michael schmidt, let's zero in on rudy giuliani in the context of all of this reporting. i want to play what giuliani said in 2013 about a pardon that clinton gave to mark rich, an associate. it has some parallels to pardons of close associates for people you work with if you're the president. let's watch what giuliani had to say then. >> there's no justification for that pardon, and it was a disgrace. and a scandal that should have been pursued more. it was a midnight pardon. he had to do something big to get that pardon. >> so how does that fit into all of these questions we have in we don't know who the person is that's in this very redacted case. and i'm also interested to know what your reporting says about how serious these conversations have been, particularly around giuliani. >> well, i think at the most fundamental level, the problem here for the president is he has treated pardons whimsically. he's looked at who should receive them, and how they should be given. he sort of relied on people that have direct access to him, and he's given them to celebrities and to

the northern district of alabama and a professor at the university of alabama law school, and michael schmidt, washington correspondent for the "new york times." they are both msnbc contributors. good evening to both of you. good to see you. michael, let's start with the news. there was some sense this was coming. obviously manafort and stone are the big names that we were expecting. it's not a big surprise. the question is, particularly with charles kushner, donald trump is getting closer and closer to family, and he's still got more than three weeks in the white house. what are the indications about what happens next? >> well, that's sort of the big question, how much further will the president go? he has now pardoned several people who wouldn't cooperate with these investigations that looked at his campaign's ties to russia. he has done this with jared kushner's father, he has done this with allies, with folks that have ingratiated themselves with the president. he's done it at a rate that no president is ever believed to have done. what i mean by that is most previous presidents gave pard

not only what michael schmidt was saying.s that it would eliminate the -- any constitutional protection for self-incrimination in a federal case. think about that for a moment. if he did anything after, future crimes that escaped the pardon, neither he nor his kids would be protected by the privilege against self-incrimination. they'd be forced to testify. >> it also seems to me that if you're worried about new york prosecutors, as he appears to be, it does seem like a weird like drawing a map with an arrow like maybe some crimes here to those prosecutors. if you out of nowhere are like eric trump, come in here, pre-emptive pardon. it seems like you're drawing a road map for local prosecutors if you do that, right? >> who are you talking to, me? >> yes. >> yeah. it's a road map. but it's hardly a road map that he needed to say. right? i mean, they're being investigated because they're being investigated. >> right. >> the pardon is not drawing a circle and saying you know, indict me. they've already been in the mix according t

and "the new york times" washington correspondent and msnbc national security contributor michael schmidt. michael, i'm going to start with you because i just saw that you and maggie haberman posted a new article about half an hour ago on "the new york times" called "a president unhappy, unleashed and unpredictable." and apparently talked to more than a dozen current and former administration officials. some of this most loyal aides, advisers, you write, are deeply concerned. so given everything we've seen loafer the last 24 hours, give us the big picture. what do the people closest to president trump right now think they're dealing with? >> well, i think they're dealing with someone who is not necessarily hearing from all of his aides about the consequences that he could pace for everything. something that came through in the reporting was that earlier in the presidency, when trump was wanting to do something that was either unethical or illegal or potentially problematic to himself, aides would ban together to stop him. but maybe more importantly, they would tell him not, you know, what

let's bring in national security analyst michael schmidt. michael will read some of your and maggie haberman's reporting on this. president trump granted clemency on tuesday to two people who pleaded guilty in the special counsel's russia inquiry, for blackwater guards convicted in connection with the killing of iraqi civilians and three corrupt former republican members of congress. it was a remarkable assertion of pardon power by a president who continues to dispute his loss in the election and might well be followed by other pardons in the week ps befos before he leaves january 20th. mr. trump nullified more of the legal consequences from the investigation into his 2016 campaign which he long labeled a hoax. he granted clemency to contractors whose actions in iraq set off an international uproar and helped turn public opinion further against the war there. and he pardoned three members of his party who had become high-profile examples of public corruption. in this, michael schmidt, in a way, he's admitting certain things were not hoaxes at

michael schmidt is one of the reporters who broke the news with that. they've discussed pardons for his three eldest children. my guests join me now. let me start with you michael. what we know about these conversations and discussions, you know, the president obviously says a lot of things all the time. question of how serious are we on the spectrum of these conversations? >> i mean, look, you're rights. the president does say a lot of things, but he also says things in private and has more serious discussions about things in prooiflt than he does in public, and we know that he spoke to guiliani about this last week. you have to recall that or obviously understand the context, that guiliani is at the fore front of these false claims, these outlandish campaign the president has undertaken to undermine the election results, and in the process of doing it guiliani and the president discussed a preemptive pardon. the president has for some time expressed concern, what he said is based on concern that the justice department would target his children. he beli

