Transcripts For MSNBCW Morning Joe 20191212

Of the Vanderbilt University jon meacham. And Kurt Bardella is with us this morning. And nbc news and msnbc law analyst and editor and chief of law fair, benjamin wittes. Donald trump likes to frame his presidency in historic terms, and thats exactly how its playing out in washington right now. For only the fourth time in history, congress is considering removing the commander and chief from office. Its a process thats likely to have the 45th president impeached by next week. The House Judiciary Committee will reconvene in just a few hours to continue debating the two articles of impeachment. The committee is expected to vote later today to sent measure to the full house. Each measure delivered in an Opening Statement yesterday, the session lasting for hours. Here is some of what we heard. I hope every member of this committee will withstand the political pressures of the moment. I hope that none of us attempt to justify behavior that we know in our heart is wrong. I want to speak directly to my republican friends. Wake up. Stop thinking about running for reelection. Stop worrying about being primary. Stop deflecting and distracting and treating those you represent as if they dont see whats going on. Like theyre not smart enough to realize that you are willfully ignoring the facts to protect a corrupt and dangerous president. If we decide the president is above the law, then we will no longer live in a democracy. We will live in a dictatorship trading the values of madison for the values of moscow. I know theyre desperate. You know how i know it . Adam schiffs own words yesterday. We cant go to court, that would take too long. An election is coming. No, adam, what you need to continue to say is, we cant beat him next year. The only thing we need say 30second commercial saying we impeached him. Unlike the nixon and clinton impeachment, there is no crime thats alleged to have been committed by the president of the United States. There are policy differences, theres no allegation of bribery in these articles. Theres no allegation of extortion. We are marking up articles of impeachment for offenses that arent crimes that some members of congress have never heard of before, much less no what it means. Its not just because they dont like the president , they dont like us. They dont like the 63 Million People who voted for this president. All of us in flyover country, all of us common folk in ohio, wisconsin, tennessee, texas, they dont like us. They dont like the president s supporters and they dislike us so much theyre willing to weaponize the government. Few years ago was the irs, then it was the fbi. And now its the impeachment in Congress Going over 63 Million People and the guy we put in the white house. Thats wonderfully funny. Its good entertainment in the morning coming from jim jordan. They dont like us . Im sorry, jim, i am youre talking about a guy that went to state schools in the deep south and, unlike you, im still conservative. I still believe in small government and balanced budgets and free trade and pushing back on russia. So us . Dont try that. This is about a president of the United States who actually likes russia, likes Vladimir Putin, likes doing whatever he can do to help Vladimir Putin, whether its saying that ukraines not a real country or trying to undercut the democratically elected free leader of ukraine while Vladimir Putin has invaded that country. You know, you can roll up your Shirt Sleeves and take off your jacket as long as you want to. You can do this us versus them flyover space crap, i invented that, all right. Me and a lot of other guys invented that while you were going around at ohio state and working with that guy quinn or quil or whatever his name was that was doing bad things to wrest lette wrestlers that he shouldnt have done while other people were turning their heads. Lets not try that flyover space garbage, all right. Its fascinating, though, that all of the yelling and screaming, they never get to the fact, do they, kurt, they never get to the fact first of all that they didnt even like in a more extreme way against barack obama. You were there, you were on the committee, you know what the Oversight Committee did to barack obama. Everything now that theyre acting shocked and saying that the governments been weaponized, thats number one. But number two, they never really address the underlying issue, and that is that donald trump as commander and chief used his position to extort support from a foreign country to interfere in an election and held up about 400 million of military defense weapons that Congress Already approved that was supposed to stop whom . Vladimir putin from invading the rest of the country. But you say this morning in a think piece, i know willie will love this, that the House Republicans have adopted the brick tamlin loud noises defense. Loud noises, because thats all they have. Theyre making loud noises. Weve seen time and again with all these proceedings republicans fall back on the same strategy which is to yell as frequently as possibly and loudly as possible in the hopes that nobody will notice that they have not described this call with zelensky as a perfect call. That theyve not once talked about defending the substance of what the president is accused of. They must not have read the impeachment articles here because its straightforward what hes accused of. Republicans like jim jordan wrote the book on how to weaponize oversight for what they did to the barack obama administration. The idea that they can turn around now and say this is shocking that people would issue subpoenas, that they want to have testimony. Give us a quick example of that hypocrisy about how people like jim jordan, what they did on fast and furious, what they did on benghazi, what they did on these other investigations. Well, something that was interesting that jordan said, he talked about the irs during the hearing yesterday. And they held a four to fiveyear investigation alleging that the irs was targeting conservatives. At the end of that investigation, by the way, it turned out, no, that wasnt happening. Thats 100 false. Yet, they held these hearings. They held an Administration Official in contempt of congress for not cooperating with their madeup political driven hearing. And here is he again saying, well, were going to ignore history and im going to use something that i know isnt true to try to justify what im doing now, which is defending the president at all costs. And, again, its like i wrote today, that scene in anchor man when theyre in the news Directors Office yelling about the hiring of a woman, theyre saying loud noises, i dont know what were yelling about. Thats jim jordan. Thats doug collins. Thats louie gobert and thats all that theyve got. In his whole routine of talking fast, he theyre just afraid they cant beat donald trump, and were going to talk fast and also i dislike georgia. Sold. Keep going. Sold but, again, this is this the netherworld. I guess maybe theyll play a clip of that on a trumpsupporting network. But we just showed polls a couple of days ago. Joe bidens up by nine points over donald trump in a lot of the most recent polls. Hes beating him in wisconsin, hes beating him in michigan. Hes beat beiing him in pennsylvania. If you look at the polls right now, unless a democrat had his or her head buried in the and is for the past several months, i mean, nobodys thinking joe biden cant beat donald trump. In fact, its looking just the opposite, like biden has almost a doubledigit lead over trump in some of the most important states. Yeah. It was a fascinating day yesterday. It shouldnt be a surprise that republicans were deflecting from the evidence that we saw in this ukraine hearing. All the witness whos stepped forward, nonpartisan witnesses, and told a story about what the president did. What was new in this example, anyway, was the culture war aspect of it which was going back to echoes of the 2016 campaign and how donald trump got elected in the is these people, they hate you, they hate us, theyll do anything to overturn election. Not addressing the evidence or the questions before them, but taking a bigger view, jon meacham, sitting in nashville, tennessee, this morning, that this is about a group of people in the democrats and coastal elites who dont like us and will stop at nothing to, as they say, overturn the election of the man 63 Million People voted for. Its a culture argument more than anything. It is. And it goes back to the 1790s. The what Richard Hofstetter called the paranoid style in american politics, which is the use of a conspiracy. The idea that this is an ultimate struggle and there are people, there are forces that are unseen yet powerful who are trying to control your lives. And i hate to say this, but every element of american politics or just about every element, left, right, whatever that meant in a given era, have at some time or another used this. Because its a natural human argument to make. Where we are right now and where we were last night is one of the richest ironies, though, in that long span. Because theres really in the modern era the conservative sense that there is a media legal deep state world against them. Really begins with alger hiss, Richard Nixon and Franklin Roosevelt. They all walked into a bar just kidding and theres one parachute. But it began in 1945 when hiss was a young state Department Aide, conservatives came to believe that Franklin Roosevelt had sold us out, it was called the stab in the back sellout of eastern europe, and this enraged a huge part of the country. Richard nixon, a young congressman from california, takes on alger hiss successfully on the house on American Activities Committee, and so it began that there was this harvard elite that was trying to undermine the real america and it would require these noble figures from the heartland, california wasnt what california is now to defeat it. And the reason i call that rich irony is think for a second, that was all about defending us against russia. Against the soviet union. So in this bizarre moment were in, this fun house world thats not fun because its real, the National Security interests that shaped us for three or four generations have been turned upside down while this cultural strategy unfolds. But it is a sequential chapter and a drama and i think the way weve overcome it in the past, the way we defeated joe mccarthy and grew out of that was enough people decided, you know what . This is not who we want to be all the time. Joe, i just covered alger hiss on my bingo card for the morning. Heres something i found more fascinating. I dont know what type of bars jon meacham goes to in rocky top, and i know they call it you know where im going . He goes these three people walked into a bar and theres only one parachute. I mean mixing a couple jokes there. Its okay. Mixing a couple jokes, but that bar is on one high cliff. Batman begins or something. This is good stuff. This works really well out in the tapioca. Beyond the bingo card, everything jims talking about, everything jim jordan was talking about yesterday, its so far afield from the evidence. And, again, the questions before congress about whether or not President Trump abused his power and committed an impeachment offense, they are not in any way and they havent from the beginning, we know that, addressing the evidence. Theyre not addressing the question. Do you believe its okay for the president to use his office to extort, to bribe a foreign country to get dirt for a president ial election . That is the question before them that they dont want to answer. Yeah, they dont want to answer the question. Again, the flyover space argument is so hilarious. I mean, when i so, when i represented flyover space, we supported, i fought for, the reason i ran for office was for balanced budgets. And donald trump and jim jordan are responsible for the Biggest National debt ever. The biggest deficits in an expansionary time ever. And like jon said, russia, we fought to push back against russia. We held hearings about it all the time with Armed Services chit tee committee. This is an administration thats embracing russia and pushing propaganda that the intel agencies actually warned them against doing another thing. We always criticized democrats for undermining the intel community. We were still talking in the 1990s about the Church Commission in the early 1970s because we thought the democrats were insufficiently supportive of our intel agencies. Now its jim jordan and other republicans that are slashing and burning and attacking our intel agencies all the time. Free markets, i support free markets. Ive supported free markets. I fight against tariffs. Always have been against tariffs. Thats what people in flyover space, at least the flyover space i lived in for 45 years in florida, mississippi, alabama, and georgia, thats what we fought against. And, yet, youve got a Trumpian Party that is passing tariff taxes on to working class americans, hurting farmers all across america. This is this is not even my fathers Republican Party, this isnt my Republican Party. And, jonathan lemire, theyre talking about flyover space and trying play that us against them garbage. It doesnt cut that way anymore because you have conservatives now split, true conservatives, split away from this bizarre pro russia, pro big debt, pro big spending Republican Party. Even rand paul said donald trump and jim jordans last budget, so big it was, perhaps, the biggest pork barrelled spending project in the history of the republic. There certainly could be some fractures on the conservative values like those. But this is the tax cut that donald trump has campaigned and most republican allies have used since 2016, the us versus them. Turning everything into a fight. The idea we heard him at his rally in pat other nigpennsylva about how others would start whimpering and crying. And we can set aside this president likes to play the victim more than anybody. They hit back at me i hit back harder. Thats what theyre doing here. Unlike the clinton and nixon impeachment moments, both of them took it seriously. They participated in the process and they neededly so. They needed to have a serious response to serious matters. But by doing so it elevated the process. People around this process told me part of what theyre trying to do is fight, fight, fight and dismiss, to not give oxygen to the other side, to downplay the whole concept. Faint as, this their phrase, a political witchhunt that doesnt have anything to do with the president. We know thats incorrect. We know its a matter of law. Its a matter of the constitution and thats why the democrats and the house have forged forward. But thats how theyre portraying it and theyre heartened by recent polling that suggests the president s approval hasnt slipped much. Now, hes still behind a nufbt democrats he could face in 2020. But they think, again, that hes going to get impeached and th thats going to personally infuriate the president and theyll try to spin it into a win. And hell go out and tour next year and suggest that he survived this and that will be the launch of his reelection campaign. It seems to me, mika, there will be fraying around the edges. Theres some polls you look, again, collins talked about how theres no way to beat donald trump. I looked over the headtohead matchups. Bidens ahead by nine in one poll. Up by 13 in one taken a couple weeks ago. You look head to head in states, hes ahead of donald trump by nine points in pennsylvania. Hes