Mika Brzezinksi and Joe Scarborough: Mika and Joe Set the Record Straight

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Speaker 1: Hi, Brian, Hi Katie, Happy New Year. Happy New Year to you as well into all of you out there listening today. Brian, did you miss me? Oh? Desperately, Katie. I'm sure we're back together in New York. So I have to say, for me, it's wonderful to see your face. And I'm happy that they have a big table really separating us because I've been a bit under the weather and I know you're a bit of a germophobe. I'm happy to see you and also happy to be six ft away from me. Thank you very much. Now we have a little announcement to make. We're not only excited to see each other today, we're excited about this news we're about to tell you. Drumroll please, we are taking this podcast weekly. We are. We are because we heard from so many of you over the last year who wanted us to put out episodes more often, and hey, we love doing the show, and you know, we really don't have anything better to do, so we just figured the hell anyway, we're gonna do this every week starting now. So we hope you're as excited as we are. I'm excited because I love talking to people and now we can have even more topical conversations. And we're beginning this new year with Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzynski. And of course that's Joe of Morning Joe, the political talk show sometimes controversial that he and Mika host every morning on MSNBC. Joe and Meek are kind of like Charo and share right. I mean, everybody knows who they are their first name anyway. Not only do they share hosting duties, they also recently got engaged after much whispering about their relationship, I might add, yeah, and we talked about that and also their relationship changing and often turbulent with Donald Trump. We ventured to their offices at Thirty Rock for this conversation, which was fun, even though I barely got bass security. It was a trip down memory lane for me. Meanwhile, a lot of people recall President Trump's blistering tweets about out Mika and Joe back in June. Well, it's sort of hard to remember because there's so many blistering Trump tweets, So let me just refresh you about this particular one. It's actually two. Trump wrote, I heard poorly rated Morning Joe speaks badly of me. Don't watch anymore then how come low I Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came to Marrow Lago three nights in a row around New Year's Eve and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a facelift. I said, no, I mean, I think that's probably going to go up there with ask not what your country can do for you, right, or you have nothing to fear but fear itself. I think we have some things to fear. Anyway, we clarify the nature of that particular visit tomorrow Lago and address the criticism that they have faced that they at times have been just far too chummy with Donald Trump. And we also talked about the changing Republican Party, the difficulty of covering this presidency, in a variety of other issues. But first we wanted to get a little perspective of on how Mieka and Joe got to where they are today. Joe, it was fun for me. Even though I know a lot about both of you, having interviewed you and worked at the same network, I did learn a lot when I was researching your biography, and that was that your parents actually ran beauty contests. As my parents would tell you that they were not beauty contests. They were scholarship. Actually, it was like the MC for a lot of them. He got his talent. It was fascinating that. Yeah, when I was seriously so, my dad worked for Lockeed. He was an industrial engineer for Lockeed, and just my sister got involved in this pageant and my mom started working. Eventually my dad retired from Lockeed and they did pageants and it was the most bizarre thing. But they would go to all these pageants in the summer, and of course because I get my type personality from them, it wasn't enough just to do a little pageant. They actually created at the time the largest pageant organization of America. So they would go state to state to state to state, and it was crazy. I said, it was like being in the circus, the Miss Universe of its day. Yes, exactly Miss Universe of its state, except it was very traditional. The young women who would wear chifon dresses. Their essay was in speech would be what's right about America? And I think like of their scoring came before anybody ever saw him. It was a very traditional what you would expect Southern Baptists from Georgia, Alabama Mississippi type of pageant you expect them to run. My mom threw me up on stage when I was ten or eleven, and I was like m seeing it. Um. She had to take me off by the time I was seventeen because I had gotten so bored with it and was too sarcastic. But it was incredible that I did. I did learn how states were different and how people were different. And now you know, Ohio people were different than even Michigan people were different from Pennsylvania people were different from And got this extraordinary insight into Americans and Middle America because these were not rich girls that were involved in the pageants. These were a lot of girls off the farm or off small towns across America that wanted to go to the big city of you know, Pittsburgh or whatever. It was a pretty incredible education. But were you a hardcore Republican from the get go, I was, it would have been the definition of hardcore. You know, my parents were Democrats, um FDR Democrats, But I grew up in uh During the reigning hostage crisis I was in high school. Then Reagan seemed like this strong hand and as strong leader and and became conservative came very conservative by nineteen let's say nineteen nineties standards. But it's so funny. I'm thinking when I was campaigning for Jeb with Jeb Bush, I was campaigning for congress, Jeb was campaigning for governor, and everybody was attacking us for being extreme right wing US right right wingers. I saw him a couple of years ago. Go, Jeb, have you changed ideologically since they were calling us an extreme right winger in ninety four years now? I said, I haven't either, But but doesn't that show you how? For now, both Jeb and I are