michael schmidt all over this story for the "new york times." thanks so much. >>> rev, to go back to a point andrew weismann made how ideally these pardons should be used i'm sure you all at the national action network have a long list of cases, of people sitting in jail on minor drug offenses or convicted on sketchy evidence, perhaps. i'm sure you've got a list you'd be happy to provide the white house, if they're handing out pardons like this. so what's your broad reaction, knowing donald trump the way you have for all of these years to these last acts in office he's taking? >> donald trump has really made a mockery of democracy. he's used the fact that he was elected president to continue schemes that are outright criminal, and to cover up those schemes using the pardons that were designed to try to correct things that may have been wrong. and i think we must also keep in mind that he did this while at the same time putting on hold for christmas the people that need some kind of relief during this pandemic. during covid-19. so let's look at h

joining us now is michael schmidt. he's washington correspondent for the "new york times." he shares a biline on the "times" reporting on this subject tonight. thanks for joining us on such a busy night. >> thanks for having me. >> mike, do you -- let me just ask you as this is sort of developing story. do you have any more reporting on the discussions that went into tonight's pardons, why president trump is issuing them now? we do note that he went through the somewhat unusual step of listing alongside is description of the name and the description of each person being pardoned, he listed people who supported that pardon, as if to sort of implicate them in his own decision to use this presidential powers to pardon them. do we have any further understanding as to how he came to this list and why now? >> what we're trying to understand at this hour is that how many of these pardons came through the typical justice department process for recommending them. the justice department, if many years, has had this system to ensure that pardons are dulled out for reasons of grace and

michael schmidt, washington correspondent for "the new york times."or helping us understand your reporting. >> thanks for having me. >>> much more to get to tonight on this kind of amazing night in the news. dona mcneil, long time award winning science reporter from "the new york times" is joining us ahead. stay with us. s joining us ahead stay with us >>> more than 2,400 american deaths from covid have been recorded in the past 24 hours. we are up at 2,400 deaths a day now. and with case numbers looking like they do that will keep climbing in coming weeks. we're due to hit i guess we could think of it as one 9/11's worth of deaths per day soon in short order. part of the story of covid in america, part of the history of this time will have to be about people who made it worse. bad actors handling it terribly, punching above their weight in terms of the amount of damage they were able to do as the country reeled under the on set of this virus. in terms of the spread of the virus the white house as an institution itself has continued to prove it deserv

michael schmidt is joining us now. he has the lead by line on the story. michael, great to have you on the show. thanks for being back. we gave the headlines from your reporting. take us deeper into the players allegedly involved and what they're accused of doing. >> that was a good way of laying it out. i like that graphic. it made a lot of sense. it was helpful. at the most basic level, the problem with this attempted scheme which ultimately didn't turn out in a pardon or clemency for this individual who is seeking it is that donald trump has treated pardons and commutations like white house party favors and gave aways. he has not relied on the normal system that white houses and presidents have to give the pardon policy a veneer of seriousness in a way that it is being used to sort of right the wrongs of justice. he has used his pardon power and -- on celebrities, on people that have special access to the president. and because of that treatment of pardons, the fact that he's talked about them publicly, talked about giving pardons to his associates, thos

michael schmidt from the "new york times," washington correspondent for the "times" who's been following this breaking news all evening. mr. schmidt, thank you for your time. i appreciate it. >> thanks for having me. >>> all right. i want to bring into the conversation now andrew weissman. he's a former senior member of special counsel robert mueller's team. he served as fbi general council, former head of the criminal fraud section at the justice department. i should also tell you that mr. weissman prosecuted alex van der zwaan, one of the people pardoned by the president. mr. van der zwaan had pled guilty to lying as part of the mueller investigation. thanks very much for joining us. i appreciate you being here on short notice. >> no problem. >> let me ask first your reaction to this wave of pardons tonight and of course specifically i want to know if you will like you can give us any reaction to the pardon of mr. van der zwaan. in particular feel free to correct me if anything i said about his case was wrong or misconstrued. >> sure, well, my initial reaction is very similar to what m

