>> absolutely. >> mark hannah, thank you so much. quick moment now for final thought. >> michael steele, final thoughts? >> that last point is an important one on the heels of the upcoming north korea summit. how the president now engages on foreign policy, given all the domestic issues, will be something to watch. >> it really will. there's also responsibility for candidates running in 2020 to understand foreign policy, explain foreign policy and explain why it's important for america to remain engaged in the world. >> that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. >> thanks, mika. hi, there, i'm stephanie ruhle. on the clock. in a few hours, roger stone will be in front of a judge that he showed in an instagram post next to crosshairs.

cancel your vacation plans with serious questions still remaining on which findings could be sent to congress and whether any could be released publicly. >> i guess from what i understand, that will be totally up to the attorney general. how about the carolina blues? republican congressional candidate mark harris is set to testify today, following shockishock i ing and unexpected testimony from his own son that he was warned about hiring a political operative at the center of an election fraud case. >> i expressed my concerns based on everything that i did know, mainly my belief that mccray had engaged in collecting ballots. i love my dad and i love my mom, okay? and some breaking news, actor jussie smollett is now in police custody after being charged for allegedly staging the hate crime assault he reported back in january. and coast guard lieutenant

and a self identified white nationalist is now under arrest after authorities say they uncovered a stockpile of weapons and ammunition and a target list of prominent democrats and television hosts. the suspect reportedly writing, i am dreaming of a way to kill almost every last person on earth. thank you to our law enforcement. whew. we begin today with growing sxeks expectations that nearly after two years of questions about the president and russia, we might actually get some actual answers. i have a great team to break it all down, but first i want to tell you where things stand. multiple officials have told us that special counsel robert mueller is wrapping up his work and preparing to submit his report to attorney general william barr. what happens after that? that's a bit of a mystery. the report itself will explain why mueller decided to charge certain people, who else he investigated and why those people were not charged.

but the report will be confidential. so it won't automatically be made public. here is what barr told congress during his confirmation hearing a month ago. >> i am going to make as much information available as i can, consistent with the rules and regulations that are part of the special counsel regulations. i don't know what -- at the end of the day what will be releasable. i don't know what bob mueller is writing. >> as you can see, there's a lot of wiggle room there. we know barr has to notify members of congress about the findings but according to federal regulations, those reports are only required to be brief notifications, with an outline of the special counsel's actions and the reasons behind them. on wednesday, president trump said he is confident that barr will make a good decision about what to make public and what to keep under wraps. >> should the mueller report be

released? >> that will be up to the new attorney general. he is a tremendous man, tremendous person who respects this country and the justice department, so that will be totally up to him, the new attorney general. >> i want to bring my panel in on this one. eli stokels of the l.a. times, noah brockman, commentary magazine. mia wiley and served as policy director for senate democratic leader chuck schumer. ken, you said this was going to wrap up for a while. any new signs of specifically when we're going to get it and how it's all going to go down? and i certainly hope you're not planning on going on vacation next week. >> indeed not. there are new signs, stephanie. we've been told by law enforcement officials and congressional officials that the

report could be delivered to the attorney general any day and likely within the next week. pete williams and i reported in december that mueller was wrapping up and a report was likely to be sent over to the attorney general as early as mid february. i always assumed that could slip a little bit. we're now closing in on the end of february. and this week we've seen many other news organizations catching up, and they are also being told that a report is imminent. as you said, it will be a confidential report sent over to attorney general william barr. that's what the rules say. it may be a voluminous report but it will be secret. then it will be up to the attorney general to decide what he can release and how he can release it. there's some mention of a brief notification to congress but there's also precedent in watergate for congress being sent a full grand jury report for a prosecutor in the event there are impeachable offenses. there's a lot up in the air here but there's an expectation that the public will learn shortly what robert mueller has found. >> eli, take us inside the white

house. what are people there telling you? are they worried this could hurt the president politically, legally or not at all? >> most of the concern is about the political implications of this and what else is in the report that hasn't already leaked out publicly through news reporting that could be damaging to the president, that could affect several news cycles and possibly weaken his standing and maybe worst case scenario, put significant pressure on republicans in congress to actually consider something as serious as impeachment, ultimately. i think that's what they're trying to avoid. i don't think they're too concerned about that just yet. the president has kept republican republicans in congress, muddying the waters and make sure that people who support the president don't trust the findings, whatever they are. it's always been that political response to this legal investigation and that is sort of what the president will continue to do.

