tuesday night. you can catch us here tomorrow evening. nicolle wallace will join me immediately after tomorrow night's democratic debate has ♪ good morning. it's wednesday -- wednesday, february neither. i'm ayman mohyeldin alongside alisa menendez in for yasmin. there's new video overnight as former illinois governor rod blagojevich arrives back home to chicago after being sprung from prison by president trump. all right. hello there, everyone. as the president ramps up his criticism of federal prosecutions, trump yesterday hosted commutations, wiping away the crime of a dozen. rod blagojevich a one-time

contestant on trump's apprenti" and the seat that was vacated by barack obama. trump yesterday was particularly critical of blagojevich's sentence. >> we have commuted the sentence of rod blagojevich. he searched eight years in jail. it's a long time. i watched his wife on television. i don't know him very well. i've met him a couple times. he was on a short while "the apprentice." seems like a very nice person. i don't know him. he served eight years in jail. he's a democrat, he's not a republican. it was a prosecution by the same people, comey, fitzpatrick, the same group. very far from his children.

they're growing older. they're going to high school now and they rarely get to see their father outside of an orange uniform. i saw that and i did commute his sentence. so he'll be able to go back home with his family after serving eight years in jail. that i my opinion. and in the opinion of many others. >> the trump also pardoned former new york city bernard kerik, a close associate of rudy giuliani. kerik pleaded guilty to eight felony charges including tax fraud and lying to u.s. officials. and the junk bond king michael milken was also pardoned. milken pleaded in 1990 to conspiracy. and david safavian, the top procurement official under george w. bush for covering up his ties to jack abramoff.

as well as former san francisco 49ers owner david debartolo. >> jump followed the longtime friends and business executives. for example, nelson peltz, the billionaire who threw the president a $10 million fund-raiser on saturday, backed pardoning milken, as well as robert kraft, fox host maria bartiromo and elaine cho. at least one, according to daily beast, it appears cold hard cash did the talking. paul pogue, a construction company owner who pleaded guilty to underpaying his taxes by $500,000 and received three years' probation received a full clemency by the president. pogue's family has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars in direct conditions and in kind

air travel to the trump committee pogue's son and his wife made over $200,000 to the contribution and campaign. and a federal judge has refused to delay the sentencing for president trump's ally roger stone. judge amiy jackson will move forward with sentencing stone on lying. despite his attorney's best efforts to delay the decision, judge jackson said, quote, it would not be a prudent thing to do. yesterday's ruling appears to make judge jackson the target of trump who yet again tweeted for calling for a new trial. meanwhile "the new york times" said trump has raised the prospect of commuting stone's sentence. here's what he said when asked about that yesterday. >> are you planning to pardon roger stone? >> i haven't given it any thought. in the meantime, he's going through a process but i think he's been treated unfairly. >> do you think roger stone deserves any prison time?

>> we'll see what happens. >> attorney general william barr has considered stepping down from the home of the justice department. administration official tells nbc news that barr. and the attorney said barr seems to be getting the message of weighing in on ongoing investigations. meanwhile, a spokeswoman for the doj had denied the reports tweeting yesterday, quote, the attorney general has no plans to resign. here's what trump had to say about barr yesterday. >> i have total confidence. >> he said that your comments on twitter are making him impossible to do his job. are you making his job impossible? >> yeah, i do make his job harder. i do agree with that. i think that's true. the attorney general is a man with incredible integrity. just so you understand, i chose not to be involved. i'm allowed to be totally

involved. i'm actually, i guess, the chief law enforcement officer of the country. >> raurall right. joining us now, reporter for "the washington post" eugene scott. eugene, good to have you here on this wednesday morning. we heard the pardons from the chief enforcement officer in the country. as the president makes his case, he goes through his emotional list, oh, he hasn't seen his son, his kids for a couple years only in an orange jumpsuit but he overlooks the severity of people's crimes and what they do? >> and for that reason, critics of the president are arguing we see him pardoning people for crimes that he and some of his close associates have been accused of committing themselves or are expected to be accused of committing. therefore, the ultimate goal is make pardoning for particular crimes normal so that when he

