morning, it s thursday, august 18th i m frances rivera. we begin with the blue cut wild fire that is continuing to burn out of control. it forced more than 82,000 people about 60 miles east of los angeles to evacuate. the fire ignited only tuesday morning and has ballooned in size to roughly 40 square miles. it s only about 4% contained. almost 1,600 fire personnel are on hand battling the blaze. veteran firefighters say they simply never seen anything like it. the fuels are extremely dry, very explosive this time of year. in my 40 years of fighting fire, i ve never seen fire behavior so extreme as i did yesterday. authorities say it has destroyed numerous buildings, although an exact number is currently unknown. and about 35,000 homes are in the line of fire. and the san bernardino fire chief has a dire warning for those families when they return. in a word it was devastating. a lot of homes lost yesterday. there will be a lot of families that come home to nothing. unfortunately the end doesn t appear in sight with very strong winds and historic drought feeding the flames. beverly white is on the ground with more. reporter: we re talking about the blue cut fire, the incident being responded to by multiple agencies here in southern california. it continues to threaten rural communities like write food and feeland. it s still burning in the wilderness behind us. it s taken down numerous homes but they can t count them as of yet buzz active flame is standing in the way. they re also concerned for firefighter s safety. these communities are fueled by propain tanks. a lot of the foes who lost home are gun owners and therefore the ammunition is popping off as the homes go down in wright wood, i m beverly white. really a tough situation, but there is this one moment of relief to share. check out mike muller. look at this endearing moment after a dog apparently ran from a burning structure and leaped right into his arms. it was a rare day on the calendar yesterday, donald trump went without speaking to the press or holding a rally. along with receiving his first intelligence briefing, the republican nominee held a round table with advisers at trump tower to diskusds what police departments can do in fighting terror. the topic that drove 2016 was his decision to bolster his campaign. he added chief executive stephen bannon. in a campaign wide memo paul manafort said the change is made for a, quote, exciting day for team trump. going on to clarify, i remain the campaign chairman and chief strategist, providing the big picture, long range campaign vision. he will bring a business like day-to-day leadership approach to the ceo that is reflective of our leader mr. trump. kellyann will provide seen yore leadership on the road with the traveling campaign. trump staff is embracing the shakeup and what they see as two actually on message teleprompter guided speeches in recent days. jason miller told the washington post yesterday, if you re watching cable news shows, you could make the case this was the best morning for us in weeks. yesterday conway said trump would keep the focus on clinton to win back republicans. some of the voter attrition has been among republicans. those republicans are saying, i didn t necessarily like the last couple weeks and i want you to know that. i like when you take on hillary clinton. there are two people you need to take on, hillary clinton most of the time, once in a while barack obama. mainstream, lobbyists, elitist, go ahead. you look across the match and lobby at her. you don t pick a fight with the ref, you don t boo the crowd. focus on her. we should probably also talk about her poor fundamental numbers. hillary clinton has reversed gender gaps. doing so poorly with men, almost everywhere they don t like her, they don t trust her and do not want her to be commander in chief and president of the united states. that gender gap never gets covered but very much in our sights. hillary clinton and her team addressed trump s campaign shake upyesterday. despite changes to the leadership, the nominee himself hasn t. i think it s fair to say that donald trump has shown us who he is. he can hire and fire anybody he wants from his campaign. they can make him read new words from a teleprompter. but he is still the same man who insults gold star families, demeans women, mocks people with disabilities and thinks he knows more about isis than our generals. there is no new donald trump. this is it. after several failed attempts to pivot into a more serious and presidential mode, donald trump has decided to double down on his most small, nasty and divisive instincts by turning his campaign over to someone who s best known for running a so-called news site that peddles divisive, at times, racist, anti muslim, anti-semitic conspiracy theories. and what s become clear from this is that no matter how much the establishment wants to clean donald trump up, get him on a teleprompter, and get him on message, he has officially won the fight to let trump be trump. donald trump received his first intelligence briefing yesterday, but not before making headlines for something he said before going into the meeting. do you trust intelligence? not so much from the people that have been doing it for our country. look what s happened over the past ten years? look what s happened over the years? it s been catastrophic. in fact, i won t use some of the people that are your standard, just use them, use them, use them, very easy to use them. i won t use them because they ve made such bad decisions. retired general michael flynn was at his side during the briefing. the nominee may be skeptical of the intelligence community, here is what flynn said. he got a good, solid set of presentations from some real professionals. i would tell you that one of the interesting things is people in the intelligence community know this, is that they present the intelligence. the policy decisions that a president makes sometimes can be in dramatic contrast to the intelligence they receive. that meeting lasted about two hours and governor chris christie leading trump s transition team also attended and that at a town hall taped in wisconsin earlier this week, trump discussed the civilian toll of his pledge to take out isis quickly with sean hannity. that will mean bombing on a very at a very high level. every time that happens, you know what the media is going to do, they re going to find the one area where there is collateral damage, which sadly happens in every war. we ve been a come passionate nation. how do you do it? general flynn and other of the generals, these are great people. i ask them all the time, if you were right now they re fighting a politically correct war you go and get them out. how long would it take? i ll tell you what, they are telling me they could do the job very, very rapidly. now, very rapidly is longer than you would like, but they could get the job done and get it done with precision and get it done. we have no choice, sean. we have no choice. we have to take them out. donald trump with sean hannity there. new questions are being raised about u.s. swimmer ryan lochte s account of the reported robbery involving him and his olympic teammates in rio de janeiro. jack cogner and hunter bence were taken off their flight to home from brazil. they left airport police station early this morning. brazilian police say their passports have been temporarily confiscated. a judge ordered the passports of lochte. a u.s. spokesman says feegen is still in brazil cooperating with authorities lochte is already in the united states. brazilian authorities did not ask his client to remain in the country. a judge in rio raised doubts said they gave contradictory accounts of the robbery and the judge noted this surveillance video. it appears to show the men joke and unshaken as they return to the olympic village 7:00 a.m. she questioned why if they left the club around 4:00 a.m. it took so long to get back home. nbc s matt lauer spoke with lochte on the phone and said he is by and large sticking to his account of the robbery which he described to billy bush hours after it allegedly took place. i was with a couple swimmers. we were coming back from the france house and we got pulled over in our taxi. and these guys came out with a badge, police badge, no lights, no nothing, just a police badge. ey pulled us over. they pulled out their guns. they told the other swimmers to get down on the ground. they got down on the ground. i refused. i was like, we didn t do anything wrong. so i m not getting down on the ground. then a guy pulled out his gun. he cocked it. put it to my forehead and said get down and i was like i put my hands up. whatever. he took our money. he took my wallet. lauer says lochte told him that he and his teammates were not pulled over by the allege robbers as he said sunday. he now says they were at a gas station. one of the robbers pointed a gun, quote, in my direction, unquote but did not directly at his forehead as he previously claimed. lauer also says lochte told him he and his teammates would not make up this story. lot to follow with that one. still ahead, louisiana s flooding troubles is far from over. could a federal rate hike be on the horizon? we ll bring you those stories and also a check of the weather when we come back here on msncb. isaac hou has mastered gravity defying moves to amaze his audience. great show. here you go. now he s added a new routine. making depositing a check seem so effortless. easy to use chase technology, for whatever you re trying to master. isaac, are you ready? yeah. chase. so you can. hhis stellar notebooks will last through june. get back to great. this week sharpie twelve-packs just three dollars. office depot officemax. gear up for school. gear up for great. welcome back. certainly news they don t want, in flood-ravaged louisiana the forecast calls for more rain. the death toll from the historic flooding has reached 13 and the national weather service is warning that the bad news isn t over yet. the rainfall started friday near baton rouge and for days now the water has flown south toward the gulf of mexico carving a path of destruction. to two students from michigan working in the louisiana over the summer are among some 30,000 people who had to be rescued in the flooding. i was screaming bloody murder. trying to call 911. i was screaming. i was like, i need help. i felt like i drove into the atlantic because i felt like my car was doing the titanic type thing where the front of it was just flooded. the trunk was up in the air. homeland security secretary jay johnson is heading to the hard hit state today. the red cross is mounting a relief operation which is estimated to cost at least $30 million. for more on this and weather conditions elsewhere in the country want to turn into bill karins. that s what we were fearing, bill, more rain would come aspeci especially right there. it was a punishment, they had to be wondering why do we deserve this? it s amazing. we start with the fire and then we have the flooding at the same time in two separate areas. it s been a harsh reality of the drought in the west and the humid conditions and the heavy rain in the south. as far as the fire weather goes today, story not just encompassing the blue cut a area, we have two dozen large fires burning. red areas mean the conditions are ripe for fires to spread and get newer. any new fires form, those could spread rapidly too out there. it continues to be very hot. focussing on the blue cut fire, they have only 4% containment. here we are two days later. that shows you how dangerous the conditions are. only 4% contained. once again this afternoon with it being so hot out there, do expect it to actually increase in size once again do some racing. northwest gusts of 40 miles per hour. these gusts would be about 35 miles per hour during the day today. the temperatures out west southern california all the way through the pacific northwest about 5 to 15 degrees above normal. during the afternoon, the air is getting so dry with the gusty conditions it has the humidity levels down about 10, 5% in some cases. that s just like perfect conditions for fires to burn. so that s the conditions in the west. also our friends in the northern plains, you re at risk for severe weather. minneapolis, sioux falls, fargo, the possibility of damaging winds and large hail. i don t think there s too much of a tornado threat. we had great thunderstorms roll through washington, d.c. they are now out in the open atlantic. there s a few showers left. you may want to carry that umbrella with you this morning. just light showers out there and there will be additional showers later this afternoon. they did notice thunderstorm activity where eerie and pennsylvania meet there, too, in a new flash flood warning. the forecast as we go throughout the day today, scattered storms warm and humid in the areas of the southeast and northeast we will see conditions slowly clearing out, frances. the water is going downened they ll get in these homes and it s just ugly. it s a tough part. bill, thank you very much. i m going to see you later on and you ll help me out with olympic sports. want to turn now to business where yesterday the federal reserve released minutes from the july meeting. hali gamble joins us live from london. good morning to you. hey, good morning, frances. essentially what we re seeing right now is a federal reserve that s divided on whether or not to raise the interest rates. one the one hand you have strong employment data but there are concerns about brexit. brexit was mentioned 20 times throughout the series of these conversations. so lot of concerns there on both sides. now, another story of course that we re watching is what s happening with obama care. there will be apparently be a major push by the obama administration ahead of the u.s. presidential election to get more people signed up to their health care exchanges. and more people in particular, young people, to these exchanges. this comes after another major health care company aetna said basically they couldn t make it work. the numbers didn t work. they were losing money. a letter earlier in the month to the department of justice essentially suggested it was important to note the company had been a strong supporter of the developing public exchange business and tad min strags s efforts to expand that health care to all americans, unfortunately a challenge by the department of justice to the acquisition of successful blocking of a transaction that would have negative financial impact on aetna would compare their ability to support exchanging leaving aetna no choice. serious concerns in terms of what s going to happen going forward for this health care legislation. frances? we ll follow it. thank you so much, hadley gamble live from london. i appreciate it. usain bolt is ready to sprint his way to another gold medal. plus, michael phelps announced his retirement, but it doesn t look like he is ready to get out of the pool just yet. all the highlights from last night s olympic games next. we re back in a moment. across new york state, from long island to buffalo, from rochester to the hudson valley, from albany to utica, creative business incentives, infrastructure investment, university partnerships, and the lowest taxes in decades are creating a stronger economy and the right environment in new york state for business to thrive. let us help grow your company s tomorrow- today at business.ny.gov trust number one doctor recommended dulcolax constipated? use dulcolax tablets for gentle overnight relief suppositories for relief in minutes and stool softeners for comfortable relief of hard stools. dulcolax, designed for dependable relief bounce back like.d .it used to? neutrogena® hydro boost water gel. instantly 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reduce the risk of progression of moderate to advanced amd. after 15 years of clinical studies. preservision areds 2. because my eyes are everything. time now to bring you all the sports action from rio de janeiro. hey, look who we got, bill karins here helping us out with some of that. bill? i ve been watching a little too much of this stuff. we all are. it s fun. it s almost over. i m getting sad. usain bolt on his way to a second gold medal in brazil. last night he advanced to the 200 meter final. exchanging smiles with rival and friend from canada, andre degrassy as me crossed the finish line .02 ahead. while bolt is on the right track to compete what he is calling a triple/triple, almost sounds like diving, right? three gold medals at three different games. justin gatlin failed to advance. missing a qualifying spot by .03 seconds. gatlin blew the lead appearing to show boat to the finish line as he looked to the right. after the race he mentioned he had a stiff ankle. gatlin is expected to run in the 4 x 100 meter relay. bolt s counterpart elaine thompson won the gold in the women s 200 meter final. she swepthe 100 meter, 200 meter since 1988. usa s tori bowie took bronze. basketball are one step closer after finally defeating argentina in the quarterfinals. they jumped out to a ten-point lead did argentina midway through the first quarter, but the u.s. answered with a 27-2 run that argentina would never recover from. the loss marks the end of argentina s so-called golden age in what was expected to be the final game for manu ginobili. the united states will take on a very good team from spain in the semifinals. how about this, after retiring from swimming following his final race in rio, michael phelps can t stay out of the pool. he is already training the next generation of the great american swimming royalty. he posted this photo to instagram showing phelps along with fiance nicole johnson with the couple s son boomer in the pool. no word yet on his 200 meter time. no word yet, but i love that little kid. that boomer every chance, every shot of that kid he has the genetics. phelps is this freak the way his body is built and everything else. he didn t have any floaties. i will be sad when that goes up. still ahead, ryan lochte is back in america. two of hi teammates were yanked off a plane leaving rio. we ll talk about donald trump s attempt to right the ship. here we go. tip it. tip it. tip it. tip it. pivot. pivot. shut up! shut up! shut up! [ laughter ]. okay. i don t think it s going to pivot anymore. you think? always great day when you can throw in some friends action in the morning, right? so will that pivot actually happen and if so, will it actually work? we re back in a moment. here at outback, it s the big steak & crab bash. you get half a pound of sweet, snow crab legs. .paired with our new, tender,center-cut sirloin. hurry in. the outback steak & crab bash starts at just $ 14.99. bloomin great! hhis stellar notebooks will last through june. get back to great. this week sharpie twelve-packs just three dollars. office depot officemax. gear up for school. gear up for great. the advice that he gets sol is itted, unsol is itted is you have to pivot. you have to pivot. what they mean is on style. what you re seeing just this week, just in the last two days and i think he will go down as one of the best weeks in the trump campaign to date because the last two days he gave back-to-back policy speeches. every attempt to pivot the campaign and get him into a more serious mode has totally failed. what we re seeing in this is him doubling down on his smallest, most divisive, most hateful inclinations. so i think it will be more of the same. it will probably be worse. the two presidential campaign managers with their two very different takes on the state of the race. is it too soon to say that donald trump has turned his campaign around? we ll have a look at some new polling from key swing states. and the massive fire burning in san bernardino county is nowhere near contained. it s marching near a major roadway as residents flee. major drama involving members of the men s u.s. swimming team and their story about being robbed at gunpoint in rio. two of the athletes snatched off the plane just as they were trying to head home. good to be with you this morning i m frances rivera, it s thursday, august 18th. we begin with those new questions being raised about u.s. swimmer ryan lochte about the reported robbery of him and his u.s. teammates. jack conger and gunnar bentz who say they were with lochte were taken off their flight home from brazil last night. the two were set to meet with authorities again today to discuss the incident after leaving an airport police station early this morning. brazilian police say their passports had been temporarily con fes gated. a judge yesterday ordered feigen and lochte s passport seized. lochte is already back in the united states. and his lawyer says brazilian authorities did not ask his client to remain in the country. a judge in rio raised doubts about the group s story saying that lochte and feigen gave contradictory t cans of the robbery and the judge noted this surveillance footage released by the daily mail. it appears to show the men joking and unshaken as they return to the olympic village around 7:00 a.m. sunday morning. plus, she questioned why if they left the club around 4:00 a.m., as they claimed, it took so long to get back home? nbc s matt lauer spoke with lochte on the phone last night and sapd he is by and large sticking to his account of the robbery as he described to billy bush hours after it allegedly took place. i was with a couple swimmers. we were coming back from the france house and we got pulled over in our taxi. and these guys came out with a badge, a police badge, no lights, no nothing, just police badge. they pulled us over. they pulled out their guns. they told the other swimmers to get down on the ground. they got down on the ground. i refused. i was like, we didn t do anything wrong. so, i m not getting down on the ground. then the guy pulled out his gun. he cocked it. put it to my forehead and said get down and i was like, i put my hands up. i was like, whatever. he took our money. he took my wallet. lauer says lochte told him that he and his teammates were not pulled over by the alleged robbers as he said sunday and he now says they were at a gas station when the crime happened. lochte now also says one of the robbers pointed a gun, quote, in my direction unquote but not directly at his forehead as he also previously claimed. lauer also says lochte told him he and his teammates would not make up this story. the other big story we re following from southern california where the blue cut wild fire continues to burn out of control. it is forced more than 82,000 people, about 60 miles east of los angeles to evacuate. the fire ignited only tuesday morning and has ballooned in size to roughly 40 square miles and is only about 4% contained. almost 1,600 fire personnel are on hand battling the blaze. that includes 17 helicopters, 10 air tankers and 2 very large air tankers. they simply have never seen anything like it. the fuels are extremely dry, very explosive this time of year. and in my 40 years of fighting fire, i ve never seen fire behavior so extreme as it was yesterday. rapid rates have spread. we had spotting up to half a mile ahead of the fire. authorities say it has destroyed numerous buildings, although an exact number is currently unknown. more than 35,000 homes are in the line of fire. and the san bernardino fire chief has a dire warning for those families when they return. in a word, it was devastating. a lot of holmes lost yesterday. there will be a lot of families that come home to nothing. unfortunately the end doesn t appear in sight with very strong winds and historic drought feeding those flames. donald trump s campaign took on a much different look after big shakeup at the top of his struggling campaign. trump elevated veteran republican pollster kellyanne conway to campaign manager and added chief executive stephen bannon, a campaign rookie whose bare knuckle style is reputed to match his own. paul manafort said the change has made for an exciting day for trump. i remain the campaign chairman and chief manager. they see two on message teleprompter guided speeches in recent days. spokesman jason miller told the washington post yesterday if you re watching cable news shows you could make the case this was the best morning for us in weeks. yesterday conway said trump would keep the focus on clinton to win back republicans. some of the voter attrition has been among republicans. those republicans saying, i didn t necessarily like the last couple weeks and i want you to know that. i like when you take on hillary clinton. there are two people you need to take on, hillary clinton most of the time, once in a while barack obama. if you want to throw the mainstream media, the lobbyists, the elitests go ahead. you look across the net and keep lobbing her. you don t boo the crowd, pick a fight with the ref. focus on her. we should probably also talk about her poor fundamental number. she has reversed gender gaps. she is doing poorly with men, they don t like her, they don t trust her and do not want her to be commander in chief and president of the united states. that gender gap never gets covered but it s very much in our sights. hillary clinton and her team addressed trump s shakeup yesterday. she said the nominee hasn t changed. i think it s fair to say that donald trump has shown us who he is. he can hire and fire anybody he wants from his campaign. they can make him read new words from a teleprompter. but he is still the same man who insults gold star families, demeans women, mocks people with disabilities, and thinks he knows more about isis than our generals. there is no new donald trump. this is it. after several failed attempts to pivot into a more serious and presidential mode, donald trump has decided to double down on his most small, nasty and divisive instincts by turning his campaign over to someone who is best known for running a so-called news site that peddles divisive at times racist, anti-muslim, anti-semitic conspiracy theories. and what s become clear from this is that no matter how much the establishment wants to clean donald trump up, get him on a teleprompter and get him on message, he has officially won the fight to let trump be trump. the latest waive of swing states polling confirms that states that have been very much in play for republicans in recent years are increasingly slipping away from donald trump. a new queen pea yak poll in colorado shows hillary clinton leading by ten, 49% to 39%. when you add in third party candidates, her lead son-in-law eight. but look at gary johnson, the libertarian candidate polling at 16%. in virginia, clinton leads by 12, reaching 50% to trump s 38. in iowa, clinton leads by 3%, inside the margin of error, add in gary johnson, he is polling at 12%. now let s look at the rust belt, an area of the country trump is trying to take away from democrats. in michigan, shows clinton with a 10% lead. new monmouth poll in indiana shows trump leading in his home state, 47, 36. you say it s not a shakeup, but you guys are down and it makes says who? polls most of them, all of them? says who? polls. i just told you. i answered your question. okay. which polls? all of them. okay. and your question is? polls. says who? we mentioned that donald trump received his first intelligence briefing yesterday, but he also made headlines for something he said before heading into the meeting. do you trust intelligence? not so much from the people who have been doing it for our country. look what happened over the last ten years, look what s happened over the years? it s been catastrophic. in fact, i won t use some of the people that are sort of your standards, just use them, use them, use them, very easy to use them. i won t use them because they made such bad decisions. trump adviser retired lieutenant michael flynn was at his side. while the nominee may be skeptical of the u.s. intelligence community, here is what flynn said once the briefing concluded. he got a good, solid set of presentations from some real professionals. i would tell you that one of the interesting things is people in the intelligence community know this, is that they present the intelligence. the policy decisions that a president makes sometimes can be in dramatic contrast to the intelligence that they receive. that meeting lasted about two hours and governor chris christie who is leading trump s tran suggestion team also attended. a quote, substantial amount of material about the hillary clinton e-mail investigation that the fbi delivered to congress, appears to be unclassified. that means it could be released to the public. in the letter to office security yesterday, chuck grassley made that observation and requested the unclassified and classified documents be separated in order to make as much of that material public as possible. among the materials turned over was the summary of the fbi s investigation in the clinton s use of private e-mail server. also 302s with clinton and also top aid huma abedin and others and copies of classified e-mails that were recovered from the server. meanwhile, clinton campaign chairman tweeted this would remind thaul this material is classified so this is leaking of classified material. looking abroad now, the front page story on today s cover of the financial times, russian tanks on border fuel ukraine fears. it is starting to crumble and comes as conventional forces are building up along the country s shared border, including russian tanks. fighting started again in july after russia said it uncovered ukrainian plot over crimea. still ahead this morning, new information on that cash payout from the united states to iran and it s raising questions of whether it was really a ransom for these freed american prisoners. and one of the most heart breaking images yet from the civil war in syria. look at this. really, really touched the heart. a boy all alone in the back of an ambulance. we ll have the story behind this gut-wrenching photo ahead. i m anne howard and i m michael howard. we left on our honeymoon in january 2012. it actually evolved into a business. from our blog to 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trusted network of attorneys has provided guidance to over 100,000 people just like you. visit legalzoom today. the legal help you can count on. legalzoom. legal help is here. welcome back. speculation continues to grow around the timing of the 400 million dollar payment the united states provided to iran that came around the same time american prisoners were released in january. the wall street journal reports that the exchange was part of a tightly scripted timeline pegged to the prisoner s safe return. the paper siting u.s. officials reported that the flight carrying the cash to iran took off only after a swiss plane carrying three americans departed teheran. president obama and other government officials claim the payment was not ransom because the u.s. government owed iran the money after an arms deal fell through in the 1970s. russia is defending their use of an yur rain yan air base. in a statement a russian defense ministry spokesman said the u.s. state department should, quote, check their logic and knowledge on the issue. state department spokesman said they are investigated if this violated a recent u.n. security resolution. that s right, frances. the u.n. resolution in question basically forbids the sale or transfer of combat aircraft to iran unless specifically approved by the u.n. security council. the americans say russian air strikes could violate this resolution. russia said that s not the case. it is a war of words that s been escalated but so has the conflict. of course it is civilians who are caught in between. i do want to draw our viewer s attention to a haunting video that syrian activists released on wednesday. this video has gone viral and captures just a small fragment of the hor rors of that war. it shows the aftermath of yet another air strike on aleppo. in this video rescue workers pull a small boy from the rubble. they take him to an underground hospital. the doctor who treated him says this boy is only 5 years old. you see him you re seeing images now as he s being pulled from the rubble by those workers. being taken into an ambulance. hospitals have been under frequent attack by the assad regime. you then see this boy sitting in shock by himself completely alone. he is not crying. he doesn t make a sound. he is covered in dust and blood. it really is a powerful image that gets across the impact this war is having everyday on civilians. a war that has raged effectively as long as this boy has been alive. just 5 years old we re told. this is a conflict frances that is now likely to have a greater toll. we ve seen attempts this month to broker a temporary cease fire in aleppo for humanitarian aid to reach trapped civilians. the u.s. special envoy for syrian today announcing that no con voice were able to reach besieged areas in the past month because of that fighting and the u.n. now suspending the humanitarian task force created to help those civilians which means that help will be even further off. frances? so tough. that image is stuck in your mind. just like the imagine of the little boy and body washed up on show. thank you so much, live from london. i appreciate it. we are following this devastation in louisiana. want to bring back bill karins. bill, they were hoping they could at least hold off on the weather to at least have that on their side. that s not the case, at least today, right? they had daily thunderstorms. it hasn t hurt, made the rivers go up too much. it scares the people there and makes the rivers go down slower. this was last night around 7:00 p.m. one thunderstorm, much of the state of louisiana was clear. very cruel. right over the top of baton rouge, right where the worst flooding was the only thunderstorm out there and that dumped 2 to 4 inches and put baton rouge, by the way, in record territory for the all-time wettest month they ve ever recorded there. it was just amazing and unfortunate. now as far as the northeast goes, those thunderstorms from last night are gone. there are still showers left in the areas of connecticut very light showers there, little thunderstorm just to the east of eerie. we ll watch some of the storms reforming so many scattered storms, central pennsylvania, up state new york. boston to d.c. after we get rid of some of the clouds. 