i think some people will be talking privately. they're a little concerned how the president will react because he consumes the news and reacts in real time. not a lot of impulse control there. certainly, there's a lot of questions about what will come out of the report, how much will barr release to the public? certainly there's exculpatory stuff about the president, he's liable to tweet it out himself. there is concern if there's stuff in there that's damaging how the president will respond publicly. >> rudy giuliani has already successfully muddied the waters as things come out. you can't even remember what you had heard before. walk me through what would be acceptable to the general public. put outrage aside. we know that bill barr has -- he has already sort of paved the way, say iing i don't know if i going to be sharing everything. maybe things that are only a legal issue, not a political issue. or if we do get something it may be a cutdown version of what congress gets and what congress gets may be a cutdown version of

what the white house gets. >> from the president's allies, we've seen that the information that's come out so far has been legally exculpatory that, it doesn't indict the president personally or members of his campaign team for being engaged in some sort of conspiracy of russia. >> aren't the levels of his allies -- you've got the hard core kellyanne conways that are human shields but then you have the mitch mcconnells. are they in a different position for how they view this report? >> somewhat, but through conservative media and his conservative all is that rely on exculpa tch exculpatory evidence and less on the fact that the president was surrounded by individuals in sordid relationships like wikileaks, that has a connection to russian intelligence, just by virtue of saying the president seems to be absolved from any sort of conspiracy with russian officials, russian intelligence,

that is enough to indemnify the president and get republicans to lean on that information and divorce themselves from the damaging effects of the president's relationships with these sordid individuals. >> jim, if mueller does not find evidence of conspiracy and democrats keep pushing the issue, do they risk getting backlash from americans who say this has been two years, enough is enough, we said let bob mueller do it. he did it. let's move on. >> possibly but i think if you look at the standards of nixon, bill clinton impeachment in the past -- >> standards? >> -- likely what you'll see out of the mueller investigation will be something that in the past congress would very seriously consider impeachment. those standards have changed because, look, this is what donald trump has done the last two years. he has tried to discredit the mueller investigation and it was all meant for this moment. it was all leading up to this moment so when a report came out, it is going to be very,

very damaging, whether it's legally very, very damaging, we don't know. but it is designed for him to survive this moment. >> can we honestly talk about what's been done in the past and precedent? i banned the word unprecedented on this show because that was the last two years. can we honestly say well this has to happen because it's happened before. we've thrown that out the window already. >> but at the same time a report is coming out and there will be enormous pressure that this report be released. it will be extremely politically damaging, perhaps very legally damaging and, look, the filters that we have now, the media filters are very, very different. trump has done an excellent job with his henchmen to discredit mueller. but the report will be written in black and white. people can read it. >> mya, next week, michael cohen is expected in front of the

house. how big of a deal is that? >> his testimony is going to be less of a deal than the fact that there's an ongoing investigation because in his testimony what we know from elijah cummings is he is not going to talk about the fundamental question of trump tower moscow. that's the conversation that is more of a link to the conversation on conspiracy and collusion. but the point here is on the southern district, this isn't over. and i think there's been -- this is more maybe semantic but for reporters who are saying we are hearing this is wrapping up, for lawyers we're like this is nowhere near over. there is no wrap-up. if pu think about this as a three-act play we've seen the first two acts, right, in 2017 was the investigation, setting the stage and starting to get those initial plea deals and indictments that really gave him

the evidentiary platform for what became 2018, which was the much deeper level of investigation, which has now resulted in the indictment of roger stone. that has taken us to his report, meaning we have a department of justice with a memorandum saying we will not indict a sitting president. there was never a question for the justice department about whether there was going to be an indictment of donald trump. we heard this from andrew mccabe yesterday on msnbc. there's been a concerted effort to protect the ongoing investigations by spinning it out to u.s. attorneys' offices. so act three is the u.s. attorneys' offices. this is not wrapping with the report. this is wrapping with the continued investigations, the potential indictments that may come from the southern district