does it in the future, or those close to him, it won't be as big of a surprise. as you reported earlier, there has been a relationship with some individuals. familiarity from his reality show. donations to his campaign. related to some of his advisers. what we do know, in this situation, is that perhaps the climb was not factored in as much as the relationship and the benefits of trump, someone who in the past has communicated that he does not see anything wrong with being similar to quid pro quo. >> the relationship with trump. but also what does it say about the optics of this, the politics of this, the long-term implications of using this power in this way? >> well, we don't see quite a bit of pushback from the actual white house to the president which is not that much of a surprise. but it is noted that the

republican delegation from illinois did speak out against the president's decision to pardon the former governor out of concern that his actions were so problematic, that it could become a new norm. and communicate to future politicians that this activity, these types of activities are acceptable and perhaps can be forgiven prior to the full sentence being served. >> eugene, what do you make of the current dynamic that's kind of unfolding between the attorney general and president trump. not just over the comments of the last couple of weeks, interfering with sentences but now just yesterday, the president saying i'm the chief enforcement official, and barr refusing to resign saying he's making his job impossible. >> and he admitted to making his job impossible. and the fact that he has not made any plans to change his

behavior, which is not a surprise because his president is consistent with how he engages his attorneys general. and what we have to see is if barr will walk away from this position because the president is not planning to do anything differently for the rest of the first term. and if he wins a second term, we can expect him to do more that can make the attorney general job difficult and communicate to the american public that the department of justice and the white house are not as separate as they were designed to be. >> all right. eugene scott live in d.c. for us. thanks, eugene. now to presidential politics, ahead of tonight's democratic debate the latest nbc news/"wall street journal" shows bernie sanders now with a lead in the democratic primary race. 27%, the senator's 12-point margin over joe biden isn't because he gained support over the past month it's because biden lost 11 points and is now at 17%. that's a statistical tie with

mike bloomberg and elizabeth warren both at 14%. bloomberg got 5, while warren lost a point. and buttigieg up six points, amy klobuchar gained two points now at 7%. joining us now from las vegas, the site of tonight's debate national political reporter for nbc news josh letterman. all right. josh, the latest poll shows sanders leading the pack. what are you sensing out there? >> reporter: definitely a lot of enthusiasm here for bernie sanders. there's also a lot of uncertainty now. this is the first time that nevada has done it this way where they mixed the voters to their votes early in a period that opened over the weekend and ended on tuesday. also some concern because of just what a disaster the iowa caucuses were and nevada wanting to not repeat what happened there. but, you know, the voters here in nevada, they don't tune in

quite as early as voters in new hampshire and iowa. a lot of them haven't gone from bernie sanders' rally to pete buttigieg's rally, to elizabeth warren's rally, evaluating all of the candidates in person. for a lot of them, they're really starting to plug into the election now, make up their minds and that makes tonight's debate here even more important. >> josh, i know you've been blacking the bloomberg campaign. give me a sense what you've been reporting over the last couple of days what his strategy is going into tonight's debate. he's been preparing for it, according to a report yesterday. tonight, is he going after a candidate? is he going to be playing defense? does he go after sanders or does he go after biden? >> reporter: they say the best defense is a good offense. that is how we believe that mike bloomberg will handle the attacks that are going to be coming at him really from all signeds in tonight's debate. his campaign has been signalling that he's going to put his focus on bernie sanders who is now the main obstacle that bloomberg has

to winning the nomination. his campaign feels if he can make this a contest about bernie sanders versus mike bloomberg which do you think has the best chance of defeating donald trump, they may be able to move the conversation away from some of the allegations that have come up in the past couple of weeks about past comments that mike bloomberg had made. and really focus this on electability heading into the general election. >> you know, there were some disagreement among the democratic hopefuls whether or not they wanted to see mike bloomberg on the stage. you have amy klobuchar saying it was the one place she thought she could beat him. and other candidates saying he shouldn't be able to buy his way on the stage. what do the candidates make of the rise in the polls with the fact he's on that debate stage and are they coming with their knives sharpened? >> reporter: yeah, there's a sense of unfairness. remember, if you're one of the candidates who is not mike bloomberg you've been at this probably a year now, in the cold

