Washington there is a problem. The New York Times reporting tonight the President Trump and his majority leader arent talking. And for now there is no trump legislation moving. We will cover it all as the 11th hour gets under way. Busy night here and good evening once again from the nbc news headquarters in new york. Day 215 of the Trump Administration and it wraps up with a Campaign Rally in phoenix, arizona for those of you joining us live, 11 00 p. M. Eastern time still going on. There is the president there taking a victory lap before the crowd. It is only his second trip west of the Mississippi River as president. And in many ways tonights political rally went back to the roots of his president ial campaign. Tonight in phoenix it got ugly early, personal attacks on the media, he blamed Crooked Media he praised fox newless fox and friends in the morning. And Shaun Hannity by name. The president relitigated his response to the traejd in charlottesville by reading aloud parts of his speeches in reaction. He complained to the crowd theyre trying to take away our heritage. He hinted at a pardon for sheriff joe arpaio. And then some. What happened in charlottesville strikes at the core of the america. And tonight this entire arena stands united in forceful condemnation of the thugs who perpetrate hatred and violence. Yoept to bore with you this. But it shows you how dishonest they are and most of you know this anyway. Here what i said really fast here is i said on saturday. Were closely following the terrible events unfolding in charlottesville virginia. This is me speaking we condemn in the strongest possible terms this ee greej us display of hatred bigotry and violence thats me speaking on saturday. I love the people of our country. The people all of the people. It says i love all of the people of our country. I didnt say i love you because youre black or i love you because youre white. Or i love you because youre from japan. Or youre from china. Or youre from kenya or your from scotland or sweden. I love all the people of our country. They were having a hard time with that one. Because i said everything. I hit them with neonazi. I hit them with everything. I got the white supremacist, the neonazi. I got them all in there. Lets see. Kkk. We have kkk i got them all. Theyre having a hard time. They asked me what about Race Relations in the United States . Now i have to say they were pretty bad under barack obama. That i can tell you. The media can attack me where i draw the line is when they attack you which is what they do. When they attack the decency of our supporters. Yes they are trying to take away our history and heritage. You see that. Was sheriff joe convicted for doing his job . Thats what he should have had a jury. But you know what. Ill make a prediction pifrpg he is going to be just fine. Okay . More on that as our hour continues. This rally comes just hours after a devastating story in the New York Times. Its about what has become a poisoned relationship between the president and what should be his point man for legislation in congress. The majority leader of the Senate Mitch Mcconnell. While the two men could not be more different, a president whose party also controls the house and senate would normally anticipate being able to run the table on legislation. That is not the case. The headline in the article reads trump and mcconnell locked in a cold war, threatening the gop agenda. Mcconnell it says in private doubts if trump can save his presidency. Lets talk about all of it with us tonight to analyzed. President s speech and the journalism out to mean National Political roert for the washlt moderator for Washington Week and pbs. Robert costa pb claim it reporter for and white house is correspondent for mcanita welcome back to the broadcast to all of you. Robert, lets start with you. What do you make of what you have heard tonight . There seemed to be some new rhetorical benchmarks lets call them, even having watched all the previous rallies. What a scene tonight in phoenix, brian. The president went there two years ago in the summer of 2015. How much has changed since then . But how little has change . He opened this rally with an airing of grievances against the media, against democrats. He went on and on about his the News Coverage of his handling of the tragedy in charlottesville. This was the same trump we saw on the campaign trail. He also took a shot at senator mccain and senator flake two republicans not by name but he certainly made it clear he was alluding to them at this rally. Jeremy, ill show germaneness of this in a moment. But i have a friend who is a former corrections officers. I asked him what he learned on the job all those years. And he said never corner a man. Always allow him an out. Its germane because tonight in many ways donald trump sounded as if he feels cornered. There were punches going out in all directions. Youre absolutely right, brian. Donald trump has been in many whiches has been a man cornered within his own white house even. His advisers with the representation exception of the recently disparated steve bannon were telling him dont do this on charlottesville. Dont reopen this wound. What did he do . Aside from going out and lets count all of the ridiculous you know outrageous extraordinary things in this appearance of his just now he threatened