too liberal for a party that in ninety four we were considered too conservative for. It's amazing how the Republican Party has transformed. And before we get into that, some more meeting of the Iranian hostage crisis. Your dad was the National Security Advisor at the time. What was it like growing up in that milia in Washington? Your dad was a very powerful White House advisor close to the president. You were not a Republican growing up. It's safe to say, um, you know, I don't know. I don't know what the alternative looks like, so it's hard to describe how it was different. But I did know that it was a remarkable experience that I needed to try and remember all of my life, whether it be flying in Marine one to Camp David with Amy and spending that time during the Camp David Peace Accords with Manakan bag and on Warsadat and running around on golf cards and seeing President Carter in a spido. I'm trying to replace that. I can now. He's so nice. They were so nice and uh and still alarm. President Carter spoke at my father's funeral recently and it was an incredible eulogy. Um the ending of China, we had Dung Cho Ping over for dinner, so we we had the Chinese leader Vertu our home for dinner. And during the Iran crisis, I named my rabbit Bunny Sawder. That was my you know, I had a child's view of these things, and so I would just like name my animals after world leaders, and you know, followed my dad around, uh doing meet the Press, nightline, nightly news, and got the bug very early on. How old were you when you yeah, between the ages of ten and fourteen, and by the time I was fourteen, I was going to be a reporter. Really, yeah, you never wanted to go into public policy. Just being exposed to all this incredible. No. I loved what this was about, the medium of communication, of storytelling, of actually technically putting it all together and getting it on the air, of trying to take a sound bite and make it mean something and not change its context. And I found that all fascinating and also something I felt I could do well. I prefer asking the questions instead of having to answer them. It's a lot easier, I'm with you, But I also just love it. I mean, and as a as a correspondent for CBS News, I loved traveling around the country too, from Clovis, New Mexico, to Vegas to Cleveland wherever, to meet people who were, you know, parents of bipolar kids or suffering from the latest budget cuts or whatever, and hearing their stories. And it gave me a little bit of what Joe grew up Immerston, which is sort of traveling around and getting a sense of what people are feeling about the state of America. Do you feel like you all are too much in a bubble? You know? I wonder about that about people who are reporting on the news from a studio in New York grieving in Washington, d C. And you know, it's it's very difficult because you kind of are hamstrung because you can't get out, you can't really talk to people in a real way. Yeah. Well yeah, I mean it's a question that Meek and I have asked each other a good bit whether our view you of the country is impacted by being in this bubble. I mean, I went from living pay to check to paycheck for forty years, forty five years, to suddenly yeah, I'm doing all right, dire straight saying I get a daytime job. I'm doing all right. Um, And so wondering whether we're looking at everything through the prism of being being in a bubble, not just ideologically but also financially and in so many other ways. Um, and I think we are, and I think I think it's a constant challenge. The one thing that that that Meek and I caught grief from from first of all, people on the right during the primary, was saying that Donald Trump was going to win the primary, and then from the rest of the media saying you had a chance to win the general election. And the reason we said that was because people would talk about how Donald Trump was crazy, stupid this. Then he's never gonna win. He's a joke. Da da da da da. And then somebody would go to their family reunion in Pennsylvania and come back, and I remember talking to somebody in June and of sixteen saying, so you went family reunion, Yes, how many people were there? Nineteen? How many of them are voting for Trump? Silence for a second. Nineteen they were all. They were all voting for Trump, My family all voting for Trump. And even my friends now, people that I have known, and this is the big disconnect for me. Even people I've known and loved my entire life still support Trump. And I talked to him. I don't understand it because while we liked Donald and New Donald for a very long time, the second he came out in early December of fifteen talking about the Muslim ban, I immediately announced on the air that I couldn't vote for him, That I could never vote for somebody that would ban one point five billion people for from coming to America because of of God they worshiped. I just can't square a president using racism towards Muslims and Mexicans. And you can go down the list, but The criticism of you guys isn't that you were too bullish on Trump's chances. It was that after he made a statement about Mexican rapists, after he said that he preferred vets who weren't captured, after this big history of racist and offensive comments, you created an environment for him on your show that was warm and he could call in, and it wasn't often super challenging until you know, pretty late in the game. What's your what's your response is not the people that it's It's interesting that people that hate Trump and accused us of that are actually being as sloppy with facts as Trump. You can you can look back and see um three or four months in um in US pounding Trump on like for instance, Putin. People still use the clip. Do you like Vladimir Putin's comments about you? Sure? When people called you brilliant, that was good, especially when the person heads up Russia. Yeah. Well, I mean also as a person that kills journalists, political political opponents and countries and invades countries, obviously that would be a concern. What it not He's running this country and at least he's a leader, you know, unlike what we have in this country. But again he kills journalists that don't agree with him. Well, I think