of new york, from virginia, from d.c. >> ken, i have to ask you about roger stone. he is going to be in court today to face the judge whose picture he put on instagram. just moments ago, we saw him arrive in d.c. what do you think is going to happen? yes, even if he took the post down, he put it up there. he knew the damage it would do. he knew the message he was sending to his loyal supporters. >> at a minimum, stephanie, he is going to get a dressing down by judge amy jackson. it's possible she could throw him in jail. she certainly did with paul manafort, but he had been accused of the crime of witness tampering. stone has not been formally been accused of a crime. it's conceivable that a threat to a federal judge could be in play here. but he does have a first amendment right to criticize the investigation however unwise that is. i think at a minimum, though, you're going to see he will have a rough time in court with this

federal judge today. >> a dressing down. that's a visual i'm not looking for at 9:13. ken, eli, everybody, thank you very much. a really important morning. we have to turn to a stunning story out of maryland. please listen to this. coast guard lieutenant christopher hason will appear in court today. allegations against him that he wanted to carry out widespread terrorist attacks and even drew up a target list that included prominent politicians and journalists. courtney kube, this is scary stuff. >> a coast guard lieutenant, junior officer based here in d.c. at coast guard headquarters. last week, he was arrested on both gun and drug charges. but when we dug into these court documents yesterday, some of the language was absolutely terrifying. it said that the current charges are the proverbial tip of the

iceberg and the defendant is a domestic terrorist bent on committing acts dangerous to human life that are intended to affect government conduct. so, what this gentleman had been doing, he was stockpiling weapons, more than a dozen, including semi automatic weapons, rifles, handguns and more than a thousand rounds of ammunition, since about twee201. he is also accused of using tramadol, a narcotic that's sort of a sedative, and stockpiled 20 bottles of human growth hormone. according to the court documents he talked about conducting these massive attacks, massive terrorism and had recent google internet searches like where to see congress people in d.c., where do politicians hang out? he had this target list that

included high-profile politicians here in d.c. and high-profile journalists. we'll see him in court this afternoon in maryland where we may have a potential opportunity to hear from him. >> i want to say thank you again to the law enforcement officials who are on top of this. this is really scary stuff. courtney, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> we'll leave it there. much more on breaking news this morning. actor jussie smollett is under arrest, accused of filing a false police report. we'll have the latest, live from chicago. an historic summit is under way live at the vatican. the pope opening this morning by saying we need to hear the cries of the little ones. it's an important statement. the question is, will the catholic church actually confront the decades-old, massive problem? massive problem?

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right now the vatican is holding an historic summit, confronting sexual abuse within the catholic church. the pope opened with a call to action for the church. listen. >> translator: in the face of this scourge of sexual abuse perpetrated by men of the church to the detriment of minors, i thought that i would summon you, patriarchs, cardinals, bishops, religious superiors so that all

together we may lend an ear and listen to the holy spirit and with obedience and docility of his guide listen to the small who are asking for justice. >> nbc's anne thompson joins me live from vatican city. thank you for covering this. we know that the pope called for concrete and effective measures against clerical sexual abuse earlier today. walk me through what else has been going on and what that means. those are obviously strong words. it's an effective speech. but when you talk about sexual abuse against minors, you're usually in a court of law, talking about people who are in jail. >> reporter: well, stephanie, in fact, the pope hand ed out what he called 21 reflection points, which people think could be a road map to solving this problem around the world for the catholic church. and some of the suggestions that

the pope had gathered include preparing a handbook for bishops about what to do when a charge comes forward, cooperating with civil authorities, accompanying victims. a lot of this seems like common sense and kind of almost duh to those of us in the united states because we've been dealing with it for so long. for those countries that are just starting to confront this problem, there are things that those bishops want. another interesting thing, they talked about raising the minimum marriage age in the catholic church from girls 14 to 16 so there would be one standard across the globe so everybody understood what was legal and what was not. >> anne, this is a hard story for me as someone who was raised factor, to hear the duh factor of a handbook. these are abuses against children. there's more than that. headlines have been swirling

