We handle himself. He must be enjoying it. It is quite funny. I think he is enjoying it too much being in the middle of it. You can just report from there and you dont have to give commentary. Thats what we get paid to do and you get paid to report. He does a pretty good job. I think he does a good report. But his twitter feed, i think we have all discussed our concern of twitter feeds of reporters who are working to be snarky. Never seen that on my twitter page, god knows. Sunshine and light in my feed every day. By the way, that is one minute and 18 seconds more than we expected to talk about glenn this morning. Hes our lead story. He is on snl. We will be talking about him the next three hours. Buckle up, my friends. I just got back from the hospital. Donny deutsche. How is he doing . He overdid it. At . He just overdid it yesterday. Too much . I think its a heart problem. Unbelievable. Very glad i wasnt on set. He sings on set and tries to become a sympathetic figure and then he you behafeved . No, i did not. We do this thing. He says it actually helps him get dates in the hamptons. He really overdid it. As you said, inot offseason in the hamptons so he had to work a little harder. Its slow in the winter so he had to work harder. Guys its donny. We go back and forth. Then you break character and then laugh. He refused to break character. He didnt get to the last moment . He was very method until we got to commercial break and then he started laughing. Im going to get so many dates. He also has child actors he pushes around strollers and all kinds of tactic. They say he hires child actors to go to central park so women will come up to him. And hell be the sensitive father. Sick, isnt it . How does this get to the hospital . Yeah. Huh . You started i just came from the hospital. Its a nurses thing. Its a nurse thing. Hes doing well. He overdoes it sometimes. You mean he is doing well with the nurses . Let me just say this. Hgh really can tear your body apart. You dont too little. You want to get swollen but not too much. His arms. He is a 78yearold man. Im joking. We will cut all out and post it. There is no post here thats right. No post. Theres no post here. That was a minute and a half more talking about donny deutsche. That is two and a half minutes through the program. How many people can tell mika is off this morning . When people ask how do you get through three hours . Three hours is a long time. The answer is a minute and a half on glenn thrush and then three and a half minutes on donny deutsche. Then three hours has gone by. Isnt it crazy since trump has gotten into the white house . Threerssnt enough, actually. There is so much to talk about. Some days you think its normal or quiet and at about 12 00 it blows up. Its been more normal and quiet the past five days. It has been relatively normal three days. Relatively is the operative word. Then we did have yesterday, secretary kelly and the president contradicting each other and steve bannon at cpac. The first couple of days you would have white house staffers saying things and the whole world would catch on fire. Here we are a month later and you have general, no, actually, no mass deportations. Also no military operations. We are just talking about precision. Its precise and everybody calms down. Last week, it was general mattis and Vice President pence in europe. This is mexico yesterday with tillerson and kelly. In europe general mattis said we are takie ining a role in iraq. I guess people get used to listening the calm voices of general kelly and mike pence. I think we in the press and foreign leaders look at it and say is this a pattern . As peter baker brought up yesterday on the ow, ihink it was pete. Peter said not such a bad deal. You have a president saying all of these things. We are getting out of nato, getting out of nato. Then his people go to europe and say we are not getting out of nato but you guys need to by your 2 and they leave and everybody saying, yeah, we will pay our 2 . The question is, we will have a better grasp of this six months from now is this a Good Cop Bad Cop renoutine on the national station . If so, he with not pick mcmasters or tillerson or mattis. He does not want disruption in Foreign Policy. Yesterday, when he was talking about it, it sounded like he wanted whatever it was, deconstruction everywhere. He did Mention NationalSecurity Issues as well. As we said before, lets see steve bannon walk into mcmaster and tell him what to do. That does not end well for steve bannon. I think one of the questions is going to be places in National Security the administration has to speak in one voice, especially in crises. You cant have parallel foreign policies. If there is a crisis who is speaking . The president or the defense secretary . You have time to clean up a mess, its easy. Or nsc in the white house . Thats right. In time of crisis, its the president. We will talk more about Steve Bannons performance at cpac yesterday. A white house official asked fbi to pour cold water on stories that Trump Campaign advisers were in touch with russian advisers during the election. Cnn reported that they refused to bow to that effort. It is reported that Reince Priebus made the request of Deputy DirectorAndrew Mccain but the question after the bureau told the administration it believes the New York Times describing those contacts were not accurate. Joe, i understand you have new reporting . Lets build on that aittle bit. Two sources. One in the white house and Intel Community tell us at morning joe that while over at the white house on other business Deputy Director mccain asked priebus if he could set five minutes at the end of the meeting to discuss another topic. P priebus said yes. Mccain said the u. S. Report on contacts with russian was overblown and not supported by any evidence the fbi had. Priebus asked mccain in