Hill. I think its apparent that she briefs what shes saying. Do you think that any of these claims are legitimate . I know this woman, whoever she is, is next up. Frankly, mr. Chairman, there are inconsistencies. Frankly, if you were going to believe anybody, you would believe him. Well, 27 years apart. Two male Supreme Court nominees, two female College Professors and senator Judiciary Committee member orrin hatch has the same reaction. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to morning joe. Its tuesday, september 18th. With us, we have msnbc contributor mike barnacle. Washington anchor for bbc world news america kattie kay and matt miller. So much to cover this morning. There is. Beyond Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. There is a ton to cover. You have obviously the Brett Kavanaugh showdown on now on capitol hill. They will be having a hearing on monday. You also, donald trump, going into a full out trade war. And he makes, of course within i dont know if its a mistake, if hes ignorat, but he talks about all the new taxes that the chinese are going to have to pay. Chinese dont pay that tax. American consumers will be paying that tax. That is a 200 million tax on American Consumers. And, of course, the American Consumers who can really afford to pay that tax, you have the president declassifying material despite the fact that he was baghdad by the Intelligence Community not to do that because sources and methods could be tomp rised. Of course, the president doesnt care. And i say of course he sdurnt because any commander in chief who did care would listen to all of his intelligence agencies. But hes declassifying some sensitive material. It doesnt change the fact that everyone around him now seems to be indicted or connected with mueller. Aside from that the americans, a show that you and i love, mika. Matthew reese won best actor. Extraordinary. Understated and so talented. He deserved it. It was great to see that. Also, claire foy with a crown. Wonderful. Talk about understatement. She was just staring like in seven seconds and a few words and maybe shell get paid better now wherever she goes. Extraordinary acting job there. Mike and willie, any favorites of yours last night that won . My favorite moment of the night i didnt watch all of it was when the director got up on the stage, with thanked his girlfriend and said id like to make you not my girlfriend any more, will you marry me. Called her out of her seat, gave her the wedding ring that his father had had put his mothers finger about 60 some years ago and proposed to her and she said yes. It was a great moment, probably the most memorable of the night. Thats amazing. And the americans is such a great series. And Matthew Reese won the emmy for an incredible series. Every episode. A lot of the strings in the episode would remind you somewhat of events taking place in our country today. Absolutely. Lets get to those, then. Republicans called for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and christine blazey ford, the woman accusing him of Sexual Assault almost three decades ago to testify at a hearing that could determine the fate of his nomination. Fellow republicans called for an open examination of the allegations from ford. Grassley said they tried to reach out to ford, but democrats refused to participate in the process. Senate democrats rejected that plan saying the seriousness of the charges merited a full fbi investigation. If judge cavanaugh has lied about what happened, that would be disqualified. Thats why its so important that we have testimony under oath with a lot of questions as to both of them. Of course, thats a problem. Is he going to be lying under oath, what happened 32, 33 years ago. As benjamin said, its practically impossible to determine the outcome of those events. So much of this, willie, will depend on who testifies more effectively. You can see who had has a more truthful story, but chances are good the two were going to be saying things polar opposite. All that said, ill tell you, yesterday it was disheartening to see some republican senators coming out saying i believe judge cavanaugh no matter what. Likewise, you turn on cable news and you look at twitter and there are people on the other side basically accusing a guy of rape on an incident that happened over three decades ago and they have no more clue of that than they do of how the universe began. I thought Chuck Grassley did a good job of saying were going to hear out ford and then well hear from judge kavanaugh. That is the good new. The bad news is everybody has made up their minds already. The people in the Democratic Party who dont want him on the court already believe the testimony and the letter given by dr. Ford. So do you think well actually get anywhere . Theres a lot of reasonable questions that can be raised on either side of this. Is she telling the truth, what impact does this have on his character, what does all of this mean today. All of those are sensible and theyre sensitive issues and they could be discussed in a reasonable manner. The chances of that happening are almost zero. As you suggest, this has got so caught up in partisanship. All we need to do is look at donald trump jr. s Instagram Post yesterday with this awful handwritten note about will you be my girlfriend and the boys will be boys attitude. And if thats the back drop of this, if thats reflective of where the president s base is on this and where republicans will be pitching their arguments to, then no, the chances of a reasonable