about the church not handling just this scandal but abuse of nuns, abuse of children, gay priests and secret rules. what should we expect to unfold the next couple of days? if this thing is going to count it has to be more than a handbook and 21 points of light. >> reporter: there's no question. and the pope made that very clear today, that rules are not going to be enough. he called for concrete and effective actions. that really will be the test of the summit. survivors who have gathered here -- and i will tell you, stephanie, there are almost as many survivors here as there are bishops. they are asking for a couple of things. they want the vatican to release all the names of credibly accused priests from around the world. they said that will go a long way to establishing credibility and also protecting those -- protecting minors from future abuse. they also want a zero tolerance policy established around the globe. again, this is something that is done in the united states, has been done since 2002, but zero

tolerance means one abuse and you're out of the priesthood. >> can you believe they have to ask for that, anne? >> reporter: i know. >> thank you for covering this. we're going to ask for tolerance. >> reporter: it really is stunning. >> it's stunning. it's crushing. i appreciate all those victims going there, trying to have their voices heard. thank you, anne. coming up, jussie smollett is in police custody accused of filing a false police report. filing a false police report ♪ don't fence me in. ♪ let me be by myself ♪ in the evenin' breeze, ♪ listen to the murmur of the tall concrete, ♪ ♪ send me off forever, but i ask you please ♪

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right now actor jussie smollett is in police custody. how about that turn of events? the actor was arrested after he was charged with a felony for allegedly filing a false police report. the 36-year-old is also said to appear in a chicago courtroom later this afternoon. i'll go live to chicago and nbc's miguel almageur. what do smollett's attorneys say and what do they say at this news conference? you and i have been in this position, talking about this over a week, but it was a much different story then. >> reporter: absolutely. we know according to jussie

smollett's attorneys he surrendered to police 6:00 a.m. eastern time, went to main police headquarters and transferred to the building behind me. he will have a bond hearing in a few hours. it will be a relatively short hearing. i want to read you ay statement that his attorneys released overnight. it says like all other citizens, he should be presumed innocent. we're not sure if jussie smollett will address the public. it's been more than three weeks he told people he was brutally attacked in a hate crime. investigators now say all that have was a hoax. he faces a felony charge which could carry up to three years in prison but also could be punishable by probation and fines. many are now demanding that he be fired from his hit show "empire" after he concocted this story from two men he knew from

the show "empire" to help pull this off so he could garner more attention. stephanie. >> former editor, bloomberg, noah rothman, maya wiley back with me. what's your reaction to all of this? >> i have two reactions. the first is one of the -- it is critically important we know the facts. i think the lawyers are absolutely right, innocent until proven guilty. at the same time, it is extremely disturbing that there is the possibility of a false claim, particularly on a hate crime because part of the -- what's happening in this country, we're seeing an undermining of the legitimacy of fear and concern amongst people who are jewish, people who are black, people who are gay or lesbian in terms of the reality of hate crimes. >> say that to me one more time. >> there are people who are actually challenging when folks

allege their fears, there are folks who are actually arguing against the rise of hate in the united states, despite the facts. >> isn't this the reverse? >> this is my point. in a single case in which you have an apparent false claim, we are seeing people start to argue, see, this is why we cannot believe. this is why we see a playing of the race card. this is why. so there is a counternarrative that's very destructive and that if jussie smollett, in fact, fabricated this claim, he has fed into a larger national societal division line around how we actually address hate in this country. because hate is on the rise. we have a 17% increase in hate crimes just in the past year. it's the third year in a row in which it has grown and we have a 20% increase in the number of active hate groups in this

country. so it's not that hate isn't a problem. and any individual case that argues against the fact that we have to address the societal problem this is exactly the kind of case they use to do that. >> noah, your recent op-ed is titled jussie smollett and a perfect crime. what does that mean? >> maya is absolutely right. the first thing we have to do here is emphasize alleged. these charges against mr. smollett are alleged. we don't know the facts. >> but also the charges against the two men, to begin with, were alleged. >> right. >> and they were taken as fact by the general public. >> and by so many political and cultural leads who used them to advance a particular narrative about a social sickness that confirms their buy as. maya is correct, hate crimes are on the rise. they have been for the past three years, and this is precisely the kind of incident