our country does plenty of killing also, Joe. So a lot of going on in the world right now, Joe, A lot of killing going on, a lot of stupidity, and that's the way it is. And also again we talked about the Muslim band. This was in early December, which was two or three months before the first publican voted, and I know what he said, I can't vote for this guy. So again, I think the mistakes we made and had to do, I personally think rubbing first. The far right snows in it when they were saying there was no way he could win the primary, and so Willie Meek and I would hold up newspapers and say, what's today, Willie, he got septem, what's Donald Trump's approval? Writing he's He's at four? Are wet? Where is he? But that's the ceiling, That's the absolute ceiling, which is what everybody was clamoring. All the Republican insiders were all saying that Ruby o people. We made fun of the New York Times for saying Mark rl Ruby I was gonna win there, No there, I don't know if I'm allowed to say Mark Calprin's name, But Mark Halbrin and I would look at each other and would be like, what states are gonna win? And howe to go? He's not gonna win a state maybe Minnesota, and he ended up winning Minnesota. What's his base in the party? There was no base, So we I think we rubbed people's nose in it too much. As far as giving him a comfortable place to stay, you know, here we could call in. We made the offer to everybody, Yeah, I'd like to talk about that, and we said, we said, if you were above one percent in the poll, you can call in. We will let you talk. Mike Cockaby did it all the time in two thousand and eight, and Lindsey Graham was the only take her we had in two times. He kept coming on. We asked Hillary to be on so many times. The only way we could get her on is to agree to an eighteen minute interview. We had to get into a tiny little prop plane and fly to South Carolina and land in a in a dirt field and wait for her in the back of a school for our eighteen minutes. You know. Then. It was very very very very very planned, and they cut us off. So we had candidates that were so difficult to work with and then this guy who would just walk in the door and say whatever. I also think because we're a little prickly about this criticism because we were sitting there. Joe is the one who hung up on him during the campaign after he was trying to uh, basically philips for him on Putin. We sat there with Michael hayden Um talking about the nuclear um the process of you know, going nuclear, and I literally said, America, be careful, this is what you're electing if you vote for this man. You know, And I can say even Michael Wolfe, who you know, thanks thanks us in the book and all this other stuff, who who we talked to an interviews. Even Michael Wolfe said well, but they remained, you know, it wasn't till the end of the campaign that they turned no. We were again in December of fifteen, said I could never vote for him. He mocked me for saying I was going to vote for Bush. And then when Bush dropped out, I said I was going to vote for Kasich. And he said, Joe lose or he's got new power or authority. All of his people lose. Um, so he said, you're prickly about this criticism, but you know, just reread some of these articles. I know that CNN reported that MSNBC staff are uncomfortable over the chummy relationship you had, calling it over the top and unseemly, they said. One person said, people don't like that Joe is promoting Trump. Uh. The Washington Post noted that he received Trump that is a tremendous degree of warmth from the show, and that his appearances often feel like a quote, cozy social club. I'm sure you all read all this, or maybe you didn't. I don't know how much of the press you read about yourselves. But do you regret any of the things that you did during the course of the campaign. And I know you guys went tomorrow lago for the for New Year's for three days, and I'm just wondering twenty minutes. Okay, that's the sort of distortion. There's one distortion after another. And my biggest regret is that CNN is bleeding all over the place. There was a trail of blood. I think it a distortion fed by the President himself, distortion the president, but also distortion fed by CNN. One lie after another say. Joe and Mika watched the returns of New Hampshire with Donald Trump and they sat in his room. No, we didn't we we we We walked up there, shook his hand because we were talking to Corey downstairs. Said would you let to go up? And uh set Donald said, sure, went up, shook his hand. Wouldn't you do that? Katie? Yeah? Did you? Did you ever think about it? Pressing these things head on on the show? This is but this is this is the mistake we made, and the biggest mistake we made was not answering the lies early on. And I have I have a friend who was in the CIA who is always sort of the guy. I go, how are we really doing? Because this guy just has a sixth sense? I said, this CNN stuff. Dude, I need to worry about the scene and stuff. I mean, it's all they're all lies, right, he goes, you need to worry about the scene and stuff because it's actually stick. They're telling one lie after another lie after another light and it's actually sticking. So I finally went on after the New Year's Eve lies went out, I finally actually went on with uh. CNN reporter just asked me questions and we had about a ninety minute interview. I think it was with um should I should have done that about a year ago, he reported, And you can correct the record if this is wrong, that that you had a meeting you both did at Trump Tower in September. They characterized it as rekindling a once rosy relationship. Maybe that's a false characterization CNN. In the article, then it was reported that at least Mika did a meeting during the transition with Trump, and that you recommended Dina Powell to them, and that you did. You know, you went tomorrow ago and met with them. The three days was a distortion, but it wasn't three days of any of that. Would you not do, um, I'm not sure I would recommend they hire somebody. I just perfectly that you can't, you know, but you could go and meet with Donald A. Trump Tower. Yes, you would go to meet Trump Tower. And if a bank said, do you know really talented