in new hampshire and iowa, shaking hands with voters, getting into the people. mike bloomberg hasn't done any of that. he's skipped a lot of that because of the money he's invested in the race. other other democrats are eager to question him in realtime in the stage and bring that accountability to mike bloomberg that they have all faced intense scrutiny from reporters covering the race over the past year. >> josh letterman, thank you so much. still ahead, president trump says he knows the identity of the anonymous official who claims to be part of the resistance within the white house. that and a lot more, when we come right back.

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welcome back. president trump claims to know the identity of the anonymous white house official who penned a scathing op-ed in a recent book about the administration but said he will not reveal who it is to the public. >> is there a search under way for anonymous? anonymous? >> yeah, there is.

i know who it is. yeah, i knew that. but i know who it is, but we won't get into it. i know who some of the leakers are. but some of the leakers don't exist. it's made up by the press. you know, they say nine people have said. or two people have said. those people don't exist. but, no, i know all about anonymous. a know a lot about the likeser too. in fact, when i want to get something out to the press, i tell certain people, and it's amazing, it gets out there. so far, i'm leaving it that way. >> the anonymous author wrote a blistering op-ed in "the new york times" back in 2019 and a recent book "a warning" last november. both pieces are critical of the president clamming him for mocking immigrants and challenging policy decisions despite trump knowing he knows

who anonymous is, the daily beast is reporting, trump's top adviser peter navarro has taken it upon himself to reveal the official. >> you always think it's a game show. i'm not going to tell you. i'm not going to tell you. but if i want to, i leak it to the press. anyway, let's switch gears and get a check of the weather with meteorologist janessa webb. hey, janessa. >> hey, good morning, for the deep south we've seen 10 inches of rain in ten days. it will continue, from central mississippi to central alabama. light rain as you're waking up to start off your day. we're forecasting another 1 to 2 inches. the reason for that, you see from the futurecast, you see the weather pattern around that 10:00 or 11:00 hour.

and a big wave will make its way across the deep south. on social media, we'll be talking about it all day long. look at this. this is that darker blue and light white. that is snow potentially across north carolina. we're looking at potential snow day for friday morning for the kiddos. so watching that pretty closely, the forecast models right now, it's on the light side for the lower elevations so that includes charlotte, raleigh, the durham area. closer to the coast, though, they could see some more banding. and that could lead to another 3 to 4 inches in that area. so, this storm system will track out very quickly. but we are going to see the delays really pick up new orleans, to atlanta. and then for friday morning, expect that storm system to move up the coast for charlotte as well. you can see some road delays. and if you're trying to make it out of the rbu, late thursday to friday, expect widespread cancellations. now, the temperatures will

continue to be on the mild side for the northeast. 24 hours that's all i'm going to allow before this cold air makes its way in. we'll see 11 degrees for today for minneapolis, then that surge of blue just in time for thursday into friday, the start of the weekend. we're back to reality. philadelphia, 36. now, we are talking about 10 to 15 degrees below average. >> back to reality indeed. thanks so much, janessa. still ahead, president trump went after mike bloomberg on twitter yesterday. and this time, bloomberg hit right back. and it didn't end there. the latest back and forth, next. . someone's video chatting friends. my parents are getting older 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. a year of disney+ included. and now, get a verizon stream tv on us for access to all your favorite shows and movies in 4k.