that can and will be used by individuals in the mirror image opposite of that reaction, to confirm their biases, preferred narratives about society. two things happen when you report this sort of stuff recklessly. the first is that we know this results in copycats, reporting on violence, which have you to do, can create more copycats. the second is that there are material and psychic rewards. they are due and justified rewards. the reason we keep that threshold down there's an evidentiary standard you have to meet. when we reduce that evidentiary standard and believe accusations on the merit of the accusations alone, you make it easy for people to create hoaxes. this is not the first time someone has done this. >> we covered it as breaking new. i follow you on twitter and straight out of the gate, you were casting doubt. >> full disclosure, i'm from

outside chicago. i was raised there. i also went to law school about three blocks away from where this alleged attack happened. i was openly skeptical for many reasons from the start but i want to give a shout out to the chicago police department and the work they have done in chasing down this case and stay ing on it and putting the amount of detectives they did. this was an incredibly serious allegation of a hate crime against a member of the lgbtq community. they did their job. we'll see what happens. innocent until proven guilty. i'm a proud, openly gay woman and what we have to say here hate crimes are on the rise but false allegations of hate crimes, the next young black man who gets beaten up outside a bar, the next young lesbian who is assaulted because of who she is, that just sets us all back to a generation, to a decade, to a time.

i am truly fearful to returning to. i am openly outraged and saddened at the same time. this smacks of truly mental illness on his part. i hope he gets the attention he needs if this is, in fact, true. but let us remember how incredibly serious this is for the community. >> hold on a second, megan. mental illness is a very serious thing. if it's true what he did, that's a terrible thing. does he deserve the label of mental illness when somebody commits -- >> what he absolutely deserves is to be treated exactly the same as any other person, not in his very privileged person would be if they reported a false crime of this magnitude to the police no, question. at the same time, i have compassion, empathy. people make mistakes. this could be a man who is struggling with who he is and what attention he wants to draw to as an openly gay black man. i can have both. i can have outrage and

compassion and what this world needs and our society needs is a little bit more on the compassion side. >> but he was willing to testify against two innocent individuals to advance this story. does that merit compassion? >> i don't know the full facts of what have happened. i have follow this had story closely and would like to see how it plays out but there's no conflict within myself as a human being to look at him with empathy and also be outraged at what happens happened here. >> maya, you are the daughter of a civil rights leader. what megan is calling for is compassion and forgiveness. and it's more than just the jussie smollett situation. we need it across the board. when people of influence voice their skepticism about the smollett case right after it came out, they were called bigots, all sorts of horrible names and then they shut up. if people stop speaking and if we're accusing and labeling people, things are only going to get worse. >> i think megan is absolutely right in both being outraged at

the damage and impact and to noah's point the damage and impact of false claims. and, and i think it's incredibly important to try to understand what's happening societally. i want to put jussie smollett aside. we don't know what motivated him or what was going on there. there's so much we don't know. your point is on point one. some of us -- i admit when i heard this, it was credible to me, didn't make a judgment about whether it was true or not true. but the credibility is the fact that it is scary and dangerous right now to be a person of color, to be jewish, to be lgbtq. try being transgender in this country right now. the level of division and animosity -- so to your point about compassion, there is the compassion that we have to have for one another in terms of

understanding our actual experience, our lived experience in this country and how we have better conversations about it. because the alienation that we're seeing is actually part of what is destroying even the fabric of our respect for our institutions. >> noah, you just wrote a book about social justice. we're talking about groups and hate crimes are on the rise. when i turn on conservative media we're hearing from white males who say we're being accused of the worst. no one thinks of us. we're now at the bottom of the barrel. and whether i agree with it or don't agree with it, it seems countless groups out there are getting more and more divided and feeling marginalized. do you have a take on this? >> that different thinking from white males is dangerous. it's damaging. you're considering yourself not as an individual but a member of your collective class or tribe.