women who could open doors for women and do great things, you might not share. I did. But she shared Dina Powell's name, which, by the way, was we think in the best did I think? Also, though again it was a twenty minute meeting. Becomes a lavish three day vacacation at more Lago and we're the guest at the party, guest the party, which was false. We weren't the guests at the party. We we came in dress clothes and everybody else was in black times. I was covering bandages. But you know, the next day it was that we went to the party. We didn't go to the party. We would have never. In fact, it was one of these things. And I know you've done this before where We're sitting in Jupiter of their friends and I've got all my kids there. It's New Year's even Miek is not feeling well. I'm exhausted at the end of the year, and we're like he was obsessively calling, yeah, oh, he wants us to go, and Mika is like, I don't feel like it. But you know what, it would be great to have the first interview after the inauguration, So let's go and pitch. What did he said? He was obsessively called, He kept he kept wanting Mika. I had gone over the night before Mika was supposed to go. She wasn't feeling well. I excuse myself. After thirty minutes of dinner, with he and his wife and a couple of other people, which shocked him that I did you know, I wanted to get up and go home. We meek and I don't get out that much. And so then the next day he called, where's Mike? I want Mika to come? Why can't make it come? And so we went over there for about twenty minutes and left and and to boom. The next day I found out that we were partying, uh with Donald Trump. I think just a lie. This this story is a lester of how unique this president is. I think it's also a lustrat of something else. The media age we live in now with Twitter, compared to let's say twenty years ago, where if you went to try to get an interview with George W. George H. W. Bush and when somebody had some bad information, the New York Times or the Washington Post wouldn't be in a hurry to post it immediately. They would call you up. Were you at the party? Now? I wasn't at the party. The party was downstairs. We had to walk through a lot of Palm Beach people in Texas. But we went and met with him for twenty minutes, tried to get an interview and then left, So can I like show the counter of this is during the Obama administration and he's a Republican on the Democrat on the show, he's an idependent now. But I would often get Valerie Jared and I would do women's events at Blair House. Nobody had a problem with that. I did a women's event at the Small Business Administration and the President introduced me. Nobody had a problem with that. We went and had several private meetings with President Obama, and nobody had a problem with that. I think a lot of journalists do socialize. I think some even go to Martha's vineyard and hang out with Obama and and and the hypoc of it all. And I'll just name people who I respect, but Tom Friedman, uh for Readsacharia, Bob Woodward. You could go down the list of people that spent so much time with Barack Obama. So do you the coverage with Barack Obama and we get absolutely massacred for a twenty minute? Do you think the coverage of Donald Trump has overcorrected? That is, do you think I mean we're over our skis and it's going to hurt us. Well, now, now there's all this talk about his mental stability, the president's mental competence, and in fact, Joe, you spoke this morning about you know, whether the president has early onset dementia. So yeah, two part answer here. Yes, we've overstepped. We're over our skis. We are to not we the entire mainstream media, we are reflexively anti trump um on all things. But secondly, we're also in a very unusual position where we are in the middle of a nuclear showdown with a country that could in several years hit Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles with nuclear weapons, and we have a president who meek and I believe through knowing him, is not mentally stable, is less stable than he was a year and a half ago when people on his campaign told me they believed he had early onset of dementia on the campaign. On the campaign, people that were on the campaign are still involved in a working at the White House now, who are still involved and still feel comfortable working for him, I don't think they ever feel I think what's literally not one I can't think of one person. Maybe Kelly and Conway, but but I don't. I think even She's doesn't she's supposedly roll her eyes when people mention this. That's when Michael Wolf reported, And I do know that it's true that she was calling around on election day blaming Ryan's previous That's another thing. I will say that a lot of the good things about this this Wolf book is things that we said on the air that people went after was far like saying that Kelly and Conaway was never in a meeting, that she didn't know what she was talking about, that she that that that's all come out in the book. But there's so many people like General Maddis, General McMaster, Gary Cone and others who were there because they feel like they're serving their country. And I remember during transition, we actually went from having a hostile relationship with Trump through most of the campaign too suddenly doing what we could do because we were getting calls from foreign policy establishment type saying you need to go in and if you will talk to you see if you can talk to him about X, Y and Z. Was really trying to talk him into out of certain policy personnel, mainly like like you can't have Steve Bannon as your chief of staff. But they were asking you to tell him that not only were foreign policy people democrats, and Republicans asking us to use whatever influence we might have with him. But you had staff members saying he doesn't have a Hispanic in his cabinet. Joe, what an unprecedented situation where they're looking for to you all to influence his decision making. I don't know that it's unprecedented. Actually, I mean you have Walter Cronkite trying to talk Bobby Kennedy into running for president United States. This isn't his unprecedented We're all, we're right now, we are now nighting basically, are are