Transcripts For MSNBCW Morning Joe 20190930

President s twitter account, you just look at the very dramatic i would say radical shift in Public Opinion toward impeachment just over the past five or six days, it is stunning. And that matters to the president. The majority of americans say they approve of Congressional Democrats push to impeach President Trump. 55 said theyd back House Democrats impeachment inquiry into trump according to a new cbs news poll. 45 said they do not approve of the poll. This follows the poll last week that showed 15 point swing in favor of impeachment while npr favored impeachment inquiry than opposed it. This matters in a lot of ways, because he watches Public Opinion in some ways seemingly first before anything else, but it could move the meter. Thats actually all the president did. Remember early in the campaign the entire justification of his campaign was joe bidens justification, i can win, im in first place in the polls. Jonathan, you just look at the shifts, and we can go back even to the beginning of last week, i think it was a q poll that showed approval for impeachment down in the 30s by the end of the week we were in the 40s. Now this weekend after americans have had time to digest all of the information, the flood of information coming at them, now its 55 , well over half of americans want to see this impeachment inquiry moved forward. Most troubling for the president i would think is that 20 of those are 20 of the Republican Party now also wants to see an impeachment inquiry. Theres been a real seat change here, joe and mikka. For months Speaker Pelosi wanted to stay away from impeachment in part because of seeing that the majority of americans didnt want to go there and now that has changed. The house is on recess. Members are back in their districts taking the temperatures of their constituents and may find what is reflected in this polling, that more and more americans want to go there. This is a white house that now feels under siege. Hes tweeting supporters talking about civil war, demanding to meet the whistleblower and whoever supplied the whistleblower with information because he feels like he should be able to meet his accusers. He feels that theres a sense there and no formal war room, not yet. To this point the white house response has been to dispatch senior aides to tv shows. We saw Steven Miller and Rudy Giuliani over the weekend and relying on the president s own tweets. There is a sense theyre simply not ready for whats coming. We saw this weekend dismal performances by members of the president s team. If thats any indication of how prepared they are for impeachment, the president s in trouble. You have the minority leader of the house of representatives not even knowing what was in the transcript that the white house itself released. Its only a few pages long. David, again, you look at these numbers, you look at the shift. This is moving very quickly. Yet the white house still seems ill prepared. Nothing like the Clinton White house with their impeachment war room. Nothing like nixons white house as well. This remains even in the most dire of times for this president and this administration a oneman circus act. Joe, you put it right. Hes his own war room. Hes making himself in effect his own lawyer. As this gets more serious, hes certain to take on counsel as he did during the Mueller Investigation. Giulianis role is already problematic. Hes one of the targets in effect of this inquiry. The contrast to me thats most interesting after this last week is the careful and quite methodical way that democrats are proceeding. Pelosis tone is more sorrow than anger. This is our last resort, we dont want to make things worse, and shes chosen adam schiff to made this inquiry, a person who is very controlled, doesnt get spun off, doesnt appear as political as some of his colleagues, and i think that contrast between a white house thats in a fever and democrats who are trying to keep the fever down is one thing we should keep our eye on. I think pelosi has concluded the political damage from the democrats will be seeming to jump into an antitrump circus and theyre going to avoid that. I think theyll go deliberately, but i dont think they want to seem in a rush and theyre going to go narrowly. Theyre not going to spread this to everything that drives us crazy about the president thats going to be specific to the ukraine whistleblower allegations. And ed, one of the bigger problems right now of the white house and more to the point, republicans on the hill are facing is the performance of Rudy Giuliani in public. Republicans starting to complain bitterly that giuliani just needs to be quiet. And yet every time he goes on a Television Show he does more damage for the president making claims that can hurt the president down the road. He does. Hes actually been given, if youve been paying attention before this scandal blue ew up the last week when it was just simmering, hes been giving interviews all along basically mixing the real playbook with a bunch of decoy stories mixed up together for months and months and months on ukraine. And of course trump watches him. Trump approves of his performance, and then he takes lines from him. So giuliani has more than once hinted that domestic tranquility will be threatened by an impeachment process. Trump, of course, has been picking up on this civil war. Its not just giuliani trump is picking up on. Steve bannon who is rumored to be back into the white house if there is to be some kind of a defense team, a rebuttal unit, talked about the first shot at ft. Sumter being fired last week. Giuliani is off the charts in some respects. Amazingly unknowing in terms of how much he gives away, but its not just giuliani. There is a swell of really, really disturbing, really feted and heated rhetoric around the president. Hes clearly not listening to people in the white house that unanimously advised him not to make that call on the 25th. Hes listening to the more extreme voices on tv who used to advise him or in giulianis case act as his personal lawyer. Its very troubling to see real time a president share his deepest fears and paranoias on twitter. Im sure johnson and clinton and we know nixon were deeply paranoid about the situation they were in. They werent tweeting it live. Whats in trumps head is coming to us live on our twitter feeds. And its being supplied by the likes of Rudy Giuliani, steve bannon, and others who trump takes his que from, not balanced minds. No. Jonathan mentioned the president s tweets. The president is now demanding to meet the whistleblower and wants to have house intel chairman adam schiff questioned for treason. He posted, quote, like every american, i deserve to meet my accuser, especially when this accuser is socalled whistleblower represented a perfect conversations with a foreign leader in a totally inaccurate and fraudulent way, then schiff made up what i actually said by lying to congress. His lies were made in perhaps the most blatant and sinister manner ever seen in the great chamber. He wrote down and read terrible things, then said it was from the mouth of the president of the United States. I want schiff questioned at the highest level for fraud and treason. In addition, i want to meet not only my accuser who presented second and thirdhand information, but also the person who illegally gave this information which was largely incorrect to the whistleblower. Was this person spying on the u. S. , blah, blah, big consequences. By the way, the white house put out a memo describing what happened, which corroborated the whistleblowers report, so hes trying to cover up his own white house memo. Take those down. Its honestly it is paranoia its actually incorrect and a little crazy. Its factually incorrect and deeply disturbing and unbalanced. This is the president of the United States who actually suggested that the whistleblower be tried for treason and then executed. This is a president now whos extending that to the chairman of the Intel Committee talking about treason as well. The president of the United States, again, its got to be tiring for Trump Supporters and republicans on the hill to listen to the president lying and knowing they have to go out and cover for those lies and try to cover up those lies. And who would do that . I dont know. Well, actually, we do know. You can see them this afternoon doing it and seeing it throughout the day, but the president of the United States and Lindsey Graham and others talking about hearsay. Of course, poor lindsey may run the Senate Judiciary committee. He doesnt know the basics about law and evidence and hearsay exceptions, but well let lindsey worry about that, but the president of the United States saying that the whistleblowers complaint was secondhand information that he got wrong. Heidi, you can donald trump should say are you going to believe me or your lying eyes when you look at the memo that the white house itself put out that confirms just about everything that the whistleblower said about this ukrainian call thats at the center of the impeachment inquiry. It was a little surreal to see the president s defenders this weekend deny what was in the written transcript. There were not only denying what weve all read with our own eyes, but they were profoundly twisting the entire narrative of what happened in ukraine to somehow suggest that joe biden was advocating for some kind of nefarious purpose in getting this prosecutor fired when i think we need to restate this over and over again, the entire western world was on the same page, that this prosecutor needed to go. He was a kremlin ally holdover who was himself being accused of corruption. In fact, it was so bad that you had the world bank, the imf, the eu, you had the imf talking about withholding aid to ukraine. It was the Ukrainian Parliament that then voted to oust him. So joe biden was simply the messenger for the entire western world and you saw Lindsey Graham and other proponents for the president essentially twisting those facts in a very disturbing way for the American People. You have the transcript, but you have this campaign to really mess up what are incontrovertible facts that the American People should understand about this situation. Another thing that is being twisted, we can talk about hunter biden, we can talk about any number of family members of high ranking officials getting jobs on the boards of companies. Thats a whole separate conversation here. But this incident with hunter biden, he didnt serve on the board until two years later after this company had been cleaned up and the issue of corruption at heart that was being investigated had occurred two years before. So i wanted to set those facts straight. And as heidi was going down the list of all the Foreign Countries and the imf and all of the european institutions that were demanding the firing of this prosecutor, that biden went in following Barack Obamas orders and pushed the prosecutor to be fired, that is also Donald Trumps joe biden theory, thats also been discredited by rupert murdocks theory last week. Lets get into the twisting and turning. Heres the Top Republican in the house Kevin Mccarthy trying to defend the president on 60 minutes last night. What do you make of this exchange . President zelenskiy says we are almost ready to buy more jaff lince from the United States for defense purposes and President Trump replies i would like you to do us a favor, though. You just added another word. No. Its in the pript. Id like you to do a favor though . Yes. Its in the transcript. When i read the transcript, president zelenskiy brings up a javelin is a protection, president obama would not sell but President Trump did to protect the ukraine. How do you expect the president s defense to roll outGoing Forward . The defense of what . Well, theres an impeachment inquiry. Theres an impeachment inquiry Going Forward that probably never would move forward had the speaker waited 48 hours to have the transcript. Ill ask you again, how does the defense of the president in your view roll out from here . Why would we move forward with impeachment . Theres not something that you have to defend here. You say the president has done nothing wrong. I take that to me you find it appropriate that the president asked mr. Zelenskiy for an investigation of his democratic rivals. The question before the house of representatives is to impeach the president based upon a phone call that the speaker never even heard. With Great Respect to you, and i apologize for interrupting, but these are the white house talking points that were emailed to the Congress Earlier this week. Ill be very clear with was it appropriate for the president to ask for investigations of his democratic rivals with another foreign leader . Ive never seen one talking point from the white house. Im talking to you based upon the most important facts we have. The whistleblower wasnt on the call. The ig, Inspector General didnt read the call. But you and i have all the information we need. The president did nothing in this phone call thats impeachable. Its a see no evil, hear no evil, say no evil strategy. You know, weve been asking how republicans could defend donald trump after looking at the transcript from the house, after looking at the whistleblower complaint, and it wasnt ieceve transcript. It was a white house memorandum. Here you have the leader of republicans in the house of representatives who hasnt even read the transcript, who hasnt even read that memorandum, because everybody that read it said the most important line, the most germane line was the one that scott pelly read him, im going to need something from you, though, and kevin m he did know it was in the transcript. Its a stunning moment. Weve got the transcript in front of me. The president , i would like you to do us a favor, though. Nobody in the white house seems to have understood that the information in the transcript itself put together with the facts that are known about what was happening in that period paint a picture of a president requesting the most personal political advantage from a new ukrainian president who was at that time facing a u. S. Arms embargo. The commander of the Ukrainian Army on the ground who needed weapons we had promised them, congress had voted to give them were waiting for their arrival. They were held up on direct orders of the president and the president saying heres what i want and he mentions two things, investigative, and gobblygook and the beginning of what came to be the muller investigation. Hes saying go back, we think youve got server, giuliani will talk to you about it. And then hes very specific about the biden matter. He just asks directly for help, work with giuliani, work with our attorney general, we need this, its really bad, its really bad. The white house doesnt seem to get that a fair minded reading, i will find out, but i would say a fair minded reading of this transcript that they released leads people to say theres something wrong here. It doesnt square with what a president should do. And if they start from the position that, you know, theres nothing to see here, its a perfect, the president s phrase, its perfect. Lets read it again. I would like you to do us a favor, though in the context of this arms embargo. Something should really bother people there. And to