the government shut down. He picked a fresh fight with the majority leader of the Senate Mitch Mcconnell saying they need to eliminate the legislative fill buster. He went on a 30minute rant against the persecution machine he sees as the main stream media. This is i would i think its easy fore a lot us to dismiss it as another trump rant. But i mean these arguments are ultimately very powerful with a lot of Trump Supporters and even with a lot of conservatives who dont necessarily narch in lock step behind the president. They do feel like the media is has engaged in this ee egregious double standard against them tahoe that holds them accountable for things they shouldnt be. What frufrp is saying tonight is at public version of what he has been sating the last week 1 2. He with great ceremony took the two pages of copy out of his suit coat pocket and read selected exsermts of his remarks. The first time and then the second time trying to correct them. Skt leaving out the both sides, leaving out his point that there were fine people among other things commingled with the neonazis and kkk members. Right, i mean whats really strike something how different he was from last night. He was reading from a teleprompter talking about afghanistan. Today he was back to normal adlibbing but yes it was striking he took out the pieces of paper. He wanted to speak directly about every single thing he said. But he did leave out both sides. He also left out the name of the woman who was killed. He eventually brought her up. But it was way into that. Pan it wasnt just to talk about ewe you how his thoughts and prayer with with the family he just mentioned here. There were a lot of things strike about it. It was striking all the things he didnt talk about. All the policy issues he was ostensibly going there to talk about immigration. He barely mentioned that Health Care Tax reform barely got a mention so he could do 30 minutes on the media. Robert costa im told he cranked the one hour mark on this speech. Clearly a lot of penalties up energy. At least when we came on the air last night with the afghanistan coverage we made plain that last nights speech was designed to have a shelf life of a little more than 24 hours, i heard from a former white house aide tonight saying the poor afghanistan policy shop workers. Its been obliterated now about by this. Last might night brian was a policy speech. Tonight in phoenix you have a revealing speech. The speech was so telling for awful us reporters who have been chronicling the president and candidate trump for a long time. This is who he is. There was this exchange the riff he had talked about the elites. He kept saying the elites dont give him the approval he believes he deserved. He said he went to better schools than the elites in the media and corporate community. He said he smarter than that he lives in a better apartment he grou growls to crowd the we are the elitesless its a trumpian moment str it told us how he feels even as president. Jeremy, here is a question that may be unanswerable. Whats going on here . And also whats going on in the breitbart newsroom under new management . High fiving. This is trump exactly as they like to see him. This is Steve Bannon Bob and i were talking about this before the show. Steve bannon was never so much the whisperer in trumps ear feeding him lines as he was an echo of what was going ob inside Donald Trumps head. While trump kind of intuitive and emotionally understood this conservative populism that we sat atop bannon was the intellectual guy. He was the one who provided the framework, the vocabulary, the philosophical underpinnings of this movement. I think if you watch what happened tonight and you were worried that Steve Bannons departure from the white house meant that donald trump was losing his hard line conservative populist edge, you were not did you not come away from the speech disappointed anita sharp eyed viewers will note the president just said drain the swamp. He said we dont need the advice of the washington ds rrmt based swamp how is the swamp drain annual coming along. Not well. In a lot of different ways. I mean the drain the swamp thing was it meant so many things. It meant he wont have the washington insiders, the elites, the Business People, the traditional people. And he also wouldnt do the traditional things. And while he isnt traditional in his personality and how he gets his message out a lot of what he has been doing is traditional, the way its the way its been done. I mean Business People influential people wealthy people have a say in this kwhous. That hasnt changed. He has spent a long time off teleprompter he is now back on teleprompter. He just got a round of applause for what has been credited to him as the major achievement in the months he has been president. And that was the successful vote for Justice Gorsuch currently on the supreme court. So robert costa, he goes back to washington. And thanks to the reporting of the Washington Post the New York Times rather we know more about the ashes of the relationship between a republican president and a republican majority leader in the senate. And it was a relationship that has always been uneasy, as jotting Jonathan Martin and alan berns report well tonight the relationship frayed in august and faced a perfectlious moment. The majority leader