned sentencing memorandum. that's the question that bill barr still has to answer. >> i was going to say quickly, the second part, correct me if i'm wrong, if you are as you are

saying, attorney general, that you are independent from editorial boards, independent from what the president is saying, then why does that background noise bother you. it seems like he's saying it's having an impact on him because it's making it impossible to do his job. it seems like a bit of a double edged sword, he says the president is affecting his ability to do his job, but on the other hand. >> i tend to understand where the ag is coming from because there are other people in involved in the justice system. there are judges, for example, consider this roger stone case. >> or prosecutors that step down, subsequently. >> prosecutors that step down. defendants are affected by perception of injustice or impartiality or partiality, i should say. consider this roger stone case, it's going to go in for sentencing. had that memorandum never been filed and president trump never tweeted, i have news for you, that judge probably would have sentenced below the guidelines anyway, because this technical application was unduly harsh in my opinion.

however, now because of these tweets, now you have a judge kwho who's going to look like she's falling in line with president trump's intimidation when such is not the case. i do get it, these tweets make everyone's job harder because if it's something they would have otherwise done without the tweets, it now makes it look suspect. my big question is still, why the second sentencing memorandum in the stone case. >> in an interview the president had with rivera, he said if bill barr was attorney general instead of jeff sessions earlier on, he would be in a much better position today than he is. he was implying there would have been no russia investigation. there would have been subsequently no mueller report and so on and so forth. do you foresee the president heeding these warnings from the attorney general considering all the positive things that he has said repeatedly about this attorney general, basically calling him his attorney

general? >> i don't think the president will heed the warnings. i think the question is whether we will see more tweets from the president perhaps later this morning about what attorney general barr said. you know, that statement from the white house last night seemed to indicate that, no, the president actually wasn't upset with what the attorney general said when in reality if anyone else had said what bill barr had said about the president's tweets, you know that the president would be lashing out in that way. so i think the way the president reacts to this will be a tell about whether this was a genuine rebuke by the attorney general or if this was something that was sort of an effort, a more coordinated effort to take the pressure off. >> andrew, quickly, two things unfolding simultaneously, attorney general is going to be on capitol hill i believe at some point in the next couple of weeks to talk about what happened during the roger stone case, and then also yesterday you started hearing some members including jerry nadler of the house judiciary committee using the phrase quid pro quo to refer to something else to do with the state of new york and the

trusted traveler program but give us a quick overview of what's moving on capitol hill on both of those fronts? do you see a new set of legal challenges for the president opening up? >> well, first off on the attorney general testifying, it's not going to come until the end of march, so who knows what could happen until then, but the key thing here is that the house judiciary committee did in fact secure his testimony. the key thing for house democrats, though, at this point is you know, these two competing, you know, i guess priorities that they have. number one is they want to continue investigating. they want to continue their general oversight of the trump administration, but number two, they have this moderate flank within the party right now that doesn't want to look too overzealous, especially after president trump was acquitted in the impeachment trial. house democrats have not really developed a sort of coherent strategy yet of how they want to deal with their oversight challenges of the trump administration post impeachment. >> danny cevallos onset, andrew

desiderio in d.c., thank you as always. >> post-impeachment, pre-election. the senate in a bipartisan vote passed a resolution to limit president trump's ability to order military action against iran without first seeking congressional approval. eight republicans joining democrats in voting for the measure, 55-45, despite trump warning lawmakers that passing it would show weakness to iran. the war powers resolution authored by tim kaine marks the first major rebuke of trump's foreign policy since he was acquitted in the impeachment trial earlier this month. the president is expected to veto the measure. lawmakers say neither the senate nor the house have the 2/3 votes needed to override the president's veto. still ahead, a spike in reported cases of coronavirus once again in china, we're going to go live to bill neely with more on what's behind that. your first look at "morning joe" is back in a moment. ook at "moi" is back in a moment.