ahead of donald trump in other important swing states. It helps actually explain not why the democrats are afraid of this is you got to give the auctioneer some credit here. It just hes so extraordinary. Youve got to give him some credit for trying to confuse everybody in tv land. But you look at these matchups, biden crushing donald trump by nine points. The socialist, as donald trump calls him, beating donald trump by eight points. Pocahontas, as donald trump calls him, the one that he says what did he say . She has a fresh mouth . Well guess what . Fresh mouth is kicking your butt by seven points. There you go. Even bloomberg, i know youre upset that bloomberg has about 50 times amount of money you do, even bloombergs beating you. Mayor petes beating you. Amys beating you. Yeah, mika, this whole auctioneer argument that somehow democrats are afraid they cant beat they know they can beat donald trump. It actually is in the opposite direction. Donald trump is afraid that joe biden can beat him. Thats why he decided to hold up almost 400 million of military funding that would protect our democratic ally against further invasion by Vladimir Putin. Thats thats sort of he got that backwards, actually. Yeah. And democrats seem to be in a good position as things stand right now. Benjamin wittes, well get to the ig hearing in a moment, but i wanted to ask you since the House Judiciary Committee is on track to impeach the president by next week as things are going, weve also heard from mitch mccop nnnell indicated he wants a short impeachment trial with no new witnesses called. It seems politically and legally the strategy on both sides is focused on speed. What do you make of that . Well, the first thing i make of it is well see whether it holds. You know, the strategy of the house impeachment managers will be they want to present their case. They will want to present this incredible story that theyve developed in the course of hes house hearings and they will want to augment that story with the testimony of certain people who they sought to get testimony from in the house and failed because the white house stiffed them. And that, of course, is part of the basis for the second article of impeachment, the obstruction of congress. So theyre going to want to try to present as much as they can. And the question for mcconnell is whether he can hold together 51 Senate Republican votes to prevent them from doing that. And i think thats a question, you know, quite apart from the question of, you know, how many Senate Republicans may be willing at the end of the day to vote to convict the president. The question of how many Senate Republicans are going to vote to with democrats to allow a full presentation of the evidence is the question that will govern whether mcconnell can kind of get away with a very short, no evidence, or limited evidence trial or whether the house managers are going to be able to make a full and ka patience presentation of the evidence that they think they have. Still ahead on morning joe, a full breakdown of Michael Horowitz testimony on capitol hill. What the dojs Inspector General said about the origins of the russia probe. Plus, we mentioned that reporting on joe biden considering just a single term. Well dig into that. Youre watching morning joe. Well be right back. Youre watching morning joe. Well be right back. Movie. I didnt have to call an ambulance. 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Announcer dav helps veterans of every generation get the benefits theyve earned. Man 2 im a veteran. When i got out, i felt like nowhere was safe. Announcer so veterans can reach victories great and small. Man 2 my victory was finding the help i needed. Announcer support more victories for veterans. Go to dav. Org 28 past the hour. Live look at capitol hill. Welcome back to morning joe. Justice department Inspector General Michael Horowitz yesterday testified before the senate Judiciary Committee where he reiterated the central finding of his report that the decision to open an investigation of the 2016 Trump Campaign was justified. We determined that the decision to open crossfire hurricane was made by then fbi counterintelligence divisions assistant director bill prestat and that his decision reflected a consensus reached by multiple days meetings of fbi officials. We decided that his exercise of disgression in opening the investigation was in compliance with those policies. We didnt find testimony or evidence that indicated political bias or improper motivation influencing his decision to on the investigation. We found that crossfire hurricane was opened for an authorized investigative purpose and with sufficient factual predication. This decision to open crossfire hurricane which involved the activities of individuals associated with a national, major Party Campaign for president was under department and fbi policy a discretionary judgment left to the fbi. As we point out in our report there are was no requirement that Department Officials be consult order ev consulted or notified prior to the fbi making that decision. Well, willie, that part is about as straightforward as can be. No abuse of administration, no bias. There would be a lot of problems as it pertained to the fisa warrant process which the ig would talk about. But later on. But regarding the bigger picture, the question that Trump Administration and donald trump and all of his lackeys on capitol hill have been pushing the Conspiracy Theory has been now for several years that barack obama tapped his phones in trump tower and they launched this investigation with the specific intent of taking down a president ial candidate. That lie or those series of lies, that extraordinarily reckless Conspiracy Theory blown in a million little pieces yesterday. Yeah. The Inspector General made clear and said so explicitly that the fbi did not seek continue to certify inform anants into the Trump Campaign. But Congress Asked horowitz do something that hes not good at. To hold two questions in his head at once. The fisa warrants, that should be alarming to anyone, if its for you side on one moment its going to be other side on the next. But the other piece as we just heard in the sound bite was that the fbi investigation into the Trump Campaign was properly predicated, that this was not a deep state conspiracy to go after and to take down donald trump and to prevent him from becoming president , et cetera, et cetera. So its more than that. Its that the investigation was properly predicated, the conspiracy theories about spying on the Trump Campaign are false. The conspiracy theories about misuse of confidential informants are false. Conspiracy theories about the insurance policy, we had a conversation on this show a couple months ago about the insurance policy conspiracy, that is not true. You know, the strzokpage texts, the coup, all that stuff is garbage. There is two reports here, right, and its in one volume. One report is about whether any of these conspiracy theories have any element of truth to them. And the answer to that question is a decisive rebuttal of all of it. I mean, just all of it. Including dozens and dozens and dozens of statements by the president of the United States dating back nearly to the beginning of his presidency. The other report, and i dont want to diminish this because, as you say, willie, its really important, is whether the fbi conducted itself in the context of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act applications here in a fashion that comports with what we should expect from the preeminent Law Enforcement agency in the nation tasked with this very sacred and delicate trust under the statute. And the answer so that question is, no, the bureaus conduct here is simply not what we should expect from the fbi in an investigation of, you know, carter page or an investigation of some unnamed Muslim American who might there might be suspicions is connected with, you know, a foreign terrorist organization. Fisa is a really delicate instrument and we should demand more of the fbi in the conduct and preparation of fisa applications than we saw in this case. And so i think youre exactly right that we should be able to hold two ideas in our heads at the same time. Theyre both really important ideas. So, benjamin, if or actually i should say since the ig found there was no bias against donald trump in the starting of is this investigation and didnt suggest that there was throughout the investigation but there was high levels of what he said was incompetence, should our bigger takeaway from this beyond donald trump be that if they would do that in such a politically sensitive case, the chances are good that the Muslim American who is being investigated or any other american being investigated has to worry about the fbi running roughshod over the safeguards that were put in place to protect the rights of americans during the fisa process . So i would very much hope that the errors that are found here are not typical. And that said, you know, people like me for many years have been saying this is a really, really strong process, theres very careful review, and we should all have confidence in this process even as we, you know we should defend it and we should, you know, keep an eye on it and make sure its being handled properly. So when i see accounts like this, you do sort of retroactive afteraction report on a fisa application and you see misstatements, miscommunications, and omissions of this magnitude, it does raise a question for me of how typical this is. And thats why i think mr. Horowitz does a service in determining here that he needs to do a broader audit of the fisa process, the handling of these title one fisas in more typical cases in order to figure out is this that the stress of this particularly high profile case made things worse, or that this is actually, you know, the kind of sloppiness that we should expect to see more generally . In which case weve got a real problem. Horowitz also told the committee that he met in november with u. S. Attorney john durham. Youll recall that durham is the prosecutor that the president and the attorney general are banking on to support the president s conspiracy theories about the origins of the russia investigation. Horowitz yesterday relayed his discussion with durham about the justification for opening the investigation. We did discuss the opening issue. He said he did not necessarily agree with our conclusion about the opening of a full counterintelligence investigation, which is what this was. But there is also an investigative means by which the fbi can move forward with an investigation, its called the preliminary investigation. So theres two type of investigations, full and preliminary. They opened the full here. He said during the meeting that the information from the friendly Foreign Government was, in his view, sufficient to support the preliminary investigation. As the Washington Post notes, the distinction is a narrow one that typically has little bearing on the early stages of an investigation. Horowitz said that even if agents had opened a preliminary investigation rather than a full investigation, they still would have been authorized to use informants as they did in the first month of the case. But durhams monday statement in response to the ig report was much broader than that. He wrote in part, last month we advised the Inspector General that we do not agree with some of the reports conclusions as to predication and how the fbi case was opened. Wow. Little different there, joe. Yeah. Whats going on . That sis a big wow because theres such a small difference between the preliminary investigation that he supported and that he said was justified from information from the friendly government and what the fbi eventually supported. Such a small difference that, kurt, theres no way to read durhams statement as anything more than he was just being a hack for barr. He was being a pr hack, air pr flak for donald trump as well. Not a good look for a u. S. Federal prosecutor. But, obviously, you look at that statement, its really distressing because there air lot of people that actually had confidence that he was not going to be corrupted by donald trump. His statement and then what he said in private to horowitz are so different that theres no doubt he has actually been corrupted. He has been compromised. And now you look at that statement, it looks like hes nothing more than a white house flak. I mean, you know, ill tell you, this is just another example of the white house moving the goal post. First, this ig report was going to be the be all end all. It was going to verify all the horrible things that trump has been tweeting this happened to him, the victim that he is. That didnt happen. The report confirmed what we already knew, which means the investigation was open and legitimate and nothing to do with politics. In the report there are people within the department that are Trump Supporters that are cited in there. So that theres a political bias, thats a myth. We see durham take this completely unprecedented move, this is supposed to be an investigation hes work, this report that hes working on, hes in the middle of doing it, on if an investigator to come out and make that statement before the investigation is completed wreaks of bias. And another report will come out and surprise, surprise, it will say what donald trump and william barr want it to say. It will be nothing but propaganda. But thats par for the course that we see from this administration. Anytime the facts dont align with the narrative that theyve invented, they come up with the way to release something that they want it to say. This is barrs precursor to the Mueller Report. Weve seen devin nunes put out reports from the Intelligence Committee that are completely debunked, not based on fact but designed to advance a fictitious narrative. And now were seeing it again with durham in trying to undermine the Inspector Generals report. Its amazing to see. When i worked at the Oversight Committee, republicans were the fiercest defenders of Inspector General independence. They were the fiercest defenders of Inspector General authority. They wanted to expand Inspector General authority to be independent of the executive and now theyre trying to undermine them. And how fascinating they were also the fiercest defenders of the whistleblower statute. I mean, think about that. There you go. It is just kind of staggering to watch this all play out. Willie. So, jonathan, lets talk about the view from the white house here. All the president s men have rallied around him in congress. Weve seen them in the hearing rooms, attorney general barr, secretary pompeo as well. From all the confidence projected from the white house and president that this will breeze through the senate and he will not be convicted. We know how donald trump thinks. He does not want this blight on his resume as having been an impeached president of the United States, but it could come as early as next week. It could. Thats an important thing to remember here, as much as is around the president , they have rallied around the president. The president doesnt want this. He knows its the first line of his obeneficiary ware to become his political obituary. To underscore what kurt just said, absolutely right. The durham statement is reminiscent of what barr did in that letter from that framed the Mueller Report before its release to shape the public narrative before we read the document and went and sifted through and realized it was actually far more