and the president have never connected ideologically in terms of temperament. Theyre of the same generation but could not be more different. Jeremy peters, i said to read for you some of the excerpts from your newspapers reporting on the relationship between these two men between the president and the majority leader. I think we have it to put up on the screen from the story . The New York Times and a series of tweets this month mr. Trump criticized mr. Mcconnell publicly and then berated him lets see im running behind in a phone call that quickly did he involved in a profane shouting match. That was from med minister nurj during the call which mr. Trump nishlted august 9th from his new Jersey Golf Club the president accused mr. Mcconnell of bunkling the health care issue. He was more animated about what he intimated was the Senate Leaders refusal to protect him from investigations of russian interference in the 2016 election, according to republicans briefed on the conversation. Jeremy, this is where it perks up the ears of all those folks investigating russia. Thats exactly right. I mean, setting aside the fact that trump does have a point that Mitch Mcconnell and the republicans in congress probably should have had a more throe legislative plan to repeal obamacare given that they talked about it for seven years, criticizing Mitch Mcconnell for for not protecting him fl russia is just like weve seen the President Trump criticize Jeff Sessions for not protecting. Its something he has been utterly unable to get out of his head. He has fixated on it. He goes back and forth all the time. Its just his its his achilles heel. Seller hold that thought aneat he he is talking fw the attempts to take away our history what he calls our history. We are going to protect american industry. We are going to protect the american worker. No longer will we allow other countries to close our factories, steal our jobs and drain our wealth. We are building our future with american hands, american labor, american iron abaluminum and steel. We will buy american, and we will hire american. I immediately withdrew the United States from the disaster ours transpacific partnership. It would have been a disaster. And you know that one of the worst deals that anybody in history has ever entered into, we have gun formal renegotiation with mexico and canada on nafta. This is a boilerplate. A lot of the president he is campaign was about i can get better deal. Anita, in the meantime weve been watching new polling this week from states that went he heavily for trump with what has become the weekly question about how much lass tisty what the floor is, the ceiling is for the trump base. The numbers have been on the move. Right, i mean there is police you reference are under 40. In key states where these were people didnt vote republican hadnt voted republican quite some time that he needed or he used to win the presidency. This is a big problem for him if he is running for reelection its also a big problem for republicans in the midterms i think some of the polls also show that the democrats have the edge in the midterm elections. He is not helping things. Now its a little bit unclear whether the polls were just over you know whats happened the last seven eight months and they also came after charlottesville could be that. Either way bad news. There is a devastating quote in the times piece tonight about the president , a rookie to politics someone saying im paraphrase does he not know in effect that if some of the senators who are in trouble, republicans who the white house has launched efforts against like heller in nevada, like flake in arizona, that if they lose, say those two to the democrats, its democrats in the words of this quote who will be deciding on impeachment . Its kuwa its quite a quote. What were witnessing a president , outsider president convowed founded by let legislative process he is complaining about reconciliation, the legislative process which allow for approval by a simple majority he wonders by democrats dont come along with him on the signature issues. Its the president who hasnt come up through the ranks in Congress Like so many mts have before. Jeremy, a man who ran as a teal maker kind of still repeating his bona fides tonight using as i said some of the boilerplate language that could have been cut apaced. Moug can he attribute hits problem the log jams, the lack of progress for how long can he blame that on others . I mean thats the question every republican in congress right now is asking themselves. Because that will then determine whether or not they are able to cut and run from donald trump which a lot of them privately say they want to do. But they have something called their own Political Base to worry about. And trump does remain quite popular though his popularity has slid and slid quickly in the last week, week and a half. He has that base. That base is pretty solid. I do nink though listening to him tonight if if most americans are probably not theyre peshl not going to follow the speech. But you know if this is the theme that donald trump continues to hit this this you know notion that the system is corrupt its beaten him down, its beaten you down. The people, the elites they dont take you seriously. They mock your values and im here to stick it to them. Thats what he won on. If he