they didn't feel like they were in a, to use the term that jonathan swan used, mexican standoff.they were all in it together and they also, i think, had a pretty good idea of what the boss wanted to achieve with specific goals. and there wasn't as much confusion about what he would want and, therefore, there wasn't as much to leak about, about like internal disputes. i think there is a lot of confusion even when the president talks and tweets, we who are publicly -- who are publicly getting his information, we don't necessarily know what he wants. and if they don't know what he wants, they don't know who is backing them up. they don't know if they're backed up by people they work with. it creates a situation where everyone is scared and kind of willing to talk. i don't sense that with the obama administration. >> i think there is possibly a sense you can use leaked information to influence the president because it gets on television. >> right. you get a president who reads news coverage but not internal memos or documents or goes to meetings and all this. if you're trying to achi

. >> coming up, axios' jonathan swan has a look at this morning's one big thing. >>> and the north korean officially on the calendar. president trump scales back his bombpast, may signal about his expectations for the summit and the challenges he could face. >>> republican senator bill cassidy joins the conversation to discuss the call by him and his gop colleagues to cancel the summer recess in a bid to break the logjam on nominations and the must-pass spending bill. i'm about to start the nature's bounty hair, skin and nails challenge. so my future self will thank me. thank you. i become a model? yes. no. start the challenge today. and try new tropical citrus flavor with collagen. nature's bounty. (cat 2) hey, what's that? (cat 1) whoa, gravy! (cat 2) you mean extra gravy! (cat 1) what?! (cat 2) that's friskies extra gravy-chunky! (cat 1) chunky gravy purr-adise! (cat 2) purr-adise? really? (vo) feed their fantasy. friskies. we're on a mission to show drip coffee drinkers, it's time to wake up to keurig. wakey! wakey! rise and shine! oh my gosh! how are you? well watch this. i pop that

because i'll play a part of jonathan swan's interview with my colleague alex witt yesterday. he's the reporter who broke the story on how air sarah sanders' meeting came out about the leak. >> you said there were five sources about the leak. how many people were in that room? >> oh, at least more than 20 in the room. so it was a big meeting. so it's the communications and press team. if it's truly unheard of, you did not have this in the obama administration. you did no have in the george w. bush administration. this is not an aberration. this is the path for now almost 16 months. >> julia, to have five sources confirm this story, to be so specific about what was said in that meeting, how big of a deal is that? >> it's a huge deal. but dara, i have to tell you, this is not surprising. this really brings back to my memory the common a couple months ago president trump made during a bipartisan meeting in the white house on immigration. he referred to some african country as asshole countries. we see the white house reacted in a similar way. they didn't deny. and there was not n

i want to ask you about an intervention based on jonathan swan's reporting.g to sound the alarm bells for the president this morning, delivering a blunt message to donald trump warning him that internal leaks are coming from those he trusts, saying the president cannot trust his own staff. >> the president is not getting good advice. he is owed the sanctity of a private conversation, but nonetheless wilthere is leaking going on in the white house like nobody's business. >> it's sad that the president cannot trust his own staff who he hired. >> now, this coming from a morning anchor at a network in receipt allegedly of two leaked text messages from fbi agents. this is not a leak free zone either. no one that covers government or politics or the white house is immune to receiving information that a principal may not want out there. i want to ask you to weigh in on that, as well as the tweet that ziems the person yelling the most about leakers is doing the leaking, which was the takeaway people what had from to do not congratulate incident. >> that was when pres

and jonathan swan is a national reporter for axios. phil, you were there.no doubt about it. were you surprised at the fact they said better not fire mueller? >> a little bit. they were -- they didn't like the investigation. they used words like witch hunt. they agree with the president on that. but they were in agreement with their trump critics when it came to whether trump should exercise what he believes to be his presidential power to fire mueller. they thought that would be bad and look like he has something to hide, an indication of guilt and that politically, it would not go well. they encouraged the president to stick with this investigation till it reaches its conclusion. >> i love the way they say it's a year and therefore, end it when none of these people in out there in 195 telling ken starr, better kill this four-year whitewater investigation heading eventually to monica lewinsky by way of paula jones. nobody wants to shut these things off when they're going at the other guy. >> i for one am shocked at the double standard, hard to fathom. part