michael schmidt, washington correspondent for "the new york times." thank you for helping us understand your reporting. >> thanks for having me. >>> much more to get to tonight on this kind of amazing night in the news. dona mcneil, long time award winning science reporter from "the new york times" is joining us ahead. stay with us. with your uniquely-you sneeze. and, your uniquely-you health needs? 1 in 400 trillion. roughly. that's why walgreens created something new. with personalized, real-time health alerts. cash rewards on...everything. and pickup in as little as 30 minutes. introducing mywalgreens. a whole new way to wellness. confusing like, "why am i sitting here in a hospital gown waiting to get my eyes checked?" ready? absolutely not. see, having the wrong coverage can mean you get the wrong care, or you're paying more than you have to. that's why i love healthmarkets, your insurance marketplace. they make sure you have the right coverage, health insurance, medicare, and yes, dental too. wow, think that's painful? wait 'til he gets the bill

michael schmidt, thank you so much for being here.nks for helping us understand your reporting. >> thanks for having me. >>> all right. we've got much more to get to tonight on this kind of amazing night in the news. donald mcneal, long time award winning science reporter from the "new york times" is joining ahead. e "new york times" is joi ahead. y pepto diarrhea. pepto® diarrhea is proven effective to treat symptoms, and it also targets the cause of diarrhea. the 3 times concentrated liquid formula coats and kills bacteria to relieve diarrhea. while the leading competitor does nothing to kill the bacteria, pepto® diarrhea gets to the source, killing the bad bacteria. so, try pepto® diarrhea, and remember to have it on hand every time you travel. also try pepto®-bismol liquicaps for on-the-go relief. i'll be eating chicken tikka masala with garlic naan. [doorbell chimes] cheers. i win again, patrick. that's siiir patrick. oooooow. sir. for bathroom odors that linger try febreze small spaces. just press firmly and it continuously elim

let's bring in "new york times" reporter and msnbc national security an list michael schmidt for thisy powell, after she said that kelly loeffler had rigged the election with brian kemp, that she wasn't a part of the team. that's interesting. you know, michael, i'm struck by something that jonah goldberg wrote last week, which was basically saying that donald trump was out of his mind and if he had told republicans six months ago what donald trump was going to be doing now, they would accuse him of having trump derangement syndrome, that it has gotten so bad that they would have been shocked even six months ago, and yet here they are remaining quiet for the most part and not calling him out for this. but i just jotted down while mika was reading, this is what he has done the past month or so. called for the arrest of joe biden and his family, put pressure on the attorney general, his attorney general of the united states to arrest his political opponent when he was behind in the polls. refused to guarantee a peaceful transfer of power. now this weekend we hear about the calling for ma

>> michael schmidt, of "the new york times," on the justice beat for us today. as always, thank you. >>> still ahead -- we'll speak with a doctor who made history on day one of the vaccine roll-out. 's been a tough year. and now with q4 wrapping up, the north pole has to be feeling the heat. it's okay santa, let's workflow it. workflow it...? with the now platform, we can catch problems before customers even know they're problems. wait... a hose? what kid wants a hose?! fireman? says "hose" it says "horse"! not a "hose"! cedric! get over here! now our people can collaborate across silos, from across the globe. so how's the new place? it's a 4 bed, 2.5 bath igloo... it's great! yeah, but you have to live in the south pole. sir... wait, are you sure? yes, we're that productive now. you hear that?! the kids get twice the presents! [ cheering ] about time 2020 gave us some good news. whatever your business is facing... let's workflow it. servicenow. try optum perks. it's a new way to save up to 80%. and everyone can do it. it's from optum, a health care company that

in portland, reportedly his name is michael schmidt, he dropped charges in 700 cases involving riotersmay for attacks and assaults on police. he is saying he may again drop -- we were hearing he may again drop charges against rioters in this new occupy zone around a house of foreclosure. we hear what you're saying but dealing with a d.a. out there too, right? >> yeah look. you want to fix the city. let the cops do their job. but when the cops do their job the prosecutor has to do his job. he ought to read his position description. he ought to jail people on crimes and protect the community. the voters need to raise hell over there, get the mayor out of office, get the district attorney out of office. that city will continue to fail until the police allowed to do their jobs and prosecutors allowed to do their job. you want to know morale in that department, they are vilified by their own mayor. the media is not covering it like this network does, thank god. look, taxpayers have to make the change. elizabeth: you know what happens, when you have riots like that, actions like that, it dri