>> we're humans first. >> that's the root of the problem here. we didn't talk about this crime like it was a crime, like an individual was involved and there were individual allegations against other perpetrators. we talked about it like it was a societal malady. this was about a collective whole. we were trying to seek patterns in what was essentially probably a random act. that resulted in this sort of -- >> but it wasn't a random act. >> can we make it clear that white men are not at the bottom of the barrel? >> there's no data behind it. >> zero. >> but the narrative out there is real and it's being pushed every single night at 9:00 p.m. on conservative media. >> and it's being disproved by the way that minorities, lgbtq community -- >> but millions of people watch the conservative news and start to believe that narrative. >> the criminal justice system is not -- we doesn't do tribl justice in this country.

we treat individuals as individuals. and if we don't it is unjust. >> where i agree with noah is in the context of law enforcement it's an individual frame. it's what happened in this particular case with this particular person or group of people? it has to and must be individualized. that is very different, though, from saying that there aren't group-based patterns in society, by the way, that society has created. there are trends in society for particular groups of people and experiences. what we have to do is understand that. i understand for white men they have lost manufacturing jobs. i understand that. and i have compassion around that. because that is a problem that we should be trying to solve as a country. i also think it's a problem that black people don't get those jobs. so, you know, this is -- so there are group-based patterns. and if we ignore the patterns we

no longer make smart policy decisions about what serves all our interests. >> we cannot ignore them but we also cannot let them lead us astray, which is what happened in this case. >> thank you all so much. i'll tell you how i feel. grateful, for all of you for this really important conversation. compassion is certainly what we need, and forgiveness. up next, we'll head to north carolina for day four of the election fraud hearings in the state's ninth district. this comes a day after the explosive and unexpected testimony from the republican candidate's son that ended in tears. this was really hard to watch. this was really hard to watch. ? yeah, i thought doing some hibachi grilling would help take my mind off it all. maybe you could relieve some stress by calling geico for help with our homeowners insurance. geico helps with homeowners insurance? they sure do. and they could save us a bundle of money too. i'm calling geico right now. cell phone? it's ringing. get to know geico and see how much you could

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today, election officials in north carolina could decide whether to certify the results of the country's last undecided congress youngal race in the ninth district where republican mark harris has an unofficial lead of 905 votes over democrat dan mcready. this comes a day after the son of republican mark harris delivered surprised, bombshell testimony detailing exactly what his father knew about an alleged tampering scheme in the district. during nearly three hours of questioning, he told election officials that he warned his dad about the questionable practices of a political operative who the harris campaign hired to, quote, get out the vote into crucial counties. the candidate's son ended his testimony with an emotional

plea. >> i love my dad and i love my mom, okay? i think they made mistakes in this process and they certainly did things differently than i would have done them, but the thing about all of this and engaging in this process and watching it all unfold, i thought more probably about my own little ones than my parents and the world that we're building for them, and i will be frank, mr. chairman. watching this process unfold, we have got to come up with a way to transcend our partisan politics for political gain. that goes for both parties, democrats and republican. >> here is a suggestion. let's wipe this thing out and let john harris run. as the hearing enters a fourth day, mark harris will get a chance to respond and tell his side of the story. nbc's leighann caldwell has been

on the story since the beginning. yesterday was a surprise. you saw mark harris visibly upset to watch his son go through that. walk us through where we are now. >> reporter: steph, it was incredible. no one knew except for the state investigators who called jn harris, the son, to the stand. no one else knew he was going to testify. he testified against his father. john hair sbis marris and mark not spoken since december to protect each other. it really blew a hole in mark harris' entire defense. mark harris has been maintaining throughout this entire time that he was not aware of the illegal tactics that mccray dallas used with these absentee ballots to overperform but john harris takes the stand and says i warned my father and he had e-mails to prove it. and so while we're waiting for

mark harris to take the stand, which could happen any minute, it's going to be super interesting to see how he defends himself now, steph. >> it sure is. i need to bring my panel in to walk through this. guys, quickly, what's your take on this? >> i mean, for those of us with children, i mean, that is absolutely heartbreaking to watch. but i think the message that he echoes about transcending partisan politics, we've been following this seat, wondering what's going to happen. who at this point doesn't want to transcend partisan politics? >> that's the opposite of what we're doing. we've never been more dug in. >> do you think so? here is the thing. we now have or already heading into the 2020 cycle. what you are starting to see is the emergence of real ideas. it will be fascinating to get back to a point where we can talk about things like a new tax

