good morning. welcome to a special holiday edition of "morning joe." we hope you had a great thanksgiving. over the next two hours we are

revisiting some of the best conversations from the past year and we begin with associate ed to be of "the washington post" bob woodward and the new audio book "the trump tapes." 20 interviews with president trump. we started with a montage from an interview with president trump march 19th, 2020. 28 days after covid declared a pandemic and six days after trump declared a national emergency. >> was there a moment in all of this last two months where you said to yourself, oh, this is the leadership test of a lifetime? >> no. part of it is the mystery. part of it is the viciousness. when it attacks it attacks the lungs. >> yes. >> i wanted to always play it down. i still like playing it down because i don't want to create a panic. i don't take responsibility for this.

i have nothing to do with this. i take responsibility -- was no fault of mine and no fault of anybody. maybe china. >> fauci. have you ever sat down alone with him and gotten a tutorial -- >> yes, i guess. this is a busy white house. we are getting very good marks from the governors. this is a local problem. >> i wanted to capture the moment when your son barron asked you about this? >> well, he is just turning 14 so he was 13 when he did. in the white house upstairs in his bedroom. i said it came out of china. push and simple. to be honest with you, barron, should have let it be known it was a problem two months earlier. we could have stopped it easily. >> there's so many things to

talk about there. >> criticizing china not knowing two months earlier but he said it was one person coming out of china and then a month later 13 people and would go away. sew many shocking things. >> this is march 19. closed down the country six days earlier. laying this out to barron. as you know in reporting, things happen in chronological order but you don't learn about them in chronological order. i talked to object o'brien, the

national security advisers. >> pottinger was worrying about it at the end of 2019. >> yes. so i'm in the white house asking them and they said on january 28th we went and gave the kind of stark warning to trump about the virus. o'brien saying this publicly i told the president this will be the biggest national security threat to your presidency. pottinger who was in china seven years as a "the wall street journal" reporter, you know, sometimes i get shocked. two months before he is telling barron chinese could have stopped it. trump could have stopped it by telling the truth.

>> well before saying one person coming in from china. >> yeah. you put this together. and so after the may 1st conversation with pottinger and o'brien i went because i have time. for two months going back to them. calling pottinger at home through white house signals and saying wait a minute. let's get all the details about this. my wife also listened to all of this for the third time, and said it's a crime. it's a constitutional crime. the president of the united states takes a solemn oath to execute the office of the president faithfully. is this faithful execution? he lied to his son. he lied to me. he lied to the public. >> let's listen to some of the interviews -- >> i'm sorry. >> no, no.

on this very point i want to support what you're telling us right now, part of your interviews with o'brien and pottinger, let's listen. >> the exact phrase i used is this will be the biggest national security threat you face in your presidency. i was pretty passionate about it. >> so people in china who i reached out to and to just get an unvarnished informal take on what was going on, and what i was hearing from them was is this isn't sars 2003. this is 1918 again. i'm talking with guys on the ground saying here's the real data says. as many as 50% of the cases are asymptomatic spread and therefore it's going to be impossible to screen for it. it's going to take off like wildfire. >> that's the deputy national security adviser saying this is 1918. he knew how bad it was going to be, and he communicated it to the president. it struck me, bob, listening to the first response, did you look

at this as a leadership test of a lifetime. he quickly says no. to many people, to his own benefit, he could have been this leader in this national moment of crisis. he could have said, it's not our fault, it's china's fault, but here's what we're going to do to get through it. and refused time and again. >> in the summer, again, this is so complicated. i said what's the plan. this is july 21st, and he said, well, i'll have one in 104 days, and i said, 104 days, that's when the election -- this was all about the election. he concealed, he denied, and he covered up. see, this is the first -- i'm sorry, it was this week when i called you, and i said, i finally see. this is the coverup, 1.1 million people died.