damaging that the attorney general portrayed. And i think youre also seeing this in the calculation going into the potential senate trial where the president and the white house wants to make it a st spectacle. They want to call joe biden and hunter bide end an and others. The Washington Post had a story yesterday where he was quoted as saying mutually destructive testimony. He wants to move this through the trial hopefully in a couple weeks in january. I want to note that i think it could perhaps be an Inspector General or investigation into the gerrit cole signing which i know you discussed at some length yesterday. Found a backdoor to that story. But it this feels like something that frankly is a matter of such National Significance that the washington i thought you were free m marketers. Its a great company. Smith, during the steroid crisis and you had a lot of steroid freaks that were brought to capitol hill to testify, this is i put it again in between there, the 1919 black sox scandal, willie. I hope you will say on National Television today that you will not support the new york yankees because never. You refuse to support a team that is willing to just buy their way. Exactly. Into the world series. It makes it makes us sad. This is the bloomberg equivalent of, you know, we got we got kids right now, jonathan will tell you, playing pepper just in the backyard in boston. Theyre playing pepper, whatever it takes to win. But this is so unbecoming for you and all yankee fans. Will you disavow the new york yankees today . Never in my life. The way they spread this money around like Pablo Escobar . Wow. Pablo escobar, rurpg tnning the cartel. The red sox gave up that a long time. But as you talk about the steroids, i had passing through my mind the late great senator kennedy talking about sammy sousa sitting before him in those hearings. The thing is, in the senators defense, sammy sosa couldnt pronounce his own name. Thank you both for being on this morning. Coming up, she may have dropped out of the president ial race, but senator Kamala Harris is still taking on President Trump and his allies. Well show you some of her pointed questions about attorney general bill barr and Rudy Giuliani yesterday. Plus, new polling shows a tight race between mayor pete and joe biden in New Hampshire. Well dig in those new numbers straight ahead on morning joe. S straight ahead on morning joe. Limu emu doug hour 36 in the stakeout. As soon as the homeowners arrive, well inform them that Liberty Mutual customizes home insurance, so theyll only pay for what they need. Your turn to keep watch, limu. Wake me up if you see anything. [ snoring ] [ loud squawking and siren blaring ] only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Wwithout it, i cannot write myl tremors wouldname. Xtreme. I was diagnosed with parkinsons. I had to retire from Law Enforcement. It was devastating. One of my medications is three thousand dollars per month. Prescription drugs do not work if you cannot afford them. For sixty years, aarp has been fighting for people like larry. And we wont stop. Join us in fighting for whats right. You have the power and the duty to investigate misconduct committed by the attorney general of the United States who is doing the bidding of the president to undermine our intelligence community. And i trust you take that duty seriously . I do. And id just like to add that under the law and under the Inspector General act, it carves out for my authority the ability to look at misconduct by Department Lawyers from the line lawyer all the way to the top and the attorney general. The law has to change, senator. Are you recommending absolutely. If i propose legislation that will change the law, would you support that . Absolutely. It was recently reported that the president s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani asked ukrainians to help search for dirt of the political rivals of the president in exchange are the help giuliani offered to help fix criminal cases against them at doj. Earlier today you said you are not investigating matters related to ongoing ukraine issues. Does that mean that you have decided not to investigate these incidents . No. As i think mentioned in a recent letter, and ive been in touch with fellow igs who have been asked by members to look at those issues, we will look accordingly at any action that we have the jurisdiction to review. Do you agree that if true giulianis scheme is alarming . Think anything like that would be very concerning. Senator Kamala Harris back on capitol hill after suspending her campaign for president. Joining us now, former chief of staff to the dccc and former director of Strategic Communications for Hillary Clintons president ial campaign, adrienne elrod. Shes an msnbc contributor. Professor at Princeton University, eddie glaude junior and msnbc political analyst susan del percio joins us as well. Good to have yaw you all. Lets look at the latest polling which shows Pete Buttigieg and former Vice President joe biden on top. Buttigieg is New Hampshire voters top choice at 18 followed closely by biden at 17 . Senator Bernie Sanders comes in third place with 15 and senator Elizabeth Warren follows with 12 . All else are in single digits. And i wow. Im trying to think of whats going on with Elizabeth Warren there, adrienne. Yeah. Mika, New Hampshire voters tend to support someone whos from a neighboring state, which is why this is a little surprising the fact that shes kind of dipped. Thats my question. Into these lower digits. Look, i was with some of mayor petes team when one of these polls came out, the first poll that showed him on top in New Hampshire and they were excited but also i think a little surprised by this momentum here. So, look, the horse race is still going on. Organization ground game really matters and well see how that plays out in New Hampshire. But this is surprising and good news for mayor pete. Absolutely. Joe. Yeah, adrienne, i was going to say again, in all of these polls, whether its iowa, New Hampshire, the national polls, it seems like we have three stories. Think maybe we should say four, but the first one is mayor petes rise in iowa and New Hampshire, really seeing him on top in the New Hampshire poll really is surprising. Of course, joe biden stabilizing this month. Hes stabilized in a significant way. It was only a few weeks ago that many of his contributors were saying he could finish fourth in iowa and New Hampshire. This has been a really good month for biden. Of course, the third story is Elizabeth Warrens drop. It might be temporary as you and others bring up. Shes got a great ground game in iowa and New Hampshire. Boy, that really matters in the closing week. But also you have to look at Bernie Sanders, dont you . Bernie, its so fascinating how much attention he received in 2016 and be hes really been so quiet this election cycle. But as Elizabeth Warren goes down, Bernie Sanders continues to rise. Yeah, thats right, joe. Ill tell you, i think mayor petes campaign is seeing what its like to be the front runner two of these early states now. Being in the hot seat, hes been under scrutiny from some of his mckenzie clients. Hes been criticized from other campaigns. The medias paying more attention to him. I think if youre Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders you kind of like hovering back in third, fourth place right now because you are under less scrutiny and it gives you a chance to quietly work your way back into that front tier status. Now, is Deval Patrick still a part of this equation or i mean, what is hes still running but not necessarily part of the equation. Okay. And hes not going to make the debate stage. Okay. I just maybe that impacts Elizabeth Warren . Yeah, perhaps. Absolutely. I dont know. I just think if youre not going to make the debate stage at this point its hard to be competitive going into 2020. Theres Something Else thats going to affect Elizabeth Warren a lot and why we see Pete Buttigieg and joe biden doing so well there. New hampshire is an open primary. So theres a group of voters that are not republicans, who dont like the president or just may want someone who want an option. An independent who are going to get involved in that primary. So where they most likely to go . Biden or buttigieg because hes very appealing. So in that moderate lane, because hes also the one who tore down Elizabeth Warren initially on the medicaid for all and how much it will cost. Eddie, you can draw a straight fliline for liz warren from when she announced the details of her health plan to the dip in the beginning. But Bernie Sanders who is rising and hanging around the top has come out and said his quote from nar march, youre damn right, private insurance should be eliminated yet shes dipping and hes holding steady. What do you see in those rubs . Numbers . I see the robust nature of senator sanders ground game. We havent talked about the folks he has on the ground. Theyre doing that hard core retail politics. So theres a moment when warren skyrocketed to the top and she got the attention of a front runner. And while that was happening, i think under the cover of under the cover of that light, Sanders Campaign was just doing what it does, right . So i think theres an interesting kind of moment here where we thought or where we think that sanders, oh, pete in terms of the sanders voter that he cant really grow. But what were seeing is there actually is room to grow. Former Vice President joe biden is denying the report that his campaign has discussed him making a oneterm pledge, citing four people who regularly talk to biden politico claims that the former Vice President himself suggested to aides that he would only seek a single term. Here was his reaction on the campaign trail. You ever talk to any aides about a oneterm pledge . Never have. I dont have any plans of one term. Thank you. Im not even there yet. Bidens Campaign Manager and Communications Director have also denied that the former Vice President is considering a single term. What would be the appeal of that . I dont i dont get it. I dont know. We cut off a part afterwards he shoved the reporter against the door and said, what are you talking about, jack. No, he didnt. And did some pushups. He didnt do that. But come on, man, what are you talking about . Its malarky. Speaking of malarky, jon meacham, malarky for any president ial candidate to suggest to only serve one term, who wants to say elect me, ill be a lame duck from day one. Yeah. It appeals to since weve talked about alger hiss, willie, are you ready . Yeah. It appeals to the okay, the cincinnatious drama. Theres this strain pretty good. Farmer thing. Exactly. Exactly. So this idea that you would go and you would serve and then you would sacrifice all personal ambition, hugely in america right now given where we are with the incumbent. But it tends to foreclose your opportunities. Theodore roosevelt very early in 1904 said he would not run again after he succeeded mckinley and then won. And it drove him crazy, it shaped the rest of his life. And so you want to keep your options open and i suspect we saw that with the minivan statement. Yeah. Well, you know, susan del percio, its interesting how age has the view of age has changed so much through the years. Ronald reagan in 1980, he was 68, i think, when he began running for president and, you know, a lot of people were talking about the need for Ronald Reagan to have just one one term. I remember when bob dole, when he lost in 88 they asked, well, whats the possibility of you running again in 96 . And bob dole responded, yeah, thats about how old ill be by then. But of course it wasnt how old bob dole would have been by then. He was actually pretty spry and young compared to a lot of these candidates who are now in the race. But it is remarkable that we have donald trump what is he 73 . 74 . Bidens in his mid to late 70s. Sanders, mid to late 70s. Had a heart attack and he seems to be stronger than ever before. And the weird thing, too, i dont know if you found this, but i found that it doesnt older candidates, a lot of times, get the support of younger voters. It sort of opposite and younger candidates are usually distrusted by younger voters. Well, yeah. A lot of older voters dont like to see someone in their age range looking for president to be president because they want someone whos going to change things and make things better and has their future ahead of them, not someone whos looking behind them. And i just think its a great point that you mention, joe, about Bernie Sanders. We had a candidate have a heart attack on the campaign trail. This is true. And hes number two and has raised the most cash. I mean, thats tremendous and that does go to his staying power in a lot of ways because he does have a base from 2016 that has allowed him to keep that ground game going. Its the top of the hour on this thursday, december 12th. Again, this morning, the action focuses on capitol hill where members of the House Judiciary Committee are expected to vote on articles of impeachment for the president of the United States. Joining the conversation, National Security expert columnist at usa today and author of the book the death of expertise tom nichols. White house correspondent for pbs news hour, yamiche. And former chief staff for the cia and department of defense nbc news National Security analyst jeremy bash joins us. And lets start with the showing of another divisive strategy from republicans defending the president , us versus them. They couldnt believe trump won, didnt want him to believe didnt want him to win and when he won couldnt tolerate the fact that he won. And all these smelly people elected him. This is bad stuff. Its not just because they dont like the president. They dont like us. They dont like the 63 Million People who voted for this president. All of us in flyover country. All of us common folk in ohio, wisconsin, tennessee, texas, they dont like us. They dont like the president , they dont like the president s supporters rand th supporters, and they dislike us to much theyre willing to weaponize the government. A few years tag was the irs, and the fbi, and now theyre going over the president and the guy we put in the white house. I love his flyover space nonsense considering that ive spent most of my life in alabama, mississippi, georgia, florida, northwest florida, redneck riviera. Of course, things have changed because back when when i was in congress representing what jordan calls flyover space, by the way i trade marked that word in 1993, jordan, while you were, like, with that wrestling guy quinn or whatever his name was. Thats a horrible case. You guys should look that up. Its horrible. Can you believe that . No. I dont know how you dont know Something Like that. What that guy did and nobody really did and to say that strauss, thats really horrible. Thats worth a second look. Yeah. Well get to that. Well get to that in a little bit. But but when i represented flyover space in congress, we actually pushed back on russian aggression. We didnt like russia invading other countries. Weapon didnt apologize for russia. We supported the fbi. We supported the cia. We supported our Law Enforcement officers. We had to fight against liberals who often we felt werent adequately loyal enough to our intel agencies, who undercut our intel agencies. Thats what we in flyover space believed. And we believed in balanced budgets. We believed in small government. We believed in less debt. We believed in entitlement reform. We believed in taking