the meeting if they could clear it out and get the information out. Mccain said think about it and calm him. Later that afternoon, mccain called priebus and said even though it was bad information, the fbi didnt want to go into the record because they didnt want to get into the business. I think this is very wise of calling balls and strikes on reporting. Fbi director had a followup call with priebus and the two had a similar discussion. Priebus asked if its accurate for him to cite fbi sources knocking down the story. Comey said yes and that is when reince went on the news shows on sunday on fox saying the news was bogus. The reporting what cnn was saying and what we are hearing this morning not really that different. I guess its fairly the white house is going to try, right . Im not that surprised that priebus would go to the fbi and say, listen, this is getting us into a whole lot of trouble, this story. If you dont think the story is accurate, can you help us clarify it . Perhaps you have more credibility. What depends. I was going to say going to do it but doesnt surprise me that if the fbi is there on other business, is this reporting suggest and if the fbi says, hey, can we talk to you, thats one thing. Which that is what this report suggests. Yes. If you have somebody doing what the Clinton Administration did in 1993 and George Stephanopoulos said we need you to write this press release we are putting out late today that crosses the line. Based on these reports, the fbi was there for other reasons. Still there is a quizzical look in your eye. Look. I think that there is longstanding practice and guidelines and not maybe not legislation to this effect but there is an ongoing criminal investigation of any kind that the white house should not be talking to the fbi about it and the fbi should be talking to the white house about it. The difference between these reports is who initiated the conversation. It seems to me that there will be questions raised about this one way or another that if you think if you went to the Obama Administration and suggested if Dennis Mcdonough or rahm emanuel are were having discussions and even the president himself that would be a huge scandal if rahm emanuel called the fbi and said just we need you to talk to the press about what you guys are finding in your investigation. Again, that is the fact pattern. The same exact pattern that happened in 1993 in the travel gate dustup. It went the other way. The call came from the fbi. It wasnt even a call. It was right. They were in white house meeting. Here is the question. Was it improper for mccain. Yes. To go to reince and curry a favor going, hey, listen. The New York Times report was b. S. . My point is i think it is considered Standard Practice that the fbi and white house and especially if the fbi is investigating people that are close to the white house or involved with the president s campaign, especially in that instance, but in any instance, there shouldnt be discussions about ongoing investigation. So the question i totally agree. The question is who initiated the conversation . Whether a phone call or in this case in person session. Previous reporting that priebus raised it with the fbi in which case the burden the inappropriate behavior would be on the part of the chief of staff. If the fbi was raising it to priebus these questions should now be directed to the fbi. This kind of conversation should not behaening. By the way,willie, agree. It shouldnt happen. I guess under bush, it expanded out who people could talk to. And then restricted. I guess my question is why would anybody at the white house be allowed to talk to the fbi . O or vice versa if they are in the middle of an staeginvestigation . This directly relates to the white house. There has to be a chinese wall here. The cnn talks about the meeting on the sideline but takes it a step further and saying Reince Priebus later called the office of comey himself and asked him to talk to reporter on the background to put cold water on the story. That is calling the director and asking him to put his hand on the scale of the story. That was initiated in the white house it sounded like. Took place later. Right. Right. So so you had the meeting in the white house. You had mccain coming up. You had reince saying if that is the case can you guys get the facts out there . Mccakab said let me that i abou that. Comey said the same thing that mccabe said. With comey . Yes. It was the same confidence with mccabe saying its bad information. Can you get the information out there and tell them to which comey said we are in the business of calling balls and strikes here. If we did that with this report that is how we would be doing it the whole thing. Sort of the fbis attitude. The chief of staff of the white house shouldnt be calling the fbi and ask him to meddle in reports. Its not surprising here is the deal. If somebody comes in and tells me this story people are suggesting could lead to your becht impeachment is a bunch of b. S. How can you help me . If im sitting there youre telling me its b. S. You going to clean that up since they are sticking it around your neck that youre investigating something and people from your agency im just saying what i would do in congress. Your agency has leaked that ive done something you dont need to shout. You can do it calmly. I would be shouting in this office. Youre telling me youre sitting there after your people are leaking to the New York Times that ive done something illegal and now youre saying, oh, im sorry, we cant clean it up . I say you need to clean your shop up and probably start by getting the right information out there. The people that were lying about me thats what i would do. But its different being a congressman. I just go through that exercise and say you can understand why somebody would be sitting there