jonathan swan, we'll be reading axios a.m. in just a little bit.tter on axios.com. i'm yasmin vossoughian, "morning joe" starts right now. >>> good morning. it's friday. it's just friday may 4th. joe is on assignment. we have a lot to get to. with us to start things off msnbc contributor mike barnicle. donny deutsch is here, republican strategist and political commentator, susan del pursio and law professor at george washington university, jonathan turley and

jonathan swan is reporting that white house press secretary sarah huckabee sanders was furious about the leaks, even predicting the very conversation she was having at that moment would be leaked. and it was. as for kelly sadler, the aide who sparked this whole controversy, she still has a job at the trump administration. >> we all said things in private that you would never say publicly. i think she's handled it appropriately. >> jeff, i want you to walk us through what the white house is saying publicly compared to what we've been finding out has been happening behind closed doors with sarah huckabee sanders and her staff. >> reporter: yesterday during the white house briefing sarah huckabee sanders refused to acknowledge of that incident and said that the remarks were meant to cause discourse. sarah sanders according to this report told the group, i'm sure this conversation is going to leak, too. leak it did. jonathan swan cited five sources saying that sarah sanders was more than the comment was leaked rather than it was said. and mercedes schlapp said "i stand with kelly sadler.

it is written by jonathan swan, it is always good to talk to you, let's get right to it, what are you learn? >> this story is messed up. it is about leaks being leaked. >> on thursday obviously as you and i know t white house communication had a meeting if which one of the staffs made a remark about john mccain cancer, it does not matter, he's dying anyway regarding him supporting trump. in the wake of that leak, sarah sanders, told the group i am sure this conversation is going to leak and that's just disgusting. her prediction came true and we report on axios from five sources in the room in which she said it is inappropriate but spent most of the time focused on the fact that it leaked. the white house strategic director slapped interjected with the word of support for sadler. she said you can put this is on the record, i stand with kelly sadler. and look, her point was when one staff member publicly comment by other members, it is inappropriate. the team should support staffs who's subjected to leaks. it shows the atmosphere and the break down and trust inside this white house tha

national political reporter for axios, jonathan swan. good morning to you. happy monday.t axios's one big thing this morning. >> the white house staff that we're talking to do not believe rudy giuliani's reign as trump's tv lawyer is sustainable. it's not only that he's doing cleanup on his own cleanup on his own cleanup on the legal side of things, but he's also continuing to make pronouncements on policy with which he has no actual involvement or knowledge. so firstly it was the north korea when he said -- made an announcement about hostages before the white house or the trump administration was ready to make that announcement. very high stakes situation when you're dealing with americans imprisonened in north korea. then made another one over the weekend about iranian regime change. i spoke to a white house official and it's widespread concern inside the building. >> yeah. to that point, jonathan, i wanted to ask you i heard someone else suggest that rudy giuliani is hired to be a media lawyer to be out there being the public face of the president's legal fight against

jonathan swan goes on to quote, two sources familiar with the conversations told me the president neverir knowledge ordered sessions to cancel his recusal from the russia investigation. trump, give me a break. trump told sessions he'd be a hero to conservatives if he did the right thing and took back control over the russia investigation. according to two sources with knowledge of their conversations. >>> last night the president once again attacks session on twitter just before midnight. here's what he tweeted. the recusal of jeff sessions was an unforced betrayal of the president of the united states quoting judge joe digenova. >>> what are they smoking down there? >> clearly some of the best stuff you can get in town because it's keeping them real high. you know, this is part of an ongoing strategy that this president has put in place and has already been discussed, is very effective at. i think we cannot lose sight at how effective he is in laying down the kinds of tracks that he wants people to get on and follow him. it's working for his base. it clearly has worked for the republic