putting Ben Bradley up for st hood who we love Ben Bradley, but Ben Bradley and JFK please let's not and we're no, no, we're not saying that we're Ben Bradley. But it has been everybody's been thick as thieves through the years, and suddenly people acting shocked that somebody would say, hey, going and tell him that Steve Bannon would be a horrible chief of staff and it would be bad for America, or telling that Rudy Giuliani is probably the last person you want a secretary of because it's heretofore been done much more privately. The difference though, is if I went in and talked to Donald Trump about Rudy Giuliani that the entire foreign policy community would think that would be a disaster for Secretary of State, I'd say it in the air the next day. We were transparent, talked about behind closed doors that we wouldn't say on the air. Let's take a quick break and we'll be back with more Joe and more Mika right after this, and now back to our conversation with Morning Joe Scarborough and Mikasky. I don't think i've seen you all since you've announced your engagement, so congratulations wishes. I'm I'm looking at MICA's piece of ice, any job, So you know, I'm just curious for you two. I mean, you work together, you are obviously involved, to say the least engaged. Um does that create any issues? I know, Joe, you've said before that you have to make sure everything is figured out by six am. But what happens when you're really just off at each other? We fight on the show. Haven't you ever seen that? Oh my god, No, I would say it's all actually positive because if we are having a I'll just say terrible, terrible, disagreement at night. Oh you mean we know that we have to bring it in for a landing, which usually means which means, no matter what happens, I have to apologize and get them. Because she is a present ski she does not she does not apologize. But but it is actually positive that everything has to be right by six am because it doesn't happen that much because I'm a politician and I can go on and smile and whatever. Everything, Mika wears it all on her sleeve. Mikas pissed at me. The world knows it. So I've got to make everything right by six a when you want someone together. Um. So I'm trying to figure that out. So we were sidetracked by my father's death, and I'm so glad that he I knew about this before he died. Um. I was very happy for me. Then my mother had two heart attacks and now we're like recovering. But my my oldest daughter is graduating from Johns Hopkins in June, and I don't want to like that's you've got two daughters. Yeah, I need to isolate that as a very been this has been challenged, it's been really hard, and it's been a you know, kind of a it's been a struggle and a process, and we're really happy together. I'm thinking probably this summer or the fall, but I wanted to just feel right and to happen organically. I'm I feel like we've been constrained by so many things, and so this spring belongs to my daughter. And then I will let you know because I want to get married. Because Mika says, and maybe you can relate to this, I don't know. Mika says her oldest daughter is like the poor girl, and she's she's the daughter and v where about scene she walks into the core. Not so would like her oldest daughter once have a mon but he actually would under I mean, you know, daughters is hard. And then if you happen to be in the spotlight or constantly looked at and constantly blogged about, and your personal life just thrown out there, you've definitely lived this. Yes, it can be very complicated, and I just want to give them a simple this is simple. I think that you're right to do that, and this is a big transition. I think for both your family were very about it, and I want it to be at the right place, the right time, and not overshadowing anybody rush you know, let me ask you all. And then I want to move to this book Fire and Fury, which you mentioned. But you both say you're over the media writ large is over its skis when it comes to covering this president. And yet you have this very i'd like to say, strange and unconventional guy who you believe may not be stable emotionally stable. How do you cover him objectively? You know, you have these two opposing forces and his crazy tweets, his irrational decisions, it seems, and then how do you separate that from some of the policy and things like maybe uh loosening regulation and something. You know, the economy doing well, and yet he seems so unhinged, So how do you manage that? It's really hard because for me, even even more disturbing than his emotional his his mental frailties. Um has to do with his blatant disregard for our constitution and constitutional norms. He doesn't know what's in the constitution, he doesn't care what's in the constitution, and according to this book, he gets quickly bored when discussing constitution. I know, true. So, Katie, I think you've just touched on the greatest challenge. If you have somebody who is not equipped to be president United States, is not mentally uh capable of being president the United States, and is is a man who has absolutely no respect for constitutional norms or America's constitutional values. It's kind of hard to talk about the latest regulatory reform pass. I mean, all the headlines and all the content of the news coverage is on his latest tweet. And do you think that's by design by the president himself? If because it because it precludes anyone from discussing actual positive things that they may be doing. So he's not about he doesn't know anything about policy. I remember reading. He's not interested. He's not interested in policy. He's interested in getting the reaction from the tweet. Somebody who's loved feel very close to me just said he loves setting the bomb off and just watching must float. But I remember, and this was so telling, and Mica always got him in a way that I didn't remember reading the Washington Post editorial board interview. I don't know if you all remember, but he started talking about his hands. I have beautiful hands. People come up to me, they look at my hands and they say, those are the biggest, most beautiful, strong hands I've ever seen in my life. He also talked about them in a nationally