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welcome back, everyone. president trump and mike bloomberg got into another twitter feud yesterday. trump accused bloomberg of illegally buying the democratic nomination. they're taking it away from bernie again. bloomberg responded asking, why do you want against bernie so badly? >> prompting trump to fight

back, many might know i'd rather run against you. bloomberg replyreplied, can't ta word you say and now you want us to believe you? see you in november. >> you saw mike bloomberg. do you have any advice for him? >> no he doesn't need that kind of advice. he's been doing it for a long time. it just seems unfair what's happening to bernie sanders to be honest with you. i watched it happen four years ago. always be careful what you wish for. and i'm not wishing for anything. whoever it is, i'll be very happy. >> during his time in office president donald trump has been constantly tied to his apparent business conflicts of interest but mike bloomberg said this won't be an interest to him because he plans to sell his $60 billion company if elected. bloomberg said he would put his namesake company in a blind trust if he wins in 2020. the mayor currently owns 90% of

bloomberg lp and said all of the money would go into his charity bloomberg philanthropies. bloomberg has criticize trump for not doing the same. instead, president trump handed the trump organization over to his sons. bloomberg said the only restrictions he would put on the sale of his company is that it not be sold to a foreign buyer or say private equity company. tonight is the night that mike bloomberg emerges from behind the eubiquitous compain ads and on to the debate stage. we'll dig into what to expect, next. neutrogena® rapid wrinkle repair's fastest retinol formula works so fast. it takes only one week to reveal younger looking skin. making wrinkles look so last week. rapid wrinkle repair® pair with retinol oil for 2 times the wrinkle fighting power. neutrogena®

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♪

all right. welcome back, everyone. i'm ayman mohyeldin alongside alicia menendez in for yasmin this week. we begin with billionaire presidential candidate mike bloomberg who is set to appear on the debate stage in las vegas, facing off against the democratic rivals for the first time in person. senator elizabeth warren went after the business mogul yesterday tweeting, quote, it's a shame mike bloomberg can buy his way into the debate. but at least now primary voters curious how candidates will take on donald trump can get a live demonstration of how we each take on an ego maniac billionaire. pete buttigieg criticized mike bloomberg for fuelling it with personal wealth. let's take a listen. >> so you think mike bloomberg is buying this election? >> well, that certainly seems to be the strategy. dip into your personal reserve of billions of dollars and use

it to go up in the polls. but at the end of the day, i don't think that's enough to win a presidential election. voters are asking how their individual lives are going to be shaped by the choice we're about to make. i just don't think, you know, i future where the only two offerings in the democrat eck party are either a billionaire who thinks he can buy power, or someone who says you got to be for a revolution. and it's my way or the highway. that just leaves most of us out. >> and senator bernie sanders also wiped at bloomberg for using his fund to fund his presidential campaign. >> so here is the message, anybody here worth $60 billion, you can run for president. and you can buy the airwaves. my friends, that is called oligar oligarchy, not democracy. >> meanwhile, bloomberg hit back in a newly published article

from reuters. bloomberg will be ready to dismiss his rivals when he steps on the stage tonight. bloomberg said he will emphasize the former mayor of the biggest city. and the former mayor also attacked joe biden and said while he was vice president, he just read speeches somebody wrote for him. his job is not to manage and do things that the president needs done and for all i know, he did a competent job. meanwhile, bloomberg dismissed pete buttigieg, the former mayor of south bend, managing a city of 100,000 people compared with a population of 8.4 million. bloomberg said he's the mayor of a town, let's not get carried away. and yesterday, mike bloomberg posted a video claiming how he believes that

sclus sifft exclusivity. >> if your conversation about a presidential election is about some guy wearing a dress and whether he, she or it can go to the locker room with their daughter. that's not a winning formula for most people. they care about health care, they care about education and safety and all of those kinds of things. >> who bloomberg was not a candidate for president at the time, he announced his campaign eight months after the remarks. and a statement in part, mike understands that the transgender community has been under attack for decades and the advance of rights has not been equal. as president, he has a comprehensive plan to secure rights for transgender americans including passing the equality act ensuring transgender people

have access to health care and working to end crisis of violence against transgender women. mike is running to defeat donald trump. >> joining us now reporter for "the washington post," eugene scott. eugene, what do you make of these comments from bloomberg about the trans community? >> i think the former mayor is finding himself in the same situation that other candidates have. and that's having a very narrow view of middle america. there are lgbt team in iowa in kansas and missouri, looking for a presidential candidate who will speak to the issues that affect their communities. so him communicating that these are not concerns of middle american voters just reinforces the idea from his critics that he is not in touch with the heartland or the democratic voters as he needs to be if he wants to capture the democratic party's nomination. >> eugene, let's look at tonight's debate.