this gets leaked to axios via jonathan swan.the white house can often be. with staffers turning on staffers. because the president likes it. he wants to know who the leakers are. what's most astonishing is, is kelly sadler, the woman who made the mccain remark and who then blamed her boss for the leaking still has a job at the white house. and we say this in almost every episode, but in any other white house she wouldn't have a job this wouldn't happen. >> what's interesting about all of this is that mercedes schlapp was one who defended kelly sadler when she talked about the leaking. >> she did and is got a lot of public flack for it kelly thinks it was mercedes schlapp who might have been the person to leak it the reason these leaks matter, people roll their eyes, leaks who cares? it speaks to the chaos internally and the distraction the staffers feel. the communications team is not that big. the white house itself. domestic policy team, not that big. when they're engaged in the inward-looking stuff. it makes it harder to do a

let me add something, jonathan swan was on this all weekend. his pieces, my colleague mike allen who spent nearly 20 years covering the white house we learn more about the trump white house in a week than a year in the bush presidency. that's true. they call, i often wonder what their motives are. they call when there is a scandal to tell you what side of the scandal they're on. when there is something really serio serious like the statement crafted aboard air force one, people let you know what side they're on, press people argued they were for more transparency, believing the truth would ultimately get out. why do they seem more upset about the leak than the insult to john mccain? >> these are soulless people working for a soulless president. >> wow. >> the president of the united states doesn't have a purpose higher than himself and therefore the people who work for him do not have a higher purpose. they don see themselves as custodians of the public good. they are there to advance their own careers to, as you say, settle scores. it's all ab

jonathan swan a reporter from axios, sabrina sidique with the guardian and margaret cross. the, the, the. jonathan, we all try to figure him out. why does he get away with it? this is beyond rascal. he lies and makes up conspiracy theories like obama is from africa. he makes it up usually with an ethnic slur and people like him. 40% of the country say i approve of him. he makes up stuff like ted cruz's father helped kill kennedy. makes it up. >> during the campaign, he used this tactic, i don't know if you would call it a tactic, it's modus operandi which is say whatever you need to say to get through every given moment. his whole objective is not to come to symptom objective truth or to put something out that's going to be accurate. it's to win the moment. say whatever is required tore, quote unquote, win. so he does. and he sees the winning as the justification, and really, there is no -- the people around him are not necessarily pushing back on him as hard as you would maybe hope in some of these circumstances. >> and getting caught is no downside for him. getting caught

brian: jonathan swan goes through. this i ask your leakers why you leak.rkers, he goes look at as a mexican standoff. look at each other we are going to get shot we might as well shoot each other. others say leak because of grudges trying to get back at other people. ainsley: one guy that was interviewed says he is tries to put in different he might say certain it i don't mean or phrasing. he will put that in the leak so it looks like did you it and not me. steve: the president looks to his advisors to be around him to speak their mind. the advisors feel like if i say something that that pinner doesn't like and they are going to leak it the president is not getting good advice. is he owed the sanctity of a private conversation. nonetheless, there is leaking going on at the white house like nobody's business. will there be heads rolling? sounds like it if they can catch them. brian: john kelly made everyone hanged in their phones. they were not allowed to use their personal phones during the day. i don't know if he loosened that up or not. ainsley: they nee

what's being said, that there's an effort to go after particular leakers to find them and axios' jonathan swane that's encouraged these leaks. we see a lot of internal rivalry, and asked about why they leaked. and some people even said that they mimic the i had ydioms of other colleagues, so that the leaks will sound like someone else. >> thank you, mike. we'll be reading axios a.m. in just a little bit. to our viewers, you can sign up for the newsletter at axios.com. "morning joe" starts right now. >>> come on, charlie brown, it's a big honor for you. ♪ >> wow, if it's that important, a person should never turn down a big honor. maybe i should do it. besides, she wouldn't try to trick me on traditional holiday. this time i'm going to kick that football clear to