televised debate, right so an he went further, and he said, and some people say, if there's a problem with your hands, there's a problem somewhere else. And I can assure you there is no problem. So he didn't. So I said to Mika, I said, read this verbate, and you're going to conclude me that this guy is just he's completely lost his mind. And and she cut me off. She said, he didn't talk about his hands because he's lost his mind. He talked about his hands because he didn't want to talk about like the nuclear triad. He didn't. He doesn't know. So you think he's do you think he's that savvy though? I think he talked about his hands because he didn't want anyone to think he has a small penis no. I mean, he that's important to him. But he at that moment, being in the Washington Post editorial board meeting, anything to kill time. He knew anything to kill time. But there is You talked about the constitution. How Trump has no respect for the constitution. There is a constitutional remedy for somebody who using his mental acuity and doesn't follow the Michael Wolf says that the amendment is discussed on a regular basis inside the White House. Do you think it should be implemented? Yes, yes, yes, you know, look at his interviews. Look at the interview with Michael Schmidt. Well, he said no collusion fifty times and about five minutes. Listen to how he rambles. Go back and look at him being interviewed in nine nine on The Today Show and compare that Donald Trump to the Donald Trump being in of viewed by Tim Russert and two thousand on Meet the Press. Compare that to Donald Trump in two thousand seventeen. It's not the same man. It's not even close. Um. And if everybody around him had not said what Rex Tillerson has said that he's a moron, or what Garry con and others said that he's an idiot, that would be one thing. If Trump really had a defender in there saying this guy is well. Sarah Sanders comes out every day and says that it's absolutely falls and falls, and Stephen Miller goes on, I can't wait to Rea, and they'll all be the one saying we were doing everything we could do to save the republic because we knew he wasn't well, but knew he would never leave without a bloody constitutional crisis. Blah blah blah blah blah. You know those books are going to read five years or now. So how do you see this plane out? You know who said that he had a thirty chance of completing his term, Steve Bannon? So what do you see happening? You guys think the Democrats are gonna win big next year. I think are this year. I can't imagine he's not going to be impeached after Mueller ends his investigation and Democrats are in charge of the House, and we'll just see what happens in the Senate. Well, where do you think the Muller investigation is going. It's going to Don JR. Uh, maybe going to Jared I'm not sure yet, but likely going to Don Junr and Donald Trump. I think at the least probably ends up being an unindicted co conspirator and to follow obstruction, especially come on if if he's not guilty of obstruction in this case, I don't know what you have to do. Admitted to the Russians that you fired comey, to kill the Russian investigation. Yeah, the same thing. But what's your reaction to formally independent Republicans like Lindsey Graham kind of throwing themselves onto Donald Trump to defend him in this uh, in this investigation and increasingly trying to discredit Mueller as partisan and by a sad and pathetic Lindsay. I'm surprised by Lindsay, and so is I would guess John McCain is very surprised by what Linda, anybody any Republican acquitted himself or herself in the course of this whole chapter. Bins, you know there are Republicans La Jeff like Bin Sass. I've got to say also, um, John McCain. Of course, John McCain such a hero. Lankford actually from Oklahoma at times, and he's the one with sort of the most to lose. He comes from a very very conservative state, and yet he'll be the first to say we need to investigate. But going back to h Jane, he said he was voting for Trump even after Trump said that he'd prefer people who weren't captured. When McCain was running for re election in two sixteen, he wasn't willing to distance himself choices like is that he had to make that I probably wouldn't have made, but he made him. But you know, he's a guy that has spoken truth to power. Well, have you all been surprised by Paul Ryan? Yes? Yes, I've known Paul since he was twenty two or twenty three, and he actually was a staffer for a group that I worked with on the Hill nine and forward and went to campaign for him in in Wisconsin. And yeah, I've been deeply disappointed. And you know, for him, he's a policy guy, and he keeps telling himself, I'm just gonna keep my head down, just gonna focus on policy, and I'm not going to get distracted by all of this. At some point you need to stick your head up and be distracted by I was gonna say, how can you not get distracted? Because this is all it really is? Distractions? Right? Yes, all right? But also again, it's okay for him to say I agree with Donald Trump on tax policy, but I'm deeply offended that he is questioning the integrity of federal judges appointed by Republican presidents simply because he doesn't like the outcome of a case. I'm deeply offended because Donald Trump's borrowing from Stalinist terminology, calling the media enemies of the state. Deeply disturbed, Uh that that he's attacking a Vietnam veteran like Bob Muller who guided America you know through the days following September eleven. I'm not sure how you remain silent on those things. If you're Paul Ryan or Mitch McConnell, I will never understand, and I will I just will never buy whatever their explanation is. I know they don't care, but a lot of Americans do. And the conventional Republican position seems to be, well, I like the policies, but I'm uncomfortable with the tweeting or whatever. But to that point, do you think the policies have been good? Do you think they've lived up to sort of the populist promise of Trump's campaign? Well, look at the tax plan. How could you That's the fact that that is Donald Trump. Everything that Donald Trump campaigned on regarding working class Americans, it's been a lie. It's just you know, he's he said, the