who has the most to gain? who has the most to lose from top contenders? what's the strategy here? what can we expect to see from bloomberg tonight? what can we expect to see from bernie sanders? >> well, bloomberg is likely to get caught with difficult questions that he's not been asked because this is his first debate. this sis a way to clear up the issues that voters have with his campaign, specifically, related to people of color, women, and lgbt americans. mrn bernie sanders, obviously, has been performing very well and continues to be in the lead at the debate performance, as well as the weekend's caucuses, to cement the race as the front-runner. joe biden is looking for a strong performance in nevada to prove to americans that he actually is someone who can go forward and compete as a front-runner. it's looking to this debate to

remind voters of that, the confidence they had in him prior to the new hampshire and iowa state contest was well placed. >> you know, after klobuchar had that moment in the last debate, it seems like a lot of the candidates trying to create that. >> create that, yes. >> create some momentum. let's remind everybody, bloomberg not on ballot until nevada, right where is that campaign looking to catapult their campaign? >> well, they said repeatedly, they're focused on super tuesday, that's why they've run the ads that so far appear to have been effective in states that voters will be deciding upon, moving forward. so, at this point, this is mainly an opportunity for him to communicate to voters outside of nevada to let them know that he thinks he's the best person to take on trump. and tonight will be a test of that. >> all right, eugene scott, thanks so much. as the president ramps up his criticism of federal prosecutions, trump yesterday announced a host of pardons and

commutations wiping away thepow. nbc news white house correspondent peter alexander has the details. >> reporter: president trump flexing his muscle, releasing rod blagojevich from prison. four years before expected to go free. >> he'll be able to go home to his family after spending eight years in jail. a ridiculous sentence. >> i've got this thing and it's [ bleep ] golden. and i'm not just giving it up. >> reporter: and was also a former contestant on "celebrity apprentice." >> i have great respect for your tenacity. the nafact you that don't give and rob, you're fired. >> reporter: also pardon michael

milken. convicted for insider trading. >> he suffered greatly. he's done an incredible job. >> reporter: one of milken's advocates throwing the president a 5$580 million. and eddie debartolo jr. the san francisco 49ers owner. several nfl greats celebrating his pardon. >> i take my hat off to donald trump for what he did. >> reporter: all coming days before the president's friend roger stone is set to be sentenced. and the president acknowledging attorney general william barr's complaint that he's making it impossible for him to do his job. >> i do make his job harder. i do agree with that. i think that's true. he's a very straight shooter. >> reporter: but on stone, he insists, so far, no decision. >> i haven't given it any

thought. but i think he's been treated very unfairly. >> our thanks to peter alexander for that report. meanwhile, president trump has suggested filing lawsuits over former special counsel robert mueller's probe. trump wrote on twitter, in part, everything having to do with the fraudulent investigation is badly tainted and in my opinion should be thrown out. the whole deal was a total scam. if i wasn't president i'd be suing everyone all over the place. but maybe i still will. witch hunt. still ahead, what senator bernie sanders has to say about the culture of online harassment surrounding his supporters. your "first look" with "morning joe" is back in a moment.

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against people. >> the culinary union, and nevada's largest labor union said some of its members faced online harassment after they announced concerns about medicare. >> here's what i said, two things, number one, i'm totally against online bullying and harassment. and also, let me just say this, and i don't want to be overly paranoid here, is that we live in a crazy time. and there are a lot of folks out there who do bots and all of those things. i saw some of those things. and there are people out there who want to divide the progressive movement. >> that was senator bernie sanders in las vegas after being pressed on the culture of online harassment surrounding his supporters. >> bernie sanders also extended his lead in the latest primary poll in california which votes in the march 3rd super tuesday primary. sanders stands at 32%, gaining five points, joe biden lost ten points at 14%.