5 million people at risk, rochester and minneapolis. hot day for you this afternoon with scattered storms through louisiana and the west coast, frances, continues we mentioned the fire stuff, it s very hot. even seattle tomorrow could be into the mid 90s. it s very cruel out there for those firefighters trying to fight these fires this time of year. yeah. you have to think about that, tough time they re having. bill, thank you very much. still ahead, team usa takes gold, silver and bronze in the women s 100 meter hurdles. we ll have that big night and other highlights. the two simones, biles and manuel inspiring new interest for the name. google searches up 200% just in this month alone for the name simone. we ll be right back. isaac hou has mastered gravity defying moves to amaze his audience. great show. here you go. now he s added a new routine. making depositing a check seem so effortless. easy to use chase technology, for whatever you re trying to master. isaac, are you ready? yeah. chase. so you can. hhis stellar notebooks will last through june. get back to great. this week sharpie twelve-packs just three dollars. office depot officemax. gear up for school. gear up for great. time now for sports. sprinters made history as the first u.s. women to sweep the podium in an olympic track event. while americans have finished one, two, three in track and field events 61 times dating back to 1904, all were many men s competition. rollens gold medal in the 100 meter hurdle was also the first for the 2016 u.s. team on the track. they added a fourth gold medal after bartleto won the long jump with brittney reese taking silver. she earned the gold with 23 1/2 feets impressive. reese s run was one inch shorter. here is a look at the olympic medal count so far. united states leads all medal categories, 30 gold, 32 silver, 31 bronze for total of 93 olympic medals. china is in distant second with 54 followed and by great britain and russia. all those medals may prove to be coil. athletes take home cash along with those medals. like any prize winner, the olympians are taxed for what is considered income. depending on an athlete s tax bracket, a gold medal, which fetches 25,000 dollars in prize money could cost almost $10,000 in taxes. that means someone like u.s. swimmer michael phelps may owe uncle sam upwards of $50,000. allegations of match fixing rio, they dismissed an undisclosed number of referees and judges. after a statement said, quote, less than a handful of decisions were not at the level expected. two results were especially controversial, monday s unanimous decision awarded to heavy weight gold medal to russia and the unanimous decision to tuesday s quarterfinal awarding bantamweight over michael con lin of ireland. conlin accused the federation of corruption. sounds like he was right and suggested russia bribed boxing officials. he dropped out of the semifinal due to an injury, he will still take home the bronze medal. of course, none of the results will be changed. like i teld you, bill boxing has been on the down swing for 10, 12 almost all are winding down with couple days that flame will be out. kind of bummed about it. bill, thank you. up next, we ll get you caught up on the big stories happening the day ahead. we ll be right back. you re not you. tylenol® pm relieves pain and helps you fall fast asleep and stay asleep. we give you a better night. you re a better you all day. tylenol®. at ally bank, no branches equals great rates. it s a fact. kind of like grandkids equals free tech support. oh, look at you, so great to see you! none of this works. come on in. trust number one doctor recommended dulcolax constipated? use dulcolax tablets for gentle overnight relief suppositories for relief in minutes and stool softeners for comfortable relief of hard stools. dulcolax, designed for dependable relief you may be muddling through allergies.oned with. try zyrtec® for powerful allergy relief. and zyrtec® is different than claritin®. because it starts working faster on the first day you take it. try zyrtec®. muddle no more®. before we toss it over to morning joe want to get you caught up on the other stories happening in the day ahead. former chicago police officer jason van dyke is due back in court today. van dike is charged with first degree murder of the october 2014 killing of 17-year-old mcdonald who was shot 17 times. it sparked protests and reforms within the chicago police department. a special prosecutor was appointed earlier this month to handle the case. jay johnson will get a first-hand look and will visit baton rouge and meet with the officials. finally this morning on the campaign trail today, hillary clinton meets with law enforcement officers in new york city. donald trump holds a rally in battleground north carolina at the charlotte convention center. while his running mate governor mike pence holds a town hall in manchester, new hampshire. candidates stays on the east coast this morning. that does it for us on this thursday. thanks so much for being with me. i m frances rivera. morning joe joe starts right. i think it s fair to say that donald trump has shown us who he is. he can hire and fire anybody he wants from his campaign. they can make him read new words from a teleprompter. but he is still the same man who insalts goldwater families, mocks people with disabilities and thinks he knows more about isis than our generals. there is new donald trump. this is it. they may have a point. but wall street journal says. let s try the asterisk this morning. trump hits reset button. i think there you
analyze. plus, will trump slash brexit style anti-globalism sweep europe? two closely watched elections tomorrow in austria and italy will tell us a lot. i ll speak to the first foreign politician to meet the president-elect, the brit behind brexit, nigel fir raj. plus, why does jeff greenfield say trump is poised to have a bigger impact on american politics despite losing the popular vote? also, right here in philly, an anti-trump graffiti incident turns out to have an unusual participant, an ascot wearing city employee, an attorney. should he be fired? espn s stephen a smith said on this program that blacks were being taken for granted by democrats and that was before donald trump said to african-americans, what do you have to lose? stephen a. is p.o..ed that colin kaepernick didn t vote. but first, it was just a phone call but it rang some alarm bells around the world yesterday. the president-elect took a congratulatory call from taiwan president. trump has vowed to redefine u.s. international relations, but does this kind of move endanger stability? joining me now to discuss, christiane amanpour, cnn s chief international correspondent and of course the host of cnni s nightly interview amenpour. and nigel farage and chris koons. christian, do you think this was planned? do you think donald trump knew what he was doing, wanted to send a message to the chinese or was it a blunder? the truth of the matter is i don t know if it was planned. but here is the real question, was it just a phone call? and it certainly is an unusual precedent to set. or does it signal something different? that would be a shift of u.s. relationship with the second most important country in the whole world which is china. and i think what you have to look out for is the following what will china do? so far they ve done what they have to do and that is lodge an official protest in a call to the white house and the white house has responded by saying, you know, business as usual, politics as usual, our bilateral relationship as usual. just to sum that up, the relationship is one in which china is the main china for the united states. taiwan is not officially recognized by the united states, but as you know, the united states is committed to defending taiwan if ever it was to come under an invasion from china. so that is the basic bottom line here. so what will china do next, if anything. what is donald trump s intention as president towards china and taiwan? and does donald trump have business in taiwan that may or may not have been part of all of this? those are the questions. maybe donald trump is dumb like a fox? maybe he is not well red in? anderson cooper had an interesting exchange with kelly ann con way who managed his campaign. listen to what she had to say about that issue last night. president-elect trump is fully briefed and fully knowledgeable about these issues on an on going basis regardless of who is on the other end of the phone. he takes information that is given to him and provided to him. he vails himself of any number of different information sources and including those that come from the state department and those that come from intelligence briefings. christiane, you have your fingers on the pulse all over the globe. here is what i most want to ask you on this issue, how do you think that this is being interpreted in capitals around the world? well, look, you know, uncertainty is something that the foreign policy establishment doesn t really like. uncertainty is something that can lead to, you know, a little bit of chaos, if i could put it in that sort of euphemism. people around the world are simply not sure what to expect. this is a completely unprecedented situation in the united states and no one is quite sure what to expect, beyond campaign rhetoric and beyond what we re seeing rolling out now in the initial days as president-elect. so, yes, this phone call was a precedent buster. it is the first time apparently that a u.s. president or president-elect has spoken officially to the president of taiwan and this is policy that dates back to nixon going to china in 1972 and then it was finalized by carter president carter in 1978. china, beijing was the official relationship with united states. so, everyone around the world is watching to see what happens next. and one other call that we haven t talked about is a call that was made between president-elect trump and president duterte of the philippines in which according to duterte s read-out and we haven t seen the trump read-out, according to duterte s read out he says that donald trump spoke very kindly about some of the most controversial policies that duterte is carrying out. that is his anti-drug campaign which is basically leaving bodies stacked up in extrajudicial killings all over the philippines. this has been roundly condemned by the united states, by the united nations, by human rights groups, basically by everybody and dut ter duterte has been very, very undiplomatically rude united states, threatening to break off with the united states, threatening to go into a whole new world order led by china and russia. so, all this to say that there are so-called strong men who are in power around the world now who have their own ideas about which way they want to see the world go. and that may entail trying to up end the alliances, the basic sort of foreign policy situations that we ve been seeing over the last 40, 50 years and that is what and where the uncertainty lies right now. thank you so much, christiane amanpour for the big picture view on which we always come to you. the surprise victory of donald trump seems less surprising if viewed as part of the global populist movement including last june s brexit vote for the uk to exit the european union. joining me now, the first foreign politician to meet trump face to face nigel farage. he helped spearhead the brexit revolt. of course we re looking at election day tomorrow in two countries. yes. the question for you, what s the common denominator of this global movement? you know, you look at europe in particular, it s the feeling and the fact that people have lost the democratic right to control their own futures. italy tomorrow is a eurozone member. it finds itself unable to devalue competitively as it used to. we ve now seen 20 years of growth, 20 years with no growth at all in italy. so, whether it s the euro, whether it s mrs. merkel inviting unlimited numbers of migrants and expecting other european states to share the numbers, this is about taking back control. brexit was a vote for us to say, yeah, we can be friendly with europe. we can trade with europe, but we want to govern our own country, and i have to say that i think the momentum of this is now pretty much unstoppable. is the special relationships that the united states enjoys with the uk in jeopardy as you well know you paid a call, you were the first foreign leader to pay a call on president-elect trump, he then sent out a tweet which i want to put up on the screen and remind everybody, he thought you would be a great pick to be the british ambassador to the united states, theresa may, your prime minister, meanwhile, was awe parentally call number ten. what role can you play to positively influence the relationship between the united states and the united kingdom? well, i do think the special relationship is very important. it was significantly devalued during obama s time. he looked to merkel. he looked to the european union and not to us as an independent country. so post brexit we ve got a chance to start all over again with a president, in trump who is anglofile, he is pro-british, he knows the things we ve shared together over the years the good and the bad and the tough times as well as the good. and i think that i just happen to know a few people in his administration. i ve clearly got trump s confidence and i want us to move as quickly as we can toward a free trade deal between the uk and the usa. that will be good for both of us and will also send a signal to the european union there s a bigger world outside of europe and that britain can manage just nicely. no longer do we have a president who says that we re at the back of the line. do you see for yourself a formal role in the next four years? you know, i honestly don t know the answer to that, but what i will say is i would like formally or informally to do whatever i can to bring our great nations a bit closer together. how much of the worldwide movement that we re discussing is driven by the economy, the crash of 08 and the aftermath and how much is being drawn by immigration and concerns over open borders? well, in the north of europe it s being driven by immigration. and in the south of europe it s being driven by people being stuck inside a currency which as i said earlier they cannot devalue and they ve got no control over interest rates that increasingly they can t set their own tax rate. so it s both. but the common denominator is that people have lost the democratic rights of self government. they re not able to make their own decisions that affect their futures. i promise you this european union is dying before your eyes. i can t tell you how long it will take but basically it s finished. how do you maintain the proper balance of protecting one s sovereignty while at the same time being exposed to all of the positive influences of globalization? well, if we very quickly move to a u.s./uk free trade deal, that shows that wanting nations state independence and democracy isn t turning your backs on the world, it s just being able to make your own decisions. i think had hillary won this election, she wanted the european union to be a property type for a bigger model across the whole of the world. that is now gone. because you want to govern your own country, does not make your insular or small-minded. nigel farage, thank you for being here. joining me now from the great state of delaware, united states senator chris coons. let me go back and talk about taiwan. of what significance do you think the telephone call that is leading the news today? well, michael, we ll have to see whether this is the beginning of a new chapter where the president-elect after he is inaugurated conducts a foreign policy that is shoot from the hip, twitter storm style where he gets into twitter fights or takes unscheduled calls from foreign leaders in ways that break with decades of precedent like this congratulatory call from the president of taiwan or whether he relies on the advice of career professionals in the state department and makes moves in a sort of calculated and thoughtful way. what we know from the campaign, michael, is that president-elect trump promised that he would shake things up and he made a number of concerning or even alarming proposals during the campaign about reconsidering our commitment to nato, rethinking our commitment to provide nuclear umbrella to south korea and japan and that set the foreign policy elites to twitter. i do think the folks who voted for trump aren t concerned whether he takes a call from this leader or that leader, but i do think this particular call because it breaks with nearly four decades of precedent and certainly will concern, even alarm one of the most powerful and important countries in the world with whom he will have to deal closely is concerning because it may show the direction he s going to go as president. this may make for great reality tv, but it doesn t make for great leadership in a divided world where there s a lot of conflicts we have to manage carefully. you made reference to his twitter account. let me put on the screen something that he tweeted and i want to ask senator coons in this instance, doesn t he have a point? actually that s the first of two tweets. first he said the president of taiwan called me. i didn t call her. go to the second tweet and let me show senator coons what he said, interesting how the u.s. sells taiwan billions of dollars of military equipment but i should not accept a congratulatory call. isn t he right in seeing that? well what he is ignoring is there is this carefully balanced situation with the chinese where we publicly accept the one china policy. we do not have a conversations or meetings between the president of the united states and the elected president of taiwan, yet we still under our law provide them with defense equipment, with military aid. that is a very delicate balance. and so while it seems to make common sense to the average person he can take a congratulatory call, this is the case with diplomacy and world relations. there are many different situations in the world where over decades we settled into a sort of carefully calibrated situation. this is one where the civil war of china decades ago led to two countries, taiwan and china and from 1979, the united states has recognized the people s republic of china and our policy has been to say it is one china. so he has set that a little bit on its ear and we ll have to see what the consequences are in u.s./china relations. senator coons, thank you as always. we always appreciate your perspective. what do you think? i ll read some during the program. smerconish, you are dealing with the ignorance of a privileged frat boy on diplomatic matters. oh, what, i m the one who took the call from the taiwanese president? come on. give me a break. put up another one. i love the tweets. no one really gets to tell the president who he gets to talk to. u.s. defends taiwan. there is some hypocrisy among the criticism. we do trade billions of dollars of weaponry and military intelligence and we say you can t take that telephone call. still to come what a story, a lawyer for the city of philadelphia captured on surveillance video toting wine and watching another man spray f trump on the side of an up scale grocery store. should he lose his job? and espn s stephen a. smith on the role of the black vote in trump s election and his anger over nfl star colin kaepernick s choice not to vote at all. mapping the oceans. where we explore. protecting biodiversity. everywhere we work. defeating malaria. improving energy efficiency. developing more clean burning natural gas. my job? my job at exxonmobil? turning algae into biofuels. reducing energy poverty in the developing world. making cars go further with less. fueling the global economy. and you thought we just made the gas. energy lives here. knows how it feels to see your numbers go up,tes despite your best efforts. but what if you could turn things around? what if you could love your numbers? discover once-daily invokana®. it s the #1 prescribed sglt2 inhibitor that works to lower a1c. invokana® is a pill used along with diet and exercise to significantly lower blood sugar in adults with type 2 diabetes. and in most clinical trials, the majority reached an a1c goal of 7 percent or lower. invokana® works around the clock by sending some sugar out of your body through the process of urination. it s not for lowering systolic blood pressure or weight, but it may help with both. invokana® can cause important side effects, including dehydration, which may cause you to feel dizzy, faint, lightheaded, or weak, upon standing. other side effects may include kidney problems, genital yeast infections, changes in urination, high potassium, increases in cholesterol, risk of bone fracture, or urinary tract infections, possibly serious. serious side effects may include ketoacidosis, which can be life threatening. stop taking and call your doctor right away if you experience symptoms or if you experience symptoms of allergic reaction such as rash, swelling, or difficulty breathing or swallowing. do not take invokana® if you have severe liver or kidney problems or are on dialysis. tell your doctor about any medical conditions and medications you take. using invokana® with a sulfonylurea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. it s time to turn things around. lower your blood sugar with invokana®. imagine loving your numbers. there s only one invokana®. ask your doctor about it by name. since election day, pro and anti-trump graffiti has been reported throughout the nation and right here in my hometown of philadelphia. spray painted swastika s racist graffiti, everywhere from bus shelters to the exterior of city hall where somebody sprayed not my president. and the day after thanksgiving, an anti-trump graffiti incident turns out to have an unusual participant, an attorney, city employee, here is surveillance footage of the crime at a newly opened fresh grocer on german town avenue. you ll see the man doing the graffiti and the other man taking pictures, clad in a navy blue blazer and ascot earned him attention of town and country magazine, looking on, that s 32-year-old duncan lloyd, worked for the city s law department since 2011. the cost of removing the vandalism is estimated to be between 3 and $10,000, but that isn t the only issue here. as of now, lloyd has not been charged with any crime and still has his job. would that be the case if he graffitied anything else, like f hillary? joining me now, william brennan representing duncan lloyd and the chair of the philadelphia republican party. counselor brennan, i know you, you re good at what you do, but how are you going to defend this? i don t think and i hope i never have to defend this, michael. i hate to lawyer up immediately, but you described my client as a participant and you said if he graffitied anything, the only thing my client had in his hand in that video is a glass of red wine and in our commonwealth, to be merely present when a crime occurs does not impute culpability. it s hard for me to tell from the video. it s hard for me to tell from the video, but it seems as if he may be filming with a cell phone doesn t that make him an accessory? isn t there a conspiracy going on here? absolutely not. it would be analogous to two guys leaving a bar and walking to their car and one guy deciding to urinate publicly against the wall of a home or business. the other guy has no prior knowledge of that and in this case, the video simply shows my client with a glass of wine in his hand, his other hand is primarily in his pocket and then there appears to be scenario where he may or may not take either a still shot or a video, but you can t impute his intention for taking that if it was posted somewhere, if, in fact, the video or a cell phone photo exists and he posted it on social media, different story. but that video clearly, clearly exculpates duncan lloyd. he keeps his distance hey, joe he doesn t participate and he is not let s talk nicely. i think his client will be fine. trump got trounced in the city of philadelphia. what s the registration edge, 7-1 against you these days? yeah, unfortunately. if the spray paint had said f hillary, whoever did it would probably be in solitary confinement right now, don t you think? we re not having this discussion right now, michael, if that was the case. mayor kenny is left of left. he supports every liberal cause. he would have been out tweeting day one. now he s taking a wait and see attitude. so, i mean, this is your new democratic party, right? the wine glass the ascot, the blazer. it s a coastal party. they just re-elected nancy pelosi, it s chestnut hill. they lost our blue collar base. this is what they do. they block traffic when people are trying to get home from work. it s the snow flakes. it s the millennial crowd that doesn t want people to get home from work. it s not my president. i can graffiti because nothing is going to happen to me. that s the new democratic party. if you don t buy into that come other to us. we could sure use your help here in the city. brennan, you re not going to let him wear that ascot in court, are you? michael, i just heard the police go on some roll about divine street, i care about one guy, duncan lloyd. he did absolutely nothing wrong here. it is my hope he s been totally cooperative, but what i hear, joe joe and i are northeast philly guys. we come from almost the same neighborhood. when i was a kid, we all wore army jackets, we called them parkwood tuxedos. apparently in chestnut hill you wear ascot. you may wear an ascot, michael, i don t know. i know without the wine glass and the ascot only on weekends. it s not sensationalized. i have to focus on duncan lloyd. he did nothing wrong. all right. listen, i m laughing along with some of this, but vandalism was committed here. shouldn t he even if i buy into him not breaking the law and i m not sure about that but shouldn t he be held to a higher standard? he s an officer of the court. he s a city lawyer. michael, what should he do? tackle the guy and thereby commit assault. i m not going to comment on an on going investigation. he s been totally cooperative. if he is guilty of anything, he had one too many glasses of wine on thanksgiving. if that s a crime, i would be doing life. this gentlemen did not participate in any criminal activity. and i agree i disagree. to say with joe, and frankly with you, michael, about whether it s as blank trump or blank hillary. if it said go phillies, it doesn t matter to me. my guy had a glass of wine in his hand, not a can of crylon. you get the final word, joe. do you think the message that was spraypainted, the f trump, is what has thus far governed the way this case has been handled, if there is a case? well, it doesn t say go phillies. it says f trump. let s be honest, this wasn t a random building. this was clearly a message sent to that republican donor that we don t want you in our neighborhood. it was wasn t a random building. go ahead, joe. i missed your second point. yeah. essentially, look, of course it s you know, if it said go phillies or go eagles or go flyers. it doesn t say that. it is dealing with donald trump in the city of philadelphia, the election, ground zero for this past election. it doesn t if it said go hillary, we wouldn t be having f hillary, we re not having this. he s fired a week ago. it doesn t say that. it s graffiti that we re talking about. yeah. it s graffiti that s targeted. this was clearly targeted. richard snowden owns that building. richard snowden i wish we had more time. brennan, i would like to see you in a green ascot next time. thank you, joe. appreciate you as well. i think he s out. here is another of your tweets. let s see what s rolling in smerconish, this lloyd situation has taken me back to a bad law school exam question, but there s no evidence of support, no liability. nader, you might be right except if they were partners and they agreed they were going to film and swap it among other folks. i don t know the second half of it. it s an intriguing question. you re right. coming up, when nfl star quarterback colin kaepernick refused to stand during the national anthem to protest racial injustice, he set off a national fire storm, but espn s stephen a. smith defended him. then kaepernick didn t vote on election day and smith, he went ballistic. he is here to discuss. i would personally make a request to the media in this nation, do me a favor and make sure one thing, take the camera away from him. it means nothing. because for him not to vote, as far as i m concerned, everything he said meant absolutely nothing. books introduces jeanette. and her new business: i do, to go. jeanette was excellent at marrying people. but had trouble getting paid. not a good time, jeanette. even worse. now i m uncomfortable. but here s the good news, jeanette got quickbooks. send that invoice, jeanette. looks like they viewed it. and, ta-da! paid twice as fast. oh, she s an efficient officiant. way to grow, jeanette. get paid twice as fast. visit quickbooks-dot-com. and you re talking to youro doctor about your medication. this is humira. this is humira helping to relieve my pain and protect my joints from further damage. this is humira helping me go further. humira works for many adults. it targets and helps to block a specific source of inflammation that contributes to ra symptoms. humira has been clinically studied for over 18 years. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened, as have blood, liver and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you ve been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if you ve had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don t start humira if you have an infection. ready for a new chapter? talk to your rheumatologist. this is humira at work. nothseafood celebration.self like red lobster s holiday so try new dishes like the new grand seafood feast, and the new wild-caught lobster & shrimp trio, with a lobster mac-and-cheese topped lobster tail. come treat yourself to feast fit for the season before it ends. tit s what s inside the person insidwho opens it. give ancestrydna, the simple dna test that can reveal their ethnic origins. order now at ancestrydna.com and save 10%. i want a hippopotamus for christmas only a hippopotamus will do at the united states postal service, we deliver more online purchases to homes than anyone else in the country. and more hippopotamuses, too. so whatever your holiday priority, our priority is you. espn and sirius-xm commentator likes to stir things up. he was in the news for calling colin kaepernick a flaming hypocrite for not bothering to vote in the election. the last time he appeared on this program, he said that african-americans should consider voting republican because democrats take them for granted. i definitely believe that the black vote has been taken for granted. i m simply saying, let s not be so transparent in our support for one party over another when that does not appear to be working for us. force people to flatter us. white folks do it. jewish folks do it. hispanic folks are doing it. why can t black folks do it. that s all i m saying. and, of course, donald trump took a page out of stephen a. s playbook when he famously said this about black voters. look how much african-american communities have suffered under democratic control. you re living in poverty. your schools are no good. you have no jobs. 58% of your youth is unemployed. what the hell do you have to lose? hey, stephen a., it s great to have you back. when he made those statements, what were you thinking? were you thinking, yeah, that s exactly what i was talking about? well, it was hard to decipher to separate the two things, michael, from the standpoint i did not approve of the rhetoric that he was spewing throughout the election, even though that was completely contradictory to everything i had seen of donald trump in my years of covering him as a sports journalist, remember he is a former owner of the usfl, he wanted to own the buffalo bills. i communicated with him in the past and certainly never heard the rhetoric he was spewing during the election. he did have points, but at the same time, to sit up there and your argument to b what the hell do you have to lose? i m not sure that s the strongest argument to make. even though i certainly understand how you took my sound bite and pointed to what he said, forgive me if i m not overly flattered by the fact that donald trump somewhat echoed anything that i had to say during the election because i didn t like a lot of what he said. he did run better with african-americans than did mitt romney four years ago, arguably, though, he wasn t facing an african-american himself. that is true. how do you assess the way in which trump ended up fairing people among color? i don t think it was about him. he was lucky to get the 8% that he got. it was very, very telling that hillary clinton got 88% of the african-american vote, it was 5% less than what barack obama had ultimately captured. and you know, you can point to the fact that he was an african-american and obviously the black community was going to come out and support him. certainly i m not going to apologize for it and nor should any black person. in the same breath, let s take into account why she didn t receive the vote she should have received. you had a 74-year-old renowned socialist in bernie sanders going up against her and he had more of the young vote, he had more black people looking forward to the things that he had to say being exercised. you also have hillary clinton s history in terms of that crime bill. yes, it was her husband who pushed forth the crime bill that led to mass incarceration on the part of african-americans in this country. we know that. she wasn t just the typical first lady. she was somebody that went out there and lobbied on his behalf the word superpredator is something that is etched in all of our minds. that definitely played the role. and then of course you know the e-mail scandal and what have you. you hate to throw something like that out, but the reality of the situation is clear, the compilation of all of those things didn t lend itself towards being, you know, supportive of her with a degree of fervor. you didn t like either candidate. you felt you had to vote for one. i voted for her, but i wasn t enthusiastic about it, i ll be the first to admit it. i appreciated what you said about colin kaepernick, as someone who is 54, registered to vote when i turned 18, i never in my life missed voting in an election. neither have i. expand on what you had to say about him. well, listen, the fact is he had every right to protest and when he was talking about racial injustices and things of that nature, you certainly can understand where he was coming from. it was a quiet protest. he didn t impede anybody s ability to watch the games or come to the games or anything like that which is why i went on good morning america my show first take and other outlets to support him. however, the second that he decided that he was not going to vote and then to publicly reveal that he wasn t voting, i thought it was egregious to the highest order. i thought it compromised everything that he was standing for and more importantly i thought it was a disrespect to our ancestors, to people who have bled and fought and died for him to have the right to do that and then also take into account the fact that we have a president who is outgoing in barack obama who captured 93% of the black vote, who obviously black folks come out and support. he went before the congressional black caucus and went campaigning on behalf of hillary clinton, basically imploring our community to activate itself in this election if you had any respect whatsoever for his legacy. now, colin kaepernick turns around and you decide not to vote, as far as i m concerned, you just obliterated every argument you were trying to make. i m not saying his arguments have no credence whatsoever. i m saying that he himself compromised his own message and because of that i don t want to listen to him anymore because the number one tool that we have in america to provoke change is our power to vote. it s something that we fought for. it s something that was exacted to us in 1964/1965. how in god s name can you sit up there and justify not voting? there s no excuse for it whatsoever. i understand there s a lack of understanding. there s youth that we re talking about here. the player s association, it would be nice to see them get themselves involved, speaking up on his behalf in some accord, but the bottom line it was a dereliction of duty and it was flagrantly so and i m not letting him get a pass on that. i m just not. final quick subject off the chart a little bit because it s not sports and it s not politics per se. it s an act of vandalism. i think of stephen a. as a philly guy. what do you do with a city-employed lawyer who was not doing the spray painting but was in the company of a guy who spray paints a building f trump? i think you definitely suspend him. there has to be some repercussions for such an irresponsible act. would i con template firing him, yes. i m not sure i would. i want to hear what his explanation would be in the matter. but perceptions sometimes usurp reality. any juvenile can go out there and vandalize and record vandalism giving the okay for it. it doesn t make it right. when you re educated and supposed to have some degree of not only intellect but a core decency that the government relies upon you to exercise, you said he was a government employee, to sit up there and record such actions are inexcusable and you need to be called out on it and punished for it. you certainly have the right to do what you want. and everybody wants to articulate their position in the united states of america. but you also have the right to suffer repercussions for your actions. we all know that. we accept it. those are big boy and big girl rules. we have to accept that. this man is a lawyer. he certainly knew better and he should be made to answer for it. there s no question about that. stephen a., next time you will tell us if there s an ascot in your closet. thank you don t even worry about it. that s not me. see you, stephen. thank you. another of your tweets what do we got here? smerconish, oh, please a man walks by and you want charges? you are the snowflake in this conversation. he wasn t just walking by, i don t think. i think the whole thing was seemingly planned. we re going to find out, though. one more tweet if we ve got time for it no more tweets? there we go. smerconish, the guy looked around as the lookout for the spraypainter. he is guilty. right. hailey. it looks like there was nobody else in the camera image. did you notice that? it was midnight. i should have explained. coincidence, i think not. ronald reagan, he won in two landslides. donald trump lost the popular vote and difference of 80,000 votes across three states could have swung the electoral college to hillary clinton, but according to jeff greenfield, it s trump whose presidency could have a bigger, longer lasting impact on america. why does he say that? i ll ask him, next. to do the best for your pet, you should know more about the food you choose. with beyond, you have a natural pet food that goes beyond telling ingredients to showing where they come from. beyond assuming the source is safe. to knowing it is. beyond asking for trust. to earning it. because, honestly, our pets deserve it. beyond. natural pet food. i found a better deal on prescriptions. we found lower co-pays. .and a free wellness visit. new plan.same doctor. i m happy. it s medicare open enrollment. have you compared plans yet? it s easy at medicare.gov. or you can call 1-800-medicare. medicare open enrollment. you ll never know unless you go. i did it. you can too. imagine if the things you bought every day earned you miles to get to the places you really want to go. with the united mileageplus explorer card, you ll get a free checked bag, 2 united club passes. priority boarding. and 30,000 bonus miles. everything you need for an unforgettable vacation. the united mileageplus explorer card. imagine where it will take you. so donald trump lost the popular vote by 2 million votes, and if he lost just 80,000 more votes across three swing states, he would also have lost the electoral college, where as ronald reagan won his two terms in landslides, 44 states, 489 electoral votes in 1980 and then four years later 49 states and 525 electoral votes. clear mandate, right? and yet this this piece for politico, veteran journalist jeff greenfield says the long-term effect for the reagan presidency and the way it had an impact on american politics was negligible, trump may preside over the most significant changes in public policy since the new deal. here to explain is jeff greenfield. jeff, you say that ronald reagan was elected with a mandate, twice as a matter of fact, and yet changed so little. donald trump lost the popular vote and is about to change so much. explain. well, when reagan came in with 489 electoral vote 10-point in the popular vote majority with a newly republican senate that would seem to qualify as a mandate under any circumstances. but he leaves eight years later, the size of the federal government is no smaller the federal debt and deficit is bigger, no departments had been eliminated. two of his supreme court nominees underwrite the core of roe v. wade. and writes the guy marriage decision. one, reagan never had both houses of congress. the house was always democratic. and it s also important i think this is key, the republican party was very different. when reagan came in, the senate was filled with moderate and even liberal republicans. packwood of oregon, specter and hines in pennsylvania, so between a democratic house and a very different republican party, he had to negotiate all kinds of compromises whether on taxes, on social spending, on how you reform social security, conservatives don t like to acknowledge this, but one of the things reagan did was at one point brought the capital gains tax up to the same level as ordinary income. trump has a wholly different terrain, not just both houses of congress but a republican party so much more homogenous, so much more solidly conservative and so much really committed to fundamental changes in everything from tax structure to social policy that i think the potential is there for trump to oversee the kind of change we haven t seen in decades and decades. to your point, there were so many republican moderates in the senate, they had their own gathering and called it the wednesday lunch club. so what areas do you think he s about to be a president of lasting consequence? the most obvious is the supreme court. david souter, george h.w. bush s pick will go down as a nominee put forward by the president of one party who then disappoints his followers. we haven t seen that since, not in clinton s, not in george w. bush s, not in obama s. i think the fact that trump essentially outsourced the supreme court picks to the federalist society and the fact that the conservatives on his list are much more inclined to be judicial activists. they don t like to say that. that is, to reach in to the sconce stux, perhaps even on areas involving the governments economic regulation, that if he has more than one pick and the odds are he ll have two or three, that s going to be changes for a generation. i think you re also going to see rapidly in congress an undoing of many of obama s signature policies, the affordable health care being one of them. how quickly, we don t know. i think you ll see big rollbacks in obama s approach to environmental regulations, an we re not just talking about trump undoing obama. you talk about the epa, that was put into power by richard nixon. this is what i mean by the potential reach of trump, given how much the republican party has moved right, and to the extend they now control all of the branchs of government. that sy think the potential is there for huge change. whether you like it or are appalled by it. half of the country is smiling at hearing jeff greenfield, the other half is breu bristling. thank you. thank you, michael. if kaepernick didn t vote then his protests against racial injustice mean nothing. he didn t do everything he could. that was pretty much steven a s point. i m one that says you have to go vote if you want your voice heard. keep the tweets coming. i took warfarin for over 15 years until i learned more about once-daily xarelto. a latest generation blood thinner. then i made the switch. xarelto® significantly lowers the risk of stroke in people with afib not caused by a heart valve problem. it has similar effectiveness to warfarin. warfarin interferes with vitamin k and at least six blood clotting factors. xarelto® is selective targeting one critical factor of your body s natural clotting function. for people with afib currently well managed on warfarin, there is limited information on how xarelto and warfarin compare in reducing the risk of stroke. like all blood thinners, don t stop taking xarelto without talking to your doctor, as this may increase your risk of a blood clot or stroke. while taking you may bruise more easily, and it may take longer for bleeding to stop. xarelto may increase your risk of bleeding if you take certain medicines. xarelto can cause serious, and in rare cases fatal bleeding. get help right away for unexpected bleeding, unusual bruising or tingling. if you have had spinal anesthesia while on xarelto watch for back pain or any nerve or muscle related signs or symptoms. do not take xarelto if you have an artificial heart valve or abnormal bleeding. tell your doctor before all planned medical or dental procedures. before starting xarelto tell your doctor about any conditions, such as kidney, liver or bleeding problems. to help protect yourself from a stroke, ask your doctor about xarelto. there s more to know. xarelto. actually making your body feel better, making your whole day better. hi, everybody. i m boomer esiason. and that s exactly what tommie copper does for me. 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[ male announcer ] save 25% to 40% from black friday through cyber week at tommiecopper.com. here is what you thought. even though kaepernick didn t vote, which is absolutely wrong, neither did smerconish. that is wrong. there is people other than him and her. give me a break, lawyer not guilty. give me another. steven a has more as ccots than smerconish. ascotgate. we ll see you next week. oh no, that looks gross whoa, twhat is that? try it. you gotta try it, it s terrible. i don t wanna try it if it s terrible. it s like mango chutney and burnt hair. no thank you, i have a very sensitive palate. just try it! guys, i think we should hurry up. if you taste something bad, you want someone else to try it. it s what you do. i can t get the taste out of my mouth! if you want to save fifteen percent or more on car insurance, you switch to geico. it s what you do. shhh! dog, dog, dog. it is the top of the hour. it is 7:00 p.m. eastern. we begin with a very, very sad breaking news story. a holiday party in california turning into a horrifying scene. a fire erupting and killing nine people. it was packed with partiers on friday night when a fire suddenly ignited. still unknown, adding to the nine confirmed deaths,
it hurts to lose an election. we have come to the end of a long journey. although i would have rather won tomorrow will be the first time in my life i don t have anything to do. to be blunt about it, losing sucks. everybody wants you and the day that you lose, you re nothing. when they hit that light switch, oh, my god. mitt romney. nice to meet you. who are these people? it s not a normal thing to want to run for president. to risk failing in front of the whole world. this is the super bowl. who believe they have the grit i ll ready to go right now. the ideas. that s the kind of america i want to build. to lead this country. they are people who are willing to go into public and get stripped naked, covered in mud, crawl over broken glass and stand up and say here i am. putting themselves out there, over and over again for years. shaking hands, kissing babies. quarter pounder without cheese. wolfing down junk food, sleeping on planes. there are days when the voters hate you. they get up and say, i think you re a jerk. you hear from people. and then one night they love you. you are so struck by how special this country is. thousands and thousands of people. they believe in you. let there be no doubt, my friends. we re going to win this election. so now you think, it just might happen. you believe and you have to. that s the nature of it. ladies and gentlemen i have a privilege given to few americans. i accept i accept i accept your nomination for president of the united states. this historic date until one day in november one of the crucial votes. just like that, the end of a hard 22-month campaign. the victory of historic proportions. it s over. you can t go into presidential politics unless you know you re going to run the risk of having your heart broken. when you fall from the top i don t have any comment today and i thank you for asking. it is a long way down. remember, ask george mcgovern, how long does it take to get over this? and he said when i get over it, i ll call you. what a loser. right now donald trump can t even think about losing. i love this country and i know you do, too. neither can hillary clinton. in a few short months, one of them will experience the most spectacular public failure in american life. this is the story of the people who have lived that moment. it is a story you have not heard before about what happens when the dream disappears. thank you, thank you. no problem. a sense of normalcy. we enjoyed every minute of it. god bless. thank you. this is what losing looks like. you go home alone. the secret service, the reporters, the crowds, all gone. all of a sudden, you re junk. you re going to costco. costco is exactly where the romneys went. the refrigerator was bare. live goes on. you go to the market and get some food. there are a lot of tears. it s very hard. a real heart-wrenching experience to say, we didn t get job done. tens of thousands of people, hundreds of thousands of people and you think, they cared. i wish we would have succeeded for them and for the country. in august of 2012, success looked so close. when mitt romney took stage of the 2012 republican convention, he had worked years to get here. suspending suffered a crushing defeat in 2008. i hate to lose. may god bless you. may god bless the american people. as he campaigned against barack obama, republicans were giddy about romney. i believe he will sweep the midwest. the minimum result had been 53-47 romney. a romney land slide. how are you feeling? great, thank you. he thought he was going to win. he put everything into it. then it happened. there was a political earthquake in the presidential race. when mitt romney said to big money donors when he didn t think cameras were rolling. the kind of snafu that can sink a candidate. a hidden camera caught romney criticizing almost half the voting public. there are 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. they believe they re entitled to health care, to food, to housing, you name it. are you worried you ve offended this 47%? all hell broke loose. what i m saying is the words that came out were not what i meant. what should you have said about that 47%? the media was relentless. you are slipping in the polls at this moment. after he said it, it was inelegant. don t feel mr. romney has been doing himself any favors. the worst thing that can happen to you in politics is when you confirm an existing idea. people thought he was a rich guy who didn t understand their life. that s what made it really hurt. mr. barack obama and governor mitt romney preparing to face off in their first presidential debate. then a chance to turn it around. it s terrifying. wow! one-on-one. people get to see you in the arena with your opponent, on your own. on the high wire without a net. economic growth, slower than last year and last year slower than the year before? going forward where the status quo won t cut it for the american people who are struggling today. the debate was a home run for romney. it is clear the republicans are very, very happy. people were saying this was over. we ve got a horse race. no one believed more than ann romney. no one will work harder. no one will care more and no one will move heaven and earth like mitt romney to make this country a better place to live. after two more debates, election day. as the hours passed polls continue to show a tight race. the race for the white house is a dead heat. mitt romney began to look worried. romney has broken the 200 barrier. he is at 201. the president of the united states, significantly ahead. and then a phone call. that s too bad. all those states. wisconsin, michigan, nevada. our only hope is ohio. cnn projects barack obama will carry the state of ohio. by carrying ohio, he wins re-election. the president of the united states defeats mitt romney. does someone have a number for the president? are you over it? losing an election is not fun. i ve tried losing. i ve tried winning. i like winning better. it was very disappointing on election night and in the weeks that followed. we thought of all the people that have helped so much, it is very hard even to see them again. to say we wish we would have gotten the job done but we didn t. seven months later, the romneys were still dealing with defeat. we feel like we let people down. was it harder for you because you thought you were going to win? i think so. i really truly felt we were going to win. so i m glad as i look back that i felt that way. it is the way i had to feel. the romneys are unabashed about their devotion to each other and their children. it is a very difficult thing for families. a very difficult thing to emotionally invest yourself at that level, at that depth. can you give us a word? when you lose the presidency, you spend years analyzing. what s difficult is going into a campaign and becoming extraordinarily focused day after day, speaking to large groups of people, getting to know individuals one-on-one, learning their experiences. dealing with your mistakes. that s what s difficult. one thing that s different from 25, 30 years ago, everything you say is being recorded. you try to become the perfect candidate. don t make any mistakes. everyone says be spontaneous. don t act like you re being crafty. you have to be very, very careful. careful. establishment. insurgent? mitt romney? the republican party has watched amazed as mitt has gone off script, way off script to take on donald trump. whatever happened to trump airlines? how about trump university? for a guy who really let us down. poor moammar gadhafi poor mitt romney. then there s trump magazine. you say, wait, wait, wait. isn t he a huge business success? he is a sad case. do you know what a choke artist is? when my grand kids say what did you do on stop donald trump, i want to be able to say something. i was not going to stay on the sidelines. back in 2013, even before there was a trump, romney talked about running for president a third time. it never goes away. you always want to be president. if you wanted to be president one day, you want to be president until the day you die. it is a real thrill. an experience we will never forget. and frankly, i would do it again. you would? again? i would do it again. but it s not my time. okay. i ll go with that. i would love to do it again. i d love to do it and win. up next, can one decision you can actually see russia from land here in alaska. sink a campaign. i can see russia from my house. the 2008 republican presidential nominee should have been on top of the world. i could do the job. i was prepared to be commander in chief. but john mccain was running against history. barack obama had a clear shot at becoming america s first black president. the 200,000 plus crowd confirm his rock star status. change has come to america. i was picked up by some north vietnamese. so you re a bona fide war hero. a former prisoner of war. mccain has leadership. show me a greater patriot than john mccain. but now you re facing a losing battle. what do you do? i have an idea. we can do something different that will maybe give us a shot. what do you want? he s a gambler. he s a pilot. they always going to take shots. take the shot. the perfect title for the story of john mccain s run for the white house. chapter 1. pick a vice president. and he knew exactly who he wanted. you can actually see russia from land here in alaska. no, not her. him. john mccain, our next great president. mccain s first love was senator joe lieberman of connecticut. an independent. he is honest, decent, he live his religion and we were close and dear friends. so you did want him? of course. but it was going to cause a problem in the convention because joe lieberman was pro-choice. so it was no to joe. quick. find someone fresh. someone new. they didn t manage the process well. mccain didn t manage it well. the clock ran out and they were suddenly left with limited choices. and he threw deep. she is exactly who i need. it was the very definition of a hail mary pass. senator sarah palin of the great state of alaska. so sarah palin met america. i was just your average hockey mom in alaska. this is an outside the box pick. is it a bad pick? is it a risky pick? for a while it looked brilliant. for a few weeks. then it went south. boy, did it ever! the level of ignorance is astounding. palin couldn t explain why north and south korea were separate nations. palin struggled with the national media. which magazines did you regularly read? i m curious. all of them. do you agree the bush doctrine? in what respect, charlie? comedians like tina faye were relentless. you ve got alaska here and there s water here and then there s russia. i can see russia from my house. even now, john mccain s answer to all of it? give me a brick. she did get our base energized. i love her. she did hold her own against a 35-year member of the senate, joe biden. can i call you joe? what i didn t get was how the media just skewered her. she became fodder for everything and i thought that was terribly unfair. people in my view are not kind to sarah palin. despite the media frenzy, the mccain-palin ticket was holding its own until five weeks before the election. we were according to our polls basically running even or slightly ahead the day that the stock market went down 700 points. crisis on wall street. one of the biggest failures in u.s. history. september 29, 2008. the credit crisis worsened overnight. economic panic. this is absolutely stunning. big banks were failing. the house rejects the financial bailout plan. at the end of that day, we were 7 points down. as americans watched their 401(k)s disappear before their eyes. for the second time in his campaign, john mccain threw a hail mary. i ll suspend my campaign and return to washington. i m an old navy pilot and i know when a crisis calls. all hands on deck. reporters and analysts were skeptical. the market appears to be melting down. threatening to bring john mccain s campaign with it. i would point out that barack obama came back to washington, too. he didn t say he suspended he didn t say it. after a series of intense meetings, nothing was resolved. but now mccain was losing ground. i knew that we were in serious trouble. he had one last chance. the presidential debates. and he struggled against obama. my old buddy joe joe the plumber is out there. if you don t document the health care plan that senator obama mandates, he will fine you. i m happy to talk to you, joe, if you re out there. here s your fine. zero. zero? zero. because as i said in our last debate, and i ll repeat, john, i exempt small businesses i was not on my game and i have to admit that. i have no real excuse for it. it was doubly inexcusable because i had been through so many debates before. do you know when you mess up? you get in the car and your staff is like yes. oh, my god. do you sort of sit around blaming yourself? unfortunately, that s one of my character flaws. that do i sometime sit around and say why did i do that? mccain believes he understands what his biggest mistake was. there is a tug-of-war every candidate shares, between being true to yourself and sticking to a carefully calibrated message. you can t become almost totally scripted so that there s no mistake and as you know, my greatest strength is extemporaneous. but sometimes there is a moment. i will respect him and i want no, no. as there was during one town hall where we saw the real mccain. i can t trust obama. he is an arab. no? no, ma am. he is a decent family man, a citizen that i happen to have disagreements on fundamental issues and that s what this campaign is all about. he s no. thank you. the inevitable happened. an african-american has broken the barrier as old as the republic. john mccain conceded graciously. i call on all americans to not despair of our present difficulties, but to believe always in the promise and greatness of america. i ve never heard a finer speech out of him, ever. that told me in so many different levels, it told the world what this country was about. i loved it. i look forward to it. i love the campaigning. my second favorite state new hampshire. the town hall meetings, in people s living rooms, the interaction. the bus. yeah, riding around with jerks like you on the bus. i mean, to think really that you could be competitive for president of the united states. it is incredible that sometimes i would literally pinch myself. up next tanking the race. it was ridiculous. he looked like one of those bobble head dolls. [ male announcer ] eligible for medicare? that s a good thing, but it doesn t cover everything. only about 80% of your part b medical expenses. the rest is up to you. so consider an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. like all standardized medicare supplement insurance plans, they pick up some of what medicare doesn t pay and could save you in out-of-pocket medical costs. call today to request a free decision guide to help you better understand what medicare is all about and which aarp medicare supplement plan works best for you. with these types of plans, you ll be able to visit any doctor or hospital that accepts medicare patients. plus, there are no networks, and virtually no referrals needed. there s a range of plans to choose from, too, and they all travel with you anywhere in the country. join the millions who have already enrolled in the only medicare supplement insurance plans endorsed by aarp, an organization serving the needs of people 50 and over for generations. and provided by unitedhealthcare insurance company, which has over 30 years of experience behind it. call today. remember, medicare supplement insurance helps cover some of what medicare doesn t pay. expenses that could really add up. these kinds of plans could save you in out-of-pocket medical costs. you ll be able to choose any doctor who accepts medicare patients. and there are virtually no referrals needed. so don t wait. with all the good years ahead, look for the experience and commitment to go the distance with you. call now to request your free decision guide. this easy-to-understand guide will answer some of your questions and help you find the aarp medicare supplement plan that s right for you. this is the new comfort food. and it starts with foster farms simply raised chicken. california grown with no antibiotics ever. let s get comfortable with our food again. michael dukakis loves this neighborhood. he s lived here for 50 years. he is 82 now. every morning he takes a two-mile walk. let me tell you. it is the best exercise there is. nothing better than this. and he picks up garbage along his route. i can t stand living in a dirty city. the same civic minded man who now stoops to pick up trash i don t know why people do this. once soared almost to the top of american politics. 