Thanksgiving day table today. All right, were going to start this morning with the growing controversy over two politicians, congressman john conyers and Senate Hopeful roy moore. Its bipartisan this time. A new accuser says conyers was verbally abusive to her. Meanwhile, conyers attorney released a defiant statement. He says the 27term democrat has no intention of stepping down. Moore, equally defiant. The difference is, he still has a big supporter in his corner, a new one, president donald trump. Its a head scratcher for me. We have a great panel this morning to help us break down both stories. I want to go first to nbcs kelly odonnell. What is the latest on congressman conyers . Well, good morning and happy thanksgiving, were in palm beach of course covering the president and john conyers has some new developments. Of course, its important to point out he is a michigan democrat who is known as the dean of the house, which means hes the longest serving member of congress, 52 1 2 years in office. And there have been a couple of allegations made of Sexual Harassment that go back over time and a new accuser who has come forward, putting her name on the record, appearing on camera, not making a Sexual Harassment claim, but saying that conyers did not treat her respectfully at times during her service on the Judiciary Committee in the 1990s. Her name is Melanie Sloan. Hes gone on to be an ethics lawyer and often do work on behalf of the public that holds to account members of congress in both parties. Heres Melanie Sloan making part of her accusation about the environment in which she worked when serving on the staff for john conyers. He became increasingly verbally abusive and would berate me loudly and over ridiculous things. One time he called me out into the hall and screamed at me for not wearing stockings when he never wore socks. And when sloan spoke to nbc news, she says part of the reason she wanted to go on camera now and put her name along with these allegations is to make it easier for women who have worked on capitol hill over the years to come forward. She described an environment where when you are working for a member of congress or a powerful committee, she found it difficult to relay her concerns or seek help and wants to be part of a movement to try to make women feel more capable of coming forward without fear of retaliation. Now, representative conyers attorney has put out a lengthy statement saying he maintains his innocence on all of the accusations and he has no intention of resigning and if allegations were a reason to force people out of their jobs, he said there would be a lot of people out of work, not only on capitol hill but other industries as well. Stef. Well, thats okay, if theres abusive behavior and people have to lose their jobs over it, so be it. To those who are victims who feel like they dont have anywhere to go, guess what youve got, the free press. And heres a statement from the lawyer of congressman john conyers just in, quote, while these allegations are serious, they are simply allegations. If people were required to resign over allegations, a lot of people would be out of work in this country including many members of the house, senate and even the president. Congressman conyers has no plans to resign. All right, lets move on to a different story. Nbcs Vaugh Hillyard is in birmingham. Youve been there now for over a week. You still have what, 20 days until the actual election. Give us the latest on the roy moore campaign. Yes, good morning, stephanie. Roy moore is down for the weekend, hes down in etowah county, in his hometown of galante. The Campaign Says were not going to be seeing him until at least monday, which marks ten days in which roy moore has not publicly appeared down here in alabama. Were 19 days away from the special election with democrat doug jones. Roy moore these last couple of days is trying to use Donald Trumps a guess tacit endorsement to his advantage at this point. He sent out a fundraising email just yesterday saying i appreciate donald trump for defending my honor and my character instead of cheering on the lies and false accusations like the insiders in washington. Donald trump just one year ago under similar circumstances, allegations, won alabama with the highest vote total for any president ial candidate in history. So roy moore is trying to use that to his advantage. Doug jones who has been on the campaign trail is up on the air waves. Weve been watching tv like many here in alabama on this thanksgiving morning and you see one doug jones ad on after the other. Doug jones released a new web video yesterday which i think is worth a play here. Gina richardson. Wendy miller. Kelly harrison thorpe. And the list is growing. They were girls when roy moore immorally pursued them. Now they are women, witnesses to us all of his disturbing conduct. Will we make their abuser a u. S. Senator . Doug jones is running that web video, outside these other advertisements on air, and its taking on roy moore with the faces of these nine accusers. Roy moore has been defiant, saying hes not getting out of the race, calling these allegations misleading and untrue. Yet theres still many questions around this. He has not been open in speaking with the media. Hes not holding campaign events. Yesterday, he lost his Communications Director who left the campaign. Roy Moores Campaign is down to just six staffers here in alabama. Two of those are florida operatives. Nbc news has more people on the ground than roy moore does at this point and were 19 days out and i think the question that really should stem from that is how would roy moore set up a senate office, you know, senators have not only a dozen or two staffers in washington, d. C. But they also have to field positions for the committees. They also have local offices across the state. Its not dissimilar from the conversation we took part in one year ago. With a bunch of hesitant republican, including in particular young republicans, baby to set up an