power out of washington, d. C. And bringing it back to the states and the local communities. But strauss or im sorry, jordan, jim jordan, donald trump, those republicans, they thats not what theyre talking about. They have the biggest deficits ever, the Biggest National debt ever. They passed the biggest pork barrel budget ever. And, they support autocrats. They bow down to kim jongun. And they say to Vladimir Putin, youve invaded ukraine . Keep on going. Were going to support a president whos holding up military aid until he can get a foreign leader to interfere in americas election in 2020. Thats nice. Ive just started. Im just beginning, but tom nichols, they dont like us, theyre smelly. Thats what Lindsey Graham is saying about these fbi agents in 2016. Im sorry, but every time lindsey lies like that, every time lindsey becomes that big of a hypocrite, i just have to quote his words. And hes attacked donald trump so much and attacked him so much in 2016. But this is one of my favorites. I hope somebody will set it to music one day. He is shallow. He is ill prepared, said Lindsey Graham of donald trump, to be commander and chief. He doesnt know what he is talking about, said Lindsey Graham about donald trump. He says the worst things possible about immigrants and women, said Lindsey Graham about donald trump. And hes a complete idiot, said Lindsey Graham about donald trump. Ill beat his brains out. Ill beat his brains out, thats what Lindsey Graham said about donald trump the same year that Lindsey Graham is now going back and looking at some Text Messages from people suggesting that somehow an entire investigation is was skewed and an Inspector Generals report can be ignored because there was some people in the fbi who thought the same thing about donald trump in 2016 as Lindsey Graham did. It is isnt it rich . You know, the thing with graham and jordan and others is this incredible and palpable sense of insecurity. This chip on their shoulder for people that were in the majority who got the president they wanted and yet they cleave to this sense of victimhood that really comes out of some very deep place. I mean, i dont understand senator graham. It seems like he just has been drifting looking for the, you know, the constituency to attach himself to. But people like jordan talking about flyover country, this is really an amazing sense of grievance and insecurity. And whats really interesting is youll hear the same people youll hear people say the same thing from Trump Supporters in places like long island or Orange County, you know, that they think of themselves as, you know, flyover country being disrespected by the elites while theyre living in wealthy neighborhoods on long island or, you know, the northwest. Its remarkable that they are able to dredge this deep insecurity and just work from this well of grievance over and over and over again. Talk about fly overcountrove while walking into the bmws or mercedes or something, its really something how they have somehow managed to stay resentful despite the fact they control the white house, they control a news outlet that just spits back to them whatever they want to hear. They control so much of media online. And yet they still try to just grab hold to that resentment. You know, jimmy kimmel has a little matchup also of our friend Lindsey Graham who again yesterday spend all day yesterday saying that the fbi did horrible things because they dont like him. They think were smelly. Ive been around lindsayey a lo dont think hes smelly. But what i do know about Lindsey Graham, that guy said sh soome things that suggest ed really really hated donald trump bad. At the same time these fbi Text Messages were sent. Take a look. Lindsey grahams point, i guess, was that the parties involved in the investigation were biased against donald trump. They didnt want him to be president , which is a crazy point to make because i can think of someone else back then who didnt want him to be president too. Hes a race baby, zine know phobic religious bigot. I think hes a cook. Think hes crazy. Think hes unfit for office. He doesnt represent my party. Hes a jackass. As a political car wreck. At the end of the day he would be the most flawed nominee in the history of the Republican Party. Donald trump is the most unelectable represent ive seen in my lifetime. He would be a terrible commander and chief. He doesnt have the temperament or judgment. He would get slaughtered as a party if Donald Trumps our nominee and quite frankly we would deserve it. Why this, i dont know. I guess he had a change of heart. Yeah. Yeah. Susan del percios telling me its all about his Approval Rating which shut up when he started doing that. In 2017 his Approval Rating was around 48 to 52 with republicans. Then he started playing nice with donald trump and now its about 72 . And wow. Thats what it was all about. He did not want to get pry heardhear primaried. What he read from peter strzok, the fbi agent interest 2016 where he was texting with lisa page and sid just went to a walmart in virginia, you could smell the trump support. Hes sort of making hay out of that text message, jeremy. If you look inside these reports, obviously peter strzok and lisa page have been elevated to the key people in the russia investigation by President Trump and by republicans they clearly have political opinions about the man that they were investigating. But if you look through the report, there were as many people in the fbi reportiooting trump and celebrating his winning. So the cherry picking of evidence to create a diversion from the larger point about what we all see in front of us here, that the president abused his power. I think the Inspector General had two principle findings which we should focus on. Number one, is that there was no political bias. There was no political malice. There was no witch hunt from the was no surveillance of the Trump Campaign by the obama administration. That the investigation was open based on factual predication. Meaning there were enough fookts warra facts to warrant the opening of an investigation and it was legally appropriate and within the discretion of the fbi. There was a second finding that there was a lot of incompetence within the bureau about how the fisa applications were filed with the court. Thats a serious issue and you dont have to be a civil li libertarian to see there were paperwork errors. But thats incompetence, not political malice. And the president and others want to sound the alarm there was a deep state conspiracy. The Inspector General said, no, easy absolutely thats not true in the is a way to distract from the big story today which is that the Judiciary Committee will mark up those two articles of impeachment and i predict both of them will be on the house floor next week. While were at that time, lets hear more from the Inspector General right now. Michael horowitz. During your investigation, attorney general barr stated his belief that, quote, spying on the Trump Campaign did occur, end quote. And, as you said, your investigation found no evidence that the fbi placed any confidential source within the Trump Campaign or tasked any confidential source to report on the jump campaign. Thats correct, right . Thats correct. We have the highest Law Enforcement person in our entire country using a word not just once, but twice using the word spying. So clearly your report found that the fbis investigation was for an authorized and with an adequate predicate and you would not characterize that as spying, in fact you would not use such a word in your report . We dont use that in the report. You did not. Did attorney general barr provide any evidence that caused you to alter this key finding that the fbi investigation had an adequate predicate . No. We stand by our finding. Former attorney general eric holder has a new oped in the Washington Post entitled william barr is unfit to be attorney general and in it he writes this. Attorney general william barr has made a series of public statements and taken actions that are so plainly ideological, so nakedly partisan and so deeply inappropriate for americas chief Law Enforcement official that they demand a response from someone who held the same office. Last month at a Federalist Society event, the attorney general delivered and ode to essentially unbright bridaled executive power dismissing the authority of the legislative and judicial branches and the checks and balances at the heart of americas constitutional order. Even more troubling and telling was a later and little noticed section of his remarks in which barr made the outlandish suggestion that congress cannot entrust anyone but the president himself to execute the law. The American People deserve an attorney general who serves their interests, leads the Justice Department with integrity, and can be entrusted to pursue the facts and the law even and especially when they are politically inconvenient and inconsistent with the personal interests of the president who appointed him. William barr has proved he is incapable of serving as such an attorney general. He is unfit to lead the Justice Department. Theres a respect for the law that he simply does not have, many would argue. Yamiche. That is obviously the view of a lot of critics of the president as well as democrats who say that william barr is contacting in a personal interest of President Trump and not looking at the national interests. The other thing to note is that if you looked at the two statements that came out soon after the ig report you had attorney general barr almost talking about the white houses talking points. And by the white house i mean President Trumps talking points basically saying this proves everything that weve been telling you. This tells us that everythings been biased. When then the fbi comes out with a statement that essentially says, look, this shows that will was a real reason why this investigation into President Trump and russia had to be opened and that while there might have been some things that we need to change here, at the end of the day this investigation was something that would have been a dereliction of duty if the fbi hadnt pursued it. You had the ag coming out and saying the exact opposite of what the fbi was saying. And the only people that benefits is President Trump. Absolutely. Jonathan lemire. This has been an extraordinary display from this attorney general acting as the president has wished, as his personal attorney, his roy cohn if you will. We know how frustrated he was with Jeff Sessions when the former attorney general didnt play that well, particularly when he recused himself from the russia probe. So, tom, i want to get your take on this. On holders oped to be sure, i think there are probably things with eric holder you disagree, but also with your just evaluating how barr has conducted himself in office, that Federalist Society speech that we made a big deal of on the show when it happened to what we seen last week where it seems like hes trying to sort of shade and establish the narrative around this ig report and the upcoming Durham Report where it seems like hes carrying the president s water. I think barr, the barrs activity is really fascinating because i think it gets you inside the psyche of the trump enablers. I dont think most of the republicans in washington like donald trump or probably most of them dont feel very warmly toward him at all because hes made their life difficult. But i think what you see in somebody like barr is the notion that if trump goes down, then the dam breaks and, you know, the socialists and the, you know, the muslims and the overlords take over. That they really see themselves not as defending just trump, but somehow, you know, that speech by barr, he really positions himself as saying, this is the line, we are the last line of defense against these kind of leftist hordes. And i think that explains a lot about why people are going to the wall for trump, because they think this is kind of the last trench and that if this administration fails or falls, then theres simply yre simply i think its a deep fyre fear about demographic change, political change in america. Its about a Republican Party that didnt badger trying to ma brother trying to make an appeal to the next generation of voters and theyre aging out of the electorate. So theyre planting a flag in the trench saying donald trump is not perfect, we dont like him but were going to the wall for him because after him comes the deluge. We may look back at 2020 as a last competitive election against the republican and the democratic party. As meacham says, a twoparty duopoly thats run this nation for many years, chances are good for 2024. Because of demographic changes, texas goes blue. And texas becomes a democratic state. And all everything that donald trump and barr and Stephen Miller are doing now will actually work against them not only four years from now, but also i would say over the rest of our lifetime only because the demographic changes are going to be dramatic. And its fascinating that the bushes, jeb and george w. In 1998 started telling any republican that would listen, you have to appeal to people who arent white because thats the future, not of this party, thats the future of this country. And its, perhaps, thats why george w. Got like 44 of hispanics be in 2004. Donald trumps taken a complete opposite direction and if youre a republican at the worst possible time historically just as those huge demographic changes, that wave is of about to crash. You know, joe, i think this is a really important point thats very difficult for to us talk about because were so obsessed with donald trump and impeachment. But we need to think of trump as an avatar for something deeper, and that is thissing an sthiet tom and you have jusanxi and you just registered. Barr said that communities that dont respect and support Law Enforcement in the way that he suggests that they should should expect that the police might not protect them anymore. And we knew exactly which communities he was talking about. When jim jordan said they are afraid of us, we know who that us is. So theres a chilling effect. When we hear babies being caged on the border, when we see the cruelty up front, when we see a White Nationalist in the office who has explicitly been outed as one and hes still there, what we see here is an ongoing to fight to keep hold of an america that looks like 1950. And if we dont get our minds around that, how we can understand why someone in long island and someone in Orange County who has their limousines still think that they can articulate a grievance because its rooted in this shift in how the country sees itself. And when i hear jim jordan say they dont like us, when i hear Lindsey Graham say what he says, its chilling. Yeah. It has concrete effects. And one of the effects i think we can just look down at the border and see something concrete in terms of its outcome. So then for the president ial candidates and moving ahead, adrienne elrod, theres a lot of material to work with here. There is. But also a lot of potential pitfalls. Can you explain those . Sure. I think part of the problem or rather the challenge that some president ial candidates have right now on the democratic side is how to talk about the issues that matter to voters, health care, jobs, raising wages, education, improving the economy versus how to handle the big e wo i word, impeachment. But youve got to figure out how to message appropriately. If youre a sitting senator who will be overseeing the impeachment trial, you