go play a week after pottinger and o'brien give this warning. donald trump's state of the union address said, oh, we've got this little problem in china and it's going to go away. talking to 40 million people and he'd learned that the calamity, the fire storm, the wildfire, was coming. and i'm trying to figure out why. why would he do that? >> again, he was downplaying it for the political reasons. and again, he had been told, this is 1918. >> so in the second to last interview with trump, july 21st, 2020, trump still wasn't taking any responsibility for the response to coronavirus. let's take a listen. >> look, if we didn't have the virus, i was 10, 12 points, up, i was cruising to election. >> well, people are worried about the virus. >> i know that, bob, but the virus has nothing to do with me. it's not my problem.

>> no, it does -- >> it was china. it's not me. >> okay. i know, but you have the problem, and i know you've talked to lindsay and lots of people about this, and the question is what's the plan. how are you going to lead? >> and, bob, i mean, the audio tape here crystallizes what we heard from him all yearlong, downplaying it, we're rounding the corner. he wouldn't wear a mask. wouldn't endorse basic public health measures, he was fearful he would lose because the virus was crashing the economy. which he thought he was basing his reelection upon. as you spoke to him here, and as you have gone back to review it, there's panic in his voice. he knows he has no political solution. his whole career he's been able to get out of trouble. he's been able to get out of trouble, wish away things, and this time, wouldn't happen. >> yes, but see we didn't know for a long time about the 28th warning.

i mean, when we say -- when pottinger is telling him, it's 1918 spanish flu pandemic, and he told trump, 650,000 people died. well, now we're at almost twice that. this is, you know, i would love to take all of this and put it together and take it to mitch mcconnell and say, listen to this. this is your president. and is this the faithful execution of the office of the president? i mean, it is beyond belief. i'm sorry to be so exercised about it, but, you know, you put these things together. we all tried to. and when it is a cold case, a cold case, he got the warning. and for month after month denial, denial, coverup.

>> and again, we had the play by play, the dates when he was warned. he was warned well ahead of time, but we hear on these tapes with bob, we hear on these tapes, donald trump admitting that he actually knew about it earlier, and also, that he wasn't going to do anything about it for political reasons. he wanted to downplay it. >> it's not too dramatic to say he truly has blood on his hands. he can't put an exact number on it, but there's a real sizable number of 1 million people who died because of donald trump. i'm going to say it again. there's a real percentage of those million plus people who died because of his failure to lead and his selfish motives. >> and to not tell a simple truth. he could have just said, look, these two guys who work for me have this experience, and they came in and they told me, and, you know, let's see, but i want to share.

i mean, this is what presidents -- you know, this is faithfully executing the office. pottinger and o'brien are coming in because they know the president has the responsibility to deal with this and take action and they were stiffed. the public was stiffed. i mean, blood, it's more than blood. it's a national catastrophe. >> so, we have one more. this one from december 13th of 2019 of trump asking why the u.s. defends south korea. >> because i know every one of the sites, i know all of them, better than any of my people, i know them. you understand that. we're defending you and losing a

fortune and you are paying the same thing for 30 years which is nothing. you are paying almost nothing. you got to pay. it's a rich country. we are allowing you to exist. why are we doing that? why do we care? we're 8500 miles away. why do we care? why do we have our 32,000 soldiers over there willing to fight for you and you are not paying us, why? >> this guy, i mean, my god, if he is not a plant from some other country, he would make a hell of a plant because you've got him talking about love letters with the most brutal dictator on the face of the earth, and then he's hostile towards the democracy that is to the south of north korea, our south korean allies. why should i care? hostile towards them like he was hostile toward the leaders of

britain, france, hostile to nato. donald trump time and again shows a hostility toward democratically elected governments and a reverence for dictators like kim jung-un, putin, xi. >> yes, but it is worse where he says we are allowing you to exist. to an ally. if -- i'm trying to think of something more insulting to say to an ally. can you imagine joe biden going over to nato and telling our nato allies, well, we're spending all this money, we're allowing you to exist. inconceivable. there is one inconceivable statement after another where he is talking about north korea. now, north korea, such a danger.