rich we're getting richer, the poor we're getting poor. The middle class was getting left. Hillary Clinton, was you know Hillary Clinton was was a captive of All Street. He was going to do a massive infrastructure to a massive infrastructure uh program. He was going to say that He's going to do that. That's going to be easy, brilliant, and he was gonna save healthcare. He if you look at the healthcare his health care proposal that he supported, and you look at the tax proposal they got passed, they are is tilted towards the richest of rich as any Republican. Mika, where do you see all this heading? Um? Do you think, uh as Joe does that the republic the Democrats are going to make big, big gains in the mid term and do you think that? What do you think when you look ahead to I'm very worried. Um. Joe has eternal optimism about the foundations of our democracy. And I grew up in a home with two parents that fled Hitler from different countries and Um, a father who was extremely engaged in foreign policy and Soviet American relations or lack thereof in China and spying. And he was even warning me ten years ago that the Russians were listening to our phone calls. Um, And I really think this is how it all begins. I think that we are lulling ourselves into a dangerous state of denial that this is okay, what's happening. And I think that we've got the president cornered. It appears that presidents the only one who is seeming to be an outlier, and everyone else around him might be okay. But that's not enough, because if he's questioning our judiciary system, if he's insulting the FBI and the CIA, if he's constantly attacking the media, all you need is one or two people in one of those branches of government or one of those entities to feel the need to protect him or herself and to perhaps go off the grid as well on oldarchy. Do you have those people in the d J right? Well, the problem is what what is happening to our system and our balance of power and could crumble? I think what we have is strong and important, but it's not infallible. It's to be respected, it's to be held precious. And he's just running around with a machine gun shooting up our entire sort of figure democratic system. Yeah. Well, do you think that these staffers that have been described in Fire and Fury, A of them who do not have confidence in him. At some point, will people even like Lindsey Graham feel it's their patriotic duty to take a stand. I mean, how do you get the ball roll? Your column last week was amazing? Was it last week? About the compliant Congress? That everything was prepared for? Uh? You know in oh yeah, that our founders actually anticipated point a trannical president. But they never let their imaginations be darkened by the prospect of a tyrannical president and a compliant congress. What's going on? There would be checks and balances that would always hold a tyrannical president in check. Well after two eighteen, will there p jo I hope, I certainly hope. Is that the key to all of this? Yes, I mean key to all of this. And I'm not just saying for Democrats to be elected. Republicans want to run in primaries that will challenge other Republicans who are compliant to a president who is an Autocrat and waiting good luck to them, good luck to them, and are independence. It doesn't just have to be Democrats. But right now, I think for the first time in Benjamin Wittis, who writes for Lawfare, has basically said whatever differences Democrats and independents and Republicans have with each other. Put it to the side for now. Somebody makes that vote for the tax cut, fine, just let it go. There's a much bigger issue here, and that is preserving the constitutional norms and values that we've had for two hundred forty years. So this is the most important political year of our of our lives other than maybe let's um wrap things up, and Nika, I don't want you to get away before talking a little bit about sort of this seismic shift where witnessing not only with the Me too movement, but with this reckoning, if you will, and deeper awareness of women in the workplace. That's something that you, I know, have been writing about, you know, your value with pay, equity, um with opportunity. That's the subject of one of my upcoming National Geographic Hours is on gender and equality in Hollywood and Silicon Valley specifically. And I'm just curious about your thoughts as you watch the Golden Globes, you watch these women in black versus men in black talking about these issues in a very serious and passionate way. Well, I think that is exactly what we need to keep giving voice to people who need a voice, is to just give voice to the issue and to have more women speaking out. I think that there are treacherous times I had with this. We have to be really careful about due process and about this becoming such an almost an embowtowitch hunt that then women are sort of seen as like, oh, my gosh, so you're concerned about I'm definitely concerned about a backlash. But let me tell you what I'm excited about, and that is that I think immediately we're seeing a culture change where men and women are really thinking about how they behave in the workplace. Men and women. This is about men and women. It's not just about men and um we're having an honest conversation. Often the conversation gets very treacherous. I've stepped in a few times, but I want to keep having it because I want women to be hired for the same reason that men should be hired. That they're good people with good values, who are really good at what they do, and that should be what we are looking for. It shouldn't be certain types of men and certain types of women that catch the eye and you know, in the TV business, oh my god, I've been stepped over by like three beauty queens in my and my entire career for like jobs I thought I had, and you know, people had hired for the wrong reasons. It sets up a terrible dynamic, and I feel like we have killed a lot of that dynamic in the past three months and coming close to home with things that have happened with people that we know at this network. You know, I think we've all learned as a company, as a member of the news media, that sometimes we're a part of it. If we laugh at the