should figure out how to answer these questions. You do have to address them if theyre asked on the campaign trail, but you dont want that to drive the complete message. So it is a challenge. I want to pick up on eddie, tom, and joes point about the demographic changes and whats happening in the Republican Party. I went back and was reading through the 12 autopsy report thatten that priebus put together the report. It is how far we are about how demographics are changing, we have to pass immigration reform, open to black and brown people, open to gay voters. Weve got to stop talking to ourselves. They talk about ha stemmepistem closure in the report. Even going back to the 90s, thats what republicans were talking about. Tom understands working in massachusetts, like, thats what moderate republicans were concerned about. Expanding the party. I fought in politics for decades now to broaden the perspective. It is about being more inclusive. And when i see things, for example, like denying people trying to deny people the right toe vote, i said if my party cant win on what we stand for, whats the point . And thats the key thing that i think republicans need to start worrying about, not trying to stop people from being able to vote or keeping people out or creating the us versus them. But rather trying to figure out how were going to be moirn exclusive. Because we are a diverse nation and we have a lot of things we need to take care of. And currently the Republican Party under donald trump only seeks to divide us, and thats the biggest problem for the party. Jeremy bash, the House Judiciary Committee is going to mark up these articles of impeachment today, could get a vote from the full house on impeachment as early as next week. Then after the holidays moves to the senate for a trial there. What do you expect to see over the course of today . Whats it going to look like in that room in the markup . Well, i think youll see chairman nadler with the gavel trying to control the process. And, of course, there will be offers to amend the text of those articles of impeachment. Its about an eightpage resolution. Its not very long, so i think youll see, of course, republicans either trying to strike and replace the whole thing or make amendments. They might try to pick off a couple of democrats. I dont think theyre going to succeed. I think the articles of impeachment will be read out and effectively voted out of committee on a party line vote. And i think the only mystery left in this, willie, is whether or not on the house floor any moderate democrats vote against or dont vote for one or two of the articles. But i expect, again, that by this time next week the president of the United States will be facing eminent impeachment. Jeremy bash, thank you very much. Tom nichols, thank you as well. And adrienne elrod, thank you. You and susan have the greatest column. They have a column at know your value. Com and the latest one is getting back on your feet after being knocked down. I know what thats like because i got fired from cbs and i thought it was the worst thing in the world. And it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me. And, joe, men get mad and they get even when theyre knocked down. And women tend to internalize it. Do you think thats a fair parallel as to how we react to getting fired or knocked down . You dont want to overgeneralize. As you and willie know all too well from working with me through the years, im very mindful. Yes. Very zen. I try look inward. Yes. Instead of looking outward for scape goats. Thats just who i am. But i dont know if tom nichols is still with us. He got out of the chair quickly. Im here. Speaking of getting knocked down and back up on your feet, obviously our thoughts and prayers are with our twitter friend and antagonist Charlie Pierce who had an accident. Yes. And were certainly thinking about charlie and wishing only the best speedy recovery. Hes very fortunate, despite, boy, a really bad, bad accident. I messaged him briefly yesterday. Hes up and about and as feisty as ever. So charlie, we hope you feel better and get back on your feet soon. All right. And well know that charlie is feeling better when he starts insulting tom and me again. We will look forward to that. We hope that we hope, charlie, that happens sooner rather than later. Were thinking about you and praying for you. Very nice. Well also look for you guys column. Thanks very much for doing. That coming up, a member of the house leadership joins us. Well ask the assistant speaker just how Many Democrats might defect on the impeachment vote. Morning joe is coming right back. T back. Hi honey, we got in early. Yeah, and we brought steve and mark. Experience the power of sanctuary at the lincoln wish list sales event. Sign and drive off in a new lincoln with zero down, zero due at signing, and a complimentary first months payment. The ones that make a truebeen difference in peoples lives. And mikes won them, which is important right this minute, because if he could beat americas biggest gun lobby, helping pass background check laws and defeat nra backed politicians across this country, beat big coal, helping shut down hundreds of polluting plants and beat big tobacco, helping pass laws to save the next generation from addiction. All against big odds you can beat him. Im Mike Bloomberg and i approve this message. Im Mike Bloomberg and i approve this message. We dont see who youre against, through or for,rs, whether tomorrow will be light or dark, all we see in you, is a spark we see your spark in each nod, each smile, we see sparks in every aisle. We see you find a hidden gem, and buying diapers at 3am. We see your kindness and humanity. The strength of each community. Weve seen more sparks than we can say. About 20 million just yesterday. The more we look the more we find, the sparks that make america shine. Joining us now, assistant speaker of the house, Ben Ray Lujan of until. Hes t new mexico. And also msnbc political analyst nick confessore. Good to have you both on board. Congressman, explain the strategy moving ahead as it pertains to the timing of impeachment votes. Well, last night we saw the hearing with Opening Statements from colleagues on the Judiciary Committee associated with articles of impeachment. We expect a vote today in the Judiciary Committee and based on those Opening Statements last night, it seems very clear to me that articles of impeachment will pass the Judiciary Committee and will be in front of the United States house of representatives on the floor as early as next week. Okay. And, nick confessore, when youre looking at how this has played out, theres such a focus on speed. On the democrats side its a focus on speed and simplicity. Two articles, simple case, stay focused. But you also see with the senate and Mitch Mcconnell a speed issue there. Mostly in these districts they can have the clown show approach to impeachment. For the senate, its important to actually show that theyre taking these things seriously on some level, but that in their opinion its not impeachable. So i think they have to figure out a way to thread that needle. They cant give the president the full defense that he wants, that it was all perfect, he did nothing wrong. There has to be a nod to some of those voters for some of those senators. But congressman, i have the question for you. So at some point in the past people in your party had said that impeachment as a partisan exercise, a partyline impeachment would not be effective. Speaker pelosi made kpencomment that effect. Im wondering if you think theres anything that could be done to get the republican vote this week and next week . What seems abundantly clear to me is the focus of the articles of impeachment as drafted should have akt trad ma attracted many of our republican colleagues. If theyre going to take their constitutional and responsibility and oath to office seriously, none of them can agree with the president s behavior. And i think thats why were seeing so many of our republican colleagues want to debate about process and not defend this president s actions and not have a conversation about substance. Its abundantly clear. President of the United States has abused power. He obstructed congress. He invited a foreign country to get involved in our elections in the United States of america, and President Trump put himself, his own personal political interests, ahead of our National Security. Its absolutely wrong and thats exactly why democrats in the congress are moving forward withholding this president accountable. And has been made abundantly clear, no one is above the law, including the president of the United States. Congressman, its willie geist. Good to see you this morning. There are moderates in your own caucus, democrats, who have now some pause about how they will vote if this does, in fact, go to a full house vote on the question of impeachment. People in swing districts, people in trump districts who won narrowly. Have sort of waited out and seen how the polling was going to go and maybe hoped that this would be overwhelmingly supportive of impeachment across the country. Hasnt quite gone that way, its still a 50 50 proposition here. What would you say to those moderates who are debating whether or not to take what could be a tough and perhaps fatal politically vote for them for impeachment . Well, to every one of my colleagues, democrats and republicans that are still looking at all of the facts associated with this case, id invite them to take a close look at the articles, the focus of the articles of impeachment as drafted. How concise they are, the actions of this president which are not defensible, that there is a huge concern across america with this president s actions. And i certainly hope that as we move forward to next week that each and every one of our colleagues takes this weekend, visits with their constituents, makes sure that theyre evaluating this case. And, again, ive come to the conclusion that this president has committed impeachable offenses, the facts are clear. The facts are not on the side of the president. And its my belief that democrats and republicans will come together next week and im confident that these articles of impeachment will pass on the house floor. Jonathan lemire. Congressman, two questions for you. First followup on willies point about moderates and some reluctance there. Is there any discussion about a censure vote rather than impeachment . And is part of that is house leadership whipping votes . You counting votes for impeachment . And then secondly, you also have to fund the government. Can you give us an update on where that stands . Is the government still going to be open as we head into the holidays . The first question, there is no whipping that is taking place. Each member will vote their conscience. And thats where we are associated with the articles of impeachment. That is the vote that i expect on the house floor surrounding the president s behavior and his violation to the oath of office. Number two, democrats are working steadily to ensure that the government stays open. House democrats have done our job, weve passed appropriation packages. The senate had been stalling for months. But where we are right now is im confident that there will be legislation that will be moving next week to prevent a Government Shutdown to make strong investments all across the federal government and today alone democrats are going to be passing the piece of legislation to lower the costs of prescription drugs for American People. One of the many commitments we made during the 2018 election cycle when i had the honor of leading the effort to the win back the majorities in the u. S. House. And doing so were going to expand dental care, vision care, and hearing care to medicare beneficiaries. This is a strong day. Democrats are taking all of our responsibilities seriously including passion legislation that will make a positive difference in the lives of American People. But heres the problem. Most of these bills are sitting on Mitch Mcconnells desk and Mitch Mcconnell who dubbed himself the grim reaper of legislation refuses to act to improve the lives of the American People. Thats why we need the country coming together to demand action in the u. S. Senate. All right. Yamiche. Good morning, congressman. My question is, ive been talking to sources, democratic sour sources who say there is a spirited discussion not to include any article of impeachment related to mueller. Some lawmakers didnt want to relitigate it, some felt it was giving President Trump a pass. Can you give me any background on one where you stood on whether or not there should be mueller related articles and, two, how the caucus came to decide that this was the best way to move forward with these two articles . Whats been clear throughout the investigation process is a pattern of abusive action by the president of the United States that violates his oath of office. Weve seen obstruction every step of the way. But what became abundantly clear when the whistleblower came forward and President Trump himself revealed those call notes. And, again, they should not be referred to as a transcript. The bottom of that first page it says abundantly clear, this is not a transcript, these are call notes. But what was made clear in those call notes is President Trump himself was asking for a favor of the president of ukraine. And President Trump himself was holding back military funding. Ukraine, again, who was defending themselves against russia, russia who was an adversary of the United States of america. And thats exactly why theres been so much focus here. Witness after witness that has come forward has shown the clear violation of abuse of power of this president with the election that was coming forward. President trump was trying to invite a foreign power to come into our elections in the United States of america going into 2020. Its a clear abuse of power and its a clear obstruction of congress. Assistant speaker of the house, congressman Ben Ray Lujan, thank you very much. Yamiche, thanks very much for being on this morning, good to have you. Still ahead, the Justice Department Inspector General wasnt the only person facing tough questions on capitol hill yesterday. The head of the faa had to answer for boeings troubled 737 max jets and why those aircrafts wont be taking to the skies anytime soon. Morning joe is back in a moment. Ime soon. Morning joe is back in a moment. Unpredictable crohns symptoms following you . 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. Tell your doctor if you have an infection or flulike symptoms or sores, have had cancer, or develop new skin growths, or if anyone in your house needs or recently had a vaccine. 