it is a danger to this country. now we're going through a new cycle. and trump is talking about kim jung-un and his private negotiations with him, which are traumatizing his national security team. and trump literally says about kim jung-un and his missiles, well, if he shoots, he shoots. if he shoots he shoots. the whole premise of deterrence theory is it is unthinkable to shoot. that we now have putin talking about it. but here is trump kind of saying, if he shoots he shoots, well, we'll destroy him. i mean, my god, you listen to that and it is the casualness.

it is the misunderstanding of what this relationship is and the danger of north korea that had all these missiles, these nukes camouflaged, hidden, concealed and spread out. intelligence agencies went nuts about the danger and trump is off writing letters and having -- and telling me and the cia i'm the only one, i'm the only one that understands him. >> crazy. more than the intel community this harkens back to the question you asked in helsinki, but also, for all these people that say donald trump, he may have been a little off at times, but what -- he was great on policy. no, he wasn't. he was horrible here. he was horrible on nato. he wanted to destroy nato even after he was out of the presidency, what did he do when vladimir putin invaded ukraine? he called him brilliant. called him brilliant and what is

proving to be the worst geopolitical decision made in our lifetimes for a leader of a country. vladimir putin's destroyed russia. in so many ways. and donald trump was praising him saying how brilliant it was. he is wrong all the time. >> i just think about how desensitized the nation is to shocking moment after shocking moment after shocking moment. and yet, it is important that we try and frame history and the facts of what happened during this presidency. the new audio book is entitled "the trump tapes, bob woodward's 20 interviews with president trump." thank you very much for coming on this morning. >> thank you. up next, a look at the civil rights activists in the 1950s and '60s. and the peaceful tactics they learned from the military. our conversation with author tom ricks is straight ahead.

you are watching a special holiday edition of "morning joe." we'll be right back. we'll be right back.

to become first class citizens. and if the democratic party is not seated now i question america. is this america? the land of the free and the home of the brave. where we have to sleep with our telephones off the hook because our livings be threatened daily because we want to live as decent human beings in america? >> wow. one of the leading voices of the civil rights movement speaking at the 1964 democratic national convention in new jersey. joining us now go-time pulitzer winning journalist tom ricks and continue the discussion of

"waging a good war." also with us, retired u.s. army ranger adrian lewis, professor at the university of kansas and a reason adrian is on today is to focus on the civil rights movement and tom's book and the lessons learned from the military. tom, set the scene for us what you have in the book and learned about how this nonviolent movement learned some incredible philosophies from the military itself? one thing i loved about writing this book i began to think, wow,

the military could learn. they're good at two basic tasks. training and military. how to fight. where i think the civil rights movement outstrips the u.s. military flounder is the u.s. is not as good as as the civil rights movement to form late strategy. and the end game. what the military would call phase four and the civil rights movement called reconciliation why what do we want things to look like at the end? they thought about it as keep

the eyes on the prize. >> professor lewis, respond to those thoughts where the military could learn from the civil rites movement and what you thought of the book? >> thank you for having me. good to be with you. congratulations, tom. great piece of work. i read all your work. i reviewed some of your work and appreciate the contributions you make. i would push it back. i would go back to the policy making part and we got the policy right with the vietnam war you got it right.