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the number of coronavirus cases just in mainland china has surged past 63,000 with more than 5,000 new cases in the last 24 hours. the government response is leading to high level check ups. let's go to nbc chief global correspondent bill neely, live from hong kong. bring us up to speed. i think a lot of people watching this have been critical of how china is handling this, but more importantly, why and how are they explaining this sudden spike in cases? >> reporter: yeah, good morning, ayman. 5,000 new infections as you said, and 121 new deaths in the last 24 hours. remember yesterday there was a spike of 15,000 new infections, it's all due to the way china has redefined what it is to have the virus. basically now if you've been to a doctor and he or she has diagnosed a lung infection, then

that's good enough. you have this coronavirus. whereas before there was another test. so the figures are, if you like catching up with that new definition, but it doesn't really explain the new 121 deaths. this virus is very very far from contained. and china taking really extraordinary measures. these so-called wartime controls that they have introduced now into a third city, so in a third city, people not only can't leave the city, they can't leave the buildings. they are being locked. >> wow. >> reporter: so 1 1/2 million people are effectively prisoners in their own homes, and the very latest thing is that in wuhan, which is at the very center of the epidemic, health officials have asked people who have recovered from the virus to donate blood plasma so that the antibodies might be used to treat patients who have the virus. now, that's unproven technology in wuhan, unproven medicine, but

basically they're looking at anything that will control the spread of this virus, and other measures like basically taking people who appear to be sick out of buildings and putting them in quarantine. sometimes very crude quarantine where people have even died. they're using phone apps to track where people have been and who they province, so pretty extraordinary wartime measures for something that is what we simply don't know, guys, whether this is being never mind contained but even controlled because some scientists are really skeptical about the chinese figures. back to you. >> nbc's bill neely, scary stuff there. thank you so much. appreciate it. joining us now, infectious disease doctor and senior scholar at the john hopkins health security, thank you so much for joining us early on this, an incredibly important

topic as you well know the let's talk about the treatment program in all of this, and how they can basically stop the deaths as we're seeing this spike of increases in those that are now -- that now have coronavirus. what is the treatment program going forward? >> so the treatment really is very much supportive care. we don't have a specific anti-viral against the coronavirus or any coronavirus, so it's iv fluids, fever control, oxygen, if they need it, and obviously icu level care if they need it. there are some experimental therapies being used in clinical trials, and those will be important to study in a rigorous way, but we don't really have much treatment. we want to get these patients diagnosed and linked to care quickly if they need it, so they don't get those complications as frequently. >> doctor, do we have an understanding or do scientists have an understanding as to how the virus is able to explode so rapidly. we tend to think of china as a somewhat modern country, maybe not so much in some of the rural areas but what is it about this

virus that has made it explode into the tens of thousands in such a rapid way that we're seeing? >> there's a couple of things. first, we know that this is a coronavirus that can spread efficiently in the community, and remember, coronaviruses cause about 25% of the common colds that we have. this has that characteristic, it can spread like the common cold in the community. you have to remember, though we heard about this toward the end of december, this really had been spreading in china at least since november. it has had a major head start, and we really don't know how many cases there are out in the community. remember, over 80% of cases are mild, and those mild cases are just as contagious, and they can be driving the force of transmission there, and it becomes hard to contain something that is in the community spreading efficiently. >> our president here, president trump actually said that this thing could feasibly taper off in the spring. we know that to be true when it comes to the flu because there is obviously a flu season and

that rings true with the flu but what about the coronavirus, is this accurate? >> it is somewhat accurate, we know coronaviruses, they peak in the spring, and prthat's only f the northern hemisphere, the southern hemisphere has the opposite season. it may pick up in the southern hemisphere when it decreases in the northern hemisphere. >> from where you skit and what you follow on the coronavirus, what keeps you up at night, what are you worried about the most? >> i mean oo more worried about the actions governments are taking than the virus. we're seeing authoritarian measures being taken in china where people's individual rights are being violated. we have seen japan quarantine a ship and make a hollywood his or her m-- horror movie, we're goig to be in for a mild pandemic. it's going to be very disruptive

but all of the other actions are going to magnify the impact of the virus. >> can i ask you, doctor, what should be done to stop the spread of the coronavirus? >> we have to really move from the idea that this can be contained to one of mitigation. we need to focus our public health resources on fortifying hospitals and health care systems, ensuring supply chains for medical counter measures, increasing diagnostic testing, standing up antiviral clinical trials, vaccine development, public communication, that's where we need to be spending public health resources, not on quarantines, travel bans and border closures. >> doctor, thank you so much, appreciate it. still ahead, a tech deal entangled in politics as the u.s. government and microsoft versus amazon, who won the latest round of this ongoing battle, coming up next. oing battle, coming up next amazon prime video is on xfinity x1.