add to davids point, weve actually had anecdotal evidence talking to Trump Supporters who are all in, all in, until now. Thats not okay. Why, joe . Because with the mueller report, it was 400 plus pages. It took a long time. It was easy to muddle it up. You can complicate the complicated, but you cant complicate something simple. And people see what happened, plain and clear. They see very simply what happened. They may not be following history and following politics every day. They know thats wrong. Its easy to figure out. Jonathan, weve found out how Kevin Mccarthy carries through the day defending President Trump. He makes sure he remains ignorant of the most basic charges against the president. A 7 or 8page memo. Was unaware of the most damming line. Most of them that ive talked to never bothered reading the mueller report. You take all this together and of course this is why they can runaround saying nothing to see here, move along, move along. Or those who have read the report and those who have read the whistle employeer complaib those who have read the socalled transcript, that memo, theyre taken up the james carvel strategy and pointing off in the distance saying look at the bird, look at the bird, even though they know that theory theyre pushing about joe biden is discredited. Again, i just want to say really briefly, it is so important, if you actually read the memo from the white house, the socalled transcript, you see that the president s talking about crowd strike and hillary and mueller. Thats all the preamble. Thats all gobbledygook. It was the wind up and the delivery for the pitch talking about investigating the bidens. How do we know that . Because zelensky knew enough not to bite on hillary and mueller. When he thought those up briefly, zelenskiy said yes, were getting giuliani over here and were going to begin that investigation which then opened the door for donald trump to Start Talking about investigating the bidens. Right. Youve hit upon a vital drns which is why i think we are seeing the increase in the polls for impeachment. The Mueller Probe was two years long. It was confusing, opaque. This is simple and easy to understand. The president s own words are the best evidence against him. And that is why the democrats are moving forward and the public seems to be warming to the idea. I also would argue that perhaps the most important sunday surrogate appearance from a republican yesterday was actually tom bosser, the president s former Homeland Security adviser who was on i believe abc who addressed the ukraine theory, that ukraine was involved in election meddling and server and he said it wasnt true and he and others told the white house it wasnt true, but it was something he hung on to because he could not face the idea that he received russian interference that may have helped him win the election. We know he thinks that makes him an illegitimate president. Thats the fear that he has. It shows again the president willing to dance in the fever swamps of conservative fringes and these conspiracies led to hes led by among others Rudy Giuliani who has continued to push those Going Forward. That is where the president and this white house is right now. There isnt a robust defense. There isnt a suggestion of fighting on the facts. Theyre still trying to muddle the issue. Theyre trying to throw things up against the wall, create the same smoke screen they did during the muller probe, confusing the issue, confusing the public, but it seems its going to be much harder to pull off this time around in a far simpler story for americans to understand. Impeachment, i believe now at this point is likely, especially if you see the numbers continuing to go up by the day for americans supporting an impeachment inquiry or even removing the president from office. Even if that does happen, you talk about how the, quote, soft nepotism of the bidens will end up hurting joe biden inside the democratic primary and will accrue to the advantage of Elizabeth Warren and other democrats in that race. Yeah. I think the problem for biden is that trump is going to be continually bringing the topic back to something that wasnt illegal, that was perfectly within the norm, what his son did joining ukraines largest gas company. And that even though there is no comparison between the high crimes and misdemeanors the president is accused of and the legal money making that the former Vice President s son was carrying out, some of this is going to stick. Washington, part of the problem with washington is whats normal, whats legal against n monetizing a powerful president s name. Its just not going to look good. Its kind of emblematic of what americans see of being wrong outside of the belt way and whats wrong inside the beltway. Elizabeth warren has based a lot of her campaign, a lot of her political career on tackling corruption, on tackling the revolving door nexus in washington, d. C. And the effects of lobbying money. Hunter biden was a lobbyist. And also i think a very smart Foreign Policy which links corruption overseas to corruption at home. The role of new york in laundering money from oligarchs in places like ukraine and russia and elsewhere and the law firms there, the account firms, the lobby shops there, the reputation launderers there that funnel oligarch destinations to our galleries, so warren is quite well positioned not to talk about biden but to benefit from some of the mud thats going to stick to joe biden from trump continually day and night throwing it at him. Elizabeth warrens life reflects her message and that definitely works at a time like this because people are looking for truth. And i kind of parallel the hunter problem with Hillary Clinton speeches. Perfectly legal. She made a ton of money, but it doesnt reflect what her campaign, which she was trying to stand for in her campaign. Thats where this sort of thats the category, legal. But its not. What are you doing . Legal and questionable. It also brought up how hunter biden was on the board of delawares biggest bank when his father was a senator there. Totally legal. Completely legal, but as you drew in 2016, talking about Hillary Clinton, the comparison. She did not have the contrast required to defeat donald trump because of problems in her own family, problems with some of the things that she did. And so i wouldnt even put Biden Hunter Biden on the level of what the clintons did. No. And obviously not on the level of what donald trump and his family do. Absolutely not. You look at donald trump sitting down and meeting the leader of china, president xi on that same day his daughter gets a lot of trademark and patent thats the joke of this is that the trump kids are out there doing this all over the place. Thats hypocrisy coming from the trumps. Will they say wait a second, we love joe, were not blaming joe for any of this, but we need a break from the old ways of doing business in washington, d. C. And let them fight that out over there and whether its thats my worry. Whether its beto or Bernie Sanders or whoever it is, kamala, will they look at all of this and say okay, let them fight it out, we need to get somebody whos completely separated from this. I hope theres fairness. Joe biden and his wife jill have served for decades and they want to go back. Honorably. Real patriots. Still ahead on morning joe new details in another conversation that the white house tried to lockdown, the one where he spilled intelligence secrets to the russians. What else the president reportedly said on that infamous Oval Office Meeting. Plus well talk about the status of brexit with former british Prime Minister David Cameron. Youre watching morning joe. Well be right back. Without my medication, my small tremors would be extreme. Without it, i cannot write my name. I was diagnosed with parkinsons. I had to retire from law enforcement. It was devastating. 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Mix with unlimited, and switch it up at anytime so you only pay for what you need. Its a different kind of Wireless Network designed to save you money. Save up to 400 a year on your wireless bill. Plus get 250 back when you buy a new samsung note. Click, call or visit a store today. Last december i talked to prince mohammad at the racetrack. He talked about his role in the murder for the first time. My camera was outside, but he said it happened under my watch. I get all the responsibility because it happened under my watch. I really take it very seriously. I dont want to tell you no, i didnt do it or i did do it or whatever. Thats just words. I asked how it could happen without him knowing about it. Accidents happen. Can you imagine . We have 20 million people. We have 3 million government employees. I am not google or a super computer to watch over 3 million. They can take one of your planes, i asked . I have officials, ministers to follow things and theyre responsible. They have the authority to do that. That was a look at the new front line documentary the crown prince of saudi arabia which examines mohammad bin salman role and the evidence linking him to the murder of Jamal Khashoggis murder almost one year ago. Joining us now, manafortin smit. He has covered the middle east front line for nearly two decades. Incredible reporting. To the extent of taking responsibility, martin, i just wonder how then even President Trump on this side of things cannot look at this seriously in terms of him being responsible for the murder of a Washington Post journalist. He went right up to the line with you. You know, theyve got their talking points in sync. Mohammad bin salman is saying im not going to say i did it or didnt do it, thats just words. The president said maybe he did, maybe he didnt. I dont know what consultant advised him on that or if they came up with that together. I think theyre surprised that this has lasted as long as it has. That still theres a lot of people that are very concerned and want answers from the crown prince as to just what happened. Hes also saying that ive got 3 million government employees. I think thats a false statistic, actually. But in any case, he says hes not a super computer that can look overall those people, but it was his closest aid that the saudi prosecutor has accused of running this operation. Its not like some distant employee down the chain. This was a very close aide. Martin, this is a meticulous piece of reporting. You and i have talked about these issues and the final product is extraordinary. Thank you. I want to ask you, a year after the death of my colleague, Jamal Khashoggi, how would you add up the facts that we do know . You have the pro forma denial that was cited by the crown prince and then all of your reporting. Just put into context what you do know at the end of a year of looking. Well, i think its very hard to look at what we now know when you put it all together and conclude that the crown prince wasnt ordering a rendition and probably well, the hit team went in there prepared to murder him. You know, less than an hour before the murder took place, they were caught on tape discussing how they would chop the body up and dispose of the parts. So its very hard to think, given the way that the things operate in saudi arabia, the control that is maintained from the very top, that the crown prince didnt know what was going on. So in june the crown prince and President Trump met at the g20 which was in japan. They had breakfast. The president ignored shouted questions, mine and other reporters, about his relationship. He wouldnt touch it. It was really striking to see him over those couple of days spend time very closely with the crown prince. Sitting next to him at various functions and group photos seeming as if he was trying to reintroduce him to the world stage, how to rehabilitate his image. Tell me where do you think that is . We know the president is Still Standing with mohammad bin salman. What is his standing for the rest of the world . His standing with the rest of the world depends in europe and in america, hes not a vehicle visitor. Hes in india as we speak, i believe. He has gone to a number of asian countries. He went to a summit meeting down in buenos aires. He is trying very hard to get this to go past him. Its not been successful. Hes not giving very convincing answers, nor has his closest aide that is alleged to have run this operation and theres a lot of evidence that he had, is not on trial. And theyre not saying where he is. Its very hard to see how he reconnects with the rest of the world. The Washington Post opinion section is remembering the columnist Jamal Khashoggi with a collection of opeds in an anniversary of his death on october 2nd. This wednesdays print edition of the newspaper will feature a special expanded opinion section in an oped entitled why the world wont forget the horror of khashoggis murder. The Washington Post ceo and publ publisher writes his story cannot be forgotten. If it is his murderers will succeed in evading justice and Jamal Khashoggi will not be mohammad bin salmans last victim. We can be comforted that jamal will be on our minds next october 2nd and for many years to come and we hope that some day when saudi arabia and the United States have a better class of leadership, jamals case will be remembered as a turning point. It might be recorded as the moment when saudi arabia began to understand the consequences of its brutality when the United States learned important lessons about standing up for its values and when both countries rediscovered liberty, human rights, and respect for the truth. David, powerful words from fred ryan. Publisher fred ryan has really been a leader for the paper over this last year in trying to keep faith with our colleague jamal. Its something that publishers too often dont do. Dont stand with their journalists, but fred really has here this special section that well produce on wednesday is an attempt to say to readers not simple wh simply who jamal was, how he was killed, but what his message was and how many other people there are like him in the arab world and around the world, who at great risk continue to try to speak out, who challenge their governments, who point out wrongdoing when they see it. These are people as in the case of jamal who know the risks theyre taking and take them anyway. So im really proud of the post for this section, but especially for our top leadership who have tried to keep faith. Front lines season 38 premier, the crown prince of saudi arabia airs tomorrow night on pbs and is now streaming on pbs. Org, youtube and the pbs video app. Martin smith, thank you very much. Still ahead, well talk to democratic senator chris murphy who says it is frig he joins conversation. Were also going to be looking at the president s poll numbers that continue to worsen. And support for impeachment continues to go up. Thats obviously having a big impact on both sides of the aisle. Well talk about that when we return. dramatic orchestra performance comes in lots of flavors. Theres the ampedup, overtuned, feedingfrenzyof sheetmetalkind. And then theres performance that just leaves you feeling better as a result. Thats the kind lincolns about. 