as you know they lied to the american people about vietnam. nixon lied to the people and the outcome you know of vietnam. great the policy right and the strategy will come. in the civil rights movement martin luther king and the leaders are on the right side of history. they promote values and ethics that are more in line with american, with the founding fathers' values and ethics. >> so in fact -- >> also, in your book about the

culture of the american military you also reached back to the roots about how essential it is to perceive the truth to comrades in battle. could you talk about that? >> you quote the ranger handbook about telling the truth. we don't have to look back far to the history to see the problem with lying to the american people. we can look at the war in iraq. george w. bush and colin powell were not straightforward with the american people about wmds, the significance of the threat from saddam hussein and we lost the support of the american people. i was listening to the program earlier and talking about the

inability in the gop to not tell the truth. there will be consequences for that. >> we are still waiting but yes i hope that there is consequences for lying and for completely deleting values from the core. the professor talked about the army ranger handbook. you discuss how civil rights leaders took a page from the military handbook. the ranger handbook carries a rule supposedly promulgating in 1759 by major robert rogers. tell the truth about what you see and do. there is an army depending on us for correct information. simply a lesson an activist taken from participating in

sit-ins is absolutely essential to report ground truth accurately. when you're really honest with yourself and other people you give yourself and them the opportunity to solve problems using reality instead of lack of reality making problem solving much more efficient and you talk about the impact of doing things this way in your book. i want to jump to today and ask you, tom, to comment on where we are when there are so many levels of truth and how that affects the civil rights movement of today. >> when people won't have the courage to tell the truth, when they think that political power is best obtained by lying you wind up with a chaotic and fraught situation. you will not build a lasting peace based on lies.

you quoted diane nash. four little girls blown up by 16 sticks of dynamite in a church. she wrote a memo to martin luther king telling the leaders handling the response to that badly and negative energy circumstance lating at the funeral and the crowd and needed to recycle negative energy into something positive. she said you are failing as leaders. >> thank you. the new book waging a good war: a military history of the civil rights movement" adrian lewis thank you for being on this

morning. still ahead, the words that define a presidency. former obama speechwriter on his new book about the time in the white house. that is next on "morning joe."

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♪ amazing grace ♪ ♪ how sweet the sound ♪ ♪ that saved a wretch like me ♪ ♪ i once was lost ♪

♪ but now i'm found ♪ ♪ was blind but now i see ♪ president obama back in 2015 in what was a beautiful and wrenching moment youth eulogizing victims. it capped off the ten most eventful days of the west wing starting with the horrific killings and ending with supreme court's decision to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide. how does he know what went on inside the oval office?

he was there. joining us now former chief white house speechwriter under president obama, cody kenan. president of "grace." thank you very much for being on the show. please tell us what happened in those ten days that most people don't know about. >> yeah. at the time you don't know it will be the ten day period. we were preparing for marriage equality and obamacare. we had to write speeches for every possible outcome. then there's a horrific mass shooting in charleston. then the president has to decide to give a statement. that was a ginn and then decide a eulogy. that was not a given. it is 12 different speeches and

through it all you think about what does it mean to be an american? whether or not working americans deserve health care. whether black americans have to walk past the confederate flag on the way to work. >> good morning. congratulations on the book. i'm curious as you and the president sat down to write that speech. where do you begin? it's a massive problem. >> he didn't decide to give a eulogy until the sixth day of the week. he didn't want to.

he said i don't want to give another eulogy if we won't do anything about this. the victims forgave the killer on live television. we started to work on a speech. we both kind of ran out of words. there's a heated moment. he said i have nothing left to say why do you? i said, no. we just kind of muddled through the speech. i wrote in the phrase amazing grace. he decided to add the lirings. coming to singing that moment on the 10th day he spoke in the rose garden and then took the helicopter to andrews and he

said if it feels right i might sing it. i said, okay. >> wow. so it was relatively spontaneous. amazing story. you started with ted kennedy and worked in his office. jon favreau recruited you into the white house. you are president obama's right hand. what is that relationship like for you? how do you help him to write his own story? >> i did learn it from jon favreau and worked on the world view together but it is a collaboration. that's a most important thing president obama taught me. you are writing something i can work with. on the best speeches they were collaborations with drafts. >> congrats on the book. that speech arguably finest moment of that president.