jonathan swan, national political reporter for axios. sociate editor at real clear politics, and eli lake, columnist for a bloomberg view. jonathan, what are the inner workings of the white house thinking about the possibilities of the summit on june 12th? i heard kellyanne conway saying, it could be delayed. >> i think it's always been an uneasiness, almost everything was going to well for a while. kim jong un was releasing the hostages and theatrically destroying the nuclear facility. but the national security advisor has always been skeptical about even the notion of trump going over there and meeting with him. he has been through this carousel before, and he does not trust the north koreans. he's never had faith in the idea that you can take them at their word. i think he had a very tough hard-line there with john fulton who is talking to the president every day, and that being said, we are being told that the president wants to do this, once the meeting face-to-face and they are carrying on as if nothing has changed. >> bret: speakin

just to build on what jonathan swan was reporting today, when they are in the white house, they don't feel inclined to open their mouth because of what's been reported as of late. it gets out of the white house and leaks upon leaks, what is the state of white house based on these latest pieces of reporting? >> well, it's not pretty. although i'm not sure why they're so focussed on the leaks as if it's some kind of piece of evidence here. if you put a microphone in any campaign i'm sure i'll get a lot of comments that would not look very good in the bright light of day. but the fact is it's now out there and how are they going to respond to it. so far they haven't followed any kind of past presidents where you would potentially fire the aide or at least apologize. the we're now days into this thing. so, they're trying to claim the leaks are the problem. but that's their problem. their own team that's leaking. their communications team. the press is doing its job by trying to find out what's happening inside the white house. >> betsy, as alex was saying, previous administrations you wou

jonathan swan is reporting that white house press secretary sarah huckabee sanders was furious abouten predicting the very conversation she was having at that moment would be leaked. and it was. as for kelly sadler, the aide who sparked this whole controversy, she still has a job at the trump administration. >> we all said things in private that you would never say publicly. i think she's handled it appropriately. >> jeff, i want you to walk us through what the white house is saying publicly compared to what we've been finding out has been happening behind closed doors with

sources who reveal this information to my colleague jonathan swan, didn't give him a compelling reasond the middle east crisis and potential trade war with china is making him fear this way. he was a child of the 1950s and the other theory is the things like a trade war with china or the middle east crisis are a little more abstract to the president. in the way that the threat of nuclear war is not. >> why would they be more abstract versus north korea? >> i would say that one thing that's maybe changing his mind with north korea is the way that kim jong un has been pushing back against him. the president is someone who likes to be unpredictable and push back against people and he's seeing that reciprocated in kim jong un in a way that he's maybe feeling more threatened and is meeting his match in the dictate fund-raiser north korea in a way he's not necessarily seeing in the middle east or the trade war with china. >> i want to talk about new poll numbers out that reveal that president trump is getting higher approval ratings for some of his personal traits. break some of those number

axio reporter jonathan swan characterizes the white house response this way.you've worked for trump for a while, you know that the worst thing you can do, the biggest show of weakness, is to apologize. so staff knows that if they publicly apologize, they're actually more likely to incur trump's wrath than if they just move on. joining our conversation tonight, peter baker, chief white house correspondent for "the new york times." we've asked jonathan lemire to stick around and join us as well. so, peter, it has been five days, and based on your knowledge of this institution and this president, provided you don't have direct knowledge, does this kind of order come from the top because some days it feels like nothing else would explain the lack of an apology to john mccain. >> yeah, no. i think that's exactly right. it's been five days as you say, and in five days, it will be ten, and ten days after that, it will be 20. i don't think we should expect that to change. i think this is a president who has made very clear long before becoming president that he doesn'