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welcome back. time now for business. and a tech deal mired in politics as amazon challenge as

controversial contract that the pentagon awarded to microsoft. cnbc tech correspondent joining us live from london. good morning to you. talk to us about this. >> well, good morning, and just to kick off the force is certainly with amazon for now at least. a judge ordered a temporary block on the so-called jedi cloud contract, awarded to microsoft. got nothing to do with "star wars." jedi stands for the joint enterprise defense infrastructure cloud a push to modernize the pentagon and microsoft won the bid in the contract said to be worth about $10 billion. amazon challenged that, and granted by the judge. amazon arguing the front microsoft won this bid is because of president trump's bias towards amazon and its founder and ceo jeff bezos. we know president trump has been critical of there bezos in the past. microsoft is disappointed by the

verdict but will continue to work on that contract. keeping a close eye on developments there. switching stories and talk a little about huawei. the chinese telecommunications giant back in the spotlight. the department of justice filed new charges against huawei alleging that it was engaging in intellectual property threat and sanctions on north korea and by doing business there. that huawei engaged in a de decades-long expansion of an indictment the doj filed back in january 2019, which initially talked about huawei, alleged huawei engaged in bank fraud and claimed its cfo was invoked and currently on an extradition case over in canada. keeping an eye on that and seeing how the new allegations play out.

huawei for its part united, part of a u.s. attempt to irrevocably damage its reputation. as long this china/u.s. confrontation goes on, huawei will remain in the kro he cross >> and one way to stay good with the young generation. one way to do that. how is that working out for him right now? >> scrolled through instagram full of viral memes and images satirical in nature. mike bloomberg teamed with with influencer accounts or instagram to post memes to social media. one post showed him asking a meme creator to create a viral meme letting the younger demographic know, i'm the cool candidate. so far going well. garnered hundreds of thousands of likes but not a cheap strategy. one post $50,000 to $100,000 but a smart strategy. the younger demographic are on

instagram, over a billion users, and not using traditional media anymore. clearly going after that younger demographic. whether it connects into that generation or makes him the butt of jokes remains to the seen. >> i'm suspect. even our generation, no longer part of the "younger" generation, if you have to prove yourself to the cool, that's a problem. >> doesn't work. exactly. >> a problem. >> interesting to see whether or not that gets traction or backfires on the bloomberg campaign. >> thank you so much. live from london for us. appreciate it. still ahead on "morning joe" what appears to be another quid pro quo by president trump. this time it's not about a foreign country or a campaign rival. instead, it's about new york, and the state's lawsuits against him. >> we will have the very latest on that plus mike bloomberg's pitch to black voters as his record comes under more scrutiny. "morning joe," everyone, just moments away. moments away. lease the 2020 rx 350 for $419 a month for 36 months.

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all right. so nevada's culinary union decided not to endorse a candidate in the democratic presidential primary. the move comes after the 60,000-member group said it was viciously attacked by supporters of senator bernie sanders earlier this week after the

union distributed flyers criticizing their plan. arguing while health care should be a right workers must be able to choose where and how to get their insurance. the union currently has its own health plan and does not want it eliminated in favor of a single system. they didn't take sides in 2016 when hillary clinton defeated bernie sanders in the union battle. the one of the most coveted in the democratic primary. in 2008 endorsed barack obama and played a role helping him claim victory in the nevada caucus. >> meanwhile, bernie sanders responded in a statement to the union's concern over his health care plan and addressed the online has massment the group faced writing this, we must provide health care for all. someone with the strongest pro-record in congress i would never do anything to diminish the health care unions and workers fought for. under medicare for all health

care will be preserved for all. uninsured union service workers and workers fighting for rights. he also said harassment of all forms is unacceptable toll me and we urge supporters of all campaigns not to engage in bullying or ugly personal attacks. our campaign is buildy a multigeneration multiracial movement of love, compassion and justice. we can certainly disagree on issues but do it in a respectful manner. while sanders made that statement, criticizing harassment, also he suggested in an interview that the harassment might not be coming from his backers. >> obviously that is not acceptable to me and i don't know who these scald suppoo-cal supporters are. on the internet, sometimes people attack people in somebody else's name. to be clear anybody making personal attacks against anybody else in my name is not part of

our movement. i'm not sure they are necessarily part of our movement. you understand the nature of the internet. a strange world out there. >> that does it for us. "morning joe" starts right now, everybody. i am not afraid of donald trump. donald trump is ahead of us -- afraid of us and why he keeps tweeting all the time. if he doesn't mention you, you've got a big problem. >> bloomberg came in and he multiplied it times ten. if you were a black person walking down the street, you were going to be stopped and africaed under bloomberg. >> there are still a half dozen democrats running for president, but right now donald trump is focused on mike bloomberg. and vice versa. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is friday, february 14th. it's valentine's day. remember? white house reporter for the associated press jonathan lemire. remember? better not mess this up. >>