elizabeth warren in a try at 13%. and mike bloomberg and pete buttigieg both with 12%. on the rise, bloomberg up 11 points, buttigieg up six. amy klobuchar gained one point, now at 5%. senator bernie sanders saudi in a statement last night that he will be requesting a recount of the certain precincts of the iowa democratic party's results. the decision comes as sanders and pete buttigieg requested partial recanvases after result. that showed errors on caucus night. buttigieg with 262 points and sanders has 563.137. a difference of just 0.08. sanders issued a statement saying we believe a recount would give sanders enough to give him the equivalence to put

him over the top. we want to thank the supporters of the iowa, our supporters and volunteers who made this possible. senator susan collins may be feeling the heat for her political decision since the impeachment trial as a new poll finds her tied. democrat sara gideon and then susan collins at 42%. 42% said they have a favorable opinion of the senator, while 54% say they do not know. let's take a turn and bring in meteorologist janessa webb with a check of the weather. hey, janessa. >> hey, good morning. we still have this southern soaker rain that is really impacting the south and can't get a break. it's been almost two weeks consecuti consecutively. we've seen rain across the south and southeast this afternoon. for just a few hours we're going to see a weather pattern and

then one tough wave of rain that's going to spark up across the south increasing your floodiflood ing threat throughout your afternoon. once we transition, the meat of the cold is sitting in the upper midwest. these are the current windchills. that's what you feel on your skin, the air temperature compared with the winds, 10 below for minneapolis. green bay, 14 below. and please believe that's going to slide across the midwest and then portions of the south. the next 24 to 36 hours, what we're really going to be watching is you have all of this rain that has filtered in across the south. we've had over 10 inches in 10 days. and then the temperatures are going to start to drop. possibility of a freeze-over situation for central mississippi to alabama, with overnight lows, they're going to be hitting the mid-30s, so we'll watch that as the cold makes its

way in. today, the cold makes its way across the upper midwest by thursday afternoon. we drop about 14 degrees below average. 32 for cincinnati. and it's going to be a kind of a distant memory, with temperatures sitting in the 50s for the last couple of days across the mid-atlantic to areas of the northeast, as we fall below average. so reality check comes in fairly quickly. for your weekend, we bump up just a few degrees. but this is what we should expect for february. it looks like long-term for the next ten days, going into the start of march. we're going to sit under that. >> thanks, janessa. still ahead, former new york city mayor mike bloomberg hints at it. and spacex driving your business space, straight ahead. . and only the ninja foodi has tender crisp technology,

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>> of a bloomberg presidency may come with a $60 billion payout as the former

new york city mayor says he plans to sell his namesake company if he wins the 2020 election. cnbc's joumanna bercetche joins us live from london. the campai build bloomberg does become president he will look to sell the finance and media company bloomberg on the back of that. now, initially the campaign had said they would look to put the company into a trust and then look to sell it, but it seems like the tune has now changed in the last 24 hours. as you mentioned, the market values bloomberg at around $60 billion, 90% of that is owned by mr. bloomberg himself, the company he co-founded in 1981. switching to the tech sector, though, major news for kick starter, it's become one of the first tech companies in the world to have its employees formally unionize, after a historic vote that occurred yesterday. the bid to unionize started publicly last march, the say day that their co-founder perry chen

stepped down. there had been a lot of contentious relationships between employees and the outgoing ceo on back of his heavy-handed management style. it has not been an easy process to get to this point of unionization. employees are hailing it as a very big victory for the tech company and certainly could be something to watch in that space going forward. finally boeing is back in the news again, the beleaguered airline we found out yesterday that cnbc has learned that boeing told employees they have found foreign object debris in the fuel tanks of several 737 max planes. worth mentioning that boeing still manufactured 400 additional 737 planes last year until they fully halted making the planes last month. they will look into the debris in the fuel tanks but it's not going to stop them returning the planes back to service later this year. so, again, another story in that