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Trump told two senior russian officials he was unconcerned about moscows interference in the 2016 u. S. President ial election because the United States did the same in other countries. An asersertion that prompted whe house officials to limit access to the remarks to an unusually small number of people. According to three former officials with knowledge of the matter, those officials also tell the post that a memorandum summarizing the meeting was limited to a few officials with the highest security clearance in an attempt to keep the president s comments from being disclosed publicly. The officials also said trump seemed to invite russia to interfere in other countries elections. The white house has not provided a comment. The classification of records about trumps correspondence with foreign officials is now central to House Democrats impeachment inquiry. After an Intelligence Community whistleblower claimed the white house placed a record of trumps phone call with the president of ukraine on a highly classified Computer System that few had access to. And this is another example of this happening, happening a long time before moving documents not based on classification, but based on how embarrassing they would be on the president. Here, of course, the president of the United States once again attacking america, denigrating america all to put it on a more equivalent plane with russia. You know, trump back in december of 2015 told us when he was praising putin and we said but putin kills journalists, he kills political opponents, donald trump, of course, infamously said well, we kill a lot of people too. He has been signaling all along he would like more interference, he would like more assistance from the 2020 election. The interview he gave to George Stephanopoulos earlier this year in which he invited Foreign Research and said he would look at it. He has, with mitch mcconnell, leader of the senate, blocked any attempt to strengthen u. S. Election infrastructure before 2020. Basically stuff that would in ordinary times be a no brainer, would command bipartisan support. To provide more resources to the states to conduct free and Fair Election counting. He is, of course, had many conversations with many foreign leaders that we dont know the contents of, but that we can, i think, have good grounds for wondering what kinds of kwquid o quo along the zelensky line about how can you get me reelected. Youve got to think that through. If you were zelensky and that transcript hadnt been published and he was thinking if i helped trump, if di it undi did it und radar, what would be my reward in 2021 . It would be huge for a vulnerable not rich country like that. I think on multiple fronts trump has indicated he sees 2020 as this is reelection or jail in his mind and that he will take help wherever he can get it above the board or below the board. Right. And this information from last week actually well, it adds even more context to an already disturbing white house meeting with the russians where you and the rest of the White House Press corps was kept out but russians were allowed to go in many feared with listening devices and on top of that, this is where the president brags about getting rid of comey, firing comey, called him a real nut case. This is the same meeting where donald trump said i think the pressures off on this whole collusion, this whole investigation into russia. And then here we find out three years later, not the mueller report, report, but three years later that heed told he told the rus dont worry about interfering in our elections because we interfere in elections too. What is the impact of that . First on the transcripts and classification system, the white house is spinning saying that the calls are being placed in a more secure computer after a few verbatim transcripts were leaked early in his term. Certainly more safe guards were taken to limit the number of people who see those things but also raising eyebrows which World Leaders are having their calls placed in this secure system. And then back to that Oval Office Meeting and again the shadow of russia that has been throughout that hovered over this white house since the day President Trump took office, to here those comments is so dispiriting to National Security officials who are trying to keep the homeland safe. And also goes to show you how much more we dont know. It is not just the foin caphone but remember the infamous summit with Vladimir Putin in helsinki. We of course all know what he said in the press conference which shocked the world when he sided with russia. But President Trump and president putin met behind closed doors for two hours with no without r witnenesses outsid translato translators. How does the Intelligence Community feel about learning this now . A great moment came after you asked that question in helsinki that led the president basically to side with putin and against his intelligence agencies on this issue of russian interference in our elections. Dan coats then director of National Intelligence without getting approval from anybody released a statement as director of National Intelligence essentially affirming our intelligence agencies, the officers who do the work and validity and importance of their judgments, standing up for his people even as President Trump was going the other way. I think there are a couple things that i want to mention about this 2017 meeting. Fist, this is t first, this is the russias whole line, what is the big fuss, everybody does it. You did to us. And to have President Trump affirm that, this was different. This was a him issic attack to take town our election infrastructure, a level ever interference that i dont think has been experienced ever. And here is President Trump dismissing it. Second point is, im told that in the white house because of trumps, you know, lack of impulse control, the way he starts talking in a phone call, a meeting, it is a regular problem to try to clean up after him. One of the originals that White House Counsel Don Mcgahn did was cleaning up after meetings. And it is not surprising that things were put in special servers so people didnt see them, not because of a fear of lea leaks, but there was just so much debris from his conversations. And i think that is a subject that well get into as adam schiffs inquiry begins to get traction. And were just four or five days into this inquiry and weve already found out that there was a separate server set up, not to hide classified information, bud politically embarrassing information. And think about it, we now know that two of these conversations that the president had with foreign leaders, the two that we know of that were hidden away in this special server, both involve election interference. The president is asking the ukraine leader to help interfere in americas 2020 election. And the president telling the russians three years ago that he didnt care whether they interfered in our elections or not, everybody did it. Right, joe. And so the question is how insistent will house investigators be that they gain access to these transcripts. Because as we know in the case of nixon, it took going to the Supreme Court in many months to get a hold of the smoking gun tape. However, there is every indication that the American Public and Congress Deserve to see what those conversations in particular were with Vladimir Putin given the pattern that jonathan laid out. And i would add to that the seizure of the translators notes in hamburg which mike pompeo is also being sued for, already an active lawsuit. Wow. Still ahead, could steve bannon be on his way back to the white house . It is one of the ideas white house aides are throwing around as part of their strategy to prevent impeachment. Plus well have House Speaker Nancy Pelosis message to democrats as she tries to keep members from overplaying their happened. Morning joe is coming right back. Back through the at t network, edgetoedge intelligence gives you the power to see every corner of your growing business. From finding out whats selling best. To managing your fleet. To collaborating remotely with your teams. Giving you a nice big edge over your competition. Thats the power of edgetoedge intelligence. Mmacrame obviously. Wanna go to the gym . Uh, its too expensive. Actually, our Unitedhealthcare Medicare plans come with renew active, a gym membership and more, at no extra cost. Im not a workout kinda guy. You get a personalized fitness plan. Im exercising my brain. And an online brain health program. I need workout clothes . They have tvs here too. Renew active, only from Unitedhealthcare Medicare including the only plans with the aarp name. For adults with moderately to severely active crohns disease, stelara® works differently. Studies showed relief and remission, with dosing every 8 weeks. Stelara® may lower your ability to fight infections and may increase your risk of infections and cancer. Some serious infections require hospitalization. Before treatment, get tested for tb. 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But youre the one who broke the law. Hey, wait a minute, dont try to drag me into your mess. Hold on, im getting a call from the boys. Hello. Dad, it is your sons. And eric. Dad, i just cant believe the lamestream media is focused on you and not on the corruption of joe bidens son. I know. By the way, did you take care of that thing in russia for me . What thing in russia . The treason. Eric it was great. They had a great debut. And i must say, democratic debate the debate thing was amazing. So spot on funny. Well have to play some clips of the democratic debate later. It is monday, september 30th, still with us, we have White House Reporter for the Associated Press, jonathan lemire. Columnist David Ignatius. And joining the conversation, chief White House Correspondent for the New York Times peter baker, Bloomberg Opinion columnist, and also nbc news correspondent carol lee. A lot to get to. I think that well start again with the polls. Especially given the polls we looked at at the end of the week last week. A majority of americans said they approve of Congressional Democrats push to impeach President Trump. 55 said that they back House Democrats impeachment inquiry into trump. According to a new cbs news ugov poll, 45 said they do not approve of the probie. Last week there was a poll that showed more people favored an impeachment inquiry than opposed it. That is important. It really is. And it really does show i think peter baker one of the reasons why the president feels so cornered and one of the reasons that we had another one of his patented twitter tirades over the weekend. Thats right. Look, up until now the white house has been able to say correctly the American Public didnt want an impeachment for all of the investigations that have been going on for months, all of the different issues that have been on the table. The white house could say look, the public isnt engaged in this, why would you impeach a president without the public support and this is where the republicans remember of course what happened in 1998 when they impeached president clinton without public support. But if the numbers are changing, if the public mood is changing and it continues to change in that direction, that will also change the debate on capitol hill, the democrats have long feared political blowback from pursuing an unpopular impeachment. If the numbers suggest that in fact they can xwibuild substant support, that will change dynamics. But remember of course these polls still show strong support for the president among the Republican Party, among Republican Voters. And as long as 80 , 90 of Republican Voters have supporting the president , a lot of officials will remember that. But these are significant changes so far. Yeah, very hard to complicate something pretty darn simple and the president s usual strategy to complicate, deflect and distract doesnt appear to be working when you look at those polls. The president s aides and allies were all over the place yesterday trying to defend him. Here is senior white house policy adviser Stephen Miller. Both the director of National Intelligence and Inspector General said they also found his xhentd comments comments to be credible and urgent and they turn turned it over to the justice department. But they thought this was a credible complaint. And they are wrong, chris. On whose basis . Ive worked notice in the federal government for nearly three years. I know what the deep state looks like. I know the difference between a whistleblower and a deep state operative. This is a deep state operative pure and simple. The president has the state department, he has the cia, he has the pentagon, he has a number of other agencies. Why did he use three private lawyers to get information on biden from ukranian government rather than go through all of the agencies of his government . Two different points. Number one how about answering my request he. John durham as you know wait a minute. John durham is investigating something completely different. Im asking you a direct question. Why did the president use private attorneys rather than go to the state department . If you dont know, that is an acceptable answer. But lets not talk about john durham who is investigating the trump there is two issues that were im not asking two issues. Why did he do it . I understand that you have your question. I have my answer. There are two issues brought up in the phone call you have a nonanswer. Im asking the question as to why is adam schiff guilty of interfering in our election . Im asking why the president didnt use his government. You apparently arent going to answer that. Ill ask you another question. Why did the president decide to withhold 391 million of military and i had to ukraine last july the the president has that had been approved by congress. Why did the president if the argument is corruption, why did the president go against his own pentagon and his own state department . Chris, i dont understand how you can ask that question while at the same time admonishing the president for wanting to get to the bottom of perhaps one of the biggest corruption scandals concerning ukraine in the last few years. Im not admonishing anybody, im civil wisimply asking wi due respect, this is an exercise in obfuscation. There is a tone in judgment of all of your questions. So, yes, you are admonishing. And i cant speak to no, that is judgment on your part, sir. So wow. He has been in government for almost three years. I think it is. So you wrote a great primer at the end of last week. And im so glad you wrote it because i had to get off of twitter a lot over the weekend because there are people who i was friends with and allies with before donald trump came into town that i still want to be friends with and allies with after donald trump leaves town. But my god, some of the excuses please talk about some of the straw men being set up. But in the miller interview, he is accusing the deep state of being involved when the donald trump appointed ig and the donald trump appointed acting dni both said the whistleblower acted honorably and played by the rules. And went down the process. Yeah, it looks like Steven Miller oig may have drawn the short straw at the white house to have to go out there and make these absurd defenses. They are not really what strikes me, they are not defenses that are meant to persuade anybody who doesnt already have a will to believe that the administration