debate on this is almost minimum. Look at this. Look at this. This is dismissing her out of hand about a joke. This is making a joke out of an accusation that is potentially incredibly serious that this woman has lived with for 36 years if shes telling the truth. There are Strong Political reasons on both sides for republicans and democrats to fight for this one as hard as they can. I understand that. But the chances this means that we are all going to be worse off. Brett kavanaugh is going to be worse off, miss ford is going to be worse off because we cannot have a reasonable debate about this. So i am not judging any republicans ability to crossexamine witnesses in court. Im not judging their ability to be moral actors on the national stage. Im just saying, i said it yesterday, ill say it today, you talked about a thankless task for these republicans, on the Judiciary Committee. I dont think they understand it because so many of them on that committee are so bad without it. But it seems to me and, again, this is just political analysis. Other than, lets say well, lets just say there are two or three ticking time bombs on the republican side of this Judiciary Committee. And my god, if i am a republican candidate running somewhere across america, next monday im going to have my head buried in the sand because this is a nowin situation for them. It doesnt matter facts be dammed, it is a nowin situation for those republicans on the senator Judiciary Committee. Thats not me feeling sorry for them in the least. Thats just me saying the political dynamics are set up in such a way where they are going to look well, theyre politically going to look very insensitive in a year that a lot of women are going to be elected to congress. Well, joe, that key phrase you just mentioned, they are going to look, okay, lets put that graphic back up again, the composition of the senate Judiciary Committee that we just had. And take a look at the if we can take a look, there are 11 men there on the republican side of your screen. And they are going to be questioning the witnesses this coming monday. This is about an event that happened 36 years ago. No way youre going to get to the truth of what may or may not have happened 36 years ago. But there has to be a hearing on it. And ron clain, he had a pretty sensible suggestion, i thought, that hes made in a few different venues over the past few days. And that was the senate Judiciary Committee ought to go out and retail a professional prosecutor to do the questioning of both witnesses rather than leave it to the extraordinary sweep of politics that you know is going to occur next monday. I wish the democrats could have done this a lot sooner. They had this information for many months and they shouldnt have waited until lit had rally the last days. They should have done it a lot sooner. But with all of that being said, we want to go through the process. One thing i will say is as i understand it, judge kavanaugh spent quite a bit of time with senator feinstein and it wasnt brought up at that meeting and she had this information. So you would have thought certainly she would have brought it up at the meeting, not wait until everything is finished and have to start a. Process all over again. But with all of it being said, we want to go through a full process. I have great confidence in the u. S. Senate and their procedures and what theyre doing and i think thats probably what theyre going to do. Theyll go through a process and hear everybody out. I think its important. I believe they think its important. I want him to go in at the absolute highest level. I think to do that, you have to go through this. If it takes a little delay, it will take a little delay. It shouldnt certainly be very much. Has he offered to withdraw . Next question. What a ridiculous question that is. Do you think his confirmation is on track . I think hes on track. If they delay it just a little bit to make sure everybody is happy they want to be happy. The republican senators want to be 100 happy themselves. Wow. Wow, that made sense. A little restraint there, willie. On the sliding scale of trump being measured, that was pretty measured for donald trump saying theres a process. If we have to delay the process, im okay with that. But what were hearing despite that vocal support, two trump confidants underscoring the president s history of selfcentered calculations in the middle of political tumult, quote, hes going to do whats best for him, the president , and he would nominate a carbon copy of kavanaugh in a second if he goes down. So i guess the argument from some conservatives is if we have to cast aside Brett Kavanaugh, well push somebody in just as conservative if not more conservative who doesnt have this problem that hes looking at now. Thats what donald trump is thinking. He doesnt care about Brett Kavanaugh. Brett kavanaugh was a surprise choice because hes been a member of the washington establishment for decades. He is the bush washington establishment. But he just so happened to write a law review article in 2009 saying the president of the United States cant be indicted, should not be indicted, so he wanted him for that reason. Willie, you saw him. Understand doesnt seem like hes taking this too personally. Weve seen it before, mika. When hes adamant about something. When he will snault the opponent, he will go out to bat for this guy and he didnt do that yesterday in the way hes done in the past which lends some credence to that Washington Post reporting that he may be willing to push