. >> jonathan swan had this terrific item over the weekend about why this white house leaks.much fun and cable has so much to work with trump is there's more leaking in one week of the trump white house than you might see in a year of a presidency. and so swan had the clever idea to call up some of the most p prolific leakers. so many said it was about score settling. making sure they're killing ideas or tamping down people who might be on the rise because they don't like the ideas or don't like those people. i think part of that tone is set at the top of the trump white house. the other thing is they do worry sometimes about ideas that are making it up to the boss that might get out. so there's a lot of leaking that's done to try to terminate those ideas before they become a reality. that's one of the defining qualities of this presidency because you have this lens into a white house that's very unusual. if you look back at previous presidencies, rarely did this many people tell you in realtime what's actually happening, especially the ugly stuff. usually they're spinning wh

jonathan swan, had a great piece -- >> let me read from that, because i have it here. it quotes the white house strategic communications, or talks about the staff after the story broke. at one point per a source in the room white house strategic communications director mercedes schlapp interjected with a word of support for sadler. you can put this on the record. i stand with kelly sadler. obviously, trying to make the point that someone leaked this to do damage. that's not how an effective team operates, but then her husband, conservative added to the controversy saying this -- >> kelly is my friend and i feel bad she's going through this. she showed character to immediately call to apologize but also a little bit of a victim here. i don't blame anybody like you, chris, for running with leaks out of the white house. it's your job. trying to get transparency to voters and to americans. the problem is, none of us were in that room and the people who leaked what she said are clearly people who have an animus against her. >> you know, meghan mccain talk and the very membe

because the sort of mindset in the white house is as a great quote that someone gave to jonathan swang un has always been about seeming crazy and trump's approach is you think that's crazy, how about this? >> we're going to quote you on that, mike allen. we're going to be out-crazy crazy, hold my beer, watch this. >> per your reporting, talk about some of the challenges the president faces ahead with regard to the summit in. >> i was watching the special report on msnbc and nbc news overnight we saw the president say my proudest achievement will be when we denuclearize that entire peninsula. but the key is going to be verifying that. like what does denuclearize mean? that will be the key to how real this achievement is. >> let's switch gears for a moment. i want to ask you about what axios is looking at. something that's lurking in the background. the mid term elections. donald trump jr. has some plans to play a big role what are you hearing in terms of what he plans on doing, in influencing some of the key contests in. >> the president's son is going to be out there a lot. connecting

. >> kevin, you read the piece by jonathan swan. we all have. and in it reportedly sarah huckabee sanders expressed dismay this conversation was distracting from some achievements the white house would like to tout. given that and given what we heard from senator graham why is this white house so his tanlt to move on from this moment by apologizing for the remarks? >> thank you for having me. this is an important conversation to have given that it's mother's day and civility in washington, i would agree i don't see much civility anymore in the washington political beat on either type of stories these days. look, i think the bottom line for this administration is that according to source that's i speak with inside and outside of the white house as well as folks who worked on the campaign is that trump administration largely believes with some exceptions that winning means never having to say you're sorry. that, of course, faced deep pushback from republicans and democrats alike this week on capitol hill. we heard from senator linlddsey graham, pa

. >> talk to us about jonathan swan's reporting on all of this and the white house's legal team sabotagee's two sides to this, right? you have your emmett floods, your lawyer who is are looking at this on the inside, who are really thinking about the legal strategy. that's being done behind the scenes. should be done behind the scenes. but you are now have rudy giuliani, who is really kind of the spokesman for the white house. constantly on the phone with the president, late at night, often multiple times, shares his grievances and he really has become sort of the public mouth and the public face of the anti-mueller brigade. and so you've got those two sides of it. the pr side and the legal side. working in conjunction both to try to end the probe and always to discredit mueller himself. >> i want to ask you about the epa. i know you guys have some new, you guys have new polling out showing that the epa chief scott pruitt has hit a low approval rating, probably the lowest approval rating during his tenure. despite having a low profile for someone in that position. what do the numbers rev

i noted that jonathan swan of axios yesterday reported some white house aides were using the mooch as an example as a reference for giuliani. so he has -- giuliani has to be careful. we now how this president sours on people. >> paris, you're a supporter of the president right now. it's a basic question. do you think he is being well served now by the public appearances of rudy giuliani? >> you know, there's two things that i think any supporter will look at. and i think this is the way the president looks at it. is the president pleased with the fact he has somebody that's aggressively defending him on president who's being combative and just going to the, you know, hitting the ball real strong and hard for him? yes. he likes that. and i think -- >> unquestionable, he does. >> i think that's a good thing. i think when you've seen avenatti out there day after day, night after night, 24/7 constantly combatting and going up against the president, we were wondering where is the defense? you have it. now, the problem we have is that giuliani is sort of being fast and loose on the facts, a