is always in the right. It is just there to reassure the people who are already hardcore supporters like so much of this administrations messaging. And i dont think that it will work beyond that. Because basically you are just saying trust me because im Stephen Miller and ive been in the government for three years. It is facially absurd. But it is the kind of thing that the administration has been reduced to. You just hear republican after republican saying, you know, oh, it is hearsay. Well, we investigatie hearsay ad indirect testimony all the time especially when it seems to be corroborated. I think the lowest point maybe weve already reached the president threatening civil war if impeachment proceeds, you know. Were only a few days into this and were talking civil war. The president threatens civil war, he talks about treason and a long going for the days when he could excuse the whistleblower, that he brings up the chairman of the Intel Committee doing the same thing there. We showed a clip last hour, mika, of the lead, House Minority leader, Kevin Mccarthy, who did not even read the memo from the white house. Did not even know that the president if you believe that. It is unbelievable. And then you have Lindsey Graham who skroers loof course loved t impeachment in 1999. He thought it was really important. And now Lindsey Graham talking about later say as if he is a kid that hasnt even taken the lsat yet. He has no and he is running the Senate Judiciary committee. He has no idea how hearsay does or does not play into evidence. Im pretty certain this isnt going to age well. Take a look. Youre saying this is hearsay. The complaint on a number of fronts is matched by the call record. The transcript and the complaint are not matched. The reference to the dnc server please at the time me talk. Im laying out the facts. No, youre not. Youre making a reference. The repeated references to joe biden, the fact that the attorney general was brought up. You have an opinion, i have an opinion. You have me on the show so i can tell what i i think. I think mueller did a good job and there was nothing in. I think is this a sham. I cant believe were talking impeaching the president based on an accusation based on hearsay. It is unimaginable lindsey, you need to read the white house memo. No, no, no, lindsey, you need to read a horn book on evidence. You need to go back to the very beginning. Oh, my god. It is what it is. David, it is staggering that this guy runs the Senate Judiciary committee. And he knows nothing about hearsay or else he is just acting in such bad faith that he doesnt even deserve a voting cart. This is black and white law and lindsay is wrong. The only question is whether the guy running the Senate Judiciary committee knows how ignorant he is. He can talk to any lawyer in South Carolina on either side of the aisle and they will tell him that he is dead wrong. Im just going to read one more time from the rough transcript of the memo, the president , i would like you to do us a favor. Lindsey graham has to read that and he has to think carefully. That is something that the president said. How can Lindsey Graham defend that. Hi here is one point id make on this republican argument about the deep state conspiracy. It is their basic talking point. And i think Speaker Pelosi and adam schiff understand that they need to conduct this impeachment inquiry in a way that doesnt add additional fuel to that anger. If you dont already have suspicions about trump, you were that there are cia operatives making book on the president. And i think that it is really important, this impeachment inquiry has to be something that brings the country more toget r together, people unite around basic allegations and the evidence that is forward to support them. If it ends up dividing people more, then we will be in worse shape. What Speaker Pelosi said in explaining what she wants this to be, our tone must be prayerful, respectful, solemn, worthy of the constitution. In other words, dont turn up the heat, keep the steady focused, in a way that more americans not fewer will come and end up supporting it. And these conspiracy theories have donald trump and his people playing only to a small portion of the american audience and you can see again by the polls, the dramatic shift where people went last week beginning the week, only 35 , 36 of americans supported the inquiry and were now in the mid50s. They are not being distracted by the conspiracy theories. And yesterday there was somebody who actually worked for donald trump who actually was responsible and asked that members of the Trump Administration stop jabbering about these conspiracy theories. Take a look. I honestly believe this president has not gotten his pound of flesh yet from past grievances on the 2016 investigation. If he continues to focus on that white whale, it will bring him down enough. The investigation is over. And at this point, im deeply frustrated with what he and the legal team is doing and repeating that debunked theory to the president. It sticks in his mind when he hears it over and over again and for clarity here, george, let me just again repeat that it has no validity. The United States government reached its conclusion on attributing to russia the dnc hack in 2016 before it even communicated to the fbi and long before the fbi ever knocked on the door at the dnc. That is of course tom bossert, former Trump Administration official, who did say after he did not think that this was an Impeachable Offense, but he still called out the actions which again there can be republicans that believe that. And you know what, you can have a lot of democrats that can attack them all they want. But they dont want to go back 20 years and look and see what democrats said during the clinton impeachment. They just dont for actions that actually had bill clinton disbarred by the United States Supreme Court and by the Supreme Court in arkansas. I only bring that up to say we can all come to different conclusions. You can look at all the facts in front of you and decide that it is not an Impeachable Offense or that it is an impeachmentabable offense. But it is critically important that we at least work from the same set of facts. Facts that actually at this point arent in dispute. No, i mean the white house put out the facts first and foremost. So you have republicans trying to actually squash down what the white house put out. Carol, you have a new piece out entitled trump allies pushed Biden Ukraine allegations at key moments in the Campaign Time line. This is a good time line to look at. What did you find . Well, what we learned was that early on, a couple weeks before joe biden got into the president ial race in april, and a couple weeks before that first phone call that President Trump had with president zelensky, some of the president s political allies started to push publicly this Biden Ukraine narrative. And if you look being over the next few months, in a sort of ramped up and you saw the rnc chairwoman and others really amplify this message. And that is all going on at the same time that you had Rudy Giuliani out there trying to work with the ukranian government to get some sort of investigation into the bidens and that the president was talking to them. Sources tell us that giuliani was basically talking to anybody who would listen to him about this including pushing the president s campaign donors, his political allies to get out there and amplify this message. And i think the overarching takeaway from that is that it really undermines any notion that pushing ukraine to investiga investigate the bidens is anything but a political exercise and if you look at the way that the campaign has treated this. And weve seen that this is something that they continue to do and really has ramped up in the last few weeks. You know, peter baker, you wrote the book on the clinton impeachment. You are a book on the clinton impeachment. Well call it here you wrote the book on the clinton impeachment. Im curious, as the inquiry moves forward and you see things seeming to move just a lot faster than they did back 20 years ago as far as Public Opinion goes. What are your thoughts as we move towards an impeachment inquiry, what are some of the things, fact patterns, that line up you, what are some that do not line up in these two impeachment inquiries . That is a great question. Some things are very different obviously. Were talking about interactions with a foreign power versus lying under oath and obstruction of justice in a Sexual Harassment laulwsuit. But there are things that are similar. You have a Party Majority in the house that is moving forward but so far only on a party line basis. You dont have republicans on board. In 1998 when they opened the house impeachment yirry, they did take a vote on the house floor. And by the time they voted on impeachment itself, only five voted against it otherwise strictly on party lines. Nancy pelosi was there 20 years ago, sea issue in her view that it didnt work out well for the republicans. And she didnt want to repeat the experience where you have simply a partisan impeachment because it doesnt seem as legitimate as what happened in the nixon case when both parties ultimately came together. But this has changed. What weve seen the last week has been a radical change in the mood among House Democrats, the momentum now, hard to see how they back off pushing all the way to impeachment and push it into a trial which we didnt at the moment doesnt have enough support to remove the president of the United States. Democrats certainly proceeding carefully. I believe cory booker said that they should not be perceived as being gleeful about these proceedings, this is certainly a grave matter for the nation. But in term of your reporting, what are you hearing about what the white houses next steps are . We wrote last week about how happen happen hazard their defense has been so far. They were not expecting the speed of this. Is there a sense that they will be hiring new attorneys, is there going to be people the president trying to bring into establish that war room or will he just rely on Rudy Giuliani and the cast of characters weve seen all along . Well, jay sekulow one of the other pldresidents lawyers sai that they dont need the war room. That they handled the Mueller Investigation without setting up a special organization within the white house. That is how the Clinton House handled it, i set up a separate body of lawyers on the main white house could continue doing the peoples business. And that image was important to his defense. Even though behind the scenes president clinton was pretty upset about the whole impeachment thing there, he made a point of publicly not looking like he wasnt focused on it, that it was just the other side this was awash in partisan ship and hatred and he was focused on what the taxpayers wanted. This president gets right into the moss pit and is happy to fight away himself, he is his own one man war room and that is the way he will approach it. Whether he hires more people or not, in the end the defense will be donald trump. These are the times that try conservatives, real conservative souls. We have trillion dollar deficits in good times, we have a Record National debt, we have the 16 billion socialist bill out of agricultural interests because the president s protectionism, you could go on and on, undermining of nato and other western democracies. If you had the power over the conservative movement that donald trump thinks he has over the federal government, what would you want to see in the position were in moving forward . How should conservatives respond and when i say conservatives, not trumpists, but people who have been conservatives and were conservatives even when donald trump was giving money to Anthony Weiner and Eliot Spitzer and Charlie Rangel and Hillary Clinton eight times. What i would like to see is for conservatives to tell the truth and to stop making excuses for the administration. It is one thing to say that given a set of bad choices in 2016 trump was preferable to Hillary Clinton. It is another thing to just i go authorize all the evidence in front of our eyes about what kind of president and what kind of man donald trump is. And all these people, so many people who have made this sort of transactional case for trump, ended up getting pulled along into defending every single thing that he has done and dismissing all of the legitimate worries and criticisms of him. So im curious, what is wrong with the kninikki haley alternative, what is wrong with the mike pence alternative, what is twronk wiwrong with saying w the conservative without the baggage . Like lets say nikki haley for instance. A conservatism that does not lose votes in the suburbs of philadelphia but probably gains votes in the suburbs of philadelphia. A conservatism like with nikki haley that for instance would not have lost by a Record Number of votes in 2018. Why cant more Movement Conservatives think that way and move to alternatives that wont damage the movement and the party for years to come . I think that a lot of republicans think that we are stuck with President Trump because of the strong support he has from arent voters. I think there are people who would like to move on to a haley or a pence but feel paralyzed by the base right now. Thank you all for being on the show this morning. Still ahead on morning joe, more than two years after britain voted to leave the European Union, former Prime Minister David Cameron says the outcome is his greatest regret. Well talk to the man who called for the referendum vote that has divided the country, that is next on morning joe. Try, thats next on morning joe. Plants capture co2. What if other kinds of plants captured it too . If these industrial plants had technology that captured carbon like trees we could help lower emissions. Carbon capture is Important Technology and experts agree. Thats why were working on ways to improve it. So plants. Can be a little more. Like plants. Heres the thing about managing for your business. S when youve got public clouds, and private clouds, and hybrid clouds things can get a bit cloudy for you. But now, theres the Dell Technologies cloud, powered by vmware. A single hub for a consistent operating experience across all your clouds. That should clear things up. Thats why we take a totalaking approach to health and wellness, so you can age actively. And we simplify medicare by connecting you to the right coverage, resources and care. So you can keep pursuing the life you love. Aetna medicare solutions. Just between us, you know whats better than mopping . Anything at the end of a long day, its the last thing i want to do. Well i switched to swiffer wet jet and its awesome. Its an allinone so its ready to go when i am. The cleaning solution actually breaks down dirt and grime. And the pad absorbs it deep inside. So, it prevents streaks and haze better than my old mop. Plus, its safe to use on all my floors, even wood. Glad i got that off my chest and the day off my floor. Try wet jet with a moneyback guarantee those in the uk are growing weary of the brexit battle and it may be shifting the Political Landscape in favor of Prime Minister Boris Johnson. The wall street journal reports there are nearly 160 labour held districts that voted to leave the eu and