About that. Good morning and welcome to morning joe. It is wednesday, january 16th, along with joe, willie and me, we have msnbc contributor, mike barnicle, historian, author of the soul of america and vanderbilt, jon meacham. Msnbc news and contributor. A former Department Spokes mann and now justice security analyst, matt miller is with us and reporter for the daily beast, Betsy Woodruff. In a moment we will get to what we learned from testimony from trumps nominee to be attorney general. Why the public may not get to read report muellers report after all. We go live to london where Prime Minister theresa may suffered the biggest defeat for any Prime Minister in history. Brexit may be confusing. One thing it is not, it is a mess. That, we can agree on. First, the Government Shutdown, with no end in sight, both the house and senate say they are canceling next weeks scheduled recess unless theres a resolution. Right now, that appears unlikely. According to the Associated Press, President Trump showed no signs of backing down during a Conference Call with supporters yesterday. Trump reportedly said, we will stay out for a long time if we have to. Well be out for a long time. He added, people are very impressed with how well the government is working with the circumstances that were under. Actually, no. More polls came out yesterday that showed people are not impressed with it. In fact, americans are overwhelmingly still blaming donald trump and Donald TrumpsRepublican Party. The ap goes on to report behind the scenes the administration and its allies on capitol hill are warily eyeing the next payday for next tuesdays deadline when they need to prepare the next round of paychecks for workers who have been seeing zeros on their pay slips. The white house had invited a group of rank and file democrats to lunch yesterday to discuss trumps proposed border wall and the shutdown. None of the democrats took trump up on the offer. The New York Times reports the shutdown is inflicting far greater damage on the u. S. Economy than previously thought. Doubling projections of how much Economic Growth is being lost each week, the shutdown continues. Revised estimates from the council of economic advisors show the shutdown is beginning to have real economic kwepss. The paper notes quote the analysis and other projections from outside the white house suggest the shutdown has already weighed significantly on growth and could ultimately push the United States economy into a contraction. Meanwhile, a growing number of federal workers face deepening anxieties about when they will see their next paycheck. Yesterday, the Trump Administration ordered thousands of furloughed federal employees back to work without pay as the shutdown drags on. Nearly 50,000 employees will have to return to work to fulfill key government tasks, disbursing tax refund, overseeing Flight Safety and the drug supply. Posting today, you will not be receiving your regularly scheduled paycheck. To the best of my knowledge, this marks the first time in our nations History Service members in a u. S. Armed force have not been paid during a lapse in appropriations. Our friends, over at all in put together this string of local reports that shows how widespread the harps have been. It hes been hard. Its been a struggle, just trying to make ends meet. 18 year federal Government Employee williams sweeping her garage, shut down from answering calls at the irs. The single mother of two worried. My daughter is a senior this year. I have senior fees, i have graduation, and shes also going to college next year. Reporter hundreds of coast guard personnel lined up at alameda. Most of these military phoning are still working without a paycheck. Im running out of money. I still have rent and Car Insurance and necessities. Reporter matt and his wife are both epa employees, both furloughed. Is there a deadline in your head, youre thinking, were okay until here. I would think we could get through until the end of the month. You never know. Reporter resorting to touching their savings, this local family not wanting to be identified said the tips thursday were not helpful by any means. Garage sales and babysit, i think was demeaning. It will all be over soon. You can make it a couple more weeks. No . When februarys rent is due, we cant pay it. Willie, we see the suffering thats going on across the country, of course. Many people focusing on the fact members of the armed forces not being paid for the First Time Ever in the lapse of appropriations, air safety possibly compromised and endangered and food safety possibly compromised and endangered. This is a shutdown the republicans never wanted. Its a wall republicans never wanted while in power for two years. How much longer can Mitch Mcconnell hold them . This is outrageous. You listen to those stories and its been outrageous several weeks. This is real. Not a political fight in washington, not a game about tweets, impacting peoples lives. Theres a food pantry in new york city called common pantry, a great organization. Over the weekend, theyre feeding federal workers. I know people who work there and came up with tears in their eyes, choked up embarrassed theyre coming to get food from this place because they didnt get a paycheck on friday. The president of the United States, if there were humanity inside of him he would listen to these stories and people he might consider this is ridiculous and a way to open pieces of the government and continue to have a discussion on the wall, if thats what he wants to do. The truth is, as you pointed out, the American People are not pointing out the argument that there is a crisis at the border so grave it warrants the suffering. Just over half of all americans believe the president is to blame for the Government Shutdown, a new maris poll finding 54 say President Trump is at fault. 