system, about child care, about medicare, about our health care system, about getting back to a politics where we actually spend, call me crazy, more than a few minutes talking about policy. for the past two years of this administration hasn't been the most partisan, has it been the most ugly? absolutely. do i still hold out hope that potentially in amongst the most diverse field of democratic candidates out there, filled with women, filled with youth, filled with people of color, filled with people who bring different ideas against a republican party that perhaps this is a time where we'll have a little bit of air space to discuss a new future for this country, call me an optimist, stephanie. >> i'm glad that jim is back. that's an amen, sister. >> absolutely. you got my support. where do i get a bumper sticker? >> murphy 2020. >> on the mark harris situation,

i think he should show his love for his son, the kind of love that his son showed for him on that stand by having the courage to tell the truth and do something incredibly difficult. i think he should show his love for his son by saying i am by s withdrawing from this race. i'm admitting wrongdoing and the mistakes that were made and the legal acts that were made and he should not be seated. he should not even be running for congress at this point. >> let's talk about those dems because as the 2020 democratic field grows, there's been a lot of talk about the three bs. bernie, biden and beto. the first jumped into the race. bernie raised 6 million bucks in his first 24 hours as a 2020 contender. joe biden appears to be one step closer to announcing a 2020 bid but still has a few concerns standing in his way. as he weighs a campaign to unseat president trump, biden is carefully considering a key question -- what happens when the president or his top allies try to make his family an issue?

we're also hearing more this morning about what could ultimately motivate beto to throw his hat in the ring. noah, what's your take? >> bernie is the most interesting guy in this race. he is -- he jumped into this race in this sort of odd fashion announcing it on vermont public radio, which is kind of a downer of a release. but he did so with an explicit rejection. he said i'm not running as an x or accept jennarian white jewish guy from vermont but a guy with ideas. you are running as a particular subset of a demographic trait. that's part of your appeal particularly among many of these candidates running as a woman, as a minority, as what have you. that's part of their appeal to a subset of the democratic electorate. and the democratic electorate responded with a lot of frustration saying to bernie that you and his supporters for example, the bernie bros who

were accused in the 2016 cycle of advance something sort of misogyny. so that is the dynamic that i'm most interested in watching. >> is joe biden going to jump? ? should he? >> i think he's going to get in the race. biden does well in the polls. there's reality in these poll numbers. i don't think it's just name recognition. there's genuine warmth out there for him. i felt to win the democratic nomination you need to be a white candidate who can win black votes, and biden can do that, or a black candidate who can win white votes. i think cory booker and kamala harris can do that. i think biden will get in the race, and he will be a serious contender. far more serious than bernie sanders is going to be. >> megan, you brought up compassion earlier. and that takes me to joe biden's concern. the impact a campaign could have on a person's family. we know it's going to be brutal

for any of them, but things are only going to get worse. >> with a field this large and likely to get larger. and you missed a b there, mike bloomberg still seriously considering getting into the race. >> but if joe biden declares, you think bloomberg will? >> this is the crazy thing. we're talking about joe biden. and joe biden is likely to position him as the centrist democrat in this field. mike bloomberg who would be the pragmatic businessman type even further, i don't know what you call further center. so it is already shaking out to be unique. but here's the thing about compassion, about what we look for. the candidate who will emerge and will be successful is able to connect these ideals to these voters that will decide this election. it's going to be white women and black women, and we are going to see them focus on those things that are -- those progressive ideas. and i am energized. i am excited. i am thrilled to talk about ideas, to talk about how to give people child care, maternity

leave, a more -- a fair tax system, better skills training for our workers. training our children. >> better education. >> let's talk about these things for once. we haven't talked about them in years, and it will be refreshing and good and we'll see who will emerge. >> she did say murphy 2020. i want to share a clip of beto o'rourke when he spoke to oprah. i was in that room. and it sounded like he's pretty motivated. >> can i be part of bringing people together in a deeply divided country around things that we agree are common? can we have a common conception of twhat is to be american, to serve, to sacrifice, to seek to achieve something far greater than any one of us? if i can play some role in helping the country to do that, by god, i'm going to do it. >> what do you think about that answer because, remember, it was the i and i alone that won

donald trump the election. and beto has a very different message. and in that conversation with oprah, i remember him saying, i'm not going to talk about donald trump. america voted for donald trump. this is a great democracy. we need to follow what america wants, and i want to understand this country. >> that's an interesting approach. appeals to common humanity. that's effective campaigning. he's on this introspective campaign. not sure when or if he's going to announce. he is going to have to talk about policy. republicans are very eager to talk about policy. we can get down to the nitty-gritty. the green new deal, tax policy, what have you. they love to talk about that sort of thing. it's difficult for republicans to position on identity politics on communitarian ideals. when they get down to policy. >> i never buy this argument. they are ideas that will help all of us, lift all boats, that's never going to hurt democrats. >> that's my point.