1988 was the year michael dukakis took a run at the white house. we re going to win this race. we re going to win this race. when he first began campaigning mike dukakis, how are you? do you know this book? i can take a bath? the governor of massachusetts had almost no national profile. when i came out here 10 or 11 months ago, nobody knew what a dukakis was. in just a year he went from national nobody to the democratic nominee. with a big post convention lead over vice president george bush. a new nbc news wall street journal poll shows dukakis leading george bush. 50-32% of an 18-point margin. how do you blow a lead that big? it was an election that could have been won, should have been won and i didn t win it. how do you lose to a guy labeled a wimp? i made a decision which turned out to be maybe the dumbest decision. i simply would not respond to the bush campaign. i said no, i won t do it. in a move almost unthinkable today, dukakis decided to go positive in one of the dirtiest and nastiest campaigns in modern history. you d better be ready for the attacks and you d better have a carefully thought-out plan for dealing with them. the first attack, rumors completely unfounded, that dukakis suffered from depression. have you sought help for depression? any medication taken for anything like that? do you think you re fit to govern by having medical records made public? i m not going to pick on an invalid. my doctor will be happy to give you his full opinion on my condition and he will tell you that i am a very healthy guy. he dropped 8 points in one week. and then he handed the bush campaign a gift. he took a ride in an m-1 tank. when they said, sir, would you like to ride in one of the tanks, the advance person, someone should have said, no, he doesn t want to do that. the mocking by the press began. even before the ride was over. oh no! a horrific mistake. oh, come on. he looked like one of those bobble head dolls that you put in front of you in a car. i never wear a hat at all. a helmet. it was ridiculous. what do you think? did i look like i belonged up there? the bush campaign didn t think so. they made an ad out of the tank ad. michael dukakis has opposed virtually every defense system we developed. it ran before an audience of millions during the world series. now he wants to be our commander-in-chief. america can t afford that risk. the now infamous willy horton as ad. willy horton who murdered a boy. ? a robbery. stabbing him 19 times. horton was a convicted murderer who got a weekend furlough under a program sponsored by michael dukakis. while out of jail, he committed a vicious rape. the sub text of the horton ad was race. what about this racism thing the oldest racial symbol in the book. a black man raping a white woman. the most liberal furlough program in america in 1988 was the furlough program under the reagan-bush administration. and i never said that. why? because i wasn t going to respond to the attack. which in retrospect sounds crazy, doesn t it? despite all of it, bush hadn t knocked dukakis out. as they entered the final presidential debate, bush was only slightly ahead in the polls. the first question goes to governor dukakis. right out of the gate, bernie shaw threw a grenade. governor, if kitty dukakis were raped and murdered. would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer? no, i don t. and i think you know that i opposed the death penalty all of my life. i don t see any evidence that it is a deterrent. i think there are better ask more effective ways to deal with violent crime. the candidate treated it like a policy question. not a personal one. you didn t seem to have a natural human impulse. i ve been asked that question a thousand times. the answer is i would like the kill the guy. i don t think there s any doubt about how i feel about my wife. finally, at the end of the campaign, he started to punch back. friends, this is garbage. this is political garbage. but it was too late. a good chance. the man who had once been up by 18 points lost 40 states. nbc news now projects that george bush is president-elect of the united states. how do you get over it? to be blunt about it, losing sucks. i ve had both experiences. winning is a much, much better condition. there is nothing great about losing. we re talking about evaluation dukakis is now a college professor, happily out of the arena, teaching students what it is like to be in it. legislators can t handle certain different messages. when you run for the presidency, with all of its ups and downs, you are so struck by how special this country is. and about the thousands and thousands of people who are willing to just pour themselves into this effort. because they believe in you and your values and so forth. it is pretty overwhelming. and i ve never forgotten that. this is the new comfort food. and it starts with foster farms simply raised chicken. california grown with no antibiotics ever. let s get comfortable with our food again. you tell me. you ask al gore lost to george w. bush in 2000. a simple statement of fact, right? gore lost. he won the election. okay. he won the national vote. he won. i will never give up. i will always fight. when it comes to the 2000 presidential election, nothing is simple. it is very hard to believe that you have been elected president but you won t be inaugurated. the fact is al gore did get more votes. over 500,000 more votes. but bush won florida and therefore, he won the electoral college. it is how bush won florida that drives democrats crazy. waiting for the florida result it began with one very long and messy election night. first, there was this. all together excuse me one second. mike, you know i wouldn t do this if it weren t big. florida goes for al gore. then, two hours later, this. stand by. stand by. cnn right now is moving our earlier declaration of florida back to the too close to call column. again, all the networks followed. now we re putting it back into the undecided column. for hours, television journalists waited. this is the answer. get it right. finally, around 2:00 in the morning, everyone called the race. george bush, governor of texas, will become the 43rd president of the united states. al gore who had been waiting in a hotel room in nashville, tennessee, called george bush to concede. at 3:00 a.m., he went to the war memorial in nashville to publicly concede. it was total chaos as we were trying to get into the war memorial, pouring rain, the vice president and lieberman s family and that whole group had gone in. everybody was out there. i got on the phone with bill daly and he said what s up, mike? and i said billy, we haven t lost. this will be an automatic recanvas. this is too close to call. grab the vice president, get him into a holding room with joe lieberman. do not let anyone go out. everybody freeze. the numbers were so screwed up that no one was sure who had won. so the battle began. for 36 days, a furious legal struggle. the democrats fought for a recount while republicans fought to stop it. finally, bush appealed to the supreme court. the ruling stopped the counting. it was over. this is america and we put country before party. we will stand together behind our new president. so what happens when you lose an election but you don t really? al gore has rarely spoken about it. in 2002, he talked to larry king about the way he ran the race. oh, i made a lot of mistakes. i take full responsibility. i think one of the things i ve learned from the campaign is that it is always a mistake to hold back in any way. let it rip and let the chips fall where they may. like so many others who lost the presidency, gore had trouble being himself. teddy kennedy was a natural politician. bill clinton is a natural politician. i think for al gore, it was a learned art. bill clinton looked better missing the shot than al gore looked making the shot. he was sometimes criticized as a technocrat. translation, a smarty pants. like when he debated george w. bush and sighed in exasperation at bush s answers. when he used the word lock box i will put medicare and social security in a lock box and protect. lock box. lock box. over and over again. that was partly my fault. it was? i said we have to make sure that you get lock box thing in there. i didn t think he would do it five or six times and i knew that saturday night live would satirize it. i would put in it what i call a lock box. the lock box. lock box. after it was all over, gore began a whole new career. he pursued his passion for the environment and made the film, an inconvenient truth. we are causing global warming. in 2007 he won the nobel prize. maybe gore, all these guys who might be less defined by politics than most, i m not sure. a very i think he is a complicated man. former vice president walter mondale is just plain fed up with the mess in washington. we can t get anything done. it s hurting our country. it s the heart of whether we could regain our strength. surely politicians should talk about how they want to solve that. how are you going to get it done? what are the numbers? it has been 32 years since he lost the presidency to ronald reagan. i am ready to be president. at 88, mondale may be the last truly honest man in politics. he refused lie or even fudge a little. mr. reagan, will raise taxes and so will i. he won t tell you. i just did. he was calling for mourning in america and i was calling for a root canal. the problem was, reagan s optimism plagued better than mondale s root canal. the hollywood idea that everything is fine. in 1976, mondale went to the white house as jimmy carter s vice president. admired as one of the most substantive vice presidents in history, he knew how the white house worked so he hoped he could wow the voters in his crucial first debate against reagan. when i left the dressing room where i was, walked 50 feet to the platform, that s the longest walk i ever took in my life. and he came out swinging. we ve got to deal with this problem. reagan stumbled badly. the system is still where it was with regard to the with regard he seemed confused and tired. he was grabbing on to that lectern and i was very worried about him. even then there were whispers about alzheimer s, but mondale refused to hit reagan on his memory. i wouldn t do it, that s not my kind of politics. but then in the next debate, reagan rebounded and was funny, the oldest man ever to run for president hit the age issue out of the park. i will not make age an issue of this campaign. i m not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent s youth and inexperience. and what are you thinking? i was laughing while i was crying. you know, i knew he it hit home. mondale had hoped he could grab voters within historic presidential choice. my name is geraldine feraro. the late congresswoman from queens was the first woman ever on a major presidential ticket. ferraro helped briefly. but then the polls just kept sinking. it hurts. you re tired, you re emotionally exhausted. your poor family s been put through the ringer. could you see it in the crowds? the crowds were very friendly. they cheered but if you looked in their eyes, they know it s not going well. right now, the numbers as we have them, the electoral vote look what ronald reagan has, 522 electoral votes. he announce he would never run for president again. it was the biggest margin of defeat in american history. like most runners up, he s still haunted by what might have been. remember i asked george mcgovern how long does it take to get over this, and when i get over it, i ll call you. you never get over it. you never get over it. still for walter mondale, no regrets. you would do it all again? yes. so you don t regret that you ran? no, no, i m glad i ran. i m proud of it. yeah mom, the new kitchen s great. hey! if you want somethig to cook faster, you just double the heat right? no reason. hey mom, for laundry, the maximum load is just a suggestion right? oh that makes sense. ummm mom, how do i monitor my credit? ok. thanks mom. that was easy. sign up for credit karma s free credit monitoring today. this is the new comfort food. and it starts with foster farms simply raised chicken. california grown with no antibiotics ever. let s get comfortable with our food again. running for president is not the deal. it s having a chance to be. that s the deal. and it changes who you are? it changes who you are and changes everything. richard ben kramer, the late poet of american politics wrote that presidential candidates start out more or less the same with huge ambition, strong will, and faith in themselves. they re winners used to winning. i hate to lose. then you want to win again. they re willing to suspend everything. it s a whole different ball game when you run for presidency, and the scrutiny. and they re willing to take anything. the exposure, the attacks. it hurts. you re tired, you re emotionally exhausted. and they savage you. finally, they re willing to lose in what kramer called a great national fire ball of failure. we just didn t get the job done. i don t have any comment. pure agony. it s an elite club, these runners up, but even with all of their regrets, they re wishing that mistakes could be undone. the men who were almost president, would do it all again. you are so struck by how special this country is. it s a real thrill and an experience that we will never forget. and to think that you could come in second for president of the united states, it s incredible. one of the biggest mefrjers in history, at&t agrees to buy time warner. a record deal. details on what that deal could mean. u.s. secretary of defense, ash carter has just arrived in iraq as peshmerga fighters get one step closer to liberating mosul from isis. that s right. they finally did it. the chicago cubs headed to the world series for the first time since 1945. from cnn, world headquarters in atlanta, for
that his disruptive influence will extend far beyond america s borders. the president-elect just broke with 40 years of american foreign policy by having a phone call with the leader of taiwan, which the u.s. doesn t officially recognize. blunder or did he just expose a fiction? christiane amanpour is here to analyze. plus, will trump slash brexit style anti-globalism sweep europe? two closely watched elections tomorrow in austria and italy will tell us a lot. i ll speak to the first foreign politician to meet the president-elect, the brit behind brexit, nigel fir raj. plus, why does jeff greenfield say trump is poised to have a bigger impact on american politics despite losing the popular vote? also, right here in philly, an anti-trump graffiti incident turns out to have an unusual participant, an ascot wearing city employee, an attorney. should he be fired? espn s stephen a smith said on this program that blacks were being taken for granted by democrats and that was before donald trump said to african-americans, what do you have to lose? stephen a. is p.o..ed that colin kaepernick didn t vote. but first, it was just a phone call but it rang some alarm bells around the world yesterday. the president-elect took a congratulatory call from taiwan president. trump has vowed to redefine u.s. international relations, but does this kind of move endanger stability? joining me now to discuss, christiane amanpour, cnn s chief international correspondent and of course the host of cnni s nightly interview amenpour. and nigel farage and chris koons. christian, do you think this was planned? do you think donald trump knew what he was doing, wanted to send a message to the chinese or was it a blunder? the truth of the matter is i don t know if it was planned. but here is the real question, was it just a phone call? and it certainly is an unusual precedent to set. or does it signal something different? that would be a shift of u.s. relationship with the second most important country in the whole world which is china. and i think what you have to look out for is the following what will china do? so far they ve done what they have to do and that is lodge an official protest in a call to the white house and the white house has responded by saying, you know, business as usual, politics as usual, our bilateral relationship as usual. just to sum that up, the relationship is one in which china is the main china for the united states. taiwan is not officially recognized by the united states, but as you know, the united states is committed to defending taiwan if ever it was to come under an invasion from china. so that is the basic bottom line here. so what will china do next, if anything. what is donald trump s intention as president towards china and taiwan? and does donald trump have business in taiwan that may or may not have been part of all of this? those are the questions. maybe donald trump is dumb like a fox? maybe he is not well red in? anderson cooper had an interesting exchange with kelly ann con way who managed his campaign. listen to what she had to say about that issue last night. president-elect trump is fully briefed and fully knowledgeable about these issues on an on going basis regardless of who is on the other end of the phone. he takes information that is given to him and provided to him. he vails himself of any number of different information sources and including those that come from the state department and those that come from intelligence briefings. christian, you have your fingers on the pulse all over the globe. here is what i most want to ask you on this issue, how do you think that this is being interpreted in capitals around the world? well, look, you know, uncertainty is something that the foreign policy establishment doesn t really like. uncertainty is something that can lead to, you know, a little bit of chaos, if i could put it in that sort of euphemism. people around the world are simly not sure what to expect. this is a completely unprecedented situation in the united states and no one is quite sure what to expect, beyond campaign rhetoric and beyond what we re seeing rolling out now in the initial days as president-elect. so, yes, this phone call was a precedent buster. it is the first time apparently that a u.s. president or president-elect has spoken officially to the president of taiwan and this is policy that dates back to nixon going to china in 1972 and then it was finalized by carter president carter in 1978. china, beijing was the official relationship with united states. so, everyone around the world is watching to see what happens next. and one other call that we haven t talked about is a call that was made between president-elect trump and president duerte of the philippines in which according to duerte s read-out and we haven t seen the trump read-out, according to duerte s read out he says that donald trump spoke very kindly about some of the most controversial policies that duerte is carrying out. that is his anti-drug campaign which is basically leaving bodies stacked up in extrajudicial killings all over the philippines. this has been roundly condemned by the united states, by the united nations, by human rights groups, basically by everybody and duerte has been very, very undiplomatically rude about the united states, threatening to break off with the united states, threatening to go into a whole new world order led by china and russia. so, all this to say that there are so-called strong men who are in power around the world now who have their own ideas about which way they want to see the world go. and that may entail trying to up end the alliances, the basic sort of foreign policy situations that we ve been seeing over the last 40, 50 years and that is what and where the uncertainty lies right now. thank you so much, christiane amanpour for the big picture view on which we always come to you. is surprise victory of donald trump seems less surprising if viewed as part of the global populist movement including last june s brexit vote for the uk to exit the european union. joining me now, the first foreign politician to meet trump face to face nigel farage. of course we re looking at election day tomorrow in two countries. yes. the question for you, what s the common denominator of this global movement? you know, you look at europe in particular, it s the feeling and the fact that people have lost the democratic right to control their own futures. italy tomorrow is a eurozone member. it finds itself unable to devalue competitively as it used to. we ve now seen 20 years of growth, 20 years with no growth at all in italy. so, whether it s the euro, whether it s mrs. merkel inviting unlimited numbers of migrants and expecting other european states to share the numbers, this is about taking back control. brexit was a vote for us to say, yeah, we can be friendly with europe. we can trade with europe, but we want to govern our own country, and i have to say that i think the momentum of this is now pretty much unstoppable. is the special relationships that the united states enjoys with the uk in jeopardy as you well know you paid a call, you were the first foreign leader to pay a call on president-elect trump, he then sent out a tweet which i want to put up on the screen and remind everybody, he thought you would be a great pick to be the british ambassador to the united states, theresa may, your prime minister, meanwhile, was awe parentally call number ten. what role can you play to positively influence the relationship between the united states and the united kingdom? well, i do think the special relationship is very important. it was significantly devalued during obama s time. he looked to merkel. he looked to the european union and not to us as an independent country. so post brexit we ve got a chance to start all over again with a president, in trump who is angly file, he is pro british, he knows the things we ve shared together other the years the good and the bad the tough times as well as the good, and i think that i just happen to know a few people in his administration. i ve clearly got trump s confidence and i want us to move as quickly as we can toward a free trade deal between the uk and the usa. that will be good for both of us and will also send a signal to the european union there s a bigger world outside of europe and that britain can manage just nicely. no longer do we have a president who says that we re at the back of the line. do you see for yourself a formal role in the next four years? you know, i honestly don t know the answer to that, but what i will say is i would like formally or informally to do whatever i can to bring our great nations a bit closer together. how much of the worldwide movement that we re discussing is driven by the economy, the crash of 08 and the aftermath and how much is being drawn by immigration and concerns over open borders? well, in the north of europe it s being driven by immigration. and in the south of europe it s being driven by people being stuck inside a currency which as i said earlier they cannot devalue and they ve got no control over interest rates that increasingly they can t set their own tax rate. so it s both. but the common denominator is that people have lost the democratic rights of self government. they re not able to make their own decisions that affect their futures. i promise you this european union is dying before your eyes. i can t tell you how long it will take but basically it s finished. how do you maintain the proper balance of protecting one s sovereignty while at the same time being exposed to all of the positive influences of globalization? well, if we very quickly move to a u.s./uk free trade deal, that shows that wanting nations state independence and democracy isn t turning your backs on the world, it s just being able to make your own decisions. i think had hillary won this election, she wanted the european union to be a property type for a bigger model across the whole of the world. that is now gone. because you want to govern your own country, does not make your inular, does not make your small minded. nigel farage, thank you for being here. joins us now from the great state of delaware chris koons, let me go back and talk about taiwan. of what significance do you think the telephone call that is leading the news today? well, michael, we ll have to see whether this is the beginning of a new chapter where the president-elect after he is inaugurate ed conducts a foreig policy that is shoot from the hip, twitter storm style where he gets into twitter fights or takes unscheduled calls from foreign leaders in ways that break with decades of precedent like this congratulatory call from the president of taiwan or whether he relies on the advice of career professionals in the state department and makes moves in a sort of calculated and thoughtful way. what we know from the campaign, michael, is that president-elect trump promised that he would shake things up and he made a number of concerning or even alarming proposals during the campaign about reconsidering our commitment to nato, rethinking our commitment to provide nuclear umbrella to south korea and japan and that set the foreign policy elites to twitter. i do think the folks who voted for trump aren t concerned whether he takes a call from this leader or that leader, but i do think this particular call because it breaks with nearly four decades of precedent and certainly will concern, even alarm one of the most powerful and important countries in the world with whom he will have to deal closely is concerning because it may show the direction he s going to go as president. this may make for great reality tv, but it doesn t make for great leadership in a divided world where there s a lot of conflicts we have to manage carefully. you made reference to his twitter account. let me put on the screen something that he tweeted and i want to ask senator koons in this instance, doesn t he have a point? actually that s the first of two tweets. first he said the president of taiwan called me. i didn t call her. go to the second tweet and let me show senator coons what he said, interesting how the u.s. sells taiwan billions of dollars of military equipment but i should not accept a congratulatory call. isn t he right in seeing that? well what he is ignoring is there is this carefully balanced situation with the chinese where we publicly accept the one china policy. we do not have a conversations or meetings between the president of the united states and the elected president of taiwan, yet we still under our law provide them with defense equipment, with military aid. that is a very delicate balance. and so while it seems to make common sense to the average person he can take a congratulatory call, this is the case with diplomacy and world relations. there are many different situations in the world where over decades we settled into a sort of carefully calibrated situation. this is one where the civil war of china decades ago led to two countries, taiwan and china and from 1979, the united states has recognized the people s republic of china and our policy has been to say it is one china. so he has set that a little bit on its ear and we ll have to see what the consequences are in u.s./china relations. senator coons, thank you as always. we always appreciate your perspective. what do you think? i ll read some during the program. smerconish, you are dealing with the ignorance of a privileged frat boy on diplomatic matters. oh, what, i m the one who took the call from the taiwanese president? come on. give me a break. put up another one. i love the tweets. no one really gets to tell the president who he gets to talk to. u.s. defends taiwan. there is some hypocrisy among the criticism. we do trade billions of dollars of weaponry and military intelligence and we say you can t take that telephone call. still to come what a story, a lawyer for the city of philadelphia captured on surveillance video toting wine and watching another man spray f trump on the side of an upscale grocery store. should he lose his job? and espn s stephen a. smith on the role of the black vote in trump s election and his anger over nfl star colin kaepernick s choice not to vote at all. the c. i want my blood sugar to stay in control. so i asked about tresiba®. tresiba® ready tresiba® is a once-daily, long-acting insulin that lasts even longer than 24 hours. i want to trim my a1c. tresiba® ready tresiba® provides powerful a1c reduction. releases slow and steady. works like your body s insulin. when my schedule changes. i want something that delivers. tresiba® ready i can take tresiba® any time of day. so if i miss or delay a dose, i take it when i remember, as long as there s at least 8 hours between doses. once in use, it lasts 8 weeks without refrigeration. twice as long as lantus®, which lasts 4 weeks. tresiba® is used to control high blood sugar in adults with diabetes. don t use tresiba® to treat diabetic ketoacidosis, during episodes of low blood sugar, or if you are allergic to any of its ingredients. don t share needles or insulin pens. don t reuse needles. the most common side effect is low blood sugar, which may cause dizziness, sweating, confusion, and headache. check your blood sugar. low blood sugar can be serious and may be life-threatening. injection site reactions may occur. tell your doctor about all medicines you take and all your medical conditions. taking tzds with insulins, like tresiba®, may cause serious side effects like heart failure. your insulin dose shouldn t be changed without asking your doctor. get medical help right away if you have trouble breathing. fast heartbeat, extreme drowsiness, swelling of your face, tongue, or throat, dizziness, or confusion. ask your doctor if you re tresiba® ready. tresiba® ready and you re talking to youro doctor about your medication. this is humira. this is humira helping to relieve my pain and protect my joints from further damage. this is humira helping me go further. humira works for many adults. it targets and helps to block a specific source of inflammation that contributes to ra symptoms. humira has been clinically studied for over 18 years. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened, as have blood, liver and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you ve been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if you ve had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don t start humira if you have an infection. ready for a new chapter? talk to your rheumatologist. this is humira at work. when you find something worth waiting for, we ll help you invest to protect it for the future. financial guidance while you re mastering life. from chase, so you can. because it s here. cue the confetti. say hi to xiidra, lifitegrast ophthalmic solution. xiidra is the first prescription eye drop solution approved to treat the signs and symptoms of dry eye. so give your eye doctor a ring, and your eyes just might thank you. one drop in each eye, twice a day. the most common side effects of xiidra include eye irritation, discomfort or blurred vision when the drops are applied to the eyes, and an unusual taste sensation. to help avoid eye injury or contamination of the solution, do not touch the container tip to your eye or any surface. if you wear contact lenses, remove them before using xiidra and wait for at least 15 minutes before placing them back in your eyes. are you ready to do something about your dry eyes? talk to your doctor about xiidra. since election day, pro and anti-trump graffiti has been reported throughout the nation and right here in my hometown of philadelphia. spray painted swastika s racist graffiti, everywhere from bus shulters to the exterior of city hall where somebody sprayed not my president. and the day after thanksgiving, an anti-trump graffiti incident turns out to have an unusual participant, an attorney, city employee, here is surveillance footage of the crime at a newly opened fresh groesher on german town avenue. you ll see the man doing the graffiti and the other man taking pictures, clad in a navy blue blazer and ascot earned him attention of town and country magazine, looking on, that s 32-year-old duncan lloyd, worked for the city s law department since 2011. the cost of removing the vandalism is estimated to be between 3 and $10,000, but that isn t the only issue here. as of now, lloyd has not been charged with any crime and still has his job. would that be the case if he graffitied anything else, like f hillary? joining me now, william brennan representing duncan lloyd and the chair of the philadelphia republican party. counselor brennan, i know you, you re good at what you do, but how are you going to defend this? i don t think and i hope i never have to defend this, michael. i hate to lawyer up immediately, but you described my client as a participant and you said if he graffitied anything, the only thing my client had in his hand in that video is a glass of red wine and in our commonwealth, to be merely present when a crime occurs does not impute culpability. it s hard for me to tell from the video. it s hard for me to tell from the video, but it seems as if he may be filming with a cell phone doesn t that make him an accessory? isn t there a conspiracy going on here? absolutely not. it would be analogous to two guys leaving a bar and walking to their car and one guy deciding to urinate publicly against the wall of a home or business. the other guy has no prior knowledge of that and in this case, the video simply shows my client with a glass of wine in his hand, his other hand is primarily in his pocket and then there appears to be scenario where he may or may not take either a still shot or a video, but you can t impute his intention for taking that if it was posted somewhere, if, in fact, the video or a cell phone photo exists and he posted it on social media, different story. but that video clearly, clearly exculpates duncan lloyd. he keeps his distance hey, joe he doesn t participate and he is not let s talk nicely. i think his client will be fine. trump got trounced in the city of philadelphia. what s the registration edge, 7-1 against you these days? yeah, unfortunately. if the spray paint had said f hillary, whoever did it would probably be in solitary confinement right now, don t you think? we re not having this discussion right now, michael, if that was the case. mayor kenny is left of left. he supports every liberal cause. he would have been out tweeting day one. now he s taking a wait and see attitude. so, i mean, this is your new democratic party, right? the wine glass the ascot, the blazer. it s a coastal party. they just re-elected nancy pelosi, it s chestnut hill. they lost our blue collar base. this is what they do. they block traffic when people are trying to get home from work. it s the snow flakes. it s the millennial crowd that doesn t want people to get home from work. it s not my president. i can graffiti because nothing is going to happen to me. that s the new democratic party. if you don t buy into that come other to us. we could sure use your help here in the city. brennan, you re not going to let him wear that ascot in court, are you? michael, i just heard the police go on some roll about divine street, i care about one guy, duncan lloyd. he did absolutely nothing wrong here. it is my hope he s been totally cooperative, but what i hear, joe joe and i are northeast philly guys. we come from almost the same neighborhood. when i was a kirksd we all wore army jackets, we called them parkwood tuxedos. apparently in chestnut hill you wear ascot. you may wear an ascot, michael, i don t know. i know without the wine glass and the ascot only on weekends. it s not sensationalized. i have to focus on duncan lloyd. he did nothing wrong. all right. listen, i m laughing along with some of this, but vandalism was committed here. shouldn t he even if i buy into him not breaking the law and i m not sure about that but shouldn t he be held to a higher standard? he s an officer of the court. he s a city lawyer. michael, what should he do? tackle the guy and thereby commit assault. i m not going to comment on an on going investigation. he s been totally cooperative. if he is guilty of anything, he had one too many glasses of wine on thanksgiving. if that s a crime, i would be doing life. this gentlemen did not participate in any criminal activity. and i agree i disagree. to say with joe, and frankly with you, michael, about whether it s as blank trump or blank hillary. if it said go phillies, it doesn t matter to me. my guy had a glass of wine in his hand, not a can of cry lon. you get the final word, joe. do you think the message that was spray painted, the f trump, is what has thus far governed the way this case has been handled, if there is a case? well, it doesn t say go phillies. it says f trump. let s be honest, this wasn t a random building. this was clearly a message sent to that republican donor that we don t want you in our neighborhood. it was wasn t a random building. go ahead, joe. i missed your second point. yeah. essentially, look, of course it s you know, if it said go phillies or go eagles or go flyers. it doesn t say that. it is dealing with donald trump in the city of philadelphia, the election, ground zero for this past election. it doesn t if it said go hillary, we wouldn t be having f hillary, we re not having this. he s fierped a week ago. it doesn t say that. it s graffiti that we re talking about. yeah. it s graffiti that s targeted. this was clearly targeted. richard snowden owns that building. richard snowden i wish we had more time. brennan, i would like to see you in a green ascot next time. thank you, joe. appreciate you as well. i think he s out. here is another of your tweets. let s see what s rolling in smerconish, this lloyd situation has taken me back to a bad law school exam question, but there s no evidence of support, no liability. na nader, you might be right except if they were partners and they agreed they were going to film and swap it among other folks. i don t know the second half of it. it s an intriguing question. you re right. coming up when nfl star quarterback colin kaepernick refused to stand during the national anthem to protest racial injustice, he set off a national fire storm, but espn s stephen a. smith defended him. then kaepernick didn t vote on election day and smith, he went ballistic. he is here to discuss. i would personally make a request to the media in this nation, do me a favor and make sure one thing, take the camera away from him. it means nothing. because for him not to vote, as far as i m concerned, everything he said meant absolutely nothing. why pause a spontaneous moment? 