national political reporter, for axios, jonathan swan. matt schlapp.the conservative union. donna brazile. old friend and contributor. so much to talk about this sunday morning. i'm going to choose to come back with the one-year anniversary of the mueller investigation. jonathan, let me begin with you. i noticed something when alan dershowitz was here. he's independent but has been close to the president at times. it seems the white house strategy is all about discrediting robert mueller. >> the legal strategy has not changed. i mean, emmett is a quiet, careful lawyer doing the same work. >> inside the white house. >> inside the white house. what's changed is the media strategy. rudy giuliani's job is not to do substantive, in the weeds legal work. his job is to go on tv and attack robert mueller. attack the investigation. and what we're seeing is it's becoming a red and blue issue. similar to the clinton impeachment in the '90s. if that actually happens, we're seeing the the trend lines going in that direction, if that solidifies, that's fantastic for

. >> and now, jonathan swan is saying that turmoil is growing following the white house staff following the leaks of the comments. and visibly upset kerry sanders leaked the comment saying that i am sure that this conversation is going to leak, too, and that is just disgusting, too, and it did leak. and also n that same meeting, the communications director mercedes shlap said that i stand with kelly sadler, and when contacted which nbc news, she did not deny that comment. and now, we go to grace rou who is a reporter for new york 1, and charlie savidge who is a msnbc contributor, and jeff, going to you, the headline can be saying, that we have leaks of leak, and we talked and it, and then the tone and the energy in the white house, and is that an energy where they are afraid to say anything, and who might be the person who might report on what they have said. >> perhaps. i mean, it is certainly clear that the white house is viewing this as a leak problem and not a crude comment problem based on the public comments from nick mulvaney and mercedes schlapp and i reached out to her after th

jonathan swan, who covers the white house for axios, and fox news correspondent gillian turner.'s a difference of opinion in reporting about how president trump feels about his new lawyer rudy giuliani after this media blitz this week. what are your sources telling you about standing with his bos boss? >> it's a bit of a black box for people in the west wing. the one certain fact is that whatever president trump and rudy giuliani have conducted over the last few days, it's been entirely without any coordination with anybody in the white house. they've been watching, like us, like spectators. senior people in the west wing, i wonder what he will say no. that's including the white house press secretary sarah huckabee sanders. a lot of people in the west wing were comparing it to the days of anthony scaramucci, his 11 days in the white house where again it was sort of this wild ride watching statements made on tv and not knowing whether there was a grand strategy behind it or not. there were a lot of people who were relieved when they saw president trump come out and rebuke rudy gi

. >> jonathan swan has been doing this reporting and he says one of his leakers also takes the speechtimize the leak. or she. >> it's surreal, it makes you want to ask the question, whatever happened to sincerity in the operation of power here. really quickly, the reason why trump refuses to apologize, there's a really problematic understanding or conception of masculinity at the heart of this. to cesar ase see sarah sanders the president with this, i don't know. >> the leaking story, the sadler story is sad because she can't just apologize for saying something awful about a man who's fighting cancer. but what has been lost with donald trump's attentiscension indecen indecency, when he was on stage telling people he would pay the legal fees of those who punched somebody, and referring to the media in very interrogatory terms and encouraging them to scream at them and spit at them and be nasty toward the press. you would see people wearing shirts or couldn't imagine anyone would wear before that, hillary sucks, but not like -- i'm not going to say it, or hillary clinton is a c-word, or

because after the story leaked about the leak, then more people that were leakers called jonathan swanrom axios to explain how they leak using other people's idioms so make sure to cover their tracks. your thoughts? >> well, a white house that constantly admonishing the press for reporting on leaks, to then leak a story about a meeting admonishing the staff for leaks is like the trumpiest thing ever. i mean it just kind of goes to show, you know, what the problem is here. every white house leaks. you know this. every major political organization leaks. i know this. but this seems to be sort of in a new, new category. of just sheer amount and the quality of leaks. often times, what sort of mitigates the amount of leaks that come out is a common purpose, right? everyone on staff. >> dana: strategic. >> i may not like you and you may not like you but we are fighting for a bigger cause and we are behind the boss. you don't see that in this white house. it's damaging for this white house. but the fact they focus on that instead of the original comment goes to show that they are just despera