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[ dramatic music ]ing ] ahhhh ahhhh elliott. You came back welcome back. Its a story we covered in depth as it developed. A pair of deadly crashes involving boeing passenger jets. Now as nbcs tom costello reports, the new faa chief is facing tough questions. After first speaking with the families of veictims from two 77 crashes, the new faa chief came under congressional fire. Did the faa at some point in this process make a mistake . Yes. Thank you. Yes. Among them, failing to properly oversee the design and production of boeing 737 max and failing to ground the plane between crashes which faa managers warned another max could crash every two to three years. The faa rolled the dice on the safety of the traveling public and let the max continue to fly. My highest priority is to make sure that nothing like this happens again. Former boeing manager ed pierceston said he rerepeatedly warned of boeing safety lapses. I believe production problems at the factory may have contributed to the crashes. He said a link between his concerns and the max accidents is unfounded. No plane in history has been grounded for as long as the 737 max. Getting these planes flying again will not april overnight. Worldwide 737 matches grounded. America has 24. Were going to make sure this airplane is safe and airworthy before any flies on it. Today they said it will not recertify the max until january or later. Boeings sfloont the faas plan. The faa also promising tougher oversight to come. Tom costello, nbc news, tulsa. All right. Up next, the president is on another twitter rampage as democrats prepare to advance articles of impeachment against him. More than 40 tweets and retweets within the last hour. Stop watching television. Including one against grate thunberg, the 16yearold climate activist who beat him as tooims pers times person of the year. Joes track i dont want to go home for christmas is on the songs playlist. You can listen right now on spotify, but, joe, just asking for a friend, why dont you want to go home for christmas . Im just an artist. Im taking the collective pain of decades. But you know what makes that pain go away . Whats that . Looking with my friend willie, sometimes we go under the comcast commerce tree. Yeah. We do. And are inspired to go out and spend as much money as we can at the nbc store. What do you like better, the g ecommerce tree or the comcast tree . I think the comcast tree sparkles a little brighter because you walk right past it, get yourself a couple sunday today mugs, some morning joe fanny packs and you call it a holiday season. Well. It does whip you into a materialistic frenzy which will kids will tell you, thats what the seasons all about, right . When i see you today you might want to have a better answer to the question. Well be right back with much more morning joe. 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When bipolar i overwhelms, vraylar helps smooth the ups and downs. I dont know if you heard this yet, but i just heard backstage. The impeachment hearings today reached a new low. Did you hear about it . I heard at the hearing today one of the democrats witnesses actually used the president and first ladys 13yearold son to justify their partisan impeachment. Democrats should be ashamed. Enough is enough. This sham impeachment should end and congress should get back to work on the issues that matter to the American People. Come on. Come on. Theyre just my god. Theyre just such bad actors awful, hes awful. Doesnt he know the thing is if you are going to play a villain just go big or go home. I mean go back to the first diehard and look what allen did. Was he not the best . Was gruber not the best villain . But these guys i saw ted cruz yesterday. Im like, dude, you need to go to acting class. Nobody believes you but mike pence there. They hurt the child for partisan no, she didnt. She used a bad pun, but then he goes into then he goes into the whole, lets end this impeachment. Card, card, please . Word, word. Debacle. Theyre such bad actors. Yes, they are. But let me explain this. Of course, thats the least of it. Boy, i really miss alan rickman. That was him latching on to when she explained the difference between monarchs and president s. It sparked outrage from even Melania Trump who wrote, quote, a minor child deserves privacy and should be kept out of politics. Pamela karlan, you should be ashamed of your very angry and obviously biassed public pandering, and using a child to do it. Well, apparently who would do that . First of all, they didnt do that. But lets just pretend they did attack a child. Who in the world would attack a child . Thats heinous. You get the nobody would. Feeling attack a child. That perhaps pause if so melania would have to bring out her be best artillery. This is not being best. No. The president apparently didnt get his wifes message. He just attacked teenage climate activist greta thunberg. He said, so ridiculous. Greta must work on her anger management problem, then go to a good Old Fashioned movie with a friend. Chill, greta. Chill. Thats after the 16year old was named times magazine person of the year, beating out the president. Something is clearly on his mind. He needs to stop watching television. I wonder, maybe he will do what he did at clubhouses, maybe he will make himself fake time person of the year. Awful. Think of the hi okay resilienciy. The professor didnt attack their child at all. It was a pun. But here donald trump is actually attacking a child. Will melania come out and criticize him today . Seems unlikely, joe. Youre right. The professor made a bad pun, one she explained later and said she didnt mean any harm from it. But we know how obsessed the president is with Time Magazine, the cover in particular. He has made fake covers that dot the walls in his clubhouse in florida and new jersey. He lobbied for it since and he was disappointed when it didnt get it. This is a teenage climate activist that sailed around the issue calling attention to the issue. Someone who has spoken openly about the fact she is on the autism spectrum and the president and ot people her peo the right have mocked her and gone after her. Again, today the president turns to twitter among the barrage of tweets, mostly about impeachment and another where he promoted maralago where he will be going for christmas later this month, but he decided to i a tack her. Im curious what good, Old Fashioned movie he would like her to see. Perhaps diehard. It is a christmas film. Of course flag stick a christmas film. It is a christmas film. Of course. But somebody told me disparaged it yesterday. I want to go on the record, it is a classic. Go ahead. Im with you on that. We will put the record what we said when it all happened a couple of weeks ago. Leave president s minor children out of the conversation. Just dont do it. Thats right there. Not even in harmless puns, yes. We agree. Just leave their names out of your mouth. Second thing is i talked to somebody in the room yesterday when Time Magazine had an audience with the president in the oval office earlier this year. They had an hour with them. All he wanted to talk about was time person of the year, and he effectively making his case to be time person of the year. Theres a reason he made fake covers, it is all he wants. He didnt get it. The Collateral Damage is that he will attack a 16year old who, by the way, he says she has an anger management problem. I get she is now a public figure, you dont think that it is real, but she also has aspergers and is on the autism spectrum, so to attack the way she speaks in public is particularly gross, especially the fact that you are the most powerful person on the face of theeri the earth attacking a teenager. The house will pick up once again debate over articles of the president against the president. We will set up what is to be expected as lawmakers prepare an historic vote. Morning joe is back in two minutes. Rilled holes. They release medicine fast, for fast pain relief. Tylenol®. Its easy to move forward when youre ready for what comes next. At fidelity, we make sure you have a clear plan to cover the essentials in retirement, as well as all the things you want to do. And on the way, youll get timely investment help to keep you on the right track, without the unnecessary fees you might expect from so many financial firms. Because when you have a partner who gives you clarity at every step, theres nothing to stop you from moving forward. America is in crisis. Big problems require big solutions. We need a leader to lead us for almost as long as it takes. Joe biden has been working hard for the American People for years and is willing to work a couple more. I agree that everybody wants my time is up. Im sorry. You can count on joe biden to get the first half of the job done. Im joe biden and ill say, ah, ah, you know. Im Pete Buttigieg and i approve the second half of this message. That is Jimmy Kimmels take on a political report that joe biden signalled he would serve only a single term. The former Vice President denies it. Good morning and welcome to morning joe. It is thursday, december 12thth. Along with joe, willie and me we have White House Reporter for the Associated Press jonathan lemire. Historian, rogers professor of the presidency at Vanderbilt University, john meachem. Usa today opinion columnist and Senior Adviser for the house government oversight and government curt. And law analyst and editorinchief of law fair benjamin wittis. Donald trump likes to frame his presidency in historic terms and thats exactly how he is playing out in washington right now. For only the fourth time in History Congress is considering removing the commander in chief from office. It is a process thats likely to have the 45th president impeached by next week. The House Judiciary Committee will reconvene in just a few hours to continue debating the two articles of impeachment. The committee is expected to vote later today to send the measure to the full house. Each member delivered an Opening Statement yesterday, the session lasting for hours. Here is some of what we heard. I hope every member of this committee will withstand the political pressures of the moment. I hope that none of us attempt to justify behavior that we know in our heart is wrong. I want to speak directly to my republican friends. Wake up. Stop thinking about running for reelection. Stop worrying about being premaried. Top treating them as if they dont see what is going on, that you are willfully ignoring the facts to protect a corrupt and dangerous president. If we decide the president is above the law, then we will no longer live in a democracy. We will live in a dictatorship trading the values of madison for the values of moscow. I know theyre desperate. You know how i know it . Adam schiffs own words yesterday. We cant go to court. That would take too long. An election is coming. No, adam, what you need to continue to say is, we cant beat him next year. The only thing we need is a 30second commercial saying, we impeached him. Unlike the nixon and clinton impeachment, theres no crime thats alleged to have been committed by the president of the United States. There are policy differences. Theres no allegation of bribery in these articles. There is no allegation of extortion. We are marking up articles of impeachment for offenses that arent crimes that some members of congress have never heard of before much less know what it means. It is not just because they dont like the president. They dont like us. They dont like the 63 Million People who voted for this president. Awful us in flyover country, all of us common folk in ohio, wys one kin, tennessee and texas. They dont like us. They dont like the president s supporters and they dont likes so much theyre willing to weaponize the government. A few years ago it was the irs, then the fbi and now it is the impeachment power of Congress Going after the guy we put in the white house. That is just wonderfully funny. It is good entertainment erbiar in the morning. I know. Coming from jim jordan. They dont like us . Im sorry, jim. I am us. You are talking about a guy that went to state schools in the deep south and is, unlike you, im still conservative. I still believe in small government and balanced budget and free trade and pushing back on russia. So us . Dont try that. This is about a president of the United States who actually likes russia, likes Vladimir Putin, likes doing whatever he can do to help Vladimir Putin, whether it is saying that ukraine is not a real country or trying to undercut the democratically elected free leader of ukraine while Vladimir Putin invaded the country. You can roll up your Shirt Sleeves, you can take off your jacket as much as you want to, you can do this usversusthem space craft. I invented that. Me and a lot of other guys invented that when you were going around ohio state working with that guy quin or quill or whatever his name was that was doing bad things to wrestlers he shouldnt have done while other people were turning their heads. Lets not try that flyover space c garbage. It is fascinating though that the yelling and screaming, they never get to the fact, do they, curt they never get to the fact that they didnt even in a more extreme way against barack obama. And you were there. You were on the Oversight Committee. You know what they did to barack obama. Everything that theyre acting shocked and saying that the government has been weaponized, thats number one. Number two, they never really addressed the underlying issue, and that is if donald trump as commander in chief used his position to extort support from a foreign country to support an election, and held up 400 million worth of defense funds that had been approved and it was to stop Vladimir Putin. You will love this, willie. The House Republicans have adopted the brick tamlin loud noises defense. Loud noises thats all they have. Theyre making loud noises. Well, i mean we have seen time and again with all of these proceedings reps fall back on the same strategy which is to yell as frequently as possible, as loudly as possible, in hopes nobody will notice they have not described this call with ze zelensky as a perfect call. Theyve not once talked about defending the substance of what the president has been accused of. They must not have read the impeachment articles here because it is straightforward what the president is accused of. You want to talk about weaponizing oversight . Republicans like jim jordan wrote the book on how to weaponize oversight for what they did to the barack obama administration. The idea they can turn around and say, wow, it is shocking people could issue subpoenas, they want testimony. Give us a quick example of the hypocrisy, how people like jim jordan, what they did on fast and furious, what they did on benghazi, what they did on the other investigations . Well, something that was interesting. He talked about the irs during the hearing yesterday and they held a four to fiveyear investigation alleging that the irs was targeting conservatives. End of the investigation, it turned out no, that wasnt happen, that is a 100 false. Yet they held the hearings. They held and Administration Official in contempt of Congress Without cooperating with their madeup politicaldriven hearing. Here he is again saying, well, we are going to ignore history, ignore fact, and i will use something i know isnt true to try to justify what im doing now, which is defending the president at all costs. Again, it is like i wrote today and think, when theyre in the news Directors Office yelling about the hiring of a woman theyre saying loud noises, i dont know what waerp ee talking about. Thats jim jordan, Louie Gohmert and thats all theyve got. Doug collins did this whole routine, theyre afraid they cannot beat donald trump, but just like lsu beat the falcons, having a bad season, also i like georgia, just keep going. Yeah, sold. But, again, i guess maybe they will play a clip of that on a trump supporting network. But we knowed toll as a couple of days ago. Joy of joe biden is up by 10 minutes in the most recent polls. He is beating him in kiss con sicon beating him in wisconsin and michigan. If you look at the polls, unless a democrat had his or her head buried in the sand for the last several months, nobody is thinking joe biden cant beat donald