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hey, stephen a., it s great to have you back. when he made those statements, what were you thinking? were you thinking, yeah, that s exactly what i was talking about? well, it was hard to decipher to separate the two things, michael, from the standpoint i did not approve of the rhetoric that he was spewing throughout the election, even though that was completely contradictory to everything i had seen of donald trump in my years of covering him as a sports journalist, remember he is a former owner of the usfl, he wanted to own the buffalo bills. i communicated with him in the past and certainly never heard the rhetoric he was spewing during the election. he did have points, but at the same time, to sit up there and your argument to b what the hell do you have to lose? i m not sure that s the strongest argument to make. even though i certainly understand how you took my sound bite and pointed to what he said, forgive me if i m not overly flattered by the fact that donald trump somewhat echoed anything that i had to say during the election because i didn t like a lot of what he said. he did run better with african-americans than did mitt romney four years ago, arguably, though, he wasn t facing an african-american himself. that is true. how do you assess the way in which trump ended up fairing people among color? i don t think it was about him. he was lucky to get the 8% that he got. it was very, very telling that hillary clinton got 88% of the african-american vote, it was 5% less than what barack obama had ultimately captured. and you know, you can point to the fact that he was an african-american and obviously the black community was going to come out and support him. certainly i m not going to apologize for it and nor should any black person. in the same breath, let s take into account why she didn t receive the vote she should have received. you had a 74-year-old renowned socialist in bernie sanders going up against her and he had more of the young vote, he had more black people looking forward to the things that he had to say being exercised. you also have hillary clinton s history in terms of that crime bill. yes, it was her husband who pushed forth the crime bill that led to mass incarceration on the part of african-americans in this country. we know that. she wasn t just the typical first lady. she was somebody that went out there and lobbied on his behalf the word superpredator is something that is etched in all of our minds. that definitely played the role. and then of course you know the e-mail scandal and what have you. you hate to throw something like that out, but the reality of the situation is clear, the compilation of all of those things didn t lend itself towards being, you know, supportive of her with a degree of fur vor. you didn t like either candidate. you felt you had to vote for one. i voted for her, but i wasn t enthusiastic about it, i ll be the first to admit it. i appreciated what you said about colin kaepernick, as someone who is 54, registered to vote when i turned 18, i never in my life missed voting in an election. neither have i. expand on what you had to say about him. well, listen, the fact is he had every right to protest and when he was talking about racial injustices and things of that nature, you certainly can understand where he was coming from. it was a quiet protest. he didn t impede anybody s ability to watch the games or come to the games or anything like that which is why i went on good morning america my show first take and other outlets to support him. however, the second that he decided that he was not going to vote and then to publicly reveal that he wasn t voting, i thought it was egregious to the highest order. i thought it compromised everything that he was standing for and more importantly i thought it was a disrespect to our ancestors, to people who have bled and fought and died for him to have the right to do that and then also take into account the fact that we have a president who is outgoing in barack obama who captured 93% of the black vote, who obviously black folks come out and support. he went before the congressional black caucus and went campaigning on behalf of hillary clinton, basically imploring our community to activate itself in this election if you had any respect whatsoever for his legacy. now, colin kaepernick turns around and you decide not to vote, as far as i m concerned, you just obliterated every argument you were trying to make. i m not saying his arguments have no credence whatsoever. i m saying that he himself compromised his own message and because of that i don t want to listen to him anymore because the number one tool that we have in america to provoke change is our power to vote. it s something that we fought for. it s something that was exacted to us in 1964/1965. how in god s name can you sit up there and justify not voting? there s no excuse for it whatsoever. i understand there s a lack of understanding. there s youth that we re talking about here. the player s association, it would be nice to see them get themselves involved, speaking up on his behalf in some accord, but the bottom line it was a dereliction of duty and it was flagrantly so and i m not letting him get a pass on that. i m just not. final quick subject off the chart a little bit because it s not sports and it s not politics per se. it s an act of vandalism. i think of stephen a. as a philly guy. what do you do with a city-employed lawyer who was not doing the spray painting but was in the company of a guy who spray paints a building f trump? i think you definitely suspend him. there has to be some repercussions for such an irresponsible act. would i con template firing him, yes. i m not sure i would. i want to hear what his explanation would be in the matter. but perceptions sometimes u serpt reality. any juvenile can go out there and vandalize and record vandalism giving the okay for it. it doesn t make it right. when you re educated and supposed to have some degree of not only intellect but a core decency that the government relies upon you to exercise, you said he was a government employee, to sit up there and record such actions are inexcusable and you need to be called out on it and punished for it. you certainly have the right to do what you want. and everybody wants to articulate their position in the united states of america. but you also have the right to suffer repercussions for your actions. we all know that. we accept it. those are big boy and big girl rules. we have to accept that. this man is a lawyer. he certainly knew better and he should be made to answer for it. there s no question about that. stephen a., next time you will tell us if there s an ascot in your closet. thank you there isn t one. i leave that to my man rowland martin. that s not me. see you, stephen. thank you. another of your tweets what do we got here? smerconish, oh, please a man walks by and you want charges? you are the snow flake in this conversation. he wasn t just walking by, i don t think. i think the whole thing was seemingly planned. we re going to find out, though. one more tweet if we ve got time for it no more tweets? there we go. smerconish, the guy looked around as the lookout for the spray painter. he is guilty. right. hailey. it looks like there was nobody else in the camera image. did you notice that? it was midnight. coincidence, i think not. ronald reagan, he won in two landslides. donald trump lost the popular vote and difference of 80,000 votes across three states could have swung the electoral college to hillary clinton, but according to jeff greenfield, it s trump whose presidency could have a bigger, longer lasting impact on america. why does he say that? i ll ask him next. i have asthma. .one of many pieces in my life. so when my asthma symptoms kept coming back on my long-term control medicine. i talked to my doctor and found a missing piece in my asthma treatment with breo. once-daily breo prevents asthma symptoms. breo is for adults with asthma not well controlled on a long-term asthma control medicine, like an inhaled corticosteroid. breo won t replace a rescue inhaler for sudden breathing problems. breo opens up airways to help improve breathing for a full 24 hours. breo contains a type of medicine that increases the risk of death from asthma problems and may increase the risk of hospitalization in children and adolescents. breo is not for people whose asthma is well controlled on a long-term asthma control medicine, like an inhaled corticosteroid. once your asthma is well controlled, your doctor will decide if you can stop breo and prescribe a different asthma control medicine, like an inhaled corticosteroid. do not take breo more than prescribed. see your doctor if your asthma does not improve or gets worse. ask your doctor if 24-hour breo could be a missing piece for you. see if you re eligible for 12 months free at mybreo.com. hey, searching for a great used yeah! you got it. just say show me millions of used cars for sale at the all new carfax.com. i don t want one that s had a big wreck just say, show me cars with no accidents reported pretty cool i like it that s the power of carfax® find the cars you want, avoid the ones you don t plus you get a free carfax® report with every listing start your used car search at carfax.com i m hall of famer jerry west and my life is basketball. but that doesn t stop my afib from leaving me at a higher risk of stroke. that d be devastating. i took warfarin for over 15 years until i learned more about once-daily xarelto. a latest generation blood thinner. then i made the switch. xarelto® significantly lowers the risk of stroke in people with afib not caused by a heart valve problem. it has similar effectiveness to warfarin. warfarin interferes with vitamin k and at least six blood clotting factors. xarelto® is selective targeting one critical factor of your body s natural clotting function. for people with afib currently well managed on warfarin, there is limited information on how xarelto and warfarin compare in reducing the risk of stroke. like all blood thinners, don t stop taking xarelto without talking to your doctor, as this may increase your risk of a blood clot or stroke. while taking you may bruise more easily, and it may take longer for bleeding to stop. xarelto may increase your risk of bleeding if you take certain medicines. xarelto can cause serious, and in rare cases fatal bleeding. get help right away for unexpected bleeding, unusual bruising or tingling. if you have had spinal anesthesia while on xarelto watch for back pain or any nerve or muscle related signs or symptoms. do not take xarelto if you have an artificial heart valve or abnormal bleeding. tell your doctor before all planned medical or dental procedures. before starting xarelto tell your doctor about any conditions, such as kidney, liver or bleeding problems. to help protect yourself from a stroke, ask your doctor about xarelto. there s more to know. xarelto. so donald trump lost the popular vote by 2 million votes, and if he lost just 80,000 more votes across three swing states, he would also have lost the electoral college, where as ronald reagan won his two terms in landslides, 44 states, 489 electoral votes in 1980 and then four years later 49 states and 525 electoral votes. clear mandate, right? and yet this this piece for politico, veteran journalist jeff greenfield says the long-term effect for the reagan presidency and the way it had an impact on american politics was neg libl, trump may preside over the most significant changes in public policy since the new deal. here to explain is jeff greenfield. jeff, you say that ronald reagan was elected with a mandate, twice as a matter of fact, and yet changed so little. donald trump lost the popular vote and is about to change so much. explain. well, when reagan came in with 489 electoral vote 10-point in the popular vote majority with a newly republican senate that would seem to qualify as a mandate under any circumstances. but he leaves eight years later, the size of the federal government is no smaller the federal debt and deficit is bigger, no departments had been elem nated. two of his supreme court nominees underwrite the core of roe v. wade. and writes the guy marriage decision. one, reagan never had both houses of congress. the house was always democratic. and it s also important i think this is key, the republican party was very different. when reagan came in, the senate was filled with moderate and even liberal republicans. packwood of oregon, specter and hines in pennsylvania, so between a democratic house and a very different republican party, he had to negotiate all kinds of compromises whether on taxes, on social spending, on how you reform social security, conservatives don t like to acknowledge this, but one of the things reagan did was at one point brought the capital gains tax up to the same level as ordinary income. trump has a wholly different terrain, not just both houses of congress but a republican party so much more homogenous, so much more solidly conservative and so much really committed to fundamental changes in everything from tax structure to social policy that i think the potential is there for trump to oversee the kind of change we haven t seen in decades and decades. to our point, there were so many republican moderates in the senate that they had their own gathering they called it the wednesday lunch club. all right, so in what areas do you think he s about to be a president of lasting consequence? the most obvious is the supreme court. david suitor george h.w. bush s first pick i think will go down as the last apo state nominee. that is a nominee put forward by the president of one party who then disappoints his followers. we haven t seen that since, not in clinton s, not in george w. bush s, not in obama s. i think the fact that trump essentially outsourced the supreme court picks to the federalist society and the fact that the conservatives on his list are much more incline to be judicial activists. they don t like to say that, that is reach into constitutional and make fundamental changes on areas involving privacy, perhaps even on areas involving the government s economic regulation that if he has more than one pick and the odds are he ll have i think you re also going to see rapidly in congress, an undoing of many of obama s signature policies, the affordable care act being one of them. how much they can do and how quickly, we don t know. i think you ll see big rollbacks in obama s approach to environmental regulation, an approach that was, to some extent, endorsed by republican presidents. we re not talking about trump undoing obama. the epa, that was put into power by richard nixon. so this is what i mean by the potential reach of trump, given how much the republican party has moved right. and to the extent they now control all the branches of government. that s why i think the potential is there for huge change. whether you like it or are appaae appalled by it. half the country is smiling, the other half is bristling. thank you so much for your analysis. a pleasure as always, michael. keep tweeting me @smuerconi@. if kaepernick didn t vote, he didn t do anything he could. that was pretty much steven a s point. i m in that category. i m one who says you have to vote if you want your voice heard. keep the tweets coming. of dollas on my car insurance with geico. i should take a closer look at geico. geico has a long history of great savings and great service. over seventy-five years. wait. seventy-five years? 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(bing) keeping the power lines clear,my job to protect public safety, while also protecting the environment. the natural world is a beautiful thing, the work that we do helps us protect it. public education is definitely a big part of our job, to teach our customers about the best type of trees to plant around the power lines. we want to keep the power on for our customers. we want to keep our community safe. this is our community, this is where we live. we need to make sure that we have a beautiful place for our children to live. together, we re building a better california. here s what you thought @smerconish. kaepernick, although he didn t vote what is wrong. smerconish didn t vote for any candidate. bs. of course i voted. i didn t vote for him and i didn t vote for her. there were more candidates running. and write in opportunities. think about it. show me another one. give me break, lawyer not guilty. that s the spray painting incident. okay, another. steven a has more ascots that smerconish. yeah, i think he does. ascot gate. thanks for watching, we ll see you next week. my goal was to finally get in shape. not to be focusing on my moderate to severe chronic plaque psoriasis. so i made a decision to talk to my dermatologist about humira. humira works inside my body to target and help block a specific source of inflammation that contributes to my symptoms. in clinical trials, most adults taking humira were clear or almost clear, and many saw 75% and even 90% clearance in just 4 months. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened; as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you ve been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if you ve had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don t start humira if you have an infection. ask about humira, the #1 prescribed biologic by dermatologists. clearer skin is possible. imagine if the things you bought every day earned you miles to get to the places you really want to go. with the united mileageplus explorer card, you ll get a free checked bag, 2 united club passes. priority boarding. and 30,000 bonus miles. everything you need for an unforgettable vacation. the united mileageplus explorer card. imagine where it will take you. i won this 55 inch tv for less than $30 on dealdash.com. visit dealdash.com for great deals. and start bidding today! generosity is its own form of power. you can handle being a mom for half an hour. i m in all the way. is that understood? i don t know what she s up to, but it s not good. can t the world be my noodles and butter? get your mind out of the gutter. mornings are for coffee and contemplation. that was a really profound observation. you got a mean case of the detox blues. don t start a war you know you re going to lose. finally you can now find all of netflix in the same place as all your other entertainment. on xfinity x1. well, good morning, we are so grateful for your company as always. i it s great to be with you. china is
national committee, michael steele. your cell phones, how awkward would that? be would you hand them over? if you asked. did you all see the oscars? a lot of them. whoa. the epic best picture blunder, possibly the worst in oscar history, someone gave warren beatty the wrong envelope for the night s biggest prize. take a look. the academy award for best picture. you re awful. gosh. lala land. when the camera goes to the audience you can hear a confused warren bettatty, it says here ea stone. as filmmakers take the stage to accept the award, an accountant from price-waterhouse cooper, the firm that certifies the oscar votes, came running out on stage. i m sorry. no. there is a mistake. moonlight you guys won best picture. moonlight won. this is not a joke. this is not a joke. i m afraid they read the wrong thing. this is not a joke. moonlight has won best picture. moonlight best picture. i would like to see you get an oscar any way. why don t we give out a whole bunch of them? i will hand these to my friends at moonlight. warren, what did you do? i want to tell you what happened. i opened the envelope and it said emma stone la la land. that s why i took such a long look at faye and at you. i wasn t trying to be funny. my god. the hollywood audience just as shocked as everyone at home. filmmakers of moonlight take the stage to claim their award. very clearly, even in my dreams, this could not be true but the hell with dreams. i m done with it because this is true. oh, my goodness. and i have to say it is true. it is not fake. we have been on the road with these guys so long and so gracious and generous to them. my love to la la land. i m not sure this is real but thank you to the academy and so humbling to be standing up with here still the no, they are gone. it s very humbling to be up here. that is horrible. look at this part. do you think that he set faye up? i don t. although one would consider that like a mike barnicle move. i think he is looking for a second opinion. i think he is. he was hoping the only thing missing here is he should have just said, do i have the wrong and showed it to them in the front. you think about the pressure you re under at that moment. this is not supposed to go wrong! they couldn t have given me the wrong envelope! here is what didn t go wrong. willie geist s sister. yes, yes! my daughter and i have been watching this series she created. libby geist won an oscar. it won for best documentary. and the oscar goes to o.j. made in america. and the oscar goes to o.j. [ screaming ] i m going to cry. that is the geist household! oh, my god. that is so cute! what amazing. i hope they weren t eating guacamole. that is incredible. congratulations, willie. i cannot believe it. libby! oscar winner. incredible thing. incredible piece of work. amazing. if anybody who hasn t seen it, a brilliant thing and they knew they had a chance to win an academy award and eight-hour long documentary and put it on for a couple of weekends in new york and l.a. so it would qualify for an academy award recommendation and it paid off. i don t watch anything. i don t have the time. i sat there, i think i watched five hours with my daughter. is that possible? yes. in a row. binge watched to her. jimmy kimmel was outstanding. hysterical. that steve harvey line, amazing. i thought he was great. he was very good. i didn t get to the end. let s get to the politics. a day before the president makes his first address to a joint session of congress, the new nbc news/ the wall street journal poll shows him with a historic disapproval rating. he is the only president in modern polling to begin his presidency with a net negative rating 44% of americans approve. 48% disproof of his job in official so far. the numbers come as the white house is cracking down on leaks remember when i asked for your phones? i do remember that. this really happened. according to politico, press secretary sean spicer met with a dozen of his communications officers to discuss recent leaks. staffers were reportedly told to dump their government and personal phones to prove they had nothing to hide. the irony is that this story was leaked! politico. like, i m just trying to envision that happening. does anyone have any inside report? did they all put them in a basket and people went through the phones? i would say no way. is that what happened? the account that was given seems to suggest that people in the room felt compelled to put their phones on the table. how many? not sure. on friday, president trump doubled down on his criticism of what he calls fake news. i want you all to know that we are fighting the fake news. it s fake. phony. fake. a few days ago, i called the fake news the enemy of the people and they are. they are the enemy of the people. because they have no sources. they just make them up when there are none. just hours after that speech at cpac the white house held a press briefing but not open to all reporters. los angeles times and hail and politico were some of the outlets barred from the briefing. has this ever happened before? never. the associated press and time were invited but they declined to attend in opposition. spicer defended the decision to limit the press. i think that we have shown in abundance of accessibility. we have brought more reporters into this process and the idea that every time that every single person can t get their question answered or fit in a room that we are excludeing people we have gone above and beyond to making our team and briefing more accessible than any prior administration so i think you can take that to the bank. that is fake news. i don t know what he would base that on. i can ns he is upset but i used to defend sean. this is indefensible. he knows better. as much as they may not like some things that are being written about them, you don t take it on by barring people. you counter it with facts. it s an unfortunate moment and i m hopeful that sean and perhaps those in the white house will try to dissuade this president, whomever else might be behind these decisions. what is the end game here, mark halpern? this war with the media that is getting so ugly. by the way, this is a nice guy. but his very first act in this presidency was to walk out and do a hostage video talking about crowd size. obviously, forced by his boss whose ego was so busted by people talking about his crowd size that he actually made his press person walk out there and do a press availability on crowd size. and they are talking about his very first act in this presidency, and they are looking at the media as not being honest and trustworthy? this is getting a little bit concerning. america, not just the washington press corps. america needs to stand up. this is a fundamental principle about the press holding the power of the white house being accountable. i don t think it will stand and i m hopeful it s not repeated and i m hardened by the pretty widespread reaction but everyone should look at this not as some inside baseball thing but a fundamental principle of our democracy being violated. the white house cannot penalize news organizations on the content of their reporting. they can t. i think sean spicer was quoted in november or december saying barring legitimate news organizations from the white house briefing that is what dictators do. he said that back in december. right. that is what this reeks of. i agree with everything mark just said. horrible and they should not be doing it. one of the questions they have raised in going after the president so hard and not barring organizations from the briefing but what president trump said at cpac maybe sensitive about stories related to russia and discredit the press ahead of those stories they know are on in the pipeline. get to that in a second. i want to look at the poll numbers again, michael steele, and ask you about this. this is president trump s poll numbers, the latest ones. he is the only president in modern polling history to began a presidency with a net negative rating of 44%. 