your daughter named grace. >> yeah. >> tell us about writing for and with the nation's first black president on issues of race and so many moments in his presidency. >> it is extremely difficult. especially in moments like that. but fortunately the chief speechwriter was barack obama. what's the story to tell? with charleston he would take it to a higher place. >> beyond the eulogy. the celebration of the marriage equality passed by the supreme court. that was that moment like to write something viewed as a you triumph? >> euphoric. we had gay colleagues that found out they could get married like

the rest of us. >> "grace: president obama and ten days in the battle for america." cody kenan, congrats on the book. thank you for being here this morning.

big trump supporter. >> the numbers are pretty good. >> whitmer is up. >> i don't believe the polls. >> you don't believe polls? >> if they're done by the republicans. >> it is important for polls not to reflect reality but your reality? >> exactly. >> are you a dixon fan? >> yes. >> not a whitmer fan? >> no. >> she got a big boost after the kidnapping threat. >> yeah. i think they hyped it up. those people are still locked

up. what did they do? >> threatening to kidnapping the governor. i think they staked out the house and had a plan. >> yeah. but they didn't do anything. >> just because i think about thwart democracy and then meet friends and talk about it and putting in plans in action. >> they didn't do anything. that's the point of america. >> feels like law and order is an eh issue. >> just don't do it. >> do you have plots? >> no one actually acts on it. >> have we? all of us? >> i'm sure all of us. >> seems worse today. a clip from a new comedy central responsibly hosted and produced by "the daily show's" jody cleper.

in those seven years things have only gotten stranger. >> as mrk barrels into the midterm elections, there's one question on my mind. democracy, are we still cool? >> what does conceding mean? >> accepting loss. >> no. >> no? >> why? >> is democracy [ bleep ]. >> would be [ bleep ] tomorrow if the wrong thing happens. >> if there's a problem with this election this country will go to civil war. >> why? i have an airbnb rented. >> most beautiful thing i ever saw. >> bird chirping? police officers screaming? >> no. >> jordan joins us now, host, writer and executive producer of -- jonathan? say it. >> fingers the midterms.

unfollowing the democracy. >> i don't know why i'm not comfortable. that's okay. >> that's the title. it's a fact. face the facts. say the facts. >> we love facts. >> pointing the finger? >> fingering the midterms. >> okay. >> could be wrong. >> i'm with mika on this. >> good morning, everybody. >> this is a hard day. you do lighten things up. >> thank you. >> and you take the veil off. tell me the goal of what you do. i know it's funny. on "the daily show." >> i like to bring logic in the center of america. people are home yelling at the television and wondering what people believe. i talk to people and more often

than not they're not questioned with the follow-up. and so we may hear stuff here in the studio in new york but the goal is to go to arizona and what are people saying about the election and to accept the results and bring it back to the people and find a little bit of humor in it. >> you ask the key questions. this year you talked to qanon believers about who is pulling the strings at the white house. >> maybe the most surprising moment of the rally is running into an old friend i thought i'd never see >> yes. the online conspiracy following a mysterious character known as q is more popular than ever. is that a q? >> yeah. >> are you a q supporter? >> certainly. >> trump would be reinstated as

president? >> never left. no doubt in my find 150,000%. >> that he's still president of the united states. >> yeah. >> really. does he hold the power of the presidency? >> well, he's been flying around the world on the air force one. that says something. i thought joe biden had air force one. >> no. >> so they're faking it? >> yeah. it's not even a president. >> who is running the government right now? >> president trump. >> he's running the government? >> and the military. >> and the military? so we should blame him for what happened in afghanistan. >> no. >> but it's still his fault. >> it's way beyond my -- >> understanding. >> i don't -- i'm -- >> thank you for talking with me, george. enjoy seeing current president trump. >> it was a thought that the q conspiracy was falling apart, the prophesies had not come to fruition. you're telling us the opposite. explain, i never understand why jfk jr. played such a central role in this conspiracy, that he