continues to push that i think hell do quite well with the core support sfleers anita what happens when fres comes back in town . Oh its going to be really interesting. What he did tonight and what he is basically doing every day in telling the sfat, telling Mitch Mcconnell, telling congress how to act is not going to help him. I mean none of the things are helping berating members, going against some of them, you mentioned jeff flake. But tonight he just had an opportunity not to do that. He mentioned again changing the rules of the senate. Mitch mcconnell does not want to hear from donald trump how he should run the chamber. Whats going to happen is theyre going to have to make a decision when theyre opinion on the spot in washington about how close willy they will align with him whether he was involved in the legislative process or not they all need a win the question is how will they do that sno. Roblt costa i was thinking of you and the piece you publish. The date line was somewhere over the southwestern United States it was in 2015 you got a taste of the political trump on a long flight with him on his plane and then a rally. Tell us about that event and tie it to tonight. It really hasnt changed that much. I was with then candidate trump back stage at the same place the Phoenix Convention center. I flew with the president when he was a candidate from phoenix back to new york. He was watching fox news the entire flight talking about immigration, complaining about media coverage. Expressing disdain for the media and other opponents. It was the same trump, the same messages that were hearing tonight. And jeremy peters, again, deliverables at some point there is going to have to be a list of legislative accomplishments. He told the crowd tonight your taxes are too high. Were going to bring them down. Where is that coming from. Thats the question. Lets just look, check out whats happening in september here. September is going to be a total meet grinder when it comes to trump figuring out what he is doing with republicans republicans figuring out what to do among themselves. You have a budget that they need pass. You have a debt ceiling that they need raise. On top of that they look to demonstrate the deliverables as you say brian of legislative achievements like tax reform. Somehow theyre going to have to get all this done while the president is threatening a Government Shutdown oefrp the funding for his wall wp. We heard him say tonight the government should shut down if he cant get funding. I do think that is a hill he would like to die on. He has made it clear he wants to stee the funding for this wall. That is one of the key deliverables he needs to show to supporters and if youre going to pick a night with your own party over funding your Key Campaign Promise thats really not a position that you want to be in. You want to be in a position of being able to show that you can get along you can govern wsh, not that all you can do is shut down the government. Anita he is giving the portion of the speech that kwob given by any ppt of the modern era remining the crowd were the nation that dug the panama cant alwere the nation that put a man on the moon. The problem is everything that comes between that in the speech. Last night excuse me it was interesting because he did admit that his decision process has changed. Our theory of the cheap seats everything looks different on the outside while i take a drink tell us what a long walk that has been for him to talk about how a decision on afghanistan specifically looked different for him in the oval office. Right, i mean it was remarkable. It was a Campaign Promise. You will remember barack obama made the same Campaign Promise to get out of afghanistan and here are two president s in a row unable to do it. For donald trump it was remarkable because he doesnt like to be wrong. He doesnt like he likes to have the last word. He doesnt like people to tell him what to do. Thats why we are seeing this donald trump tonight. He has been criticized not on policy so much but just not getting things done, his personality at which timer the whole thing. He was criticized so much on charlottesville he is just pushing back on it. I mean he says and i love how he says this every time i dont watch tv but this morning i was watching something. So he always talk about what he is seeing on tv and the creditism. Thats his personality that he has to have the last word. He had to explain tonight about charlottesville. Roblt . Its not just the view he has from that chair in the oval office its who is whispering in his ear and we have to remember that general kelly is now running the white house. General mattis at the pentagon. You have all these different generals h. R. Mcmaster as National Security advisers. Urge urnling the president to move more hawkish and interventionist he does have indistinct as he said on monday but he has generals around him now shaping policy. Question hear the Rolling Stones a we always did during the campaign you cant always get what you want. Jeremy, robert raises a good point about general kelly. Here is the problem. Did general kelly have advance knowledge that the boss was going to relitigate charlotte tonight, attack members of the news media by name like George Stephen op lous. He was going to preside over a chant against cnn and tell