48% disproof of his job and he is upside down in being knowledgeable and experienced and 18% says he has the right temperament leaving him with a 37% deficit. a lot of people do not think he is doing a good job so far. michael steele, declaring war with the media and on news organizations, what is the end game? i think that actually plays into that narrative, that he will go out and sight a rasmussen poll that shows 50% or more. the idea that these polls somehow make legitimate, his administration is not something he is going to rely on. i think this was pretty much to what john was saying, a shot cross the bow to the press to say we will control the leverage of access and control the space that you re in. if you want to play with us, you re going to have to play by the rules we set in motion. i think the press is going to be october to do otherwise and that is going to come to a big showdown particularly what john said about other stories that are in thepipe line that will very harsh and severe on the administration. they have to put their big boy pants on and deal with this stuff effectively without violating the rights of citizens and the press. if seems studying and knowing trump over the years this is a personality issue. this is a guy obsessed with the press, whose office in new york city is adorned with pictures of him in the press and who often called the press all the time. was always obsessed with being in the media and characterized the right way. on friday one of the things he said at cpac anonymous sources should not be allowed. he has his own anonymous organization in new york city. the media will not be distracted from these fights from our fundamental acts. i think the big question for the president and the people around him are they going to be distracted by this? because they need to deal with the press, they need to worry about these russia stories but are they going to pass tax reforms or health care owe infrastructure? we have seen administrations involved in fights like this. they can be distracting and as you suggested the president can be extracted by this too. he will not be judged by history whether he beats the press. he will be judged by i don t think these fights advance him to rally his base. they rally his base. which is what a lot of this about. i agree with everything mark just said. even parts of his debates we saw over the weekend i think darrell issa is called for the appointment of a special prosecutor to look into some of these matters involving russia. i think you would be hard-pressed to find any reasonable person to suggest that darrell issa, somehow a left leaning liberal or somehow sympathetic to democratic calls. to your point i don t think there is any doubt. there must be stories and other things they are concerned about but they will not stop the press doing their job and may not confront the press and lay out facts like they want and not able to stop members of congress who look at these facts and say it warrants a different approach. this approach to the press almost seems infinile. it is short sided and shows a complete lack of understanding first of all, how washington works but how the press covers news and these news organizations. should we gave him all of the attention a year ago. he loves it. sucked up all of the press in these news organization. michael steele, jump in. the press has been an effective tool for donald trump he has used throughout his public career and business and now in politics. it has remained so until it isn t and that is what he is up against. you know, it s one thing, you know, to be the new york businessman, developer, socialite. it s another thing to be a leader of the free world and the washington press corps is not the new york press corps. the washington press corps is not the foreign correspondents. it is a group of men and women who are dedicated to laying out the story of an administration. i think that mark hit it right. he s got to understand that they are not going away. the stories aren t going away. i wasn t going to go here but you bring up something interesting. president trump s understanding of the press is a product really of all of the years he was embattled with the new york tabloids and colluding with them. linda stuffy who chronicled, i guess his marriages and gossip stuff, his marriage to marla maples in the 90s, said she could have predicted his presidenti presidentialgaita. he would plant stories and get mad if they didn t come out as he wanted. it never occurred to him he couldn t control anything. now she says he is shocked he is not in control of the press. multiple reports have come out saying president trump hid his own identity to push self-promoting stories back in the 1980s, posing on the phone, like with an accent or something, as his own public relations man unship under the fake names of john miller and john barron. this is our president. last spring, the washington post posted a audio clip of this. take a listen. this miller guy seems to know a lot about donald trump. he does a great trump iltatii imitation of miller. when the tapes emerged last may, president trump denied that it was him. i don t think it was me. it doesn t sound like me. i don t know what they are talking about. have no idea. the post office said this is something you did rather routinely, you would call reporters and plant stories and say either you were john miller or john bar ron but it was you on the phone spp is that something you did with any regularity? it wasn t me on the phone. it was not me on the phone i will tell you that and it wasn t me on the phone. when was this? 25 years ago? we will end the block with this. maureen dowd writes in the new york times our president s most intense primal torrid relationship is in full the war of the roses bloom. it s with the press. the mirror for the first narcissus. president trump thinks that the mirror is cracked and the coverage is fake. and many in the press spanning the ideological spectrum think he is cracked and a lot of his pronouncements are fake. can this strange sip be saved? probably not and be like a play where the attraction is toxic. trump could not live without the press. it is his krak crack. while many in the press may disdain the way trump uses them to rile up the crowds and deflect from transgression. we need a credible president very badly. we need credibility from him. i feel more concerned about the success of his presidency every day when he acts like this. just to say even on friday, as he was decrying anonymous sources his own administration is serving not only leakers but his direction serving as anonymous sources and on background and having their name attached every day. so many leaks in the administration. i talk to so many people who have no idea i m talking to the other person and the other person because everybody in there is scared. everybody in there is trying their best but they are scared. and they don t like the way things are going so they are sort of incredulous and they call hoping to get stories out there, hoping to shape things from the outside. i ve never seen anything like that. i ve never seen so many people talking outside of the administration just sort of in almost with desperation in their voices. there has never been anything like it. never been anything like it. still ahead on morning joe, democrats chose tom perez to lead their comeback and it s met with consternation in the party. can he right the ship in later president of the white house correspondents jeff mason on president trump s decision to sit out of the annual dinner. from the democratic leadership, senator dick durbin joins us here on set. morning joe will have special coverage of president trump s address to congress. we will be live on capitol hill tomorrow and wednesday morning at 6:00 a.m. first, bill karins with a check on the forecast. we end february talking about tornadoes. seems like we haven t had much in the winter storms and dealt with severe weather than anything else and do it again. today, not so bad. heavy rain through mississippi and tennessee. watch out around new orleans, mobile, maybe isolated severe storms. tomorrow the tornadoes are in the forecast. little rock to memphis and south of st. louis. this is tuesday. then we take that storm and blow it all the way to the eastern seaboard. this is the wednesday map. this is 62 million people under the risk of severe storm. mostly wind damage and isolated tornadoes and tennessee, northern alabama, mississippi and we could see the strong thunderstorms heading all the way into areas like washington, d.c. by the time we get to wednesday afternoon. so, again, this is going to be tomorrow and then into the first day of march on wednesday dealing with severe weather across the south and through the mid-atlantic region. it was extremely warm over the weekend. many areas east of the rockies. d.c. had amazing weather and looks like more unusual warmth heading your way. you re watching morning joe. we will be right back. let it sink in. shouldn t we say we have the lowest price? 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i think given the candidates is the best outcome the party could get. the democratic party is in an extraordinarily weak position and a lot to do and i think the word is still out whether perez will rebuild the party and make the party acceptable to business at the same time which needs to be done for any viable party. i think he has got a chance to do it but the democratic party has a lot bigger problems right now. they do. where do you begin with sort of their order of business in terms of bringing the party back together? first of all, take a look at jimmy carter. he was talking during a sermon at a church service yesterday about the defeat of the democrats. in the 2016 election, a lot of the working people i can t believe workers too t but in georgia and and in pennsylvania. vote democratic and vote republicans because they felt neglected. we will hear from hillary clinton in just a second. harold ford, jimmy carter was like joe biden, concerned about the people that they were forgetting in the run-up to the election. can this new team sort of capture the message? i hope. i think what he was saying and if i heard him correctly that we ran a campaign where we had message for blacks and hispanics and women and gays and we forgot we are one country. obama gave that great speech where he talked about we are not a red or blue but a purple nation. we have to find our way back to a message like that and deal with the everyday issues that everyday americans are dealing with. i thought it was interesting in the poll you showed with president trump being upside down in some areas. he remained a net positive in some areas whether or not he would change washington or whether or not it was bold and decisive and things i think a lot of americans are looking for that people thought were lacking and think traits were lacking with democrats. the question for democrats now is the worn wing of the party been weakened? if it has been, that is fine on one level but we can t ignore the enormous interview that exists on that side of the party. how do you bring that energy with the moderate wing of the party which i represent in a lot of ways and i think is our path back. not just for the white house but the key seats. as chairman perez said up and down and about. probably smart for him to convene democratic mayors across the country so say what are you dealing with and all across the country deal with crime. listen and if you re serious about the message from the bottom up let the message come from the bottom up and listen to those leaders, including that one fellow from south bend, indiana. i can t pronounce his name. mayor pete. i thought he was impressive. bring him in and convene a group of young mayors and young elected officials how the democratic party allows them and empowers them and allows their movement to move to the forefront. the chairman of the democratic party never historically nor the chairman of the republican party has been the person who creates the image or the message of the party. the reform of the party takes leaders, elected leaders who step forward and capture the imagination of the party. bernie sanders and elizabeth warren are not weakened by tom perez becoming chairman of the dnc. a big fight will happen in the democratic party. the party chair is not the person who is going to change the party and figure out what the party is about. it has to be elected leaders of the party. i m not disagreeing with you, harold. party chairs are functionary. this was a symbolic move. what the democratic party becomes over the next four years is going to be fought out among people like elizabeth warren, bernie sanders and chuck schumer and nancy pelosi and others who step forward to become presidential candidates in 2020. i agree with you. do you recall a time in our lifetimes when the party chair of any party has received this kind of attention after presidential race? i don t. because the democratic party has been decimated. speaking of. we thought we were going to win this race. the person who we thought was going to win or we, i say in the collective we. i actually was really concerned in the weeks leading up to the election. hillary clinton tweet out congrats to dnc chair tom perez and deputy keith ellison. on friday, she released a video urging democrats to stay defiant. we, as democrats, must move forward with courage, confidence, and optimism and stay focused on the elections we must win this year and next. let resistance, plus persistence, equal progress for our party and our country. as long as we stand together and work together with respect for our differences, strength in our convictions, and love for our country, our best days are still ahead. so keep fighting and keep the faith, and i ll be right there with you every step of the way. michael steele, am i oversimplifying it, or is there a potential for democrats to make some headway in those crowds that are showing up at town halls worried about their health care being taken away? well, absolutely. i don t think you re being short sided on this point at all. having been in the spot that the new chairman perez finds himself in now on the heels of the election of barack obama, i walked into the rnc. we had no cash coming in. had just lost a big election. the party was splintered at its base. when you have the white house i would agree with john. the chairman is a functionary because it is supposed to coordinate the dollars that the president is raising and making sure that the building is doing what it s supposed to do. but when you don t have that, when your base is practiced and when you have no core message at the moment, you ve got to be the person who pulls all of that together and working through the national organization and using the chairman at the state level. this is all about the grassroots. you cannot overlook or underestimate the power of those forces on the ground. so chairman perez will be wise to do that, to begin to form with those individuals a message that really speaks to what hillary clinton was saying if that is the pathway they want to take where they show resistance, but where they also showing where they can be confident and becoming a governing majority two, four, six years from now. coming up, top republicans appear divided over whether a special prosecutor should investigate the trump campaign s ties to russia. that story is ahead on morning joe. i love how usaa gives me the peace of mind and the security just like the marines did. at one point, i did change to a different company with car insurance, and i was not happy with the customer service. we have switched back over and we feel like we re back home now. the process through usaa is so effortless, that you feel like you re a part of the family. i love that i can pass the membership to my children, and that they can be protected. we re the williams family, and we re usaa members for life. call usaa today to talk about your insurance needs. it s not just a car, it s your daily treat. go ahead, spoil yourself. the es and es hybrid. experience amazing. it s realizing beauty doesn t stop at my chin. roc® s formula adapts to delicate skin areas. my fine lines here? 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what he said? he set the tradition up and this was well written and seemed like emotionally delivered than is norm. it s surprised to me the addresses prior to this one haven t gotten more attention. we have stealing cell phones and lashing out at fake news. think about that. it was good but who is going to believe us, right? how he is going to break through with that when he is out there tweeting. if you listen to the whole thing, it was good. very well done. it s hard to disagree with anything he said in the speech. he doesn t want what we need. good to hear no, i m not being cynical. no, i know. joining us now is the president of the national urban league. chime in. let s listen to tomorrow night and see if anything that came across in that weekly address is expressed in the president s speech to the joint session of congress. as is the case, the proof is in the policy. whether, in fact, the words and the vision or the statements made by the president come through in public policy. and that is really the question. i agree that historically black colleges and universities are crucial to the country. haven t gotten the support and credit that they deserve. but what they need is support, not just credit, but support to help the students attend those schools and remain in those schools. so you went with ivanka trump and linda mcmahon to baltimore and you chos the location. iv ivanka is on the forefront of some positive things. very small. i met her about a month ago. we learned that we had the university of pennsylvania in common and had a professor or two in common who as the world turns out, we had a conversation. i invited her as i ll do in anyone who is interested to visit one of the national urban league s entrepreneurship centers. we have 12. one in baltimore. she took us up on the offer and a chance for her to learn to about 12 entrepreneurs, women and minority entrepreneurs, to talk about how our program in baltimore was helping them, how some of our relationships with 10,000 small businesses and other partner organizations was helping them and some of the challenges these entrepreneurs face. so i think she listened very intently. i was impressed with her knowledge and interest in the subject of women and minority entrepreneurs. we had one a year ago. in this year we had ivan trump and linda mcmahon and dina powell. i will have anybody who wants to len about the strength of investing in our minority entrepreneurs. dina powell is a strong pick to back up ivanka trump if this is what her focus is. a network of people. yes. that wide network helped to bring we know that. personally. michael steele, jump in. yeah, no. i thought the address by the president was spot on and that is going to follow today or maybe tomorrow with an executive order on hbcus and a lot of folks very anxious to hear what the president down in writing to sort of fill out his promise to do more with and for these institutions, which have been largely forgotten since the bush administration, which was the last administration to really focus on how to drill down and make these institutions a bigger part of the occasionally fabric. i think given what mark is saying, the other important piece in the black community is not just the entrepreneur but the educational piece and how secretary devos is able to roll out strategies that empower those urban communities for those families to lift those kids up in failing public schools and goes beyond charter schools but do something subsequently with the school and the neighborhood in which i live, that will go much farther than anything else the administration can do at this moment. harold ford? i think michael s point is spot on. do you think that that issue come up education? and, two, did you ask specific things of young ivanka no. i think she is impressive and i think she has a bigger role than she is given credit for. let me say about the policy. vouchers would be devastating to black kids and it would drain money from public schools into what i call speculative schools in many communities, right? so i m curious to see what the real policy is. what we need is to stay the course of commitment above high standard and questionable funding and i hope you ll be open and the administration will be open. mark, please stop talk the talking points with the educational issue? i m not. you look at washington, d.c. you look at the former black mayor of washington, d.c. bringing those voucher programs to the school system here. why? because he wanted to create the competition. he was a democrat. he wasn t a republican. so the idea of ally as i m for or against something let s see how we make it work and not separating them out. parents want choice. they want choice in the public schools and choice for their kids. it includes vouchers and it includes charter. it also includes getting up off our butts and doing something for failing public schools right now. beyond just the hot rhetoric of we don t want violence. let me say this. in louisiana, vouchers were a flop, michael. vouchers, if you will, part of the right wing talking point agenda. what people want is quality public schools. they want a quality opportunity. do you know why it was a flop? and what was done to fix it? i allowed you to finish, michael. sorry, sir. thank you. they do not work. they drain money from what we need to do to focus. 95% of kids go to a public school in america. many work well. many in inner cities do not work well. they just don t. inner cities do not work well. the formula that works in suburbs which are probably resource public schools, parental engagement and a commitment to high standards, we need to apply that to public education. but, mark i m open so quality chaverters bchaverrters but i think vouchers are a mistake and no comprehensive proof. my daughter lives in baltimore. she tutors in a public school in baltimore and there are kids coming to her that held a 0.47 average. that is under 1. they are beyond failing and they have no family involvement. so the concept you re describing is built on a premise that these kids in the inner cities have something that they don t have. but let me say this. if we are committed to public education, if we are committed to having a strong public education system, we need to focus on high standards, we need to focus on better commitment to parental engagement and we need to commit to proper resourcing. many of the public schools in baltimore have no, if you will, extracurricular activities and very high student teacher ratios in many inner schools. so i m hope to looking at innovation but what i don t want is rank experimentation, particularly if there is no proof, something like vouchers, that it s really worked. michael? i can give you an example of a voucher program that works. the opportunity scholars here in washington, d.c. the voucher program that enables up to 1700 students here in the district of columbia to have a choice in their education. it works. i can also tell you as a former lieutenant governor of the state that reviewed our occasional system in maryland we put together a competitive strategy that looks at education to the eyes of children leaving nothing off the table. i agree with a lot of what you re saying, mark, but one size fits all approach is just old school. just not let me finish. it is not a one size fits all. it is beholding to a strategy that no longer works and you need to give these parents and these kids in these inner cities and urban communities a chance to pull themselves up. if you re sitting there with a 0.1 average, you ve got to do something more than just talk about it. give them choices. talking about the voucher. the premise of a voucher there are private schools that exist. that can accommodate the additional students that would be transferred. not just private schools. hold on, michael. you re interrupting me. let me finish. thank you. and that is the premise of it. i suggest that you point to comprehensive examples where vouchers have worked. i think it s the wrong approach. let s continue to have the debate. i ve been open because in my own hometown in new orleans, well regulated nonprofit charter schools have made a difference. but to suggest that it is a comprehensive strategy is certainly not the let me ask you this. in your event with ivanka, dina and linda mcmahon do you think they understand the concept of thousand these multilayers are? i think so. what we were focused on was on minority business enterprise and small business entrepreneurs. i think providing them with an opportunity to see how a public/private approach led by the urban league is making a difference. because i think for a problem like entrepreneurship, public/private approaches can make a difference. i think they understood it. what is most important they got an opportunity to hear it directly from the entrepreneurs in baltimore. mark, thank you very much. we will be right back. all of my purchasing. and that unlimited 2% cash back from spark means thousands of dollars each year going back into my business. which adds fuel to my bottom line. what s in your wallet? itbut one i think with quesa simple answer. we have this need to peek over our neighbor s fee. and once we do, we see wonder waiting. every step you take, narrows the influence of narrow minds. bridges continents and brings this world one step closer. so, the question you asked me. what is the key? 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geico motorcycle, great rates for great rides. very unfortunate what happened. personally, i blame steve harvey for this. i would like to see you get an oscar any way. why can t we give out a whole bunch of them? i ll be proud to hand these to my friend from moonlight. that was bad. that s a mistake. has that happened? gets more publicity for moonlight. i thought it was a joke. welcome back to morning joe. it s monday, february 27th. joe has got the more thanning off. with us is coauthors of game change mark halpern and john heilemann and former democratic congressman harold ford jr. and former head of the republican national committee michael steele. author of the book of diagnosis in black eddie glaude jr. willie is not here either. he had a late night. you know why? his sister libby geist, and ep on the o.j. documentary, they won an oscar. here is that announcement followed by willie s family reacting. they kind of were excited. just a little bit. take a look. and the oscar goes to o.j. [ screaming ] willie and his parents libby geist. she won an oscar and they are a little happy. oh, my gosh. the video sent in by the geist family. look at willie! i m so happy for them. it s so good that documentary. i don t watch anything and i ve watched like five hours of it. it s so good. epic television. now to the epic blunder. when someone gave warren beatty the wrong envelope for the night s biggest prize. the academy award for best picture. you re awful. gosh. la la land. oh, my god. right after announcing la la land you hear a confused warren beatty saying off camera, it says here emma stone. the filmmakers from la la land take to the stage for accept the award, an accountant from price-waterhouse came running on stage and had to do this. i m sorry. no. there is a mistake. moonlight you guys won best picture. moonlight won. this is not a joke. this is not a joke. i m afraid they read the wrong thing. this is not a joke. moonlight has won best picture. moonlight best picture. i would like to see you get an oscar any way. why don t we give out a whole bunch of them? i will be real proud to hand these to my friends at moonlight. warren, what did you do? i want to tell you what happened. i opened the envelope and it said emma stone la la land. that s why i took such a long look at faye and at you. i wasn t trying to be funny. oh, my gosh. the hollywood audience just as shocked as everyone at home. filmmakers of moonlight take the stage to claim their award. very clearly, even in my dreams, this could not be true but the hell with dreams. i m done with it because this is true. oh, my goodness. and i have to say it is true. it is not fake. we have been on the road with these guys so long and so gracious and generous to them. my love to la la land. i don t know what to say. i m not sure this is real but thank you to the academy and so humbling to be standing up with here still the no, they are gone. it s very humbling to be up here. edit eddie, what happened? everyone was very confused. how did they mess that up? and faye dunaway, everything thinks warren beatty sold her out. i think he is trying to let her know he had the wrong card and she just read it. that was so gracious by the producer. the producer of la la land. even though it was a mistake it was a beautiful moment. get more people to see moonlight which is all good. and both films. now to politics. a day before the president makes his first address to a joint session of congress, new nbc news/ the wall street journal poll shows his him a historic disapproval rating. he is the only president in modern polling to begin his presidency with a net negative rating 44% of americans approve. 48% disproof of his job in official so far. it shows a lot of people like his policies. tomorrow night is an opportunity to talk about policy that people are open to or, in some cases, like a lot. as opposed to all of the personality stuff come ironically, a guy who rose on the power of his personality has not been serving him well with the majority of americans. eddie, what are you looking for? i don t know if you heard his address over the weekend this which was pretty strong. it was good. i m looking for trump to model what we heard from steve bannon at cpac so i m looking for the three buckets. i expect to hear something about national security and sovereignty and economic nationalism and the deconstruction of the administrative state. there will be talk about the regulation rollback. i m pretty unsettled by the construction of the state as a shorthand for all of these policies and i think we need to pay close attention to what that means. i think what it means in a nutshell is the dismantling of the new deal. is the final effort to kind of strip away those guarantees that i think would benefit the very people who, in so many ways, are excite about the policies. at the same time, the president saying he is not going to touch we also see he is rolling back in the leaks in terms of the preliminary budget process. he is going to roll back significant funding for epa as we came out of february. repeal obamacare. and reduce the budget for the state department. so i think we have the military. we have a lot to talk about. the numbers come as the white house is cracking down on leaks coming out of the west wing. a paranoia that has taken over the white house. i mean, i ve never actually i can t i m trying to envision what this looked like in the ro room, what the looks on people s faces were. according to politico, press secretary sean spicer met with a dozen of his communications staffers to discuss recent leaks. twelve people in a room. i guess apparently with some white house lawyers present? is what i m hearing. starves we staffers were told to dump their government issue and personal phone and to hand them over to prove they had nothing to hide. can you imagine that scene? what did they do? look in the phones and read them outloud? the irony somebody leaked this story to politico. so you still have leaking problems big time. big-time leakers. what is the word he uses? bigly? bigly. the news comes as president trump s relationship with the trump continues to escalates. on friday he doubled down on his criticism of fake news. i want you all to know that we are fighting the fake news. it s fake. phony. fake. a few days ago, i called the fake news the enemy of the people and they are. they are the enemy of the people. because they have no sources. they just make them up when there are none. actually, the sources are in your administration. they are calling the press. every second of the day. including some high level people. really nervous. very high level people are calling the press all the time leaking. strange how he reconciles those words with the fact that his own press secretary asked his staffers to come in and hand over the phones because there is a they suspect somebody in that group is leaking. they may have found stuff on their phones but those aren t the it s happening at every level. very much wondering where their jobs stand. a lot of people paranoid they are going to lose their positions and a lot of people just looking at what is happening saying, oh, my god, how do we keep this train on track? a lot of pressure. and a piece in the new york times today about the use of the phrase the enemy of the people even cruise ship wouldn t use that phrase. no. the problem who is the enemy of the people? the leakers talking to the president pres? they are in your administration. michael steele? yeah, no. i think the key point. sean spicer asking his com shop to drop their phones on the table? big whop! that is not the source of the leaking. the leaking is coming all over the administration and some in the offices of the west wing have nothing to do with the com shop. i think if the administration want to be serious about this they have to be competitive about it and this is not the way to solve that problem because it s not just in sean s office. your top ten people just hand over the phones. the president needs to look in the mirror and realize this is from people who want help him and not hurt him on almost every instance. i agree with that. there is a fear that they can t talk to him. so they try and find othervo n to communicate. hours after that speech at cpac, the white house held a press briefing but not open to all reporters. cnn, buzzfeed and the new york times and the l.a. times and hill and politico some of outlets barred from covering the briefing. the associated press and time were invited but declined to attend in opposition to unity. spicer defended the decision to limit the press. i think that we have shown in abundance of accessibility. we have brought more reporters into this process and the idea that every time that every single person can t get their question answered or fit in a room that we are excludeing people we have gone above and beyond to making our team and briefing more accessible than any prior administration so i think you can take that to the bank. there is a different spicer that we have for you. back in december, here he is. we have a respect for the press. when it comes to the government. that that is something you can t ban and entity from. you know, conservative, liberal, or otherwise, i think that is what makes a democracy versus a dictatorship. let that marinate! yeah. yeah. is that where we re at? anybody want to participate? he just described himself. 