would be the next republican leader, because last i checked he was the son of a democratic president and a democrat himself. >> yeah. to be honest, it doesn't have to all add up. >> really. >> the kind of thing that gets in the way of addressing sticky subjects. i think what a lot of people don't understand is conspiracies are fun. the jfk jr. one is wild. i talked to somebody in our special about it. he said jfk jr. is the current president, joe biden was killed in guantanamo. but trying to piece together a world that doesn't make sense. >> what you do is so interesting just on the political landscape because it is very funny, very, very funny, and these exchanges are at times hilarious. at the same time, reverend al, i get really sad sometimes watching these because it really does relate back to the main theme of our show today and to the misinformation that is truly

spiraling out of control unchecked. >> it really does go back to the theme of what we were talking about that goes unchecked, and it really scares me as a minister that these people are parts of a cult that they really believe. i mean, this last guy that you were talking to at the trump rally really believes trump's president and really believes that biden is not there. i mean, how would you do this? i know at the end you deal with the comedy side of it, but are you ever feeling like you want to shake them into reality and say do you realize this is crazy? because it's like they've drunk the koolaid and maybe it's the preacher in me, if you want to convert these people, do you ever feel like you want to bring them into reality? >> i try to bring them to my reality, but i do think we are living in separate realities. i empathize with a lot of these folks. they wanted a community, there's a community at the rallies.

they want a sense of purpose. the former leader of the world is saying you're a patriot, serve me. i understand that energy. i want to be part of something as well. what's scary is they've been given the playbook to not have to accept accountability for anything that makes them feel uncomfortable. >> over the summer you caught up with trump supporters to get their reaction to the january 6th committee hearings. let's take a look at that. >> what happened on january 6th? what do you think happened in there? >> i don't really know. >> january 6th, the -- >> election day? >> the election day was back in november. >> i don't even know -- >> do you know about january 6th? >> no. >> when i say january 6th, that means -- >> nothing. >> that's just a day to you. >> yeah. >> did you hear about the insurrection attempt at the capitol? >> no. >> no. >> for almost everyone here, insurrectioning was a nonissue. it was the hearings themselves that were the problem.

>> i think it's an abomination. >> it's mccarthyism, a witch trial. >> a witch hunt. >> it is. >> a mob of people coming together with pitch forks saying we can't have that. >> yeah. with an agenda, here's the narrative we're pushing and that's all we're pushing. >> a mob of people pushing an agenda, that can't stand in america. >> no. >> we should have an investigation about the people. everybody would watch that. >> absolutely. >> nancy pelosi, she is very responsible for what went on then. she planned it. >> she planned it. >> i believe so. >> why would she want to be attacked by the trump supporters? >> she wanted to say something bad about them. >> you must be watching the january 6th committee. >> no. >> so, jordan, you're supremely talented. there's a fine balance you're striking here where you're respectful and you're listening

but you're also finding the humor in it and creating content that's really very funny. but what is your take-away from it? is it -- does it lean toward cult or a lack of information or -- what are you finding in these people? >> i think we shouldn't shy away from the word cult. it's cultish behavior through and through. i think what i'm seeing is bad information with adults who are acting like children puts us in a really dangerous place. you have responsible adults acting like children who are manipulating these people with this bad information. you see it today. i look at the elon musk tweet of yesterday and i already know i'm going to be arguing that point a week from now. because we can't have earnest conversations about a base reality anymore. we can't have those uncomfortable situations if this rhetoric is causing this type of violence because when you go out to have that conversation, all of the b.s. that is being fed, the bad information, that's the thing you have to get through,

and more often than not, i find it almost impossible to get through it. >> jordan klepper, thank you so much. we'll be back with much more "morning joe" after the break. the virus that causes shingles is sleeping... in 99% of people over 50. and it could strike at any time. think you're not at risk? wake up. because shingles could wake up in you. if you're over 50, talk to your doctor or pharmacist about shingles prevention.

welcome back to "morning joe."