at least 40 to 50 of them are vulnerable to swing to conservatives. According too rece according to recent polls, johnsons Approval Rating has increased since his nomination as leader increasing the chances of a responsible flight. Joining us now former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom David Cameron, he is author of the new book for the record. Thank you very much for being on this morning. Mr. Prime minister, thank you so much for being with us. And despite those poll numbers, Boris Johnson, a man you knew at 00 forward, may be facing a noconfidence vote in parliament. Will he survive that, should he survive that . I think what ought to happen next is Prime Minister borery johnson should go to brussels and try to negotiate a Withdrawal Agreement with the European Union. That is what he is planning to do in the middle of the october and he should bring that back to the Uk Parliament and i hope that deal will passion. And while i continue to believe that weve taken the wrong step with brexit, i led the campaign to stay in, the referendum result was clear and it should be delivered and the best way to deliver it is with a deal and i hope that is what will happen. So what odds do you give no deal brexit of actually taking place, something that Prime Minister johnson has been pushing for since he ascended to his position about. The central fact is that the government doesnt have a majority in parliament andgislay to put a no diehl brexit out of bounds. So the real choice is to get a deal as i hope Boris Johnson will or to find another way of unblocking the blockage. It is very painful to watch and i feel some responsibility for the situation were in. Weve had three years where we havent been able to either implement the outcome of the trum referendum or move on. So first step is to try to get the deal. If we cant, i wouldnt advise nodeal. I think it would be economically damaging and well have to look at other ways of unblocking the blockage, possibly a general election or there is the 07gs of a second referendum which i dont think a lot of people necessarily want. But we cant into he e go on wi Going Forwards nor back wards. So we want to get to your book. And what you say about brexit and what led to if. But before we did that, maybe you can help us out. Because for three years now as you said, the United Kingdom has been paralyzed by brexit. Anytime we go over there and start rolling our eyes about our government, well have people saying that is just one man. You will vote him out in time. But it is our system that seems to be incapable of being fixed. Explain to the american audience j is it that after three he Years Parliament cant move forward, make a decision, and stick to it. Quel well, i think part of the problem is this 2015 i had a majority and was able to pass the referendum bill through and actually 9 out of 10 voted for that bill. But in 2071, there was an election where effectively the government lost its majority and one of the reasons that it has been difficult to go forward, we have a Parliament Without a clear majority. And you have when you are in that situation, you have to reach across the aisles as youd say here in the United States and find support for your proposition from other members of parliament and that hasnt really happened. And so my successor theresa may did a great job in getting the deal from the eu in terms of us leaving with an agreement but couldnt get that through parliament because members of parliament from other parties wouldnt vote for it. So that is why were struck. It is very frustrating. And i take the opportunity on American Television to say the british economy is still strong, our unemployment is the lowest since the 1970s britain still has a lot of advantages. And while i disagree with brexit, it is a perfectly legitimate choice for the sixth largest economy in the world to say to the European Union we want to be your friends and neighbors, but we wont be members anymore. It is not the path that i would have chosen, but it is a legitimate path and one that we can make work. This is David Ignatius. I want to ask you a question that obviously is on our minds these day as we deal with american political problems. Do you think there is any possibility that russian interference, russian manipulation, was a factor in this kind of train wreck of british politics three years ago that you are still strug are link to deal with . Have you looked into that, do you have a feeling about whether the are russians may have amplified the leave sentiment and tried to play on this populist moment . It was looked into by a select committee of the house of commons and from memory what they found is there was some activity but i dont think that anyone would say that it was in any way decisive. Obviously i regret hugely the outcome of the referendum campaign, but as Prime Minister, i spent public taxpayers money writing to every single household in the country with a leaflet every word of which you i pore the over carefully to put the argument why we should stay. Ive complained about individual bits of the campaign, but generally speaking it was, you know, rambunctious in a Britain Campaign but i dont claim that it was somehow unfair. Mr. Prime minister, there is a striking line in this book which im not saying you did this for crisis management, but i would recommend to politicians to be as straightforward as you were in this one line. Of course our american president will never take this tact. But you say on the brexit fallout, you say i accept that my approach failed. The decisions i took contributed to that failure. I failed. Very straightforward, very striking language. But you go on to talk about doing it despite the fact there didnt seem to be a clamoring for this vote, but you said still you believed that it was, quote, inevitable. Why do you believe that this stroet soon vote was inevitable about. We had joined the eu back in the 1970s, but we had had treaty after treaty, power after power, pass from the uk to the European Union, referendums kept being promised but they were never being delivered. And added to that you had the development of the euro as currency of some of the members of the eu but about not the uk and that was changing the organization before our very eyes. So question had to fix it. But the passage you read is my aim in fixing it was to use a referendum to trigger a renegotiation, to fix some of the genuine problems i saw. And then secure our place as a separate different sort of british place in the European Union and in that endeavor obviously i failed and im full of regret for that because i think the right answer was to stay in and fight for a british position in europe. But i accept the outcome of the referendum. There was a clamor for it back in 2012, twothirds of voters supported it, 9 out of 10 pms voted for it. Every Political Party in britain went into election promising a referendum. So there was a big public demand for it. But obviously i regret the outcome. But i think that we can make the answer work, but we need to get out of this deadlock that were in at the moment. Youre right about Boris Johnson. Again, someone youve known since your days at eaton. And you suggest that make a suggestion that many are suggesting with the american president , that Boris Johnson when it comes to brexit cares more about his own political future than the future of the country. Many others have also suggested that he cynically employed brexit to help fuel his political rise. Explain the Boris Johnson that youve known for decades and the Boris Johnson that has emerged over the past three years, the difference between those two. The point i make in the book is that he hadnt previously argued for leaving the eu. I explain that he was a eurosceptic, there was a lot about brussels he didnt like, a lot about the system that he didnt like, but he never argued for leaving. So i was passionately trying to defense him to argue for staying on the basis that staying and fighting for british interests was the best answer. But look, i want boris to succeed as Prime Minister. He has a vital job to do getting that negotiation in brussels. I worked with him very closely when he was mayor of london. He was a very effective mayor. He can be at his best an effective politician and i want him to succeed in sorting out this issue to britain and also the other things that we need to do. Keep the economy growing, creating job, improve public services, all those things that where so vital. I want to end on a personal note. You talk about the loss of your son ivan, he was 6 years old in 2009. And i ask this question because we all know parents that have to endure terrible loss, terrible hardship. It happened to you while you were in the public eye. You talk about it in the book. How did you move forward through that tragedy . It was obviously extremely difficult because these things when they hit you, they hit you like a Freight Train at 100 miles per hour. And first having a child with severe disabilities is not something you expect and not something that you know how to cope with. And so that is hugely impactful. And then losing him so young was heartbreaking. I wrote the chap he ter in the book because i wanted to talk about it partly for myself and partly because there are so many parents with disabled children who struggle as we struggled and i think that they will identify with some of the difficulties that we went through. Going back to work afterwards was very difficult and i think i say in the book i maybe went back to work a bit too quickly rather than spending more time thinking it through. But he was a divine wonderful boy and we loved him. So as we read through for the record, im curious, what takeaway would you want american audiences to have as they read for the record in. I hope what they will see is an explanation for where brexit came from, but also a government, a genuine conservative government that i would call it that cut the budget deficit by twothirds, got the country back to work, created millions of jobs and new businesses and i hope that they can see that in spite of our current difficulties, there is a huge amount of strengths in britain that we have because you of not least the action that the government i led took. And the aim is to be pretty frank about things i got wrong as well as things i got right. Im all for as president bush once advised my, you finish being Prime Minister, you want to leave the stage, but i think at some stage you have to write down what you were thinking, what you were trying to do, what you think now. It is a book that you can write, historians will pore over every detail and will come to the conclusions that they come to. But i think leaders should try to write down what they were up to and why. And what a critical time for this book to be released. The book is for the record. David cameron, thank you very much for joining us on morning joe. We greatly appreciate it. Still ahead, while democrats go full force on trumps impeachment inquiry, americans are Still Holding out one potential holding on one potential glimmer of bipartisanship. Background checks. Up next, well talk to senator chris murphy about the Gun Legislation talks sitting on the president s back bunner. I got that vibe, got that vibe got that vibe, yeah, i aint petty, looking fly, looking fly, looking fly, yeah, they aint ready. I can shine, i can shine, i can shine. Imma do what im made to do. Imma do what im made to do. Built for excellence. You start from the foundation up. The excellence is reaching dreams and chasing them at the same time. Chasing them at the same time. If ylittle thingsate tcan be a big deal. , thats why theres otezla. Otezla is not a cream. Its a pill that treats plaque psoriasis differently. With otezla, 75 clearer skin is achievable. Dont use if youre allergic to otezla. It may cause severe diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting. Otezla is associated with an increased risk of depression. Tell your doctor if you have a history of depression or suicidal thoughts or if these feelings develop. Some people taking otezla reported weight loss. Your doctor should monitor your weight and may stop treatment. Upper respiratory tract infection and headache may occur. Tell your doctor about your medicines and if youre pregnant or planning to be. Otezla. Show more of you. Come on lets hide in the attic. No. In the basement. Why cant we just get in the running car . Are you crazy . Lets hide behind the chainsaws. Smart. Yeah. Ok. If youre in a horror movie, you make poor decisions. Its what you do. This was a good idea. Shhhh. Im being quiet. Youre breathing on me if you want to save fifteen percent or more on car insurance, you switch to geico. Its what you do. Lets go to the cemetery a lot will happen in your life. Wrinkles just wont. Neutrogena® rapid wrinkle repairs dermproven retinol works so fast, it takes only one week to reveal younger looking skin. Making wrinkles look so last week. Rapid wrinkle repair® pair with new retinol oil for 2x the wrinkle fighting power. Neutrogena® the New York Times reports that President Trump met with the chief executive of the National Rifle Association Wayne lapierre on friday to discuss possible Gun Legislation and whether the nra could provide support for trumps Reelection Campaign as he faces impeachment. According to the times, two people familiar with the meeting said lapierre asked the white house to, quote, stop the games over gun control legislation although it was not clear whether trump asked lapierre for his support or what that support would look like. Joining us now, member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee democrat chris murphy of connecticut. I guess, senator, ill ask you to respond to that first, that meeting and the readout of what were hearing potentially was discussed in there. Your reaction. It is not surprising that the nra is making that kind of offer, essentially what they are overing is cash to the president to be used in his Reelection Campaign or in his antiimpeachment efforts in exchange for the president walking away from background checks negotiations. The nra, the gun lobby, has never been weaker than they are today. They are hemorrhaging political and public support. They are hemorrhaging membership. Their entire leadership is in disarray over corruption charges. And so they are in a position where maybe the only thing they have to offer the president is money. Now, that report doesnt say that trump accepted that offer. It just says that it was given to him. But the very fact that they thought that the president might say yes to a cash for no background checks deal is really disturbing in and of itself. And senator, there is going to be criticism that the democrats of course are so focused on impeachment they will never get to Gun Legislation. What is on the table and can you work with the president with all the bells and whistles happening, impeachment . The president has spoken about the fact that impeachment will stand in the way of Gun Legislation getting done and called me out specifically on that account. I will just say that the day that i made the decision that the president needed to stand before the house in an impeachment inquiry, the white house called me to tell me that nothing about impeachment should stand in the way