70 days may be a long time in his mind. that was 70 days ago. are they trying to create a dictatorship? i m not joking and i m not angry. one of the things that i think we have been talking about on this show, over the time that i ve been part of it, is joe and you have mentioned the importance of democratic institutions, holding in check, right? the autocratic tendencies of donald trump and his administration. what we might be seeing here is an attempt to erode some of those institutions and here the fourth estate is under attack and if you read, the fourth estate is crucial to the workings of democracy. i m deeply disturbed by this. at the same time, that we are focusing on the banning of news outlets from the gaggle, there is priebus talking to the fbi. there are folks trying to impact stories so there is something happening here. well, you have i ll read from kathleen parker. you have a weekend i think the president had one of his best moments, presidential moments. if you look at his weekly address, it was good. but we really can t talk about that because either were the fake news and you shouldn t be watching. or you ve got this press spokesperson who clearly is now describing months ago what would be a dictatorship and banning media outlets. kathleen parker writes this in. the washington post spicer makes an impossible job even harder. to give him the benefit of the doubt his job must be the hardest in the history of press secretarieses. explaining trump is a relentless, thankless task for which he will be punished one way or another. unlike most press secretaries who typically come from the reporting world, spicer is a veteran flak with a flak s contempt for the media. what is missing, also a missed opportunity, is the camaraderie and mutual respect that often develop in the media briefing room. spicer would do well and would be well served if he would treat all reporters with the same respect he wishes for himself. they re a loathesome bunch to be sure. but they re also suckers for on pros who are self-aware enough not to take themselves or this business too seriously. i don t think sean spicer takes him too seriously. i think he is a really nice guy in a really bad position. and i think he wears you can see the bad position that he is in, written all over his face, which ultimately i think may undermine his effectiveness. the decision to exclude legitimate news organizations from a regular briefing, not a private you can t do it. is a fight they will lose and should lose. where does that decision come from? i don t think clear but i think they compounded their by not being honest. do you think sean spicer made that decision? i don t think he did. this is the crowd size hostage video where he went out and did something he doesn t believe in but i think had he been a veteran journalist, it would have been, no, mr. president, no. you can t do this. you can t do this. i ll walk out. they defended by giving an explanation that it doesn t match up with the facts. and it s going to be, as i said, a distraction. we can t be distracted by it in terms of doing our jobs. we do have to fight for the principle. they cannot decide who gets to cover the white house based on whether they like the coverage or not. it s not going to work. every president has tension with the press. this is not new. of course. everybody tries to shape stories which we all acknowledge. and i think maybe mark or even michael or maybe eddie, said that it s clear, though, this white house decided that their opponent as much as it s going to be democrats and whoever democrats put up at various levels, it s the press as well and whether it s what heilemann said earlier they are anticipating stories in a pipeline or not, they have made clear that the press is a problem for them. so they are going to run against it. they have taken this to a level unseen. i used to feel bad for sean but after watching being reminded what he said back in december. it s what he knows. it s what he knows. who he is. i don t have any problem him saying things i disagree with or defending policies i may differ with, but this is fundamentally just i think against whom he is and he shouldn t, based on who he said back in he s did, shents be defending this banning news organizations and taking on the media this way is not going to advance the agenda of this white house. if you re in the white house to help the president and you know something narrow political agenda but not advance your policy agenda. bannon called the media the opposition party. they are the new opposition. other administrations have, on occasion, done things like this. they have retribution against news organizations against coverage they didn t like but kidding if they think what they did on friday is there any way sean spicer didn t know that before he walked out there? i think he does know. i don t know if they thought no one would protest or have a chilling effect? i assume by now they say it s not a winnable fight and nor should it be in a free country. i don t think anyone can say no to him. michael steele? to mark s point just now, mark, do you think that donald trump, himself, is really concerned about that part of this, that it didn t work or didn t work as well, or was it just more the effect of knowing that as president, as the white house, west wing, if we want to do this, we will do it? i think it makes him feel good. unfortunately, because of the behavior of news organizations during the campaign, they, i think, learned a bad lesson which is they got away with it during the campaign and think they can get away with it in the white house. michael steele, if you were in the white house was would you be advising this president on this issue? don t do this! don t do it! are you kidding me? look. . there is truth about going up against the one who, you know, buys their ink by the barrel. and that is the reason not to do it? on no, not the reason not to do it but also, i think, it s the respect for the institutions as well and recognizing, i think someone made the point earlier that this is not about you personally. this is about just covering your administration. you tell us the story. we will cover the story. and i think if they appreciate that, they can get past the personal stuff going on right now. the story right now they are barring the media from press briefings and handing over cell phones apparently in a state of swirling paranoia. still ahead on morning joe, president trump said he will not attend this year s white house correspondents dinner. that was after bloomberg canned their party and different reporters, including this one said, i m not going to this thing when you call this fake news. the last time a president skipped the dinner in 1981, ronald reagan missed it because he was recovering from a gunshot wound after a failed assassination attempt. he still called in to provide a few remarks. we are going to speak live with the head of the white house correspondents association. plus, president trump, once again, exaggerates how big his crowd sizes are. you folks are in here. this place is packed. there are lines that go back six blocks. and i tell you that because you won t read about it, okay? because there are lines that go back six blocks. when i walked in here before the ballroom was declared to be at capacity, there were no lines at the magnetometer to get in and our truck operators have not found anyone outside of this sprawling complex here in national harvard. jared? just remember. it s not a lie if you believe it! thanks, man. 2 united club passes. priority boarding. and 50,000 bonus miles. everything you need for an unforgettable vacation. the united mileageplus explorer card. imagine where it will take you. 90% of the world s largest supercomputers run on intel? that means you can take a universe of data - in your case literally - and turn it into medical discoveries, diagnostic breakthroughs. .proof that black holes collapse into one singularity. i don t know what that is. but yes. innovation runs on supercomputers. .and supercomputers run on intel. you are super smart. and super busy. ooh! ufo! false alarm, eyelash! it s 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.™ in my johnsonville commercial we open up in the forest. hi. i m jeff. i m eating my breakfast and all of a sudden a raccoon come up and ask me, what are you eating? 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i think this is a pretty similar scenario. there is no reason for him to go in and sit and pretend like this is going to be just another saturday night. who is throwing eggs? what are they talking about? they are literally making up something that doesn t exist. that was white house press secretary sarah huckabee sanders defending the president s decision to skip the white house correspondents dinner. joining us from capitol hill is white house correspondent for reuters, jeff mason. he is the current president of the white house correspondents association. jeff, thanks for being with us. my pleasure. so this dinner has been controversial over the years. sometimes it s been criticized for being a little too cozy or a little bit too showy and flashy in hollywood, whatever. describe what the point of the dinner is at this point. sure. i think it s a great question. the overall point of the white house correspondents dinner is to celebrate the first amendment, to celebrate journalism and celebrate the good work of the members of the correspondents association and other journalists who write about boxes ovpolitics over thed what we will be doing with or without the participation of president trump. we also give scholarships to up and coming student journalists and journalist to showcase the excellent talent that is the next generation of our professi profession. we look forward to celebrating that again this year. often, the way that is done is through humor, correct? sure. yeah. there are jokes. and, honestly, mika, i d like to say the accordance association has worked very hard this year to build a constructive relationship with the trump white house. i think in many ways we have succeeded. and we would have liked to have showcased that at the dinner. that doesn t mean this comes in the context of very, very negative rhetoric coming from the president of the united states. but it s important, i think, for viewers to know that despite that rhetoric, we have worked well with the trump white house. we have had many opportunities for journalists to ask questions of the president and of his press team. and those things count and those things are also things we would have and will celebrate at this dinner. your reaction to the president saying he is not going? well, i was surprised. i was surprised that we hadn t had chance to even talk about it, except in passing a couple times over the last month. we have been focusing on a lot of major challenges between the press and the white house and the dinner is, you know, not been at the top of our list for that. right. but we are planning that dinner. we are working very hard and we are going to have that dinner. and if the president changes his mind, he is still welcome. okay. the roots of the president s distaste for the white house correspondents dinner and some say his 2016 candidacy for president can be traced back to 2011 when his potential candidacy and crusade for president obama s birth certificate was the butt of jokes. obviously, we all know about your credentials and breadth of experience. for example, no, seriously. just recently in an episode of celebrity apprentice at the steak house, the men s cooking team did not impress the judges from omaha steaks. and there was a lot of blame to go around, but you, mr. trump, recognized that the real problem was a lack of leadership, and so, ultimately, you didn t blame little john or meatloaf. you fired gary busey. these are the kind of decisions that would keep me up at night. donald trump has been saying he will run for president as a republican which is surprising since i just assumed he was running as a joke. i like that trump is filthy rich but nobody told his accent. his whole life is gold columns but still sounds like a know it all. mr. trump may not be a good choice for president but he would definitely make a good press secretary. how much fun would that be? kim jong-il is a loser. it s latest rally was a flop. i feel back for ahmadinejad. he never wears a windbreaker. he has no class. i, aerneon the other hand, sell own toois and can you find them at macy s. he doesn t like to laugh at himself is what i m told but he can t. mark halpern? manage smg that i think a lot of senior accomplished people have and going to that dinner would have been a challenge for him. although i agree with jeff. he might change his mind. jeff, ask you two things. one, do you examine other members of the administration to attend and participate in the dinner? two, what will the correspondents association posture be going forward if sean spicer tries to restrict news organizations to attend briefings? we sell tables to members of the association and they are welcome to invite whomever they want. i m sure there will be people from this administration there and they are welcome. on your second question, the correspondents association objected be to what happened on friday where certain news organizations were not included in the press gaggle or briefing. we have been in talks with them about and working hard to make sure something like that doesn t happen again. if it does, how would you characterize the problem? well, i guess the first thing i would say, mika, i want to put it in the larger context of what has happened during this first month. during the first month, sean spicer has been briefing regularly from the briefing room and on television and that is what we asked for. and so that is important not to forget. the fact that they did not include a bunch of organizations on friday is certainly a concern. and, of course, it comes in the context of president trump saying things like the fact that he believes the media is the enemy of the american people. we absolutely do not believe that. the media is in a critical part of a u.s. democracy and those are the values we are fighting for. if this happens again then we will have to talk about it with our members about how to proceed but i m hoping we get the message across and i m hoping the white house realizes it s not in their interest just as it s not in the interest of a free press. jeff mason, thank you very much. ahead, another high profile appointee from the president bows out. we will tell you who it was. also ahead, we look back at the life of actor bill paxton. a mainstay of some of the most iconic movies of the last half century. and remember judge whopner who made a lasting impression on movies as well. four minutes. just shut up and stand there! i m sorry, ma am. i m very sorry about that. that man right there is my brother. if he doesn t get to watch people in 30 seconds he will throw a fit right here on your porch! from the minute i wake up. .i m on. .and on. .and on. that s why i. .make time for myself. .and give my body some love. .with aveeno® daily moisturizing lotion. its active naturals® oat formula. .locks in moisture to improve skin wellness in just one day. i really needed that. i bet you do too. aveeno® naturally beautiful results® this presidents day, get to nissan now. .and save on a lineup with intelligent safety features. .and america s best truck warranty. take on the everyday, with six 20-17 iihs top safety picks. it s clear why we re america s fastest growing auto brand. now, get presidents day offers like 0% financing for up to 72 months on 11 models. or save up to 45-50 on select models. and her new mobile wedding business.tte at first, getting paid was tough. until she got quickbooks. now she sends invoices, sees when they ve been viewed and-ta-dah-paid twice as fast for free. visit quickbooks-dot-com. as a navy admiral i commanded a caand swore to defend america.. now, i m here to defend it again. president trump.the cia and fbi both say russia interfered with our election to help you. and we now know your campaign was in contact with them when it happened. so sir, we re putting you on notice. we re demanding speaker ryan and senator mcconnell appoint an independent commission to get the answers. because defending america means finding the truth. why pause a spontaneous moment? cialis for daily use treats ed and the urinary symptoms of bph. tell your doctor about your medicines, and ask if your heart is healthy enough for sex. do not take cialis if you take nitrates for chest pain, or adempas® for pulmonary hypertension, as this may cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure. do not drink alcohol in excess. to avoid long-term injury, get medical help right away for an erection lasting more than four hours. if you have a sudden decrease or loss of hearing or vision, or an allergic reaction, stop taking cialis and get medical help right away. ask your doctor about cialis. i think we are going! maybe we should get off of this road. movie star bill paxton has died at the age of 61 following complications from surgery. paxton starred in classic movies including apollo 13 and twister. they spelled out b.p. on the map using their gps. more recently, paxton starred in a hit tv shows big love and hatfields and mccoys. he told carson daly earlier this month he considered himself a working actor and the tributes from his fellow actors and actresses are pouring in. jamie lee curtis tweeted a pictures of herself and paxton in the movie owe tr true lies. writing the following. and tom hanks writing this. he leaves behind two children and his wife of 30 years, lewis. bill paxton is dead at 61 ir. the country is remembering judge wapner. he was a world war ii veteran and wounded by sniper fire in the pacific and served two decades in the california courts. on the show that made him a cultural institution, he could be curt with plaintiffs and defendants but known for fairness in his decisions. a the washington post poll from 1989 found that while more than 60% of americans couldn t make a supreme court justice but 54% of could name judge wapner. he died in los angeles. he was 97 years old. still ahead one debate the new national security adviser h.r. mcmaster seems to be closer to president obama s position than president trump. we will explain what that is ahead. want longer lasting heartburn relief? 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comcast business. built for speed. built for business. 42 past the hour. the top democrat on the senate intelligence committee is expressing grave concerns over whether to probe president trump s potential ties to russia and whether it can truly remain independent. in a statement released on friday, senator mark warner said that he spoke with committee chairman senator richard burr and cia dr. mike pompeo to discuss his concerns. his decision, he stressed, followed reports that the white house sought the help of senior intelligence officials and lawmaker on the house and senate intelligence committees to try and combat news stories over those alleged connections. meanwhile, top republicans remain divided over calls for a special prosecutor to handle the investigation. you cannot have somebody, a friend of mine, jeff sessions, who was on the campaign and who was an appointee. you need to use the special prosecutors statute and office to take not just to recuse. you can t just give it to your deputy. that is another political appointee. you do have to do that. i think that is way, way getting ahead of ourselves here. chuck, no allegations of any crime occurring. there is not even an indication there is criminal investigations on the underway by the fbi. if we get down that road, that is a decision that attorney general sessions can make at the time. that was darrell issa and tom cotton talking about this. walter russell reed writes this. trump isn t sounding like a russian mole. if he was the candidate that people keep wanting to believe he is here will some of the things he would be doing. limiting fracking as much as he possibly could and blocking oil and gas pipelines and opening negotiation for major nuclear arms reductions and trying to tamp down tensions with russia s ally iran. that trump is planning to do the opposite of these things may or may not be good policy for the united states. but anybody who thinks that this is a russia appeasement policy has been drinking way too much joy juice. american needs a solvent and stable press to give this president the skeptical and searching scrutiny he needs. what we are getting is something much wrors for the help of the republic. a blind instinctive rage that lashes out without wounding, that injures its own credibility more than its target, that discredits the press at just the moment where its contributions are most needed. mark halpern, is that a fair assessment about press overreach and common logic? the list of things is a good solid intellectually solid one and some of his opponents are critical about russia but does not explain the fundamental things given the question and to knock down officials whether his campaign is investigated we have two credible news organizations have reported that they are. and go ahead. it seems to be a confusion around what is motivating there. it s that russia russia was involved in our election. allegedly. allegedly, right? it seems to me to kind of say he is a manchuran candidate makes us to look someplace else. i think it s confusing article. your straw man, i believe, is the phrase you re looking for. shorthand for. at the same time, i can t figure out why he just can t i just wonder if it s more a psychological thing, that he just is for people who are popular or well-known or seem strong, that equals good. it could be a as simplistic as that, his possession with putin or inability to say what putin really is to tell the truth. i don t know. i can t it s one thing i can t figure out. i think an independent counsel is something the white house has to watch. there is no independent counsel statute any more. the attorney general could have picked as was suggested a u.s. attorney with a record of independence to look at it. what are the chances that will happen? right now low. i say an interesting person to have said this, don t tom cotton didn t go nearly that far but he did lean in the notion this needs to be a fair investigation and i think you need to watch on capitol hill as they deal with health care and everybody else that people follow what i just said. the stories as they mount like the story about the white house reaching out to intelligence community, people intelligence members of the intelligence committee on the hill asking them to vouch, to knock these stories down, all of that reporting at the end of the week, their problem is not increase the volume of democrats call for an independent council but like darrell issa. a lot of republicans have real estions about this russia issue and if republicans start to break in that direction, the presre on sessions to do that will become considerable. he may or may not bend to it but the pressure will get big if republicans go that direction. the question they have trouble answering i believe if he did nothing wrong if all of these reports are false why not have an independent investigation to remove the shadow of doubt. had which is clearly there. including amongst a lot of republicans. a lot of republicans. and a lot of lobbyists. joining us from the white house nbc news national correspondent peter alexander. apparently another dropout happening? reporter: exactly right. this is the second military secretary to withdraw his name before the confirmation process. philip builtin was an officer for a decade among the concerns he cited were about privacy and separating himself from his private business is interests. now james mattis, the defense secretary, has to come up with another name to suggest as the next navy secretary which notable about this is that his withdraw came basically a week after the white house pushed back firmly against any claims that he would be dropping out. this was the tweet from sean spicer on february 18th. he wrote those people would be wrong who suggest this. just spoke with him and he is 100% committed to being the next sec navy, pending senate confirm. as for those private business concerns he was heavily involved until his recent retirement with a global private management firm. which leaves own the air force secretary the remaining military secretary up for confirmation. peter, the president s budget proposal is expected today. what are be we going to hear? reporter: multiple senior administration officials tell me he is going to outline his budget priorities. they will includin the words of one official massive hikes in military homeland security, intelligence, and law enforcement. separately, this official tells me that they will not have any impact on social security and medicare and medicaid. tump is barely mentioning the goal of a balanced budget. he wants his federal government to so much their admiration for trump but the loathing for democrats and their agenda on taxes and deregulation. old pillars of the reagan evolution. skepticism about it and bannon s economic populism are not below the surface. they yearn for him to deliver. if the results are disappointing, the pieces of his conservative base may not be as dependable as you would like. michael, what do you think? we need an honest assessment that the reagan revolution is over and the era of ronald reagan is done. i think republicans/conservatives have to reconcile themselves in this era of trump. he is with bannon s and reince s appearance at cpac, his own appearance at cpac opened this front within the conservative movement that is about economic populism, economic nationalism in a way we have not seen before. how do you reconcile big government spending programs, whether it s $1 trillion for infrastructure, growing defense, et cetera with the idea the folk that is came to congress in 2010 and sense then they wanted a small government, limited spending, reducing the debt and deficit. it will be interesting to see how they do that. so, in terms of military spending, there are some legitimate needs, like a massive computer overhaul of the department of defense and things that do cost money. is this new front in any way fiscally conservative? no, right? michael? no, it s not. it s not. i think that s part of the reconciliation. a lot of folks want more defense spending, but at what cost? you have to offset that. given what the president s budget, at least preliminarily is looking at, those savings aren t there. how much can you get out of 17% of the budget? that s going to be a big point that paul ryan and conservative hawks inside the house and senate are going to have toome to the table with a whether or not the president gets his way. and people losing their health care. dear trump voters, trump spoke to your genuine pain, the fading of the american dream and he won your votes. will he deliver? the truth is, among the biggest losers from trump policies will be you, trump voters, especially working and middle class. you were hoping you would elect a savior. instead, donald trump is doing to you what he did to just about everybody who trusted him. he s betraying you. the sooner you recognize that, you can push for policies to protect your health care and social security. defend the integrity of the health care system and your own interest. you have a false savior. you will have to turn on him to save yourselves and our nation. is that going a little too far too soon? i don t know. it s the typical american relic of jeremiah. the sermon there s a lot of there s a lot of history that backs this up. yeah, i think it s really important. we talked about this during the general election, both sides failed to speak to working people. the policies of the reagan revolution and clintonism decimated every day, ordinary people working their behinds off to make ends meet. trump came into that space. yeah. in some ways a space that was and judgment on the obama years and said we are going to change matters. yeah. and what we see. tax reform. what we see? deregulation. we see policies that defined the landscape since the 80s. i think it is reasoble to conclude that every day workers, black, brown, white, will not benefit from the policies that trump put forward. it might be a kind of exaggerated rhetoric, but john heilemann. a fascinating story, johnson who covered trump s campaign wrote this piece. she drove across iowa and talked to 100 trump votered in iowa and found they are having misgivings, not mixed feelings. they have not turned on him yet. a lot said now as they see him in action, they are quezy. he spoke to working people. will he help them? still ahead, democrats just elected a new party chairman. activists are looking to shake up the rest of the party s leadership. we ll talk to the senate s number two democrat, dick durbin. plus of course, you know, it was an amazing thing to hear la la land . we would love to have won best picture. we are so excited for moonlight. emma stone speaking eloquently after the epic mix up involving the envelope in warren beatie s hand. how did they blow the biggest momentld of the night? morning joe is back in a moment. s ke a trip to la plata, colombia. this is boris calvo. that s pepe. boris doesn t ju grow good coffee, boris grows mind-blowing coffee. and because we pay him a fair price, he improves his farm to grow even better coffee and invest in his community, which makes his neighbor, gustavo, happy. that s blanca. yup, pepe and blanca got together. things happen. all this for a smoother tasting cup of coffee. green mountain coffee. packed with goodness. when i was too busy with the kids to get a repair estimate. i just snapped a photo and got an estimate in 24 hours. my insurance company definitely doesn t have that. you can leave worry behind when liberty stands with you™ liberty mutual insurance a mihappy birthday, sweetie! oh, millies. trick or treat! we re so glad to have you here. what if we treated great female scientists like they were stars? 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(crowd applauding) we know a place that s already working on it. this is not a joke, moonlight has won best picture. moonlight, best picture. awkward. that happened, actually. good morning, everyone. it s monday, february 27th. welcome to morning joe. joe has the morning off. did you all see that? i watched this morning. i need you all to give your cell phones. we ll go over that later. with us on set, political analyst and co-authorsover game change. msnbc political analyst, former democratic congressman, harold ford jr. and in washington, msnbc political analyst and former chairman of the republican national committee michael steel. no, i m serious, your cell phones. would you hand them over? if you asked, sure. what happened? did you see the oscars? i saw it. whoa! the epic, best picture blunder, possibly the worst in history, someone gave warren beatie the wrong envelope for the biggest prize. take a look. and the academy award for best picture you are awful. come on. la la land. right after announcing la la land when the camera goes to them, it says emma stone. then as film makers from la la land take the stage to accept the award, an accountant from price waterhouse cooper, the company that certifies the votes, came running out on stage. i m sorry. there s a mistake. moonlight you won best picture. this is not a joke. this is not a joke, i m afraid they read the wrong thing. this is not a joke. moonlight has won best picture. moonlight best picture. i would like to see you get an oscar anyway. why not give out a bunch of them. i m going to be proud to hand it to my friends from moonlight. warren, what did you do? i m going to tell you what happened. i opened the envelope and it said emma stone, la la look. that s why i took a long look at fe and at you. i wasn t trying to be funny. my god. the hollywood audience just as shocked as ever. the film makers of moonlight take the stage for their award. even in my dreams, this could not be true. to hell with it. this is true. my goodness, it is true, it s not fake. we have been on the road with with them so long. it was so gracious and generous to them. my love to la la land. i don t know what to say. i m not sure it is real. thank you to the academy. it is so humbling to be standing up here with hopefully still the la la crew. no, they are gone. it s humbling to be up here. horrible. look at this part. do you think he set fay up? i don t. one would consider that a mike barnicle move. he s looking for a second opinion. i think he s looking for a second opinion. he was hoping someone from backstage might he should have said, do you have the wrong and showed it to them in the front. think about the pressure you are under in that moment. it s not supposed to go wrong. it can t go wrong. they can t give you the wrong envel lope. here is what didn t go wrong. willie geist s sister, we have been watching this series that she created. libby geist won and award. she won for best documentary. and the oscar goes to o.j.: made in america . and the oscar goes to o.j. ahhh! ahhh! i m going to cry. that s the geist household. oh, my god. that is so cute. oh, my god. it s a family night. that s incredible. congratulations, willie. i cannot believe it. libby. amazing. oscar winner. incredible thing. an incredible piece of work, i will say. if you haven t seen it, it s a brilliant thing. they knew they had the chance to win the academy award. it s an eight-hour long documentary. they put it on for a couple weekends in new york and l.a. to qualify for consideration in the documentary category and it paid off. it did. i don t watch anything, i just don t have the time. i sat there and i think i watched five hours. is that possible? it s possible. in a row. bing watched with her. all right, to politics. jimmy kimmel was outstanding. he was. the steve harvey line. i thought he was great. he was very good. i didn t get to the end. we are all prokimmel. everyone is prokimmel, except matt damon. let s get to politics. a day before the president makes his first address to a joint session of congress, the nbc news/wall street journal shows an historic disapproval rating. the only president in modern polling to begin with this rating. 