you and michael schmidt, tonight, you posted the story and you called it, quote, audacious christmas round of pardons. what's the theme you see? >> people who are close to president trump or who he thinks will help absolve him of any implication of the investigation between his campaign and russia officials in 2016. then you throw in -- i don't think it's getting enough attention. the blackwater pardons, four men who were convicted of a massacre of iraqi civilians in 2007, including children. so that's the theme overall, on the one hand you have the president talking about -- it is not unusual for the president to wield their party power of their final days. bill clinton pardoned mark richt, at the end of his term in 2000s. what's different here is number one, the scope of these and the fact that the president on the one hand is talking about draining the swamp but on the other, these are three congressmen who were convicted of corruption charges. in one case, he is computing the sentence. he's issuing full pardons and one of them have no time served. >> hunter and collins both plead

what's your sense or what's the -- i know michael schmidt has the by line on this. what's "the times" reporting on this? >> we have what you have, which is court papers that are pretty explosive in terms of what they're alleging and tantalizing in that we have no idea who's behind the redacted names, but it is all coming together again to underscore what we just said, which is that the pardons are going to be a huge story going forward. the president, john, tweeted last night, i think, just before midnight, this is a fake news story. he didn't specifically talking about this. it appeared to be what he was talking about. this is coming from his own justice department. now, we have no idea given that it was unsealed whether this is still an active case, whether this is something that is still an ongoing investigation. but still, it's a remarkable and naked allegation of a pay-to-play scheme. >> it really is. we also learned a fair amount from this interview with attorney general barr by the ap. not just that he admitted that there -- you know, there's nothing that's g

. >> get more on this, let's bring in msnbc national security analyst and best selling author michael schmidt. michael, what can you tell us about this story? >> so on tuesday, this document came out that basically laid out this scheme about a bribe being paid for a pardon and how the justice department was going to great lengths to examine some documents related to it that go into some such great lengths they went to a federal judge to ask for permission to see some of this material, but the document was highly redacted. you could not make much sense of who this document was about. but what our reporting shows is that it sort of is this -- this elaborate, but very trumpian story about a wealthy republican donor who is named sanford diller. this man who was trying to help a bay area psychologist who had been sentenced to over two years in prison on tax charges. this guy, sanford diller, was trying to get this person out of prison and basically thought because i had given all of this money to republican causes it should open the doors for me to try and get clemency for this psychologist. this

michael schmidt of the "new york times," who broke last night's pardon story, spoke of that pattern toow. >> it's something that the president can create instantaneous loyalty when he does, and because of that, if you look at the past numbers that he has granted, the pardons he has granted, of the 45 that he had granted up until today, 40 of the 45, 88%, were either tied to one of his allies, someone who had special access to him, or was tied to something that politically benefitted him personally. >> as axios details, the absolute power of a pardon is very appealing to this president. trump loves pardons for the same reason he relishes executive orders, pure power and instant gratification. a long-time trump official says that pardons are uniquely satisfying to trump because he can overturn the work of another branch of government, the judiciary. trump's undermining of the judiciary and the rule of law was commented on back in 2016 by retired law professor david post, who said, quote, this is how authoritarianism starts, with a president who does not respect the judiciary. post's comm

. >> so michael schmidt and jeremy bash, thank you both very much for being on this morning. as we watch this play out. and still ahead on "morning joe," we'll play for you the impassioned plea from a top republican election official in georgia calling on president trump and republican senators to stop promoting conspiracy theories that have led to violent threats leveled against election workers. >>> plus, a bipartisan group of lawmakers has announced a new coronavirus relief plan. we'll take a look at where stimulus negotiations stand on capitol hill as hospitalizations continue to spike across the country. and today, joe continues the conversation about his new book "saving freedom, truman, the cold war and the fight for western civilization" among his appearances will be a virtual discussion for the commonwealth club this afternoon. you can get more information about that event by clicking on our site. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. watching "" we'll be right back. we made usaa insurance for members like martin. an air force veteran made of doing what

. >> steve schmidt on msnbc, i bet my left arm that donald trump can't spell vaccine. >> yeah. you know, reminds me of why they put michaelir. the difference here is what goes beyond politics. this is the moment we've all been waiting for in order to get back to our lives. the development of that vaccine. i do think that in the administration that made many communication mistakes principally in dealing with covid, this is one thing that they got right and they deserve credit for it. >> bill: okay. how about the coverage the mainstream media has given to hunter biden? how about all of the coverage to eric swalwell, ari? >> yeah. that's another thing i looked up, bill. on the hunter biden story, abc news gave it 30 second. nbc and cbs gave it 90 second. they're one and done. they don't want to come back to this story. it's a story of great importance now in the event of a vice president's son suffers criminal prosecution. hunter and eric swalwell even worse, the networks have yet to cover that story. "the new york times" has still not covered that story. that's about china infiltrating the united states and they have not co