>> you know, this reminds me a little bit of the scaramucci episode in july and jonathan swan with "actionos" has said the mooch has been thrown around the west wing with people in the white house comparing the giuliani situation with skarmy who came into the white house with a lot of fanfare, was praised and had a disastrous ten days. in the beginning trump supported him and liked him but as he sort of flew closer and closer to the sun trump sort of discarded him and pushed him out of the white house with the help of the chief of staff john kelly. i'm not saying that's where giuliani is going to end up, but sometimes trump praises a performance like giuliani's and then he has second thoughts when there's a great deal of backlash from the media and especially from supporters, members of congress, people he cares about. i haven't really seen anyone from democrats to republicans to the media to some of the -- the hardest or biggest supporters of the president praising giuliani's performance here. the only account we have of giuliani's performance being praised seems to be from giuliani himself

jonathan swan speculates on axios read between the lines.resident would not be unhappy in jeff sessions or rod rosenstein resigned because of this. he feels as though he is right. if they can't do a good job and feel they are breaching lines of protocol then leave. abby: when the spy was set out to look out on aids of the trump campaign there is a difference in gathering intel and hard evidence that could ultimately lead to investigation and straight on opposition research. because you simply don't like a person. that's when we are seeing more and more it's leaning toward. brian: hillary clinton wants get oppo research, game on. internationally, guess what she had as a job for four years. international relations. guess what you want to show she wasn't good at that job. guess who knows it the people who interacted with her. that's totally logical. this papadopoulos and carter page, this is unbelievable. with paptiond getting paid what steve referred to, it was. this this cambridge professor says hey a lot about energy in the mediterranean i w

some of the quotes that they are giving to jonathan swan of axios, these leakers are explaining how theyhy they leak and they're doing it sort of for fun. i can imagine that must be deeply frustrating and unnerving if you with working in that type of toxic environment. >> sandra: you mentioned done john swan a beneficiary of the leaks. he wrote the piece over the weekend about why these white house officials, these insiders do this. and he quoted a source saying to be honest it probably falls into a couple categories. the first is personal vendettas and make sure there is an accurate record of what is really going on inside the white house, marie. >> it is extraordinary. it seems like there are people inside the white house who don't like each other and are trying to play out some of this palace intrigue in the press. i also think sometimes people leak because they don't like certain policies or where they think certain policies are going. the bottom line here is if the white house had come out four or five days ago when the story first broke and apologized for the comment, which i think

jonathan swan, we'll be reading axios a.m. in just a little bit. for you, you can sign up for their newsletter on axios.com. i'm yasmin vossoughian, "morning joe" starts right now. >>> good morning. it's friday. it's just friday may 4th. joe is on assignment. we have a lot to get to. with us to start things off msnbc contributor mike barnicle. donny deutsch is here, republican strategist and political commentator, susan del pursio and law professor at george washington university, jonathan turley and msnbc analyst john judge sefls. >>> the past few days "the new york times" says the president is losing controlling of his narrative. as of this week, the statement about his health was not actually from trump's doctor, but had been dictated by mr. trump himself. that the president has split with the leaders of his legal team and hired the same new lawyer he denied recruiting. and that mr. trump himself had financed the $130,000 payment intended to buy the silence of the actress known as stormy daniels. the "washington post" reports that when rudy giul