it is going to help democrats and hurt republicans. >> you both have really impressive vocabularies. >> they both said communitarians. a new poll shows nearly 7 out of 10 fathers say they would change jobs to be more involved in taking care of their newborn in the first weeks and months of their lives. the family medical leave act of 199 allows eligible employees to take up to 12 work weeks. however, it's unpaid leave. pew research shows 82% of americans agree moms should receive paid maternity leave and 69% say fathers should get paid paternity leave. but here in the united states, less than 1 in 5 men are offered any type of paternity leave by their employer. i had the chance to speak with alexis, the co-founder of initialized capital and serena williams' husband. he's launching a new campaign backed by dove men plus care to promote paternity leave. here's some good news. and you know we think good news

rules around here. i asked him about the launch of this million-dollar leave fund and what they're doing. >> men anywhere in the united states who qualify as new parents or expecting parents can go online to apply and get a chance to have a $5,000 grant come out of that million dollar fund. >> and dove is paying for it, not their employer. lots of employers could say i'd love to give this to my firm, to my team. i can't afford it. >> well, i'll tell you. i think this is one really important step towards getting that level of acceptance. and it resonated with me. the dove men plus care folks have always understood the need for the role of dads in family life. so this is a way to sort of put money behind actually getting change. but as an employer, we had a 16-week policy that i took full advantage of and made a statement out of so that other employees, especially men, could feel comfortable taking that time as well. >> are you taking a stand here

to hups change culturally how we view fatherhood, family values. oftentimes you hear dads say i have to babysit my kids tonight. i never have to babysit my kids. i have to watch them. they're my children. but men say i have to babysit my kids. some men. >> it's infuriating when i see headlines and photos of me with olympia out in public. i'm babysitting. i'm dadding. i'm doing dad things. it's changing in a big way. i see so many posts in my social media feeds of dads just spending time with their kids on weekends, during the week, supporting their families because i think the shift is happening. and we need to step away from a world where we laud men for acknowledging they have a kid and say, no, guys, the bar is higher. the real change is going to happen at a federal level. america is still the only industrialized nation that does not have paid family leave. and i will be making a trip to

d.c. before the end of the year. we're seeing bipartisan support. seeing republicans and democrats talking with gillibrand recently. >> ivanka trump has spoken about it. >> even the president of the united states spoke about it in the state of the union. this is one of the rare issues in america right now where we can get support from the left and the right. >> at the state of the union, you saw democrats and republicans get up and clap their hands. alexis, always great to see you. >> pleasure as always. >> we're going to leave it there. that wraps us up this hour. i'm stephanie ruhle. i'll see you at 1:00 p.m. and all day long on social media. more news with hallie jackson. >> i'm hallie jackson where we are watching two major stories this hour. the first one in chicago. that's where police are expected to give an update any minute at that microphone on what is now a criminal case against jussie smollett. the actor in custody under arrest. he turned himself in this morning. he's due in court later today

charged with lying about what he described as a racist and homophobic attack. an attack police now say never happened. we're going to take you there live. here's the other investigation we're following. the one by the special counsel. what our sources are saying about how soon robert mueller will wrap things up and more importantly, what happens to his final report as one of the men he indicted, roger stone, gets hauled back into court by the judge he's been going after online. stone just landing in washington. the question now -- will he end up in bars because of those comments? our team is here covering it all. and we want to start with ron mott outside that courthouse in chicago with the breaking news in the jussie smollett case. i understand we're just now getting that booking photo of smollett. walk us through what we expect to hear and see from police and at the hearing later today. >> hey there hallie. good morning. what a stunning turn of events and the difference that 23 days can make. back on january 29th, jussie