the crowd the division in this country is the fault of the nations news media. Absolutely. I think anybody watching in speech tonight should finally be able to get out of their minds the notion that it matters who is around donald trump who is advising him, who is telling him to hold back. No one can hold donald trump back. Donald trump is his own man. He has his own brain. Pan as anita was pointing out earlier he is at his most defensive and reckless when he is being told by everyone around him no, boss dont do that. Thats exactly what happened last wednesday when he went out in the lobby of trump tower and doubled down on his both sides caused this violence statement after charlottesville after he had made that more contrite statement that everybody in the west wing had hoped would let this blow by. So, no, donald trump will not change. I think anybody who expects this is actually what Mitch Mcconnell is most worried about too. And see anybody who expects to see a president grow into this job is likely to be quite disappointed. Anita he went back and forth between the kind of dog whistle buzz word for the crowd our people we know what he means Trump Supporters. Then back to what was a lot of the language from the top of last nights afghanistan speech, which as michael besh laws said on social media last night, first speech on war and piece in the modern era where the president felt the need to talk about social justice because he was cleaning up from charlotte. From our people he went from we are all on the same piem we one of us hurting we are all hurt. Talked about true affection for each other and then slammed into an incredible add whom nim attack on the news media. He was told and he heard that people want him to unite the country. He didnt do that the after charlottesville. He hasnt done it much in the last week. He has gone back and forth you know on what he thought about that on the events there. People wanted this to be him to unite the country, bring everyone together. He tried to do that or he started to try to do that or he had some language about that. But yes he goes back to the us versus them, the media versus his supporters thp. That sort of thing thats thats the thing he has been saying for years. Its the thing that got him elected and naturally in his head appear opinion thats what the crowd wanted to hear after he gave it to them. Let after a we have Kristin Welker in front of a camera in a very loud room after a loud event. Kristin, what couldnt we see. We got to hear a lot of it and certainly snynopsisized. And a lot of talk about monuments pan trying to destroy history and heritage. Thats clearly become agnew line using to energize his base, brian. I think that the thing you probably couldnt see and hear from your vantage peugeot is how energized crowd this crowd was how angry some of them were the sustained shauts and tounts at the media when he intense fied his words against the media. I think it underscored the fact that the kmarltsville creditism. Obviously he left some key words out when he reread some of his initial statements. He didnt talk about the fact that he initially shade that there was plenty of blame to go around he chose his words carefully on that front. I was also struck by how many other topics he touch on tonights in a he deviled into north korea he talked about nafta he said its likely nafta will at some point be dissolved. So this was President Trump back in Campaign Mode. It is clear he has been eager to get off script obviously we saw him very scripted in the beginning of this week. And you saw this crowd. And question felt in crowd really eat up every minute of it brian. Kristin welker again a noisy hall always wonder when it feels like to be mick jager at the moment when the play them out music starts after a trump rally np robert costa interestingly back up to the relitigation of charleston. Using the selective portionless of his first and later second speech, everyone in the room knows the wording that got him in trouble everyone watching on the Television Audience knows the wording that got him in trouble. Yet he felt the need to cut and paste the pick and choose lovelier pros from both speeches. It was. Kmarltsville not charlestonen forgive me. Correct charlottesville. It was a moment tonight to see the president relitigate all of this. It backs up what ive been hearing from so many sources inside of the administration. The president never wanted to give that second statement. That tonight was actually an extended encore of that tuesday press conference at trump tower. It was the same style. It was the same unhappiness with the news media. This was a twitter feed come alive. And each chant from the crowd seemed to be a retweet of a president who goes on and on about his frustrations with the press. And jeremy the frustrations include his attacks on fellow republican senators. The point your newspaper made about the math, this is just not going to add up when you need the Upper Chamber to send your legislation over to the white house for signature. Thats exactly right. And if i could just go back to one point that bob made before getting to the legislative mess trump faces wle Congress Comes backs next month a few of the lines you heard him utter tonight about it will be fo late its not enough. In terms of when he was saying why he didnt