trump. In fact, it is looking just the opposite. Like biden has almost a double digit lead over trump in some of the most important states. Yeah. It was a fascinating day yesterday. It shouldnt be a surprise republicans were deflecting from the evidence we saw in this ukraine hearing and all of the witnesses who stepped forward, nonpartisan witnesses and told a story about what the president did. What was new in this example anyway was the culture war past of you. It was going back to orders from the 2016 campaign, which they people hapt you and theyte you theyll do everything to overturn the election, theyre taking a bigger view sitting in nashville, tennessee, that it is about a bigger group than the coastal elites that dont like us and will stop at nothing, as they say, overturn the election of the man 63 Million People voted for. It is a culture argument more than anything. Yeah. It is, and its back to the 1790s, what was called the paranoid style in american politics which is the use of a conspiracy, the idea it is the ultimate struggle and there are people, there are forces yet unseen that are trying to control your lives. I hate to say this but every element of american politics or just about every element, left, right, whatever it meant in a given era, have at some time or another used this because it is a natural human argument to make. Where we are right now and where we were last night is one of the richest ironies in that long span because theres really in the modern era the conservative sense that there is a media legal deep state world against him. It begins with alger his, Franklin Roosevelt, Richard Nixon. They all walked into a bar no, just kidding. And theres one parachute. But it begin in 19 ha wh45 when was a young state Department Aide at yalta. It was believed that roosevelt sold us out at yalta, it was called the stab in the back, the sellout of eastern europe. This enraged a huge part of the country. Richard nixon, a young congressman from california, takes on alger hiss successfully in the house on American Activities Committee and so it began that there was this harvard elite that was trying to yupds mine the real america. It would require these noble figures from the heartland california it wasnt what california is now to defeat it. The reason i called it rich i n irony is think for a second. It was all about defending us against russia, against the soviet union. In this bizarre moment we are in, in this fun house that is not fun because it is real, what shaped us for three or four generations have been turned upside down while this cultural strategy unfolds. It is a sequential factor in a drama. The way we overcame it in the past, the way we defeated joe mccarthy who we decided, you know what . Not who we want to be all the time. Still ahead, jim comey says he is vindicated by the ig report on the russia probe. The ig says, no, not at all. A full break down of michaels testimony. First, bill karins with a check on the forecast. Good morning to you, mika. We have a couple of stops to talk about, one in the west and a big rain maker for the east coast. So it is beginning today. It will form out here in the gulf. We have a little bit of shower activity in south florida this morning, not too many issues out there. Fast forward to this afternoon and this evening, the storm strengthens and rain moves on i10 out of panama city, pensacola. Heading into your friday, it will be a raining friday, a soing rain from atlanta through the carolinas. We may get a brief period of icing, our friends in boone, reason okay, just be careful driving through the mountainous areas. It will warm up and it will be fine. Saturday morning will be raining through the northeast and it will linger a bit during the day. It wont pour but cloudy and snow mixing in on the backside. Airport delays in the north east on saturday. For todays forecast theres not a lot of concerns but i did mention the beautiful weather in the south. Still cold in the warner rains. We had one storm come through on friday here as that would indicate travel warning up i95. We mentioned the storm in the northeast. The storm in the west heads to the rockies. By the time we get to sunday, the end of the weekend, the east clears out, a little cooler, and then we watch some light snow in the middle of the country. So, yes, we are getting toward the Holiday Travel season and this weekend is not as bad as last weekend. Take a look at this shot. This is new york harbor and i spy lady liberty in the upper right corner. Youre watching morning joe. We will be right back. Im your 70lb st. Bernard puppy, and my lack of impulse control, is about to become your problem. Ahh no, come on. I saw you eating poop earlier. Hey my focus is on the road, and thats saving me cash with drivewise. Whos the dummy now . Whoof whoof so get allstate where good drivers save 40 for avoiding mayhem, like me. Sorry hes a baby can you tell me the story again . Every family has their own unique story. Give your family the chance to discover theirs this holiday season, with ancestry. Too many afterparties. New neutrogena® bright boost with dullnessfighting neoglucosamine. Boosts cell turnover by 10 times for instantly brighter skin. Bright boost neutrogena®. Us. Its what this country is made of. But right now, our bond is fraying. How do we get back to us . The y fills the gaps. And bridges our divides. Donate to your local y today. Because where theres a y, theres an us. Here, it all starts withello hi . How can i help . A data plan for everyone. Everyone . Everyone. Lets send to everyone wifi up there . Uhh. Sure, why not . Howd he get out . a camera might figure it out. That was easy glad i could help. At xfinity, were here to make life simple. Easy. Awesome. So come ask, shop, discover at your local xfinity store today. Welcome back to morning joe. Justice department Inspector General Michael Horowitz yesterday testified before the senate Judiciary Committee where he reiterated the central finding of his report that the decision to open an investigation of the 2016 Trump Campaign was justified. We determined that the decision to open cross fire hurricane was made by thenfbi counterintelligence decision assistant director bill prestap and his decision reflected a consensus reached after multiple days of discussions and meetings among senior fbi officials. We reviewed department and fbi policies and concluded that the assistant directors exercise of discretion in opening the investigation was in compliance with those policies. We did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that indicated political bias or improper motivation influencing his decision to open the investigation. We found that cross fire hurricane was opened for an authorized investigative purpose and with sufficient factual predication. This decision to open cross fire hurricane, which involved the activities of individuals associated with a National Major Party Campaign for president was under department and fbi policy a discretionary judgment left to the fbi. As we point out in our report, there was no requirement that Department Officials be consulted or even notified of that decision prior to the fbi making that decision. Well, willie, that part is about as straightforward as can be. Yeah. Obviously no abuse of discretion, no bias. There would be a lot of problems as it pertained to the fisa warrant process, which the ig would talk about later on. But regarding the bigger picture, the question that the Trump Administration and donald trump and all of us, his lackeys, on capitol hill have been purchasing the Conspiracy Theory that has been for several years that barack obama tapped his phones in trump tower and they launched this investigation with the specific intent of taking down a president ial candidate. That lie or those series of lies, that extraordinarily reckless Conspiracy Theory blown in a million little pieces yesterday. Yes, the Inspector General made clear and said so explicitly that the fbi did not seek to insert informants into the Trump Campaign. But Michael Horowitz asked congress to do something it is not very good at, which is to hold two thoughts in its head at once. One is that there were terrible abuse of the fisa process. He laid it out and republicans focused on that part of it and it should be alarming for anyone, because if it is your side one moment it will be the other side the next. The other piece horowitz clearly said in the sound bite was that the fbi investigation into the Trump Campaign was properly predicated, that it was not a deep state conspiracy to go after and to take down donald trump and to prevent him from becoming president , et cetera, et cetera. So it is more than that. It is that the investigation was properly predicated. The conspiracy theories about spying on the Trump Campaign are false. The conspiracy theories about misuse of confidential informants are false. The conspiracy theories about the insurance policy, we had a conversation on this show a couple of months ago about the insurance policy conspiracy. That is not true. You know, the strzok page texts do not reflect a deep state conspiracy to take down the president , a coup, treason. You know, all of that stuff is garbage. There are two reports here, right, and it is in one volume. One report is about whether any of these conspiracy theories have any element of truth to them, and the answer to that question is a decisive rebuttal of all of it. I mean just all of it. Including dozen and dozens of statements by the president of the United States dating back nearly to the beginning of his presidency. The other report and i dont want to diminish this because as you say, willie, it is really important as to whether conduct edit self in the context of the foreign intelligence applications here in a fashion that comports with what we should expect from the preimminent Law Enforcement agency in the nation, tasked with this very sacred and delicate trust under the statute. The answer to that question is no coming up, the other big angle to all of this. The separate investigation spearheaded by William Barrs handpacked prosecutor. Hough the attorney general is looking to reshape the story. Morning joe is back in a moment. Stechlt is back in a moment stechl experience the power of sanctuary at the lincoln wish list sales event. Sign and drive off in a new lincoln with zero down, zero due at signing, and a complimentary first months payment. For the holidays you cant beat home sweet home. We go the extra mile to bring your holidays home. 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. With pronamel repair toothpaste, more minerals enter deep into the enamels surface. You have an opportunity to repair whats already been damagedits amazing. Welcome back. The dojs Inspector General Michael Horowitz told members of the senate yesterday that he met in november with u. S. Attorney john durham. Youll recall that durham is the prosecutor that the president and the attorney general are banking on to support the president s conspiracy theories about the origins of the russia investigation. Horowitz yesterday relayed his discussion with durham about the justification for opening the investigation. We did discuss the opening issue. He said he did not necessarily agree with our conclusion about the opening of a full counterintelligence investigation which is what this was, but theres further investigation means that the fbi can move forward with the investigation. It is called preliminary investigation. There are two types of investigations, full and preliminary. They opened a full here. He said during the meeting that the information from the friendly Foreign Government was, in his view, sufficient to support the preliminary investigation. As the Washington Post notes, the distinction is a narrow one that typically has little bearing on the early stages of an investigation. Horowitz said that even if agents had opened a preliminary investigation rather than a full investigation, they still would have been authorized to use informants as they did in the first month of the case. But durhams monday statement in response to the ig report was much broader than that. He wrote in part, last month we advised the Inspector General that we do not agree with some of the reporters conclusions as to predication and how the fbi case was opened. Wow. A little different there, joe. Yeah. What is going on . That is a big wow because there was such a small difference between the sort of preliminary investigation that he supported, that he said was justified from information from the friendly government and what the fbi eventually supported. Such a small difference that, curt, theres no way to read durhams statement any more than he was being a hack for barr, a pr hack, flack for donald trump as well. Not a good look for a u. S. Federal prosecutor, but obviously you look at that statement, it is really distressing because there are a lot of people that actually had confidence that he was not going to be corrupted by donald trump. His statement and then what he said in private to horowitz are so different that theres no doubt he has actually been corrupted. He has been compromised, and now you look at that at the same time, it looks like hes nothing more than a white house flack. Ill tell you, this is just another example of the white house moving to goalpost. First, this ig report was going to be the beyou will, endall. It was going to verify all of the horrible things trump has been tweeting happened to him, the victim that he is. That didnt happen. The report confirmed what we knew, that the report was open and it was legitimate and nothing to do with politics. In fact, within the report there are people within the department that are Trump Supporters cited in there. That report doesnt happen the way trump wants it to, so what do we see . We see durham making a move of speaking out while it is an investigation he is supposed to be con duckiducting now, for so to come out and make those conclusions before concluding the investigation reeks of political bias. We will see another report come out and it will say what donald trump and william barr want it to say. It will be completely not credible, nothing but propaganda but that is par for the administration. Any time the narrative their rows to a way they can feel. The surprise summary that didnt reflect what the true substance of what the report was, thats what we are seeing as impeachment plays out. Weve seen devin nunes put out reports from the Intelligence Committee that are based on bunk and designed to advance a fictitious narrative. Coming up on morning joe we are covering todays historic debate and expected vote in the House Committee now leading the impeachment inquiry of President Trump. 