of us getting a background checks dealing done. They wanted to make sure that i was still at the table and i said said of course, i can walk and chew gum at the same time. This is about life or death. If we can expand background checks, it will save safe thousands of lives. It is really the president s decision now. His attorney general came up to congress now almost two weeks ago with a proposal in a, you know, had some good things and bad things in it, but would have expanded background are checks to tens of thousands more sales and we were told after attorney general barr was on the hill that the president would make a decision as to whether he was willing to proceed with that discussion. We still havent heard anything. Were almost two weeks from those initial consultations. And if discussions break down, there is only one party to blame and that is the white house. Im ready, others are ready to try to get something done. I wanted to switch topics to ukraine. You were in kiev about a month ago and you met with president zelensky. First i was hoping that you could talk to us about those discussions, what you spoke to him about. But secondly, the president is sort of trying to make you part of that story. He said here when he was in new york last week as part of the General Assembly he said that you tried to threaten the president of the ukraine as part of this matter. Sir, did you do that . I didnt do that. The president is as usual making things up now that hes backed into a corner. But i did go to ukraine in part because i was concerned about the Trump Administrations overtures to the ukranians, trying to get them to get involved in the 2020 election. Of course this was open reporting. Rudy giuliani back in the spring was bragging about the fact that he was trying to get the ukranian government to destroy the president s political opponents. And so that was part of the reason that i went to kiev about three weeks ago. And i told president zelensky, listen, stay out of american elections. If you want to talk to the United States government, talk to the state department, dont talk to the president s political representatives. The president thinks what i did was untoward because he thinks that there is total legitimacy to asking zelensky to interfere in the 2020 election. So my efforts to frustrate his corruption are in his mind improper. This is the alice in wonderland world that we exist in today. I would say everything i said to zelensky again. There is no way that democracy can stand if a president can go around the world using the massive power of his office to try to bully foreign nations into destroying his political opponents. And i hope that president zell list zelgs list zelensky listened to me. Did he suggest that you woulded be willing to work he would work with william barr or Rudy Giuliani. He understood the damage done to the u. S. ukraine relations if he got involved in the 2020 election and he had no intention of doing it. Senator chris murphy, thank you for being on. Good luck with everything. We want to mention youll take part in the msnbc 2020 Gun Safety Forum on wednesday which takes place one day after the anniversary of the deadly las vegas Music Festival shooting. We look forward to hearing what you have to say there. Thank you very much. And still ahead, we learned on friday that the u. S. Envoy to ukraine kurt volker had stepped down and it was a 20yearold journalism student who actually broke that story. Well talk to that young reporter ahead on morning joe. Performance comes in lots of flavors. Theres the ampedup, overtuned, feedingfrenzyof sheetmetalkind. And then theres performance that just leaves you feeling better as a result. Thats the kind lincolns about. You may have gingivitis. When you brush, and the clock could be ticking towards bad breath, receding gums, and possibly. Tooth loss. Help turn back the clock on gingivitis with parodontax. Leave bleeding gums behind. Parodontax. Its rukmini here from the New York Times. Hey, you see this . [narrator] do you remember that day . That day you met your hero . Ms. Bird, do you think i could be a champion like you . Of course you can. And you can call me sue. [jibber] jibber jabber, coming through salutations, famous female of orange round ball. Would you like an autograph . [jabber] excuse me. crowd muttering [woman] is that paper mache . Its you. [woman] wow. [narrator] jibber jabber ruins everything. Is it . [woman] i am confused. [narrator] at Symetra Life Insurance Company were cutting through it, to help you choose the Retirement Benefits and Life Products that work best for you. 54 past, former jp joe biden and vermont senator Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are statistically tied in nevada. According to a new cnn poll, both biden and sanders sit at 22 and warren is at 18 . Well within the wide 7point margin of error. In South Carolina another early voting state biden has a 21point advantage over the democratic field, at 37 . There is also another twoway battle between warren and 16 and sanders at 11 . Jonathan your thoughts on that and how the Biden Campaign is looking at iowa and New Hampshire. Any word. On the Biden Campaign, as we should note to piggy back on the ukraine they have asked them to top booking Rudy Giuliani on television because what he is saying is inaccurate. The polls show this democratic race has changed. Joe biden has leads in National Polls but it is a close race. Elizabeth warren has caught or past him in iowa and most polls in iowa. She is pulled in very closely in New Hampshire as well. Bernie sanders also doing well there. But it goes South Carolina poll in particular shows you that joe biden still is very popular and has a real strong hold of support among africanamerican voters. That they make up a significant portion of the electorate in South Carolina and dont have much of a presence in either iowa or New Hampshire and the Biden Campaign looks at that as the safety net. They are not taking it for granted. They recognize that, yes, his tenure as Barack Obamas Vice President goes along way and his own civil rights record but he still has to work for that. And the first couple of states, they are sort of managing expectations. They are playing there and expect to do well but we may see a potentially a few different winners in the first two states and potentially a long nominating fight. Jonathan, thank you. Still ahead, of the president goes wild on twitter as new polling shows a clear majority of americans now support the impeachment inquiry. Plus well talk to an expert on russian propaganda who said russias fingerprints are all over this ukraine scandal. Morning joe is coming right back. Dal. 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Good morning and welcome to morning joe. It is monday, september 30th. With us we have White House Reporter for the Associated Press joseph lemm ire and from the Washington Post David Ignatius and from the Financial Times and ed luce and heidi przybyla. Why dont we start off with the polls. If you want to understand the president s twitter account and why hes becoming more the tweets are incredible. You look at the very dramatic i would say radical shift in Public Opinion toward impeachment just over the past five, six days. It is stunning. And that matters to the president. A majority of americans say they approve of Congressional Democrats push to impeach President Trump. 55 would approve and 45 do not approve of the probe. This follows that Morning Consult poll last week that showed a 13point swing in favor of impeachment while mpr polling shows more people favored an impeachment inquiry than opposed it. This matters in a lot of ways because he watched Public Opinion in some ways seemingly first before anything else. But it could move the meter. That is all the president did. Remember early in the campaign the entire justification of his campaign was joe bidens justification, i can win. Im in first place in the polls. Jonathan lemire, you look at the shift and we could go back to the beginning of last week, i think it was a q poll that Shows Approval for impeachment down to the 30s by the end of the week were in the 40s now this weekend after americans have had time to digest all of this information, the flood of information coming at them, now it is 55 . Well over half of americans want to see this impeachment inquiry move forward. And most troubling for the president , i would think, is that 20 of those are are 20 of the Republican Party. Now they also want to see an impeachment inquiry. There has been a real sea change here, joe and mika. For months Speaker Pelosi wanted to stay away from impeachment because of the political considerations, seeing the polls and majority of americans didnt want to go there and now that has changed. The house is on recess and members are in home districts taking the temperature of their own constituents and what they find is reflecting in the polling, more and more americans want to go there and this is a white house that now feels like it is under siege. You saw from the president tweets last night hes, quote, tweeting supporters talking about civil war and demanding to meet the whistleblower and whoever supplied the whistleblower the information because he feels like as an american he should be able to meet his accusers. He feels that there is a sense with no formal war room, not yet, to this point the white house response has been to dispatch senior aides to tv shows and we saw steen miller and Rudy Giuliani in scatter shots over the weekend and relying on the president s own tweets and there is a sense they are not ready for what is coming. Well, we saw this weekend dismal performances by members of the president s team. And if that is any indication of how prepared they are for impeachment, the president is in trouble. You have the minority leader of the house of representatives not even knowing what was in the transcript that the white house itself released. It is only a few pages long. David ignatius, again you look at these numbers, you look at the shift and this is moving very quickly and yet the white house still seems illprepared. Nothing like the Clinton White house with their impeachment war room. Nothing obviously like nixons white house as well. This remains even in the most dire of times for this president and this administration a oneman circus act. Joe, you put it right. Hes his own war room. Hes making himself in effect his own lawyer. As this gets more serious, hes certain to take on counsel as he did during the Mueller Investigation. Giulianis role is already problematic. Hes one of the targets, in effect, of this inquiry. The contrast to me that is most interesting after this last week is the careful and quite methodical way that democrats are proceeding. Pelosis tone is more sorrow than anger, this is our last resort and we dont want to make things worse and shes chosen adam schiff to head this inquiry and a person very controlled, doesnt get spun up or appear as political as some of his colleagues and i think that contrast between a white house in a fever and democrats who try to keep the fever down is one thing we should keep our eye on. I think the nancy pelosi concluded the political damage to democrats will jump into an antitrump circus and they will avoy that. I think theyll go deliberately but i dont think they want to seem in a rush and theyll go narrowly. They wont spread this to everything that drives us crazy about the president. It is going to be specific to the ukraine whistleblower allegations. And ed luce, one of the bigger problems that the white house and more to the point republicans on the hill are facing is is the performance of Rudy Giuliani in public. Republicans starting to complain bitterly that giuliani just needs to be quiet. And yet every time he goes on a Television Show he does more damage for the president , making claims that can hurt the president down the road. He does. And hes been giving if youve been paying attention before this scandal blew up to in the last week, and when it was just simmering, hes been giving interviews all along basically mixing the real playbook with a bunch of decoy stories mixed up together for month and month and months on ukraine. And of course trump watches him. Trump approves of his performance and then takes lines from him. So giuliani has more than once hinted that domestic tranquillity will be threatened by an impeachment process. Trump of course has been picking up on this civil war trope. It is not just giuliani that trump is picking up on. Steve bannon, who is rumored to be being considered to be brought back into the white house, if there is going to be some kind of a defense team and a rebuttal unit, talked about the first shot at fort sumter being fired last week. So, yeah, giuliani is off the charts in some respects. And amazingly unknowing in terms of how much he gives away. But it is not just giuliani. There is a swirl of really disturbing, really feted and heated rhetoric around the president. Hes clearly not listening to people in the white house. Unanimously advised him not to make that call or that quid pro quo on the call on july 25th. Hes listening to these more extreme voices on tv who used to advise him or in giulianis case act as his personal lawyer. It is very troubling to see realtime a president share his deepest fears and paranoias on twitter. Im sure johnson and clinton and we know nixon were deeply paranoid about the situation they were in. They werent tweeting it live. What is in trumps head is coming to us live on our twitter feeds. And it is being supplied by the likes of Rudy Giuliani, steve bannon and others who trump takes his cue from. Not balanced minds. The president is now demanding to meet the whistleblower and wants to have house intel chairman adam schiff questioned for treason. He posted like every american i deserve to meet my accuser, especially when this accuser, the socalled whistleblower, represented a perfect conversation with a foreign leader in a totally inaccurate and fraudulent way. Then schiff made up what i actually said by lying to congress. His lies were made in perhaps the most blatant and sinister manner ever seen in the great chamber. He wrote down and read terrible things, then said it was from the mouth of the president of the United States. I want schiff. Question, at the highest level for fraud and teason n. Addition i want to meet not only my accuser, who presented second and thirdhand information but also the person who illegally gave this information which was largely incorrect to the whistleblower. Was this person spying on the u. S. , blah blah, big consequences. By the way, the white house put out a memo describing what happened when corroborated the whistleblowers report so hes trying to cover up his own white house memo. It is honestly it is paranoia. It is factually incorrect and a little crazy. It is factually incorrect and deeply disturbing and unbalanced. This is the president of the United States who actually suggested that the whistleblower be tried for treason and then executed. This is a president who is extending that to the chairman of the Intel Committee talking about treason as well. The president of the United States, again, it is going to be tiring for Trump Supporters and republicans on the hill to listen to the president lying and knowing