kavanaugh to the side if this gets too hot. Very interesting reaction. In an unprecedented move, President Trump is using the director of his office to order the Justice Department and the National Intelligence office to declassify materials in the Ongoing Investigation of Russian Election interference. Bruce orr, an expert on russian organized crime who had conversations with the author of the dossier alleging connections between the kremlin and trump associates. President trump ordered the release odd unredacted Text Messages of andrew mccabe, peter struck, james commy, as well as orr. The white house said the order was made at the request of a number of committees of congress and for reasons of transparency. The Justice Department said it has begun. But a u. S. Official with direct knowledge told nbc news that the agencies would not be able to conduct a Damage Assessment because there are too many of them. Joe. Matt, let me bring in right now matt miller. You have, first of all, of course, the fbi not wanting to release, the Justice Department hasnt wanted it to release. The director of National Intelligence didnt want it released. You have sources and methods that are highly likely to be exposed which the president was warned about. And you have one of the more highly classified programs in the United States of america, the courts, that now were going to allow our enemies to see exactly how we do things as it pertains to the pfizer corp. Most fisa judges wont even let you know that theyre a fisa judge. Its been that secret all that long. Obviously, these security concerns dont mean anything to donald trump. He is really taking the powers of his office, the powers of the presidency and using them to advance his personal interest which he defines as using this war against the fbi rather than protect the national interests. And, you know, that statement you saw from the Justice Department about how theyre going to go through the declassification review now, they already did that with respect to the carter fisa page regulation. It was done in january after they went through a review and held back the information they thought was most secretive and they really needed to keep classified to protect sources and methods. The president has ordered that material completely released. Intr entire pages blanked out. There are clear references to sources, references to actions inside russia. And he just doesnt care at all about jeopardizing anything related to that Ongoing Investigation. To release the fbi interviews with bruce orr in the middle of an investigation is unprecedentsed. I cannot remember a single time when the Justice Department in the middle of a investigation has released anything. It is an absolute breach of practice for no purpose other than trying to discredit the president and his campaign. What does this mean in practical terms for the intelligence agencies . Im thinking if im in the fbi and i know this material is about to be released, this must have some downstream impact on my ability to recruit performance because theyre going to be worried, if this is the precedent that has been set, my information could come out at a later date. Thats right. A lot of the application relates to the interview they did with chris steele, the information he supplied. Others around the world and around the country are going to look at this and say why would i come and cooperate with american Law Enforcement services. They always tell me they will protect me. They say we will protect you. We will protect your confidentiality. We will never let this information become public. Now you see not just leaking out. Its one thing when this information leaks out. That is enough of a problem when it happens. The president of the United States ordering that publicly released just to attack the Intelligence Community bae because because he sees it in his best interest. Think about what that does to the morale people inside the Justice Department to see career officials retaliated against just because they did their job. If it were not for the Justice Kavanaugh story, this will be the lead story on every newspaper and news program in america. We will look at these unredacted Text Messages. We will read them here in the United States with a different kind of eye than those in pakistan, afghanistan, moscow and tel aviv will read them. Talk about the danger of trained foreign eyes talking about whats going to be released. There are only two who benefit from the release of this information. The president s Legal Defense team and the foreign Intelligence Service. If you look at the carter page fisa application, there are references all throughout it. Most of them redacted, but you can see by the words around it with the underlying information is to actions and activities inside russia. If those blacked out sections are now made public, the American Public is not just going to know, but the Russian Intelligence Service is going to know exactly what our Intelligence Services took to the most secretive court in the land with relation to ongoing activities and operations in russia. A foreign Intelligence Service will not be able to find out not just about the specifics, but other Intelligence Services will be able to see how we work, our our most secretive operations are put together, how we work sources, the methods that Intelligence Serviceses use and they will be able to incorporate that into trying to, you know, kind of sniff out and detect and prevent american intelligence operations in the future. Matt miller, still ahead