get credit for the second statement that he made on charlottesville. Those were exactly the words that he and steve bannon were telling other trump aides when they were trying to decide whether or not to send trump back out there again to try to clean it up. They said your critics will slam you they will say its too late its not enough. So in a lot of way what is we heard from President Trump tonight was an extended version of the shouting matches that he has been having behind closed doors at the white house. Whether screaming at the aides or the television. He feels he has not gone gotten a fair shake on this. I see as much as i do somebody who believes he is the victim of an egregious double standard. I see somebody who doesnt wants to lose an argument somebody incapable of admitting when they were wrong. A lot of language of victimization tonight, bob. Thats true. I just want to back up what jeremy said. Steve bannon, gone from the white house but he might as well have been a ghost at this phoenix event. He hovered over everything his twist to President Trump, his his advice which is always to encourage the president s indistinct rather than try to kor alhim. This is a president who doesnt want to be coraled regardless of general kellys attempts to manage the staff. He is not trying to manage the chief. No one has figured out whether its leader mcconnell or general kelly or mcmaster how to contain this personality that sits in that chair. Anitaa im sorry for always bringing you legislative challenges but you are smart on these its why i do it. He said tonight he is willing to shut down the federal government if need be to get that wall built. Forget about democrats. How are republicans and in the house and Senate Hearing that . Extraordinary comment from the president of the United States. The president is the one who is usually trying to you know broker a deal and help them keep the government open. How do they view it . Not well. Basically has given them of a ultimatum. They dont want to hear it. They have said over and over the government will not shut down. They will pass the spending bills next month. So its not what they want to hear. They are not planning on using the border wall as the ultimate end all be all thing here. And so thats going to create a problem. I mean is he just saying that or really going to insist how much is he going to push thats the question. They may not have a choice. What very well could end up happening here brian what anita is alluding to President Trump could veto the budget resolution if if doesnt have funding for the wall that would put hem in the extraordinary position of having a president of the United States shut down the government. And robert. But without bannon there and wle you have general kelly and Vice President pence and mark short the legislative director who comes out of the Vice President s circle there are not many voices right now inside the government inside the white house or urging the president to have this kind of showdown. But tfl be interesting to follow how breitbart and other royce voices on the right try to push thement in the treks of the showdown. But most people when you talk to them they want a clean debt limit extension want g to get the budget passed give a few more Million Dollars to start the border wall but nothing extravagant have a marlana nal tax cut and keep the party stable. Some dark poerks he is of a speech tonight in sun judge phoenix arizona day Time Temperature 107 this afternoon. Weve been dealing with this kind of rolling coverage of breaking news as they say limited commercial interruptions tonight but we have to take our first. And we have to thank our extraordinary panel for staying with us. And analyzesing afrg as it came in to us our discussion our coverage will continue right after this. Coney island has been around for a long, long time. Reminds me of how geico has been saving people money for over 75 years. Hey, big guy come on in let me guess your weight win a prize sure, why not. 12 ounces sorry, mate. Four ounces. Ive been taking the stairs lately. You win, big guy. Sorry, scuse me oh, he looks so much more real on tv. Yeah. Over 75 years of savings and service. Get your rate quote today. A trip back to the dthe doctors office, mean just for a shot. But why go back there, when you can stay home. With Neulasta Onpro . 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Advil liqui gels make pain a distant memory nothing works faster stronger or longer what pain . Advil. Well weve been handed another sort of breaking news situation. I want to show you outside the Convention Center in phoenix tonight. The president actually goed the he kind of trolled the protestors outside. He started by saying the secret service had informed him it was a very small group. He got up and said, gee im paraphrasing here i sure expected more protestors i kept hearing that thousands of protestors were coming to phoenix. You see something in the air. We dont think its gas. Because there are demonstrators on the righthand side of your screen without gas masks on. Perhaps it was smoke bomb ohs to clear the crowd or allow police to separate. Stephanie gosk has made contact with us. She is on technology called live view there in the middle of it stephanie . Yeah, brian its a little unclear whats going on. I can tell you