they have to go out and cover for those lies and try to cover up those lies. And who would do that . Well, i dont know. Well, actually we do know. You could see them this afternoon doing it and throughout the day. But the president of the United States and Lindsey Graham and others talking about hearsay. Poor lindsay may run the Senate Judiciary committee but he doesnt know basics about law and evidence and hearsay exceptions but well let lindsay worry about that. But the president of the United States saying that the whistleblowers complaint was secondhand information, that he got it wrong. Heidi, you can donald trump should say, are you going to believe me or your lying eyes when you look at the memo that the white house itself put out that confirms just about everything that the whistleblower said about the ukraine call at the center of the impeachment inquiry. It was a little surreal to see the president s defenders this weekend deny what was in the written transcript. There were not only denying what weve all re read with our ow eyes but profoundly twisting the entire narrative of what happened in ukraine. To somehow suggest that joe biden was advocating for some kind of nefarious purpose in getting this prosecutor fired when i think we need to restate this over and over again, the entire western world was on the same page that this prosecutor Victor Shokin needed to go. He was a kremlin ally holdover who was himself being accused of corruption. In fact it was so bad you had the world bank, the imf and the eu and the imf talking about with holding aid to ukraine and it was the Ukrainian Parliament that voted to oust him. So joe biden was simply the messenger for the entire western world and you saw Lindsey Graham and other proponents for the president essentially twisting those facts in a very disturbing way for the American People. So, again, you have the transcript, but you have this campaign to really muss uppin con voe vertible facts that the American People should understand about this situation. Another thing being twisted, we could talk about hunter biden and any number of family members of highranging officials getting jobs on the boards of companies. That is a whole separate conversation here. But this incident with hunter biden, he didnt serve on the board until two years later after this company had been cleaned up and the issue of corruption at heart that was being investigated had occurred two years before. So wanted to set those facts straight. Still ahead on morning joe, our next guest keeps close tabs on the kremlin. Well talk to investigative journalist julia davis on how moscow is reacting to the impeachment news. Plus former u. S. Ambassador to russia Michael Mcfaul joins the conversation. Youre watching morning joe. Well be right back. Ning joe. Well be right back. We get it. Its just the way things are. When youre under pressure to get the job done, it seems you have to accept the fact that some equipment will sit idle, or underutilized. But it doesnt have to be that way. Thats why United Rentals is combining equipment, data, safety and expertise to help your worksite perform better. United rentals. A better worksite is here. Hey. Hey. You must be stevens phone. Now you can take control of your home wifi and get a notification the instant someone new joins your network. Only with xfinity xfi. Download the xfi app today. Lets get into the twisting turning. Here is the Top Republican in the house, minority leader Kevin Mccarthy trying to defend the president on 60 minutes last night. What do you make of this exchange. President zelensky said we are almost ready to buy more javelins from the United States for defense purposes. And President Trump replies, i would like you to do us a favor, though. You just added another word. No, its in the transcript. I would like you to do a favor though. Yes, it is in the white house transcript. When i read the transcript, president zelensky brings up a javelin as a protection for antitank. Something that president obama would not sell. That trump did protect ukraine. How do you expect the president s defense to roll out Going Forward . The defense of what . Well, there is an impeachment inquiry. Yeah. There is an impeachment inquiry Going Forward. It probably never would move forward had the speaker waited 48 hours to have the transcript. Ill ask you again, how does the defense of the president in your view roll out from here . Why would we move forward with impeachment . There is not something that you have to defend her. You say the president has done nothing wrong. I take that to mean that you find it appropriate that the president asked mr. Zelensky for an investigation of his democratic rivals. To the question before the house of representatives is to impeach the president upon the phone call that the speaker never even heard. Mr. Leader with Great Respect to you and i apologize for interrupting, but these were the white house talking points emailed to the Congress Earlier this week and im asking ill be very clear was it appropriate for the president to ask for investigations of his democratic rivals with another foreign leader . Ive never seen one talking point from the white house. Im talking to you based upon the most important facts we have. The whistleblower wasnt on the call. The i. G. , Inspector General, didnt read the call. But you and i have all the information we need. The president did nothing in this phone call that is i tha impeachable. David ignatius, it is hear no evil, say no evil. Strategy weve been asking how republicans could defend donald trump after looking at the transcript from the white house after looking at the whistleblower complaint and it wasnt even a transcript. It was just a white house memorandum. Here you have the leader of republicans in the house of representatives who hasnt even read the transcript. Who hasnt even read th that memorandum because everybody that read it said the most important line, the most ger main line was something that scott pelley read im going to need something from you though and he didnt even know that was in the transcript. It is inexplicable and sadly to reveal of the tate of the Republican Party in 2019. Its a stunning moment. We got the transcript in front of me. The president , i would like you to do us a favor though. Nobody in the white house seems to have understood that the information in the transcript itself put together with the facts that are known about what was happening in that period, paint a picture of a president requesting the most personal, political advantage from a ukraine president who was at that time facing a u. S. Armed embargo. The commanders of the ukraine army on the ground who needed weapons that we had promised them and congress had voted to give them, were waiting for their arifle and held up on direct orders of the president and here is the president saying here is what i want and mentioned two things. Investigative and this gobledygook about crowdstrike and the reference to the beginnings of what came to be the Mueller Investigation. Hes saying go back, we think you have servers and giuliani will talk to you about it. And then hes very specific about the biden matter. He just asks directly for help, work with giuliani and work with our attorney general. We need this. This is really bad. Its really bad. The white house doesnt seem to get that a fairminded reading i will find out but i would say a fairminded reading by the public of this transcript that they released, these people would say there is something wrong here. It doesnt square with what a president should do. And if they start from the position that there is nothing to see here, its a perfect the president s phrase. It is perfect. Lets read it again. I would like you to do us a favor though, in the context of this arms embargo. Coming up on morning joe, one of the biggest stories late last week wasnt broken by times or the post, but by a reporter in arizona. Well talk to the reporter who scooped a major headline about the ukraine scandal. Morning joe is back in a moment. Back in a moment i got that vibe, got that vibe got that vibe, yeah, i aint petty, looking fly, looking fly, looking fly, yeah, they aint ready. I can shine, i can shine, i can shine. Imma do what im made to do. Imma do what im made to do. Built for excellence. You start from the foundation up. The excellence is reaching dreams and chasing them at the same time. Chasing them at the same time. Plants capture co2. What if other kinds of plants captured it too . 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Com what is clear from reading the complaint is that it is a serious allegation that a lot of it has proven to be bourne out already that the whistleblower lays out a blue print for talking to various officials in the white house, various officials in the state department and to dismiss this as a political hack, it seems to me to be an effort by the president s defenders to try to make something to make nothing out of something and there is something here. So that was Chris Wallace last friday on fox news. Jonathan lemire, the president of the United States is spinning wildly out of control. I lot of tweets happening. More out of control. 14, 15 minutes ago hes talking about trying adam schiff for treason. He, of course, tweeted about civil war. If he was replaced, if he was impeached from office. Of course, there are so many reasons why the president has gone off the rails in the past. But, again, here, it is important to underline for republicans waking up and in washington, d. C. This morning who actually have a voting card and who actually have a voice, this is a president who has warned of violence, warned that his supporters would commit violent acts against others. Warned time and again that some of the toughest people were on his side. And if the president is feeling the political walls closing in, of course we showed and you will show you again the cbs news poll that now shows that 55 of americans support an impeachment inquiry into Donald Trumps actions regarding ukraine. Only 45 disapprove. That is a dramatic swing. And, jonathan, it seems as eric ericson said on twitter, the president s calls for civil war and warns for civil war, now the president calling for treason for members of congress, this is not going to help him even with republicans in washington, d. C. And it is reflective of the extraordinary pressure the white house is feeling. They are unable to change the narrative of this story. They are watching these poll numbers creep up in terms of people favoring impeachment. There is no real game plan here to sort of turn the tide on this story. There is great frustration from the president at his own staff, according to our reporting hes been frustrating with Mick Mulvaney and press secretary Stephanie Grisham to get to spin the story in his favor. And, yes, this is not just a norm that he is broken or another guardrail that he has pushed past, this is pretty extraordinary and frankly dangerous material to call for civil war and to call for the arrest of a political opponent to charge for treason and a charge which technically called for punishment by death and that is a dangerous and unprecedented move from this president right now. And this is something again, mika, that republicans have a responsibility as to all americans to call out a president who is warning of civil war, who is actually calling for political opponents to be arrested for treason and of course last week suggesting that should carry the Death Penalty so calling for the death of a political opponents because he doesnt like how they conducted themselves in hearings last week. The only problem is its hard to make something that is very simple complicated. Which is what it appears the president is trying to do. And his conservatives and the polls are reflecting it. The conservatives are saying, Ramesh Ponnuru said this morning and this is straightforward and other people have said this is straightforward. Just the facts. Joining us now, now the director of the institute for International Studies at stanford, Michael Mcfaul. Also with us investigative journalist and Russian Media analyst julia davis. Her latest piece for the daily beast is entireled, russia, fingers prints are all over trump ukraine whistleblower scandal and reports that prominent figures on russian tv have been openly putting out the same ideas that we now know the american president was privately pursuing. Why dont we start there, julia. Tell us more. Reporter it is a remarkable alignment between russia and the Trump Administration and the conspiracy theories that russia has been pushing out are not being repeated straight from trumps own lips. And even if you look at his conversation with the president of ukraine it was clear there that he was pushing the same ideas that were attempting to clear russia of its responsibility for hacking and for interfering in the american elections and instead put that blame on to ukraine while at the same time attempting to discredit biden whom the russians are describing as trumps top rival in the upcoming elections. And ambassador mcfaul, if you could, give us your insights into the ukraine story and also we would love what you have to a about information coming out this weekend that donald trump told the foreign minister of russia and the russia ambassador to the United States that he was not concerned with election interference coming from russia. Well, the basic storyline, i agree with everything that has been said. This story is straightforward. I do not understand how people could read the transcript, maybe they didnt read it as you just said in your earlier segment, but if you read the transcript what was done is wrong. Maybe people could disagree about what to do about it but the basic facts are laid out. That is very unusual. With respect to the ukrainans, imagine how crazy this is. Ive talked to a lot of ukrainans and when the president is bringing up crowdstrike out of the blue, they are perplexed by what is going on here. But that is where it connects to the russian story and that is where it connects to the meeting he had with lavrov because by going after crowdstrike and somehow saying that the ukrainans were involved in exposing russian interference and russian Intelligence Officers stealing emails from the dnc, that is what crowdstrike exposed in 2016, he is still searching for alibi to get putin off the hook, to say that they didnt do it. And trying to drag the ukraines into that conspiracy. Ambassador mcfaul, this is David Ignatius. I want to ask you about russias core strategy here. You know them as well as anyone. I worry that the russians basically want us to be paralyzed, divided as a country as long as were stuck in a rut theyre happy. Do you think thats central to the way they are looking at this and what are they saying now as they read the impeachment talk . Well, without question that is a central strategy theyve had for years. Polarization exists in our country but theyre trying to magnify it and exacerbate it and when were fight ago mongs ourselves that means were not engaging with National Security interests around the world. And secondly, and most importantly, in ukraine. Remember on this phone call, i did a lot of phone calls with president obama, there is always leverage, there is always quid pro quo when