boeing 737 max saga that's been ongoing. >> a bit of a scary thought there. let's get your thoughts on another interesting story, one out of this world, some tourists looking for an experience like nothing they have never seen before. what can you tell us more about spacex and what it's trying to do in this realm? >> that's right. so spacex the company owned by elon musk obviously founded in 2001 had said they are going to partner up with space adventures, a space tourism company to help send people to space in 2021. we don't have a lot of details on how the tourists will be selected, how much it's going to cost, but what we do know is that spacex has a spacecraft called dragon and that can carry up to seven passengers. the view is to take up to four or five passengers on a trip around space for five days and return them safely back to earth. one thing i should mention, though, is that they haven't officially done a test flight yet with any people on it, the expectation is that dragon will

be doing a test flight at some point. >> alicia wants to volunteer to be on the inaugural flight. >> no, i want to know it's tested. >> would you consider it? >> 100%. up next, a look at axios' one big thing. coming up on "morning joe" amid his criticism of federal prosecutions president trump grants clemency for nearly a dozen high profile felons including blagojevich. all eyes on mike bloomberg as the new york city mayor is set to make his debut on the debate stage tonight in las vegas. when managing diabetes you can't always stop for a fingerstick. with the freestyle libre 14 day system, a continuous glucose monitor, you don't have to.

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welcome back. joining us now from washington, d.c. with a look at axios a.m. the co-founders mr. mike allen. good to have you with us on this debate day. what is the one big thing? >> good morning. the axios one big thing is plume berg's baggage and barrage. so the other 2020 candidates

will go into tonight's debate armed with decades of opposition research about bloomberg. and the synthesis of what they're going to say, the case they're going to make, is that he's kind of a democratic trump. that he is a billionaire ego maniac new yorker who manipulates the media. sound familiar? the pivot by bloomberg will be for all these attacks that you're making, all these communities that you are pulling up quotes about, i've done more for them than other people on the stage. so look at my actions and my record. a tip for the debate, watch biden. joe biden is the one who by far has the most incentive to go after bloomberg. look at the record. they both want to be the electable one. joe biden doesn't want any bloomberg administration, kind of an insurance policy there, and of course the vice president is upset that bloomberg got in

at all. it was a real spite to him. bloomberg had told everybody in new york i won't get in as long as biden is viable. >> but, mike, these attacks are moving in both directions. you have bloomberg sounding the alarm that bernie sanders will mass an insurmountable delegate lead if the delegate stays split. >> you have the bloomberg campaign telling the laggard candidates that they could get out. the bloomberg campaign has gone public with their argument that if this field stays split through super tuesday, that at that point bernie sanders could have an insurmountable delegate lead and they are arguing that if biden, buttigieg, klobuchar stay in, even if they have no path from super tuesday, that they will be essentially making sanders the nominee. the bloomberg campaign has

released several scenarios showing this and they've got a very hoe profile endorser, david pleth, the campaign manager for obama in '08, he took nate silver's projections of delegates through super tuesday and said if this comes true, which was an estimate that bernie sanders could have 40% of the delegates after super tuesday, that he would have a leave that he would never relinquish. >> mike allen, always a pleasure. >> see you after the debate. >> we will be reading axios a.m. in just a little bit. sign up for the newsletter at signup.axios.com. "morning joe" starts right now. iran is a different place than when i took over. when i took over the united states -- >> when i took over our military we didn't have ammunition. >> i'm actually, i guess, the chief law enforcement officer of the country.

>> when i took over -- when i took over america we didn't have bullets. it's kind of like a new commissioner of major league baseball coming in and saying when i took over for baseball you know we didn't have any baseballs. it's crazy, mika. >> so after taking over the country and its military president trump is now laying claim to the justice department. good morning and welcome to "morning joe" on this wednesday, february 19th. we've got a lot to get to this morning including the president's rash of pardons and commutations yesterday as gene robinson put it on twitter, instead of draining the swamp trump has decided to pardon it and that is just ahead. we will have a big conversation about that. >> we certainly will, but first a big birthday yesterday, willie geist. tell us all about it. >> you can call me shark. >> you can call me shark. my wife kristina sharky geist, hence the shark, mika. >> yes. t