31 blame democrats in congress, compared to 5 , who blame republicans in congress. 7 out of 10 americans say shutting down the government in order to reach an agreement on policy is bad strategy compared to 22 who say that is a good strategy. This is the fourth poll showing President Trump shouldering more of the shutdown blame than the democrats. This is the president s case, there is a crisis, National Security crisis, humanitarian crisis at the border and we will keep the Government Shutdown until we get the wall. The American People not buying it. And joe, he took the ownership of the shutdown in front of Television Cameras with Chuck Schumer and nancy pelosi saying, i will own this shutdown. Is he trying to figure out a way by repeatedly inviting them to the white house when repeatedly they have already been tricked two or three times. A bipartisan solution has been put in front of him. Hes gotten up and said byebye and had temper tantrums. Does he think if he keeps inviting him the shutdown will belong to them . What is in trumps mind . He doesnt think, he doesnt plan. An aide said the president s response to having a 40s plan for this crisis was basically, he quoted mike tyson, who said everybody has a plan until theyre punched in the face, maybe is his justification for doing absolutely nothing. Mike, there is no strategy. There is no 40s. This is a day trader who continues to make the situation worse for himself, make the situation worse for his party politically. Its just devastating for the Republican Party politically. We saw the real life consequences for americans, not only the 800,000 that are federal employees but a lot of contractors and their families. You go down the economic food chain and up the economic food chain, there are millions of americans who will be hurt and you now have economists saying this will have a Significant Impact on the United States economy. Joe, there is no doubt that this shutdown is on one person. His name is donald j. Trump. He wanted this shutdown, hes got this shutdown. This is clearly more prove unfortunately for the United States of american, this is a president of the United States lacks an empathy gene. He does not understand whole families, more than 800,000 people hurt here, the extended families of these people, people who own smar Variety Stores and supermarkets in areas they live, are now suffering a loss of business. I dont know about you. You get here from nashville, tennessee. My sense is, matt and i were talking about it, if the tsa and air Traffic Controllers who are shut down, went home, refused to work because theyre not getting paid, this thing would be over in about two hours. It might not take that long. Tlerl, i think right now, for all the powerful stories of employees suffering and beginning the Ripple Effect and military folks it hasnt really sunk in. Its still, for most people, this is trump exaggerating the border. Then they think, well, there are people coming and i dont like the democrats either. A lot of that going on. You shut down commercial aviation in the United States which stops the economy and a certain level of somebodyialability, i think youre right. Its 90 minutes social ability it would be an interesting question on trump. Should i be ronald reagan, should i fire them . You cant fire the tsa simply asking to be paid for the work theyre doing. It feels to me, once again, this is important, its about from the democratic perspective, this is about a principle. We do not want to put up a closed sign on the border itself. Think about just the last 96 hours or so, weve gone from knowing finding out the fbi opens a counterintelligence investigation into the president of the United States being an asset of russian intelligence, the Government Shutdown over a fundamental principle of the definition what it means to be american, are we open or are we not . This is kind of another week in america. Part of what we all have to do, it can get wearying and you can become inured to the scale, the attorney general, all these stories would have been enormously important but they come so rapidly, i do think it requires an act of patient ascent to listen and follow this. John, ive actually agreed with everything you said, except one thing. That was you had said it was a shutdown over whether we are going to remain open as a country or closed. Its not even over that. Its a seinfeld shutdown, a shutdown over nothing. Republicans and democrats agreed by unanimous consent to keep the government. This is Rush Limbaugh and ann coulter attacking the president of the United States and he was being so insecure he listened to those two people and panicked and kept the americans do not want this wall. They said they wanted to tune it to the point of 1. 