you talk to any leader in the world. But the brandnew leader of ukraine relies on a close personal relationship with the leader of the free world to help deter what Vladimir Putin is doing in his country. Including trying to get him to to bring back country pieces that have been annexed like crimea. So when President Trump said i need to you do me a favor, president zelensky has no other option to do that precisely because if he doesnt he is caught between the United States and russia. And i think a real tragedy of this moment right now is we have had bipartisan support for our strategy to help ukraine for the last several years. As ukraine gets pulled into the muck of our partisan politics, i think it will fall apart and that also is in putins interest. Julia, it is jonathan lemire. It is an understatement to say the relationship between donald trump and Vladimir Putin has drawn scrutiny and raised a lot of questions. There were moments when President Trump has echoed russias talking points on afghanistan and other matters. As were discussing earlier today, there is still a lot we dont know about that relationship including what is said in the phone calls in their private meeting in helsinki. Did it strike you as odd that the last couple of days that the kremlin put out a statement saying in light of the ukraine matter they did not want transcripts released of the conversations between President Trump and president putin. What do you think that is about . Well, it is certainly interesting and if trump considered his conversation with the president of ukraine as perfect, we can only imagine the content of his conversations with putin. But beyond that, trump is really shown his hand when he said that with so many people listening in on the phone calls, he would not say anything stupid. But i think he was referring to his personal meetings with putin where trump has confiscated his notes from the interpreter and at the same conference putin was parading his own handwritten notes to show that he does have the notes and hes the only one who knows exactly what was being said. So i think it is very important that our Congress Gets access not only to the phone transcripts but also to the any information as to what happened during private meetings between trump and putin and i believe that will be very revealing. I know they want to keep this focused but those conversations seem really applicable to this issue. Julia davis, thank you very much. Ambassador Michael Mcfaul, thank you as well. Up next, a respected diplomat becomes the first member of the Trump Administration since the ukraine scandal broke to jump off what appears to be a sinking ship. Thats next on morning joe. Lets get down to business. The business of atlanta on monday. Cincinnati on tuesday. Philly on wednesday. And thursday back to cincinnati. Modernized comfort inns and suites have been refreshed because when your business keeps going, our business is you. Get the lowest price guaranteed on all Choice Hotels when you book direct at choicehotels. Com. Vo my car is my afterwork de music ion zone. Vo so when my windshield broke. I found the experts at safelite autoglass. They have exclusive technology and service i can trust. Singers safelite repair, safelite replace. Liberty mutual customizes your car insurance, hmm. Exactly. So you only pay for what you need. Nice. But, uh. Whats up with your. Partner . Not again. Limu thats your reflection. 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From the day youre born we never stop taking care of you. The state Department Special envoy for ukraine kurt volker resigned after a whistleblower report alleging a coverup by the white house. House leaders announced on friday that they plan to interview volker in a deposition on thursday. One person with knowledge of the matter tells nbc news that volker stepping down from the position will enable him to be much freer in what he can say if called to testify before congress. Let me ask David Ignatius, let me ask you, how significant is this move . I think kurt volker is a key witness, joe. Kurt volker was seen as a kind of Kindred Spirit with john mccain, senator mccain while he was alive, somebody who took very seriously disciplined response to russian expansion in Eastern Europe trying to stand by ukraine. To testify without the incumbrence of still serving in his job is important. Kurt volker is always been somebody that i regarded as a truthteller so i think we should look for that testimony with great interest and i think hell be as straightforward as hes able to be. News of volkers resignation doesnt break first in the New York Times or the Washington Post. But rather was first reported by the Student Newspaper at Arizona State university. Joining us now, the man behind that volker scoop from the state press and a yunor at Arizona State university andrew howard. So what can you tell us about how you got that big scoop, andrew . Well, the first thing we did was talk to the i talked to the editor and chief and said volker works as the executive director of the Mccain Institute which is an asu program so we wanted to localize the National Issue of the whistleblower complaint. And in that our reporting led us to find that he was going to be leaving his position with the state department and so we just reported that as best as we could. We were really just doing our jobs, trying to localize a National Issue. Andrew, it is jonathan lemire, congratulations on the story. I could tell you when i was on my College Newspaper i was not breaking any sort of national news, writing about the terrible columbia lions football team. But my question for you is you took this story and you obviously made it national news. Tell us a little about yourself. Is this what you want to do . Is journalism what you feel like is your calling or in particular political news like this . Yes, i do enjoy political reporting. I think journalism and reporting in general are so important to the world and i think thats part of why it was important to us at the state press to try and report this story in the first place, is because we thought that this would be a value to our readers and i think that that is why i want to do journalism and everyone at the state press wants to do journalism because we think it is so important and something we would all like to pursue in the long run and hopefully do well. This is David Ignatius. Great scoop. Welcome to the mainstream media. I want to just ask you what youre hearing from students at asu as they watch what is going on on tv, what are they saying that you pick up . You know, the response that weve been getting is just positive and more congratulatory than anything else. People have been relatively happy for us and glad that we were able to get this story. But other than that, it is just been sort of surprising that there is someone that is at asu involved in this. Im not sure a lot of people knew that going into this and that is why we wanted to report it if the first place because we thought people should know someone from asu is involved in this whole thing and still is. Thank you, for your work. Breaking this incredibly important story. We appreciate it. Jonathan lemire, you look at the news breaking about volker and the news, just look inside of the whistleblower complaint and you see all of the people that were actually associated speaking with the whistleblower, that seems to be and perhaps why the president has become even more unmored than usual and again were setting a very low bar there but there are so many people that are going to be able to testify as to the president s aberrant actions, as to the president s dealings with ukraine that this is something that cannot be cleaned up by see bon yn returning to the white house or sending out crazed tweets about civil wars are treason. As we are doing the show, my phone is lighting up from the trit alerts from the president raging against this matter. You are 100 right. There are people here, white house staff and volker and giuliani and pompeo will have subpoenas and be told to talk to congress and it is the white house has to this point their legal strategy is to just say no. They call executive privilege and try to block people from testifying during the russia probe and other matters 6789 that and that is a lot harder in impeachment inquiry and much more difficult to stonewall. There is no question, the white house aids ive talked to are nervous about this. This story escalated so rapidly and already at a point that they feel like this now, even more than the early days of the Mueller Investigation, is probably the most existential threat this president has faced and they dont have any game plan to combat it. And see bannon and he the president are on the outs after the fire and fury in which bannon was a source and there is no done deal for him to come back. This is a white house still looking to come up with some sort of answer, some sort of response. So this is an existential threat to the white house as you said. But also to individuals that were involved in these actions legally, personally. They can look, of course, at several members of the president s inner circle who have either gone to jail or going to be going to jail and, mika, what makes it so complicated Donald Trumps self interest is different than Rudy Giulianis selfinterest or the attorney general or volker or pompeos selfinterest or those that reclassified the embarrassing political political memos and not everybody is singing off the same sheet because there are political dangers ahead for every involved and at some point they have to protect their country and protect themselves before they protect a president now calling for the possibility of civil war. These tweets by the way by the president reflect something a little different than anything weve ever seen. Still ahead, earlier this morning we spoke to former british Prime Minister David Cameron about his regrets when it comes to brexit. Up next, well talk about what is next in the u. K. Divorce deal with a member of the brexit party. 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Doprevagen is the number oneild mempharmacistrecommendeding . Memory support brand. You can find it in the vitamin aisle in stores everywhere. Prevagen. Healthier brain. Better life. Parliament has legislated to try to put a new deal brexit out of brand. Or they want to find another way to unblock the blockage. It is very painful to watch and i feel some responsibility for the situation were in. We have had three years why we have not been able to get a outcome. If we cant get the deal i would not advice no deal. I think it could be economically damaging and well have to look at other ways of unpoliticking the blockage. There is the option of a second referendum. I didnt think that a lot of people necessarily wanted. That was former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom dafd cameron weighing in on what is next for brexit. Alexander phillips, thank you for being here. David has the first question for you. I want to just ask you where were headed. Parliament ruled that a no deal brexit that means that somehow your Prime Minister has to do and it looks like a dead end. Yes, were now in this awful imlow wear and they said this is the only deal in town. The same deal that the united king dom parliament has rejected four times, and now they dont want to see brexit delivered and they are blocking a no deal exit. And i think it is very clear just as the former Prime Minister said that the obstacle for this process now, i think the only way to do that is to have a grand jury election. And they want to be indeed in favor of brexit. And two thirds of brits themselves want to see brexit done. Let me ask another question playing off of what is going on here in the United States. One hope they have had is following the departure. The relationship between the new independent britain. Trump sees to be in bril if i felty now. This is a real nation. They have bespoke trade deals for our economies and our industries. Having a new revitalized 21st century model. So whoever is the president in the white house, i would hope that my country and your country can go forward with a very strong trade relationship. But the deal is that the European Union put forward locks us in a customs union. And it will be very difficult to strike up those trade deals in the future. I want to ask you about Boris Johnson who suffered a series of defeats in the early days of hen tenure. Should he resign . Should he lead the uk out of the European Union . The difference is you have a president ial system. We dont. We have a Representative Party political system and the difficulty now is the brexit bus is stuck. It is not going to make a difference, it will be another few weeks or months over wrangling over who the next few leaderships be. And the difficulties that Boris Johnson is facing, so what we need is to change the entire body, the caucus in our parliament and make sure there is a majority of people who want to deliver on the will of the people. Is there an a tight for the second referendum. Your shamming the door on democracy and the 17. 4 majority that voted to leave the eu. What would the franchise be. What would the question be, you can only have a buy fair choice, but you could say there is a decision facing the country. Those that want to leave with no deal, those that want to accept the deal by the eu. And those that want to remain and you cant have a threeway split in the referendum because then you dont have an absolute majority. I think a second referendum would reopen these wounds. We need to prove to our people and the world that were a democratic country and we can hold referendums. If ten years down the line we decide we want to reverse that, but immediately after the first has failed to be implemented doing it all over again would look like a stiff up. Im just wondering would you feel comfortable with President Trump doing business with the uk. With your government, at governments do business, and like i said, i hope my countried that a troor tight trade relationship. I would hate to comment on your domestic affairs. I look to Close Relationships between america and the United Kingdom, whoever is in power. Thank you for being on the show this morning. Incredible week beginning of news and well be following it every step of the way. That does it for thus morning, Stefanie Ruhle picks up the golf raj right now. The battle lines, they are being drawn this morning. They are launching marching orders to their people. Something we have never seen before. President trump is acting chief of staff, his white house counsel, expected to meet as early as today to discuss their official game plan. And we got a taste of it all on sunday when the president s defenders went on a number of shows to make their case. Here sr. A little bit of what they said. I think this whole thing is a sham. I cant believe were talking about impeaching the president based on an accusation based on hearsay. When people look at what happened with joe bidens son. What happened with joe bidens son . He got paid 50,000 a month for several years. And they said there is no evidence of wrong doing. I know the difference between a whistleblower and a deep state operative. This is a deep state operative pure and simple. There is a lot there