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The best of pressure cooking and air frying now in one pot, and with tendercrisp technology, you can cook foods that are crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside. The ninja foodi Pressure Cooker, the Pressure Cooker that crisps. In just about 20 minutes the House Judiciary Committee will reconvene to continue debating the two articles of impeachment against president donald trump. The committee is expected to vote later today to send the measure to the full house, and so next week the 45th president could become just the third president to ever be impeached. With that as a back drdrop the president is up to 60 tweets and retweets this morning. Wow. Somebody should take away the phone. Couldnt melania say be best . His tweets include an attack at a teenager, the teenager climate activist, greta thunberg. Writing. Greta must work on her anger management problem, then go to a good Old Fashioned movie with a friend. Chill, greta, chill. Thats after the 16year old was named Time Magazines person of the year, beating out the president. Greta has now changed her twitter profile to read, a teenager working on her anger management problem currently chilling and watching a good, Old Fashioned movie with a friend. Well, good sense of humor i guess. I guess so. You know, mika, this is, again, after somebody used melania and donalds sons name in a sentence not meant to be offensive at all, the first lady used it as a partisan attack and donald trump, of course, did the same thing. Mike pence did the same thing. So im just wondering, donald trump, president of the United States, most powerful person in the world, has attacked this morning a child who has aspergers, who is on the spectrum. I want to hear the Vice President just as upset that donald trump actually purposefully attacked and mocked a child with aspergers, someone on the spectrum, when thats not what they were protesting earlier that happened out of the committee. Of course, this is a guy, jonathan lemire, who as you said, he is a guy obsessed with Time Magazine. He is obsessed with being on Time Magazine. He often makes fake Time Magazine covers and puts them up around his clubhouses, which upsets those of us that have actually been on the cover of Time Magazine. You will remember this one, john. This was me i like purple. This was me soon after i won the 87 masters. Again, ripped off. Nobody remembers because it was nicklaus that won 86. I like purple. Of course, i think i spoke for an entire generation when i said that in the late 80s. You can take it down now. But the preposterousness of donald trump obsessed with times person of the year that he actually attacks a child, the cruelty of attacking a child that again as aspergers, who is on the spectrum, after that faux outrage displayed by him a couple of weeks ago. First of all i have been waiting for you to autograph my copy of your cover story, but please do. Yes, this is the pets hypocrisy on a number he have level. He is attacking a teenager a few weeks later after we saw the faux uproar when we saw the use of his sons name. It was not meant to be insulting. The person who did it apologized, saying she didnt mean offense. He has attacked a number of times now, greta. By the way, she is good on twitter and it is a good clap back we see this morning. It is a fixation on things like ego and status and he still associates a lot of that with magazine covers, and in particular Time Magazine. I have heard him at rallies. He would poll the crowd and ask them what sounds better, should it be time man of the year or person of the year . He votes for man of the year. Of course. Which i think reveals his thinking. It is something that he was upset when he didnt win it last year. I think when he has before, when he was elected, and i think it is something that bothers him. The two leading candidates with greta or House Speaker nancy pelosi. I think we would have gotten a similar outraged response from the president had pelosi won as well. Back with us we have professor at Princeton University eddie glide junior. Joining the conversation msnbc chief Legal Correspondent and host of the beat on msnbc ari melber and legal analyst for mng news and msnbc maya wiley. A lot happening today, joe, and a lot focused on timing. Very effective, fast timing that the house is trying for with this. And that Mitch Mcconnell apparently is going to follow up with, try to expedite it through the senate as quickly as possible. Maya, what do you set this up for our viewers today. What are you going to be looking for today . What should we expect to see today . I think were going to see much the same of what we saw last night. Unfortunately, which is not really as much a debate as much as being able to appeal to the audience from various positions. I keep going back to this notion of donald trump attacking greta. You know, a person who demands and needs attention in that way is also someone who demands and needs power and who uses it in certain ways. There really is a connection between these behaviors. The only thing i wonder is whether or not were going to hear more from democrats in particular looking at and tying specific behaviors of donald trump that show this pattern of abusive behavior. You know, the record is already pretty full and clear and weve been talking a lot about all of the evidence that relates to the ukraine scandal in particular. But as the democrats did in the articles of impeachment, they really left clearly in the articles references to his patterns of abuse of power and his patterns of obstructing justice in congress. That gives them room to really put this in a broader framework. I think thats just a question as to whether or not theyll start to do that a little bit more today. And, ari, the House Democrats have made a very clear choice that theyre more focused on speed than perhaps depth, the depth of the argument. Talk about not only the logic behind that, because it is going to frame the entire impeachment hearing, but also talk about the behindthescenes struggles, the battles between the faction that believe they needed to just limit it to ukraine and move it as quickly as possible and those who believe actually as i did that it needed to be a more expansive, historic record of all of this president s abuses through the years. Well, one way to think about it, as you know, joe, that speakers pelosi started on zero articles of impeachment. Thought that out for a while, and that ukraine moved her up to two. So because i think ultimately while she says she carefully follows the caucus and thats clearly one of her skill sets, she was the person that moved up and was never cosigned on to the original mueller argument. So i think thats one way to think about it. You are absolutely right. Anyone who says that the obstruction outline in the Mueller Report is impeachable or that other issues are impeachable, who has said that before, which is the majority of the democratic caucus, who now says were impeaching the president but were not including that, does have explaining to do, particularly if your larger argument is were doing it for the constitution for good reason, not for political gamesmanship. I dont think theres a false equivalency between the sides given what we have seen. There are people on that panel who have explaining to do in both camps if they cant account for their votes. More broadly what we will see here as it kicks off at 9 00 a. M. , i mean the markups as viewers remember markups are typically things that are not covered, theyre not evening hearings, theyre not of wide interest. This is different because you are marking up the instrument of the attempted removal of the sitting president. Thats a big deal, joe, whether or not people think they can predict the outcome. I would observe the people predicting six months ago there would be no impeachment, which would be wrong. I dont know why predictions are back in vogue. I think we sthave to suit up, watch the Senate Hearings and trials that come out of it and see what happens. This is an historic moment, only the third time this has happened in american history, and yet theres something almost airless about the proceedings. There isnt any since that minds can be changed here, there will be a real debate. So what is the purpose . Is this for the history books . Is this for democrats to say, look, this is why were doing this, because i dont think theres any real clear political upside for either party right now in this. It is really about what actually happened. This is for the historical record. Such an important question, nick. I dont know that i certainly cant speak for congress. I think the way that i look at it is because it is so historic, as you say, that they dont want to skip over the traditional proceedings of something of this weight and importance. I think the thing about governance and state craft is that it does require some of our rituals. I think ritual does matter, particularly in a country right now that is having a very serious debate over whether or not the article of impeachment in our constitution still has meaning. Because, you know, at the root of this conversation is does it still have meaning. I mean when you have members of congress from the Republican Party start still saying things like, well, we still havent seen a crime, and their own constitutional law expert who testified before the House Judiciary Committee said, well, yes, you could have an abuse of power thats impeachable without a crime. I mean thats kind of astounding, right . So it really is the case that in a sense the power of impeachment itself is being debated. Well, eddie, you know, i think about this in terms of your specialty which is figuring things out, how do we know what we know. We have a bias of what we can see. As we look at this room, we were just looking at the pictures, this is something that the cameras are allowed. Theyre not allowed in federal court where mr. Giulianis ukrainianlinked clients have been indicted. The cameras are not allowed in prison where the president s Campaign Manager worked for ukrainian interest, who is caught up in other aspects of it is currently incarcerated or the president s former lawyer is incarcerated. This is what we can see. It is important for americans to understand wherever you come down on this, because you still want to hear the rest of the evidence in any potential trial, theres a lot we can see on camera and a lot more in the plot being excavated. Right. That leads me to ask you this question since you have this expertise about the other hearing that happened yesterday. Hearing that happened yesterday. Of moves that the republicans were making around the ig report and the way they were emphasizing the reports critique of the fisa court and how they were deploying that. What is the relationship for our viewers between what we saw in the senate yesterday, what we saw yesterdayat evening, and i think the Senate Hearing was about a report that donald trump and bill barr long promised that was exhaustively done that found no witch hunt, no broom, no witch hat, they didnt find anything like that. When youan look at the men you did you find a ton of bias and prejudice for the opening of the probe, they found no biens. That was a huge body blow to the hopes that this t would reinfor and the secret warrants are revealed napar is great to fine and fixea if you can, but no wih hunt. You have an effort, its like if you have been in a fight with someone, perhaps a loved one or partner. If you did do the dishes, take out the dishes, but if there is a dire to fight anyway, sometimes people can find a way to say you were on time today, but one other time or other times in the past you werent on time. Were debating your expectation of a past thing. So when the republicans say there was at some point in history ain problem or unfairne that may or may not have been untrue but it was not in the new hunt. Joining us now, from outside of the house judiciary hearing room, garrett haake, what do you know more about what it will playout today. T we will hear them read tod, and while it is called a mark up, you expect the articles will ulttly emerge today unblemished. It will go on as long as they want it to, because this is something where democratsbe hava document and a resolution theyre a ready to take to the floor, but the process here allows for unlimited offering of amendments. I think you will hear republicans, some will be germane to impeachment. You can force them to take awkward or uncomfortable votes, and unlimited high jinx today. When youre in the minority in the house, you dont have any power, but you can slow things do you and make things uncomfortable and one last chance for Judiciary Committee republicansud to do that today, expect to see that all morning and up afternoon. That is until they decide that this vote will be a fore gone conclusion taking place. A house vote, also the issue of funding the government, and the usmca, how does that all fit together . So many things coming together here until tallahassee friday, but there are two meetings on capitol hill here today. And all trying to finalize a spending bill, but they have a possibility, and they dont want it to be the last thing they vote on. I think well see the vote on the floor troublely on wednesday. You will see the usmca vote, and some vote before everybody gets out of town. The opportunity to go home for christmas tends to clarify the mind of the voters. I guess these all stay in parallel tracks and they dont impact each other . Well see. The new trade deal into the new year, but nancy pelosi will make sure, as garrett said, make sure the last vote they take will not be on impeachment. It will be on some other issue. They got the igs report, getting another report and he is running around saying he may issue his own report. Many in the white house, they blame him, but he stirred up the president on aup ukraine, that brought some of the conspiracy theori theories. They are coming to the fore form. They exbraced him. Giuliani went to ukraine again last week. Finding out more about biden and his son. Findinghi material he say that will exonerate the president and he will not reveal yet what that material is. Says that the president himself wants him to prepare some sort of report. They said that theyre not going to say that. We knee william barr soured on him. Prachs he will just be hand delivering it. My phone lights up every time the president tweets, and my battery is about out because were coming in on triple digits on tweets from the president this morning who is carefully watching the impeachment hearings. So ari, it is it does seem that we have a pair of mr. Magoos. Giuliani in hot water over ukraine, goes to ukraine, makes things more difficult, causing a manic among many white house advisors, and it is not removed from donald trump the day after Robert Mueller testified and picked up the phone and started this crisis with ukraine with his quid pro quo call if seems that these two cant get out of their own way. And were watching the judiciary members get into place, joe, the answer is so bad that he single handedly did what the democrats, the prosecutors, had not done. He got donald trump impeached. He went out and did all of this. Now donald trump is the client, the client is always more responsible than the lawyer, but it was both. Talking to bar mentioned in that call, and were often asked how does this compare to history and wat watergate and the other things we have been through, this is watergate but the tapes have bet brother duction value. The tapes are publicly released speeches and statements. Everything he did is with the state department. That time it seemed bad but unlikely, and it turned out that was bad, true, or worse. Ambassador sondland says under oath there was no shadow. Were all bad apples, were a whole pile of bad apples, that is a watergate tape with better sound quality. R knowing trumps behavior patterns, it has been especially in new york the loudest voice gets the biggest headline and gets to drown out the truth, a story, or cover something back. He has been the president of distraction and that has really been one of the biggest marks of this presidency in addition to being the president who is the president for themselves and not thees people. What is fascinating here is it