operation, stephanie. I think thats exactly point. We cant get too cute there. Guess what, if he does win, he will figure that out. Roy moore in his hometown of gadsden this weekend. I know where he wont be, the mall. My panel, robert chanem. Brendan greely, a contributor to the Economist Free Exchange blog and nile stannage. Happy thanksgiving to you. President trump, i was very shocked with his comments, bau because he didnt need to say anything. We criticized and said arent you going to weigh in . He had a pass to say let the people of alabama decide but he didnt, he dipped in. How deep is he going to go . I wasnt surprised by the president saying that. The president is a very loyal guy. When youre loyal to hill, hes loyal back to you. Roy moores been very loyal to donald trump. So with donald trump, hes got a way with him where you saw when he was on board marine one one more time, you just said President Trump is a very loyal guy, for real . I think when you take a look at look, hes not bad mouthed steve bannon. The reason why hes not bad mouthed steve bannon, because steve bannon has been very loyal to President Trump when he left the white house. You dont criticize him, he wont criticize you. I think thats pretty pred t predictable with the president. When he was about to board marine one, he was very defiant by saying well, you know, he denied it, he denied it. The president has this mindset that look, if he denied it, just like with the access hollywood stuff, then its true. My point simply is i want to go back to another thing reporter said on the ground. Just because roy moore only has a handful of staffers does not mean that he would not that he possibly cant win. We all thought donald trump was going to lose this election because he did not have a field staff and the states, michigan, pennsylvania and guess what, he won those states. Look at all the money doug jones is raising. We didnt see that help. When local also see all that outside money, we dont care about that. Thats right. Brendan greely, President Trump, was this a good move for him . If we see roy moore end up in the senate, what is that going to do for the Republican Party and for trump . I mean, i think all the Republican Party seems to care about right now is making sure they have that vote in the senate but i think that donald trump has to stand roy moore for the same reason the Republican Party has to stand by donald trump. But they dont, neither one has to. What if morality stood above politics . It kind of does. All the people in the middle who would stand up and say thank you . And it kind of does. Mitch mcconnell, rick santorum, are all record saying roy moore should not be seated. Which is pretty unprecedented. The president of the United States is not on record saying that. This is the problem. I think this goes to your point, where theres this sort of debasement of political culture, right, where Party Identity trumps, pardon the expression, other concerns of decency. I mean, there are people who certainly dislike President Trumps ideology, but i would argue that a lot more people feel that his whole manner of being is a kind of assault on decency and respectability. I want to continue this conversation but at this moment President Trump is speaking to the troops Via Video Conference wishing them a happy thanksgiving. Lets take a quick look. Good morning. Happy thanksgiving. You too, happy thanksgiving, mr. President. You have a good one. Were ready, mr. President. Hello, everybody, and happy thanksgiving. Very, very special people to me and everybody in this country, that i can tell you. Ive got five deployed units bravely representing each branch of our armed forces that were going on live right now and surrounding me is a lot of press. Better me than you, believe me, folk, better me than you. Its an honor to speak with you all. To give god thanks for the blessings of freedom and for the heroes who really have this tremendous courage that you do, to defend us and to defend freedom. So we want to thank you all very much, very, very special people. It doesnt get more special. Representing the army, we have the 1st brigade cam bombat team the 82nd airborne conducting operations in kandahar, afghanistan, in support of operation freedom sentinel. Kern colonel toby, where is toby, thank you, toby. I hear so many good things about you, toby, thats good news. But toby maxit, happy thanksgiving to all of you. And i have to say this directly to the folks in afghanistan, everybodys talking about the progress youve made in the last few months since i opened it up. We opened it up, we said go ahead, were going to fight to win. Were not fighting anymore to just walk around, were fighting to win. And you people are really youve turned it around over the last three to four months like nobodys seen. And they are talking about it. So thank you very much. Brave incredible fighters. Direct support team gulf of the Marine Corps Special operations is also on the line. These great marines are operating in iraq in support of Operation Inherent resolve. Major Jonathan Rigline is the commanding officer. Semper fi, semper fi. I have a great marine whos the chief of staff, as you know, john kelly, doing an incredible job, just like any marine would. And major, to you and to all the marines doing this great work, in delivering defeat after defeat to isis, what youre doing with isis is, again, being talked about. Were being talked about again as an armed forces. Were really winning. We know how to win. But we have to let you win. We werent letting you win before. They were letting you play even. Were letting you win. I also want to say hello to captain dave stoner and all of the sailors aboard the uss monterey sailing in support of both the 5th and 6th fleets. The montereys primary missions are antisurface warfare and antisubmarine warfare. Thank you to everyone aboard the uss monterey for your dedication, thank you very much. Were also joined by the 74th expeditionary Fighter Squadron from