going, okay, well, you guys have screwed our life especially gravity of the story. Yeah. The facts here matter a lot and a lot of reporting. Gosh. On the next 24 hours. The reality is that in past administrations, you have here a serious multiprong investigation over the most politically sensitive thing currently affecting this white house over the question of russia, right . I think there is going to be as we get clarity about it who called whom, who said what to whom and what circumstances. In any event i think this will increase the pressure among Many Democrats and others who are going to say all of this just makes it more essential we have an independent prosecutor looking at this because no way this administration can investigate itself on this issue. Which republicans have no interest in giving. Clearly. Just to be clear. I was explaining that little routine there. Again, why they may feel the way they may feel and why somebody may have done what they may have done, but there has to be such a massive chinese wall between the white house and the fbi on this, because youre exactly right. It is completely it is the issue right now that they are going to be investigating for sometime. Not be talking to the fbi about this. Should not be happening. Shouldnt be happening. And conversely. Conversely, the fbi should not be talking to em. If this reporting is correct and it was mccabe who started this. You know i will give them good news, dah, dah, dah, we have sort of had a rough start. Wasnt mccabes wife that ran in virginia . He was part of one of the hillary stories in the past. I think temporary mcauliffe may have raised some money. I got in trouble again i named a guy named David Johnson a couple of weeks and said he is a bigot. It was Craig Livingstone you throw stuff against the wall and some of it sticks. So i need to be careful. Mccabe, i dont know. Hey, lets clean that up i take that back no. I thought mccabe was involved in the hillary thing. Better do some research at the break. All of this gunk. The bottom line its a mess at the fbi and i think they need to keep their noses clean like the white house. Im with you. There you go. Lets talk about glenn a little more. Cpac, yesterday, steve bannon and Reince Priebus deny reports of tension and blame the media for negative reports and calling the press the Opposition Party and fascinating look into Steve Bannons world view. Next week morning joe will have special coverage of President Trumps first address to congress. We will be live on capitol hill tuesday and wednesday mornings starting at 6 00. Youre watching morning joe. We will be right back. music plays throughout announcer get on your feet for the nastiest bull in the state of texas. crowd cheers its my decision ito make beauty last. Roc® retinol, started visibly reducing my fine lines and wrinkles in one week. And the longer i use it, the better it works. Retinol correxion® from roc. Methods, not miracles. ™ im raph. My name is anne. Im one of the real live attorneys you can talk to through legalzoom. Dont let unanswered legal questions hold you up, because were here, were here, and weve got your back. Legalzoom. Legal help is here. Explore your Treatment Options with specialists who treat only cancer. Every stage. Every day. At Cancer Treatment centers of america. Learn more at cancercenter. Com experts withevery late night. G. And moment away. With every click. Call. Punch. And paycheck. Youve earned your medicare. It was a deal that was made long ago, and aarp believes it should be honored. Thankfully, President Trump does too. I am going to protect and save your Social Security and your medicare. You made a deal a long time ago. Now, its congress turn. Tell them to protect medicare. This morning President Trump will speak at the conservative Political Action congress and the first president to address cpac during his first year in office. Yesterday all eyes were on an unlikely pair. The joint pap appearance of senior counselor to the president steve bannon and chief of staff Reince Priebus. Bannon summed up his administration deconstruction. When you look at the lines of work. I break it out in three buckets. The first is National Security and sovereignty. The third broadly line of work what is deconstruction of the Administrative State. If you look at these cabinet appoia appointees they were selected. If they cant get it passed they put it in ans and that is all deconstructed. There is a new political order that is being formed out of this and its still being formed, but if you look at the wide degree of opinions in this room whether youre a populace or a libertarian or an academic nationalist, we have wide and sometimes diversion opinions but i think the center core of what we believe we are a nation with an economy and not an economy in a global marketplace with open borders but a nation with a culture and a and a reason for being. And i think that is what unites us. Joe, that was a fascinating look. We dont get to hear from steve bannon firsthand very often in his world view and a world view that has been adopted by donald trump and really steve bannon waiting all these years for a vessel as he called trump a blunt instrument to use to impose his world view. A lot of things about the Trump Administration and the people around him that are not conservative. They are not conservatives. But that was a conservative speech. And he sounded an awful lot like theresa may talking about economic nationalism saying we are a nation with an economy and not an economy that happens to be a nation reminds me of theresa may when she was speaking saying that if youre a citizen of the world, youre a citizen of nowhere. Something along those lines. And as far deconstruction goes, it sounds an awful lot like what we said in 1994 and i will all i will say about the power of the state is i got elected by screaming