jokes, like laughing about a man's bad behavior is saying it's okay, or being a part of the joke about someone who's you know, constantly hitting on women or cheating or sleeping around. It's not funny. And I kind of feel like I learned a little bit about myself in this. I've been a victim of sexual harassment, a victim of sexual assault. I have my um opinions as to how deeply I think my career was impacted by that, and I don't think it was. But I also think taking part in the acceptance of behavior is something we're not going to do anymore, and it's gonna be hard getting there, but we all kind of learned like, oh my gosh, the things that we just accepted the rules have changed, and that means all of us have to behave a certain way, UM, a better way. And I think it involves kind of a constant conversation and a recognition that this is a universal problem that involves everybody, men and women. I think there haven't been strict guidelines or at least communicated guidelines to employees that these im media organizations UM for decades, at least as long as I've worked in television. UM, I don't think there were any clear sort of a code of conduct. For example, there was never a system in place where if you were an aggrieved person or felt you had been wronged, there was a place you could go and an HR department would actually listen to you and not protect the powerful in the dynamics. So also, what about creating a workplace where it is prevented and it is an issue of prevention. Code of conduct can be about prevention. I'm rereleasing Knowing your Value in the fall, and I'm doing an addendum and I interview a lot of different top companies about what they think the rules of the road are in terms of working from open door policies to looking at you know, looking at your corporate structure, how many women are at the top, how many women are leaving, how many women are not coming back? Women in leadership positions is so key, you know. After the Harvey Weinstein UH scandal broke, I took a look. I did a survey of women in top positions in TV news, both in cable and network and broadcast, and I was stunned when I looked at presidents, bureau chiefs, executive producers, how few and far between, uh, there were women in those roles. And I'm talking about women in really decision making positions, and I think that would go a long way to changing things. But I also think when you consider fift of the people I read somewhere meet their significant other in the workplace, case in points in YouTube right now, how do you navigate that in terms of what relationships are permissible and what aren't. And so these are things that are really going to have to be investigated and and examined in a very real way without turning every corporation into Big Brother. These are really challenging issues. I think, Well, that's why because now, a consensual relationship, if the power dynamic is unequal, is not, isn't a consensual right now? And and sometimes it isn't. Sometimes if the power dynamic is sonic, well it's impossible. But I do think that's where you really have to look at prevention. A code of conduct is fantastic if it if it helps you walking in the door. It's like, I'm I want and what I'm writing is what I want to get to every young man and young women as they go off into the workplace and become leaders, because there's a way you need to know about how you conduct yourself around men and women. What's okay, what's not okay, what's a joke, what's not? I mean, this is what we're learning in a very kind of you know, de way, rip off the band aid kind of way, for sure. But it's getting women in powerful positions, retaining women, and leveling the playing field financially that will ultimately solve the problem. Thank you so much for doing our podcast. I read your inscription in the Fire and Fury book. Some investigating here, but I'm nosy you guys. For Joey your dad is the man. Oh we just messed up his birthday present. When's his birthday? Feel bad for snooping? So he will be very excited about that. Will you tell him? I said, high and happy birthday whenever, whatever, it is, all right. Thank you guys. Thank you a big thank you to Mika and Joe and the whole staff of Morning Joe for hosting us at Rockefeller Center, home of NBC Studios, my old stopping grounds. And of course thank you to our production team, our producer Gianna Palmer, our engineer Jared O'Connell, our assistant producer Nora Richie. Thanks are also an order for our social media queen Alison Bresnik. Is that a little negative to say queen? I don't know. And Emily Mina of Katie CURRCT Media, I like when people call me queen. My assistant Beth Demas frankly keeps my life in order and it's pretty chaotic, so needless to say, she is a very hard job. Mark Phillips wrote our theme music and Brian and I are the show's executive producers. Please stay in touch. Email us with your comments, questions, feedback and guest ideas at comments at correct podcast dot com, or leave us voicemail at nine two to four, four, six, three seven might end up on the show and search Katie Curic and you'll find me all over social media, particularly Instagram these days. If you've been following my stories on Instagram, you know I've been binge watching The Crown, which is so good. I make all these editorial statements like I showed somebody and I was like, oh, and that mad red angry face emoji. I didn't like this person. I'm not going to give it away because I don't want to soil things. You know, First of all, I'm watching The Crown. I think we watched the same episodes at the same time without knowing, which is a little scary. And second, I follow all of your Instagram stories. Okay, like a half hour of my day I can never get back. I'm so sorry, but I really hated when she looked at the Queen. And that's all I'm gonna say. Yeah, it's a great show anyway. I tweet from the handle at Goldsmith b and uh, we'll talk to you next week. It feels good to say it right in. It sure does. And we'll be chatting with Maggie Haberman. Maggie is the White House correspondent for The New York Times. And she is one badass and I can't wait to talk to her. Plus, we'll have another surprise announcement next week. Brian, are you pregnant