incirlik air base. Lieutenant colonel craig marsh, your sqauadron has done a tremendous job, tremendous, and we appreciate it. The fight against isis, its coming our way. Coming our way. Big, big difference. A lot of things have happened. They say weve made more progress against isis than they did in years of the previous administration. And thats because im letting you do your job. Youre performing more than 1,000 missions over the skies of iraq and syria the last four months. Were very, very proud of you. Believe me, everybody in this country is watching and theyre seeing positive results for a change instead of the neutral and negative reports. Its all positive. To the coasties aboard the cutter, welcome and happy thanksgiving. Lieutenant ryan hudson. You and the entire crew aboard the rangel are doing incredible work in the arabian gulf performing theater security, Defense Operations and Maritime Infrastructure protection. Thank you very much for your service. Very important area. For each of you, i know its hard to be away from home at this time of the year. Were doing well at home. The economys doing really great. When you come back, youre going to see with the jobs and companies coming back into our country and the stock market just hit a record high. Unemployments the lowest its been in 17 years. So youre fighting for something real. Youre fighting for something good. A lot of things have happened with our country over the last very short period of time. And theyre really good. Really good. Id especially like saying the companies are starting to come back. Now were waiting on tax cuts. Big fat beautiful tax cuts. Hopefully well get that and then you can really see things happen. So as we give thanks to this holiday, i know i speak on behalf of all americans when i say that we totally support you. In fact, we love you. We really do. We love you. And this is a thanksgiving that you wont forget. Youre in a very different part of the world than you were used to but boy, are you doing a job there. And thank god for you. Thank god for you. We also want to give thanks to our loved ones, our a mazing military families. I know they miss you and they miss you so deeply and so badly. Theyre every bit as important as everyone else you work with because they put up with so much. They put up with the time away and all of those things that they have to endure and they endure it because they love our country, because they love you. And believe me i know so much about military families. They respect and appreciate what youre doing for this country. And they respect and appreciate what youre doing for them as a family. So your families love you and they miss you. And, again, im going to now im surrounded by reporters and press and im going to ask them to leave and were going to have very confidential personal conversations. Were set up for that. Its really wonderful what technology can do. So ill ask the press to get out and ill say youre fired, and by the way, media, happy thanksgiving President Trump at his estate in West Palm Beach in mara lago. Speaking specifically to five different groups. It is so hard obviously for them to be so far from home. In his remarks, he talked about the big beautiful tax cut, his big beautiful tax cut. He told those troops when they came home, they would be seeing all those companies coming to the u. S. , bringing jobs back. And he referenced the strong stock market. Which is so interesting, because we have to remember, the stock market is not a direct reflection on the economy. And its unclear whether those who are overseas actually have any stock investments. So lets bring my panel back in. What did you think of that . Two things. One, its nice for the president to do that. For sure. The commander in chief. He should be thanking the men and women who serve and protect our freedoms. Maybe im overreading this but it didnt seem to be very authentic. He seemed to be heavily scripted and maybe again im reading much more into it. Im used to a president looking into the camera and thanking the men and women, talking about them and not about me. Meaning the president. Talking about them and what theyre doing and not about, to use his words, a beautiful tax cut. It was a little bit disjointed. It didnt seem authentic to me but maybe im reading much more into it. Nobody wages culture war effectively as donald trump. It was amazing to watch him in the message to the troops doing it right then and there, talking about the reason were different is this administration is letting you do your job, theyre letting you fight. These are all cultural signals. Turned it around in the last four months. The other guys, they wont fight, they wont let you fight, we let you fight, thats what you do for us. I mean, that was amazing to watch. Yes, i mean, i agree. I think this is on one hand, yes, its an honorable thing to do obviously to talk to the troops but the speech is kind of pock marked by these political points. The idea that previous president s didnt let the armed forces do their job. The idea i think im quoting this correctly, that youre fighting for something real. Whenever the real thing appears to be a booming stock market . I mean, im perplexed as to what point i wondered about that. He said he knew a lot about military families and he talked about, you know, what theyre fighting for is the stock market and the tax cuts. I feel like when i was a kid and my dad was deployed, i wasnt super excited he was being deployed so we could pursue tax reform. I just wanted him to come home. To hear the president say i know so much about military families. I mean, the president didnt serve. Well, i think what the president is doing, i think he probably thinking im speaking to my base. Im speaking to the people that are hard core republicans. He may be right. So i think in his mind and probably in the staffs minds he knows this is just an extension of his base that just so happens to be in uniform. We appreciate that he sent that message. While hes down