44% approve, 48% disa i prove. the numbers come as the white house is cracking down on weeks. remember when i asked for your phones? i do remember. this really happened. according to politico, press secretary sean spicer met with a dozen communication officers to discuss recent leaks. staffers were told to dump their government issued and personal phones to prove they have nothing to hide. the irony, of course, is this story was leaked to politico. i m trying to invision that happening. do you have inside report? did they all put them in a basket and people went through the phones? i would say no way. is that what happened? it seems to suggest the people in the room felt compelled to put their phones on the table. how many in the room? not sure. the relationship with the press continues to escalate. friday, he doubled down on his criticism of what he calls fake news. we are all fightinging the fake news. it s fake. phony, fake. a few days ago, i called the fake news the enemy of the people and they are. they are the enemy of the people. because they have no sources, they just make them up when there are none. just hours after that speech at cpac, the white house held a press briefing, but it was not open to all reporters. cnn, buzz feed and new york times, the los angeles times, the hill and politico were some of the outlets barred from covering the briefing. has this ever happened before? no. never. anybody seen this before? the associated press and time were invited, but they declined to attend. spicer defended the idea to limit the press. i think we have shown an abundance of accessibility. we have brought reporters into the process. when they don t get their answer, we have gone above and beyond with making ourselves, our team and briefing room more accessible than any prior administration. i think you can take that to the bank. that s fake news. i don t know what he would base that on. i understand he s upset, but i used to defend sean. this is indefensible. he knows better. as much as z i may not like things written about him, you don t take it on by barring the people. you counter with facts. that s an unfortunate moment. i m hopeful sean and those in the white house will try to dissuade this president and whoever else might be behind this decision. this is not healthy. what is the end game, mark halperin? the war with the media that is getting so ugly. this is a guy, nice guy, but his very first act in this presidency is walk into a hosz taj video talking about crowd size, forced by a boss whose ego was busted by talking about crowd size that he made his press person walk out there and do a press availability on crowd size. they are talking about his very first press his very first act in this presidency. they are looking at the media as not being honest and trust worthy. this is getting concerning. america not the washington press corps. this is a fundamental principle about the press holding the power of the white house accountable. i don t think it will stand. i m hopeful it is not repeated. i m heartened by their widespread reaction. people around the country should look at this, not as a baseball thing, but democracy being violated. the white house will not like the press coverage. they cannot penalize news agencies for content of their reporting. they can t. still ahead on morning joe, we continue our coverage on president trump and the media and why his experience with new york city tabloids informs the approach to the press now. plus you cannot have somebody, a friend of mine, jeff sessions, who was on the campaign and who was an appointee. you are going to need to use the statute and office to take not just a recuse. you can t just give it to your deputy. you do have to do that. should there be a special prosecutor to look into the ties between russia and the trump campaign? we ll talk about it with senator dick durbin. you are watching morning joe. we ll be right back. and the wolf huffed and puffed. like you do sometimes, grandpa? well, when you have copd, it can be hard to breathe. it can be hard to get air out, which can make it hard to get air in. so i talked to my doctor. she said. symbicort could help you breathe better, starting within 5 minutes. symbicort doesn t replace a rescue inhaler for sudden symptoms. symbicort helps provide significant improvement of your lung function. symbicort is for copd, including chronic bronchitis and emphysema. it should not be taken more than twice a day. symbicort contains formoterol. medicines like formoterol increase the risk of death from asthma problems. symbicort may increase your risk of lung infections, osteoporosis, and some eye problems. you should tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking it. symbicort could mean a day with better breathing. watch out, piggies! (child giggles) symbicort. breathe better starting within 5 minutes. get symbicort free for up to one year. visit saveonsymbicort.com today to learn more. with e trade s powerful trading tools, right at your fingertips, you have access to in-depth analysis, level 2 data, and a team of experienced traders ready to help you if you need it. it s like having the power of a trading floor, wherever you are. it s your trade. e trade did you know slow internet can actually hold your business back? say goodbye to slow downloads, slow backups, slow everything. comcast business offers blazing fast and reliable internet that s over 6 times faster than slow internet from the phone company. say hello to internet speeds up to 250 mbps. and add phone and tv for only $34.90 more a month. call today. comcast business. built for business. before the break, we were talking about the president s crackdown on the media outlets and the attempt to stop leaks from the white house. his understanding of the press is a product of the time in his rough and tumble world of the new york tabloids. linda stasi who chronicled his marriage and gossip, the marriage to marla maples in the 90s, coif predicted theage tile. he would get mad if stories didn t come out as he wanted. it never occurred to him he couldn t control everything. now, he is shocked he s not in control of the press. multiple reports have come out saying president trump hid his own identity to push self-promoting stories in the 1980s, posing on the phone, like with an accent or something as his own public relation man under the fake names of john miller and john baron. this is our president. last spring, the washington post posted a 14-minute audio clip of a reporter s interview with john miller in 1991. take a look. what s your name again? john miller. and you work with donald trump? yes, that s correct. what kind of comment is coming from your agency, or from donald? just that he really decided he wasn t, you know, he didn t want to make a commitment. coming out of a marriage that he s starting to do tremendously well financially. he called and wanted to go out with him, that i can tell you. one of the other people that you are writing about, by the way, i m sort of new here. what is your position? i handle pr because he gets so much of it. frankly, i can tell you off the record, get to you you and talk off the record, i can tell you, he didn t care if he got bad pr until he got a divorce. oh, my god. no. yeah. this miller guy knows a lot about trump. he does a great trump imitation. incredible. he was brand-new. brand-new, just started. when the tapes emerged last may, president trump denied it was him. i don t think it was me. it doesn t sound like me. i don t know what they are talking about. i have no idea. the post say this is is something you did rather routinely, you would call reporters and plant stories and say you were john miller or john baron, but it was you on the phone. is that something you did with regularity? no, it was not me on the phone. it was not me on the phone. it doesn t sound like me on the phone. when was this? 25 years ago? we ll ends the block with is. maureen dowd writes trump versus the pss. the president s intense torrid relationship is in full the war of the roses bloom. it s with the press, the mirror for the first narcissist. president trump thinks that the m mirror is cracked and the coverage is fake. many in the press spanning the ideological spectrum think he is cracked and that a lot of pronouncements are fake. can this strange relationship be saved? probably not. it s going to end like the plays and movies from a fellow to endless love where the mutual attraction is so powerful, it is toxic. trump could not live without the press. it is his track. many may disdain how trump uses them, they know they have a rare story and a tantalizing, antagonizing protagonist. i m going to read from russell mead that warns we cannot preach. we need a credible president badly. we need credibility from him. i feel more concerned about the success of his presidency every day when he acts like this. coming up on morning joe, japanese billionaire met with president-elect trump and promised $50 billion worth of investment in the united states. now he s infusing the hottest start up with a ton of money. brian sullivan joins us with that when we continue. how to win at business. step one: point decisively with the arm of your glasses. abracadabra. the stage is yours. step two: choose la quinta. the only hotel where you can redeem loyalty points for a free night-instantly and win at business. but i keep it growing by making every dollar count. that s why i have the spark cash card from capital one. with it, i earn unlimited 2% cash back on all of my purchasing. and that unlimited 2% cash back from spark means thousands of dollars each year going back into my business. which adds fuel to my bottom line. what s in your wallet? 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[ cheers and applause ] it is my great honor it is it is now my honor it is my honor now to present the gavel of the next chair of the democratic national committee to mr. tom perez. mr. perez, congratulations. the democratic party elected tom perez the next chairman of the dnc beating kell ellison. some of ellison supporters in the crowd were angry by the decision, chanting, party of the people, not big money. but, immediately after taking over, perez named ellison his deputy chairman. they addressed the crowd, calling on their fellow democrats to come together. if you came here supporting me, if you are wearing the t-shirt or any t-shirt, i am asking you to give everything you got to support chairman perez. [ applause ] we will all be able to say whether you are sitting here, whether you are sitting outside, or whether you are looking on across america, we will all be able to say the united democratic party let the resis tense ensure this president was a one-term president and elected democrats across this country. mark halperin, what do you make of this new team and how it went down over the weekend? i think given the candidates, it s the best the party could get. the democratic party is in an extraordinarily weak position. the jury is out whether tom perez can rebuild the party, fund raise, accommodate the far left wing of the party, make it acceptable to business, which needs to be done by any viable party. the democratic party has bigger problems than the dnc right now. where do you begin with sort of their order of business in terms of bringing the party back together? it seems first of all, take a look at jimmy carter. he was talking during a sermon at a church servicebout the defeat of the democrats. 2016 election common working class people i can t wait for workers too. african-americans, hispanics and women. you haven t mentioned white men. the white men, too, because we vote. voted republicans because harold ford, jimmy carter was, like joe biden, concerned about the people they were forgetting in the run up to the election. can this new team sort of capture the message? i hope. i think what he was saying, the president, if i heard him correctly, they ran a campaign with a message for blacks, hispanics, women, gays, forgot we are one country. obama gave the speech we are not a red or blue, we are a purple nation and have to find our way back to a message like that and deal with the every day issues americans are dealing with. in the poll, you show with president trump set down, he remained a net positive in important areas, whether or not he would change washington or if he was bold and decisive. things a lot of americans are looking for and traits that were lacking with the democrats. the question for democrats is the sanders/warren wing of the party, has it been weakened? if it has, it s fine on one level, but we can ignore what exists on that side of the party. how do you bring that and marry it with it? for all the key seats, as chairman perez said eloquently, up and down the ballot. it would be smart for him to convene democratic mayors across the country. what are you dealing with? all across the country, deal with crime and inequality. listen. if you are serious about the message coming from the bottom up, let it come from the bottom up and listen to the leaders, including the fella from south bend, indiana. i can t pronounce his name. i thought he was impressive. bring him in. let him bring in mayors and elected officials about how the democratic party enables him and allows their message to move to the floor. coming up on morning joe the fact is, the heat is on the republicans. it s on us. i said this at a meeting with the governors yesterday. we asked for authority to change the country. we have two-thirds of the state houses in america. we have a house, we have the senate, we have the white house. it s now on us to produce results. one of the things we need to do is engage with the public. i understand why members of congress don t like it. you know what? you asked for the job. go do it. with pressure mounting on republicans, can democrats capitalize? senator dick durbin joins us. you are watching morning joe. we ll be right back. my belly pain and constipation? 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i consider the media to be indispensable to democracy. we need an independent media to hold people like me into account. power can be addictive and it can be corrosive. it s important for the media to call to account people who abuse their power, whether it be here or elsewhere. one of the things i spent a lot of time doing was trying to convince a person like vladimir putin to accept the notion of an independent pre and, it s kind of hard to, you know, tell others to have an independent free press when we are not willing to have one ourselves. that sums it up. president george w. bush speaking moments ago on today. joining us now, member of the senate judiciary committee, democratic whip, dick durbin of illinois. good to have you back on the show. what did you think of the former president? i like that guy. i look back and think moments after 9/11, when this country was in complete turmoil, he said this muslim religion is a religion of peace. they are corrupting the beliefs. what an amazing, historic statement to make at that moment. i wish we heard more of it today. now he gives reference 47% of people get their news from facebook. you can tell, you know, he s really put his finger on it. you used to matter more when there were only three of you. i like that. at the same time, what s happening between this current president and the media is somewhat disturbing. beyond that? it s troubling. he questioned the integrity of our judiciary, so-called judges and judges you can t trust because of their ethnic background, then he goes in and goes after the media. the fact is, this is a tenuous moment where we ll be tested on constitutional issues. you are just back from meeting with lithuania officials. ties on russia and whether or not ey should be fully investigated. take a look. as a former president, wod you like to see a special prosecutor appointed to look into this once and for all and give the american people answers? first of all, i think we all need answers. whether or not it s a special prosecutor is the right way to go, you are talking to the wrong guy. i have great faith in richard burr the head of the intelligence committee, really good guy and independent thinker. if he recommended a special prosecutor, i would be it would have more credibility with me. what i m really i have never been a lawyer. you know, i m not sure the right avenue to take. i am sure, though, that question needs to be answered. mark halperin, he is saying, what? maybe. he s got he says he s got faith in burr. i would be interested in what you think, senator, when the republicans in the senate say we are going to do a thorough investigation. based on what you have seen, do you think they will do a thorough, apolitical investigation? i sat on the intelligence committee for four years. you couldn t find a sign on a door. the meetings were secret. we need an independent and transparent investigation. do you trust mitch mcconnell and senator burr and other republicans to do that? no. i think we need a special prosecutor or independent commission is that because you don t trust them? the venue they have chosen guarantees the american people will not know what is said and ultimately, months from now, maybe years from now, they will produce a classified report available to the american people if the approval is gained from the white house. do you think they are doing that because they are trying to protect the white house? to keep it under wraps? why? they think itight be embarrassing. as one said off the record, we are supposed to investigate the affordable care act, not other republicans. when i go overseas to poland and sit down with the polish leader, he says if you won t investigate the russian invasion into your election, what faith do we have under article v that you would come to our aid? you were asked that question? i was. it isn t just vladimir putin s troops, it is a cyber war, a propaganda war they are fighting throughout this area. why within the we taking this seriously, too. this is a fact verified by every major intelligence agency, the russians invaded our sovereignty. michael steel, it s not just whether or not there should be investigation, it s that the outcome needs to be trusted, not just by the american people, but if you listen to the senator, by the rest of the world. we take it seriously. go ahead, michael. that s exactly right. i think that s one of the challenges that confronts this administration out of the box is establishing that trust on something that is so important and so much who we are as americans. our electoral system. if we cannot hold that up as a beacon around the world, if we are not willing to fight for it and defend it, i think the senator has a good point. if folks are saying, if you won t defend that, how are you going to defend us. you elected a new chairman. the democrats are back on their heels, hell, a lot back on their heels right now. how do you see the party turning itself around and going down a new path to move back to a governing majority when the new chairman comes out and says something we heard and are familiar with eight years ago, wanting to make it a one-term president. is that going to harken down a path we have already been or are democrats looking to open a new front that is clabtive and combative. i have never seen it before and i have been at this business for a while. there is an energy and spontaneity that i have never seen before. people are showing up in towns, illinois has a meeting based on an internet solicitation of a group called ind viz zable. 250 people showed up. they said we are going to slate a democratic slate of candidates for a township and we are going to work the doors, work the phones, get people registered. that spontaneity is at the base of our party and the november 8 election brought it to life. okay. president george w. bush was the last winning without the popular vote. he responded to how trump is handling the devision in the country. you took office in 2001 after an extremely contentious election, controversial end to that, the supreme court decided if the nation was incredibly divided, how would you compare the divisions we faced then to what we are living through now? it s hard to compare times. one thing is certain, the job is a tough job. everybody looks at the presidency when they campaign one way. then they get in office and find out there s a reality to the job. you know, there s times we have been divided. i remember growing up as a kid, out of college, we were really divided. it s, you know, it requires a lot of people coming together to make us united. how does that happen in this climate? ed eddie? how has trump handled the division? that s the question. has he stoked hem? has he stoked our fears in terms of the immigration ban and the executive orders? how has he handled the division. where would you find the olive branch in the first six weeks? i haven t seen it. yeah. i haven t seen effort beyond casual conversation to meet with the president a couple, three times. when it comes to executive orders, there s no olive branch, it s confrontation. he had to dismiss his own attorney general. he had three federal courts stop his executive order on the muslim ban, then he had to accept the resignation of his security adviser. it s been a divisive time. what about the divisions within the democratic party? the race between ellison and perez reflected, a deep schism. these are the residuals from the presidential campaign. a lot of bernie supporters will always believe the mainstream democratic party is suspect by the way it raises money. i can tell you, when it comes to the senate, with few exceptions so far, we have been able to bridge the gaps. we have the democrats working together in a positive way. i feel very positive about what s going to happen here. tom perez, a talented person, won in a close contest. keith ellison could not been more gracious. i m the deputy. anybody for me, be for this team, for this party. that s great. they both are really strong players in all of this. big picture for the party, what do you make of the poll number and the new nbc poll that shows this, 44-45, split, essentially, about whether or not they support the temporary travel ban from seven countries? what does that tell you about the country that you are dealing with when you are trying to build a party within that? it shows me donald trump s message has been effective with a lot of people. that s why he ended up with as many votes as he did. people are concerned about security. the democrats are concerned about security. we are. we believe the muslim ban, put it in shorthand, just can t be based on fact. we don t know these seven countries are the sources of the greatest insecurity for america. yet, he signaled them out. here we have muslim-americans across the board and hispanic americans concerned about where we are headed. in his cpac speech, trump spelled out his philosophy on foreign policy, get a sense of the trump doctrine forming here and american leadership in the world. take a look. in the middle east, we have spent as of four weeks ago, $6 trillion. think of it. by the way, the middle east is in i mean it s not even close, it s in worse shape than it was 15 years ago. if our presidents would have gone to the beach for 15 years, we would be in better shape than we are right now, that i can tell you. global cooperation, dealing with other countries, getting along with other countries is good. it s very impornt. but, there is no such tng as a global anthem, a global currency or a global flag. this is the united states of america that i m representing. i m not representing the globe. i m representing your country. when it comes to imposing sanctions on vladimir putin, do we want cooperation or just america? if it s just america, it s pointless. if we have european nations and others joining us in the effort, then it has an impact. for the president to say america first, good. we are proud to be americans. sure. to be effective, we bring together allies, people who share our values and try to impose, at least with some pressure, changes in the world to make it more peaceful. i don t know if it was that speech, but he was going off about paris. paris, all these terrible things. i think the leader of france was a tad bit insulted. mark halperin, is there a lot of thought put into how these words are being formed? if so, should we be scared? he s saying things that are alarming. he says he s going to reach out and engage in diplomacy. bull in a china shop. he s not going to the international summits. when he does, you will see a different style. he thinks it will be effective. he s going to have a lot of explaining to do when he gets there. you said democrats are united. your colleague has a valuable commodity in his e-mail list of supporters from the campaign. he s resisting. would you urge him to make that available to the democratic national xh national committee? bernie sanders is going to help. how, i can t say. do you think it s urgent. you bet. he has to do it at his pace and his way. i think he shares our goal. what is his argument in handing it over? i don t know. i don t want to push too hard. i think the result will be positive. look in the camera and address it. see you back in washington, bernie. there you go. senator dick durbin thank you very much. up next, the aftermath of the deadly mission in yemen. the father of fallen navy s.e.a.l. william ryan owens is demanding an investigation into his son s death. we are going to talk about that and why he declined to meet with the president. keep it here on morning joe. like what? like a second bee helmet with protective netting. or like a balm? you know? or a cooling ointment for the skin. how about a motorcycle? or some bee repellant. i m just spit-balling here. nothing stops us from doing right by our customers. ally. do it right. told you not to swat em. ally. do it right. this is the story of green mountain coffee and fair trade, told in the time it takes to brew your cup. let s take a trip to la plata, colombia. this is boris calvo. that s pepe. boris doesn t just grow good coffee, boris grows mind-blowing coffee. and because we pay him a fair price, he improves his farm to grow even better coffee and invest in his community, which makes his neighbor, gustavo, happy. that s blanca. yup, pepe and blanca got together. things happen. all this for a smoother tasting cup of coffee. green mountain coffee. packed with goodness. the full value of your totaled new car. the guy says, you picked the wrong insurance plan. no, i picked the wrong insurance company. with new car replacement™, we ll replace the full value of your car plus depreciation. liberty mutual insurance. only tylenol® rapid release gels have laser drilled holes. they release medicine fast, for fast pain relief. tylenol® hidden in every swing, every chip, and every putt, is data that can make the difference between winning and losing. the microsoft cloud helps the pga tour turn countless points of data into insights that transform their business and will enhance the game for players and fans. the microsoft cloud turns information into insight. some things are simply impossible to ignore. the strikingly designed lexus nx turbo and hybrid. the suv that dares to go beyond utility. experience amazing. sfx: engine revving (silence) in a moment, we ll take a look at the president s budget proposal coming out today, massive spending hikes for the military intelligence and homeland security performance. first, we look at the ground we covered today. he is the only president in modern polling to begin his presidency with a net negative rating. in that poll, a lot of people like his policies. sean spicer met with a dozen communication officers to dis recent leaks. the president needs to look in the mirror and realize thi is from people that want to help him. the white house held a press briefing, but not open to all reporters. as much as i don t like things written about him, you don t bar people. the state is under attack. i m deeply disturbed by this. the white house will not like the press coverage, but they cannot change the rules. concerned reporting is forthcoming. they have to put their big boy pants on and deal with this effectively. this is a guy obsessed with the press. part of a u.s. democracy. they are the values we are fighting for. this is tinnous moment. it will be tested. he will not be judged by history, by whether he beats the press z. the next chair to the democratic committee, mr. tom perez. the best the party could get. the jury is out if he can rebuild the party. if you are serious about the message coming from the bottom up, let it come from the bottom up. a person who creates the image or message of the party. and the oscar goes to o.j. ahhh! ahhh! i absolutely love that. that is the geist household watching libby geist, i was going to say christine. that s willie s wife. winning an oscar for the o.j. dock. that s the family. play it again. i can t get enough. the dog. the dog is like mommy, daddy, what s going on? this is awesome. congratulations to the entire geist family. you all are somewhat talented. another family celebrating oscars. a red carpet with emma and lila walking it. they are 4 1/2, can you believe it. alex, they are so cute. emma, lila and who liked the dresses better? they had emojis. very fun. i was asleep. did you make it to the end? absolutely not. did you miss the whole faux pas? watched it this morning. oh, my gosh. back to news. president trump will reveal his budget priority with what senior administration officials say are spending hikes. claiming they will be matched dollar for dollar with cuts to other agencies. the president will scale back spending in nondefense areas, including the state department and the environmental protection agency according to reports. the budget outline does not reduce funding for the largest entitlement programs including social security and medicare. with us now, cnbc s brian sullivan with more on this. brian? 73% of the budget is social security, medicare, medicaid. if you are not going after that, you are not going after much meat at all. that s fixed cost, almost. put this in perspective. the defense budget is $523 billion a year. state department is $66 billion and e.p.a. is $8 billion. those are small agencies compared to defense. if you add whatever 10 or 20 billion or however much to defense, are you taking that out of state? that would be 15-20% of their budget. i know people there that i have spoken with are nervous. what, you broke this exclusive from the japanese firm soft bank, megainvestment in a u.s. start up. tell us about this. the only reason you care is because it involved the president, it involves trump. the guy met with trump, masayoshi son met with him promised $50 billion in investment. sources tell me, they are going to invest $3 billion if you want to lease a desk and they are all over the world. this is massive investment. valued the company at 20 bill$2 billi billion. the biggest and richest start up in the world. maybe this is the reason i bring this up. maybe this is the first of these investments. this guy, soft bank, masayoshi s son running sprint. 153 locations. president george w. bush on today this morning talked about a wide range of issues. here, now, we have him weighing in on the controversial executive order that president trump signed restricting travel, the muslim ban. take a look. bank people from seven predominantly muslim countries from entering this country, do we make it easier or harder to fight the war on terrorism? well, i think it s very hard to fight the war on terrorism if we are in retreat. i think we learned that lesson that, you know, if the united states decides to pull out before a free society emerges, it s going to be hard to defeat them. just want to make sure i understand. you are for or against the ban? for an immigration policy that is welcoming and upholds the law. so, is he before or against it? the body language suggests he s against it. he s made it his practice, he is not talking about successors. his criticism on the media as well. yeah. certain things tough have a rock solid approach. that would be one of them. now to this. the father of fallen navy s.e.a.l. chief petty officer, william ryan oens is demanding an investigation into his son s death. owens was killed in the raid in yemen. one senior military official says quote, almost everything went wrong. his father, bill owens tells the miami herald don t hide behind my son s death to prevent an investigation. i want an investigation. the government owes my son an investigation. bill owens, himself a veteran and retired police detective refused to meet with the president. i told them i didn t want to make a scene about it, but my conscience wouldn t let me talk to him. the white house maintains the mission was a success. there are plenty of critics, including senator john mccain. yesterday, a spokesperson said she would imagine the president would be supportive of an investigation. michael steele, your thoughts? yeah, you know, that s a tough place for the president to be in. in one sense you have the loss of a soldier and the family s response to that. unlike what we have seen with the gold star family in the past, the more the administration stays above that kind of conversation and understands and respects that father s position, stay true to where they want to take the country, the better off the administration will be. hopefully, we won t see emotional or personal response on this. as we wrap up and looking ahead to the president tomorrow addressing, final thoughts. massive resis tense, march 8, a day without women. a strike across the globe. we will see the resis tense continue. mark halperin? tomorrow night a big deal. everybody is going to watch to see what the president says and how he is received by lots of audiences including democrat who is aren t interested in working with him. warren buffett said any of his employees, got hundreds of thousands, get the sweet 16 perfect on their ncaa bracket, he will give a million a year for life to that employee orem ployees. apparently it s a lot harder than you think it is. it s statistically impossible. stop the war on the media. fake news, fake presidency, that s what it s going to come down to. a fake presidency. we are live on capitol hill tomorrow and wednesday. morning joe coverage of president trump s address to congress. that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. thanks so much, mika. good morning. i m stephanie ruhle. we are talking budget crunch. president trump to announce a new budget today with huge increases in military spending and drastic cuts everywhere else. going to get a massive budget request for our beloved military. new calls for an investigation into his team s russia connections from republicans this time. you are going to need to use the special prosecutors statute