i think five times to jonathan swan over at axios.ven trust his own staff. >> look, i can tell you there are a couple of bad actors. i think it is disgusting and some of the most shameful behavior that you could ever engage. in it's an honor and privilege to work for the president and to be part of his administration. anybody who betrays that, i think is a total and complete coward and they should be fired. we fired people over leaking before. i have personally fired people over leaking before. and we certainly would be very willing to do so again. but, again, this is one of the greatest opportunities of a lifetime to get to work and serve for president trump. and it's something that is sacred for somebody to allow to you have that opportunity and we take it seriously. steve: sarah, why do they do it? are they trying to stab other staff members in the back? are they trying to advance their political agenda? are they trying to set the record straight? what the heck is going on? >> think think there are probably a number of reasons. som

within, i think, probably five hours or so, jonathan swan over at axios had heard from five sources insidee leaking details of her essentially meeting with the staff saying have you got to stop leaking. ainsley: this is unbelievable. these are individuals who work in the white house. they are supposed to serve the country, serve this president. if they don't like what he is doing and they want to leak information, then get out. because there are a lot of people that do believe that you need to keep what happens in the white house private. for security purposes for the betterment of our country. evidence goes in to ask people in the article that are leaking, he says why are you doing this? some said personal vendettas, transparency, if someone inside loses personal policy debate this is last shot retaliation just sticking it to that person or people that were against us. one guy said to cover my tracks, i usually listen to other staffers, like the phrases that they use. and i include those in the leak so it looks like they are the ones leaking. >> unbelievable, for a while i thought general

. >> jonathan swan live for us in washington, d.c., we'll be reading axios a.m. in just a little bit. to our viewers, you can sign up for the axios newsletter by going to axios dot-com. >>> that does it for us, i'm yasmin vossoughian alongside ayman mohyeldin and louis burgdorf, "morning joe" starts right now. >> drain the swamp! drain the swamp! drain the swamp! drain the swamp! >> drain the swamp. they actually chanted that last night. for the president's rally in indiana and it came, drain the swamp came on the same day that we learned of the swampiest behavior i've ever heard of in modern american political history. and that's because the president's personal attorney we learned yesterday, mike the cohen, got hired three days into the trump administration, to help at&t on its merger that the president said he was going to kill and he racked up a total of nearly $3 million from them, and other corporate clients. drain the swamp? what about all of those trump cabinet expenses? drain the swamp? like, drain it with what? ben carson's $31,000 dining set? the $139,

so jonathan swan asked the prolific leakers why they leak and they proud my leaked why they leak.ho didn't share their views. a lot of it was killing ideas that they don't like. some of it was let's shape a narrative in a way that's positive for the administration. >> coming up on "morning joe," just a short time from now the u.s. is set to open its new embassy in jerusalem amid cheers from israelis and protests from palestinians. we'll have a live report from on the ground straight ahead on "morning joe." at ally, we're doing digital financial services right. but if that's not enough, we have more than 8000 allys looking out for one thing: you. call in the next ten minutes... and if that's not enough, we'll look after your every dollar. put down the phone. and if that's not enough, we'll look after your every cent. grab your wallet. (beeping sound) (computer voice) access denied. and if that's still not enough to help you save... oh the new one! we'll bring out the dogs. mush! (dogs barking) the old one's just fine! we'll do anything, seriously anything, to help our customers. th

jonathan wrote. >> do. >> i read it twice. it was just -- it's a moving snapshot of what is the swan song solof this man's life, a difficult one lot in life. decisions he made. a few major regrets he had. also what his legacy will be. and, you know, i left it thinking to myself that, you know, mccain has managed to tick off all the people in his life. >> he's not exactly -- i mean, he's -- he's got a sharp personality. >> he's loved but he's also bemoaned. he -- liberals always want more of him, conservatives always hated him. he kind of straddled a weird part of politics for a while. but there are very few people like him. >> yeah. >> and certainly there are very few people remaining who are like him. giant personalities -- huge personalities. >> that's one thing that really has struck me, you know, over the course of the last ten years when i first started covering congress. there were people, figures of incredible stature in both parties. ted kennedy. john mccain. even -- >> people who understood, like, political drama as sort of a type of capital that you could use. so the kennedys, but even lesser known people like a chri