6 billion. Republicans dont even want the wall. This is donald trump and donald trump alone and not even for policy reasons. He was ready to give it up. This is just him being intimidated and frightened of some talk radio pundits. Sometimes, i wonder, given the emphasis we all have on both culturally and what i do for a living, maybe we talk too much about the president. No, we dont, as it turns out. Right. Because it is this immense force and the fact we elected someone and character is destiny at once narcissistic and incompetent, a hel of a combination, the question is how stubborn is he . I didnt think he would last long and find some way to declare victory. What do you think the way out of this is . I agree with you. The tsa finally not showing up for work. Willie, when that happens, its actually republicans going to and from their districts that are going to be complaining, their constituents are going to be complaining. There will be a hit in the economy the likes of which we havent seen in quite some time. I think thats probably unfortunately the way that we get out of this, when it happens, i suspect we have republicans that have to override Donald Trumps veto, and then donald trump will run against republicans in congress and democrats in congress if he seeks reelection in 2020. We ought to celebrate those tsa workers working right now, this morning at this moment not getting paid, and people at the fda and United States coast guard for gods sake, protecting our shores for no pay. Matt miller, is there the obvious point, the republicans owned washington the last two years and probably should have gotten the wall done before they lost the house. It doesnt look like there is any movement. Were nowhere. The president is where he is, said im not moving off 5. 7 billion. Nancy and Chuck Schumer put down their marker at 1. 3 and Mitch Mcconnell is sitting the whole thing out. These things move very slowly and very quickly at the end. In terms of a political stalemate, youre right, theres no movement resolving that stalemate right now. You can see under the water things are starting to collapse for the president. His poll numbers going down. Some members in the senate, those up for reelection urging the president to take it up and open the government. You see the white house seeing this is hurting Economic Growth and will have an impact on Economic Growth this quarter. You look at the underlying signs, theyre all bad for the president. One of the things about crisis management, what i do for a living when im not here, the hardest thing for people to understand when youre in a crisis and look down the road and understand theres only one way out of this or two ways out of this, i have to do something unpopular, something i dont want to do, something that hurts me. Better to do it now than a month from now, when ive taken a beating in the press or hurt my companys reputation. When youre in politics and dropped your poll numbers and had real impact on the country, the thing thats happening, when you have a real impact on the country, the 800,000 federal workers directly impacted and others impacted if this does harm Economic Growth the white house itself says its starting to do. Eventually there will be a collapse in political support. If the president doesnt cave, the way out is for republicans in congress to cave. And the president speaks for those furloughed workers when he says, theyre with me on this, they want the wall. Im not sure he can turn this into a positive branding experience, which is what hes used to doing. Betsy woodruff, lets look at these polls. New polls show just over half of all americans believe the president is to blame for the Government Shutdown. It also says its taking a toll on Donald Trumps standing with the public. This months gallup poll finds the president s Approval Rating is down to 37 , his worst rating in a year, with 59 disapproving. Among independents, trump dropped to a 31 Approval Rating, dropping eight points since december. In a quinnipiac poll, 33 approve strongly and 8 apryouft somewhat. The poll also found the rating of President Trumps handling of the economy is dropping. 49 approve. 48 disapprove. Thats the highest disapproval for his job on the economy since his first seven weeks in office. A majority of voters do not think donald trump is fit to serve as president. 53 of voters saying, no. 44 saying, yes. 57 of independent voters find trump unfit to serve. Two other quick data points. First, donald trump is the only president in the history of polling to never go above 50 his first two years in office. His numbers have been abysmal and he has set the record for the worst two years in the history of american polling. Thats number one. Number two, get this republicans should get this, too, with all their for a mongering on the border, americans actually believe democrats can do a better job securing the border than donald trump and the Republican Party. Betsy woodruff, take your pick. Damage to the Republican Party, damage to the presidency and potential impact with these numbers to trying to get this government reopen again. These kind of numbers cause a lot of anxiety for the people working on trumps 2020 reelection bid. One data point from the quinnipiac poll youre referring to, it was striking when i was reviewing the numbers this morning. We remember the speech trump took about a week ago on the broadcast networks, about his case nor the wall. It was a demagogic address and important for the white house, how they were making the case for this shutdown devastating for hundreds of thousands of americans. Quinnipiac found after that huge pivotal effort, only 2 of americans changed their thinking about this wall. It basically had no effect. A negligible effect at all. That was their hail mary and it didnt succeed. Another number from these polls important, less than 10 of democrats think trump is fit to be president. That might not sound surprising but that number is important