its very unlikely its tier gas were in the mitdle of it if its tier gas we won be able to breathe right now. But clearly some kind of smoke has filled the air. We heard too fairly large blasts im not going to call them explorations they were just blasts and we saw the crowd begin to scatter and we have seen recently the police have closed in here we did see before all of this occurred a number of protestors all dressed in black with those masks on faces looking a bit like that group that weve been talking a lot about. Ive been in the crowd all day i can tell you they are a small group within what has been thousands of people but in a very short period of time what was a peaceful situation outside this Convention Center has clearly deteriorated. And stephanie what was the did the p. D. Give you any idea of crowd size during the day or evening . You know its it really it was my own personal sense to be honest with you brian. We had a couple different vant annual points during the day it seemed like a thousand a couple thousand later on in the day that number began to swell and at its height seemed like there were four or five thousand people on the streets. And the police had barricaded off the streets, cordoned off the crowds, the goal to keep them separate fourdoor Trump Supporters and the Convention Center itself. All right Stephanie Gosk outside the Convention Center. The president also ms. Antifa kind of mocking the Group Showing up. They were of course in the news in charlottesville as well. Lets bring in annie carney joining us from politico tonight were happy to have her thank you for being so patient. She is the White House Reporter at politico anita kumar remains with us. Annie the we need to get you on the record for everything youve been overhearing and witnessing tonight. Donald trump seems to rhetorically have doubled down this evening. Thats for sure. For anyone who thought was that last night and tonight were a one two punch to get away from the charlottesville comments would be wrong, that maybe that was the staff plan but that wasnt Donald Trumps plan. What does it mean . What does it mean for the the chain of command in the west wing . What does this mean for the directorship of the new chief of staff general kelly. Well one thing that really struck me actually was that you saw during the rally trump call up general kelly his new chief of staff saying get up here. Kelly never appeared. So i think that was probably a smart move on his part and i mean its the same thing kelly probably knows what he is goating into, that you cant control the principal. And its hard to have a Crisis Management strategy when you dont str the principal onboard with your plan. And i think that we saw a few times trump sort of acknowledging that aides have told him to do one thing and did he another one. For instance, aides said he wasnt going to pardon joe arpaio from the stage. He said he would but he didnt actually do it. He said my aides told my not to call out senators by name he criticized the two arizona gop senators all but saying their names. He likes to do what he is told not to do and he pushed the limits tonight. Anita we dont know about the audience outside of the Convention Center but of course its red meat for the crowd. Yeah, i mean they love it. He said he was in Campaign Mode and all of these i mean this is this is what he likes when he goes to the campaign rallies. This is generally he doesnt usually go off for 30 minutes upon a tangent about the media not quite that much all of the other things he was saying those are the things he has been saying. He has been saying them for a couple of years now. People his supporters love them they eat them up. This is exactly what they want to hear and he relishes it. He loves the crowd. He loves you know that feedback and and its just a different scene for him and its one that he really likes. This is if he could i think if he could campaign and do the rallies every day he would thats what i enjoys. Lets reference what people are seeing on the listened of the screen. You saw a yellow substance kind of waft across. If thats not of an irritant gas it is being used as a kind of visual curtain. Law enforcement will deploy gas sometimes to cut off the view of protestors on the other side or Law Enforcement assembling. You did see some hand held pepper spray deployed by the cops in riot gear theyre going to try theyre pushing from the right to the left theyre going to try to sweep and hold kind of a military term that they will us to get control of downtown and keep these two groups separated. Because once again, you have pro trump pan antitrump protestors. Annie this is what day 215 of this presidency looks like in phoenix, arizona. You know, i do wonder if, depending on what happens out there these are antitrump protestors if well see trump talking about the violence of the alt left that he likes to reference that there is violence on both sides. The party of his quote that he did if the read back tonight when he was quoting himself im just curious to see what his reaction to this will be. The words certainly were conspicuously absent as he read portions of 9 other two press events reacting to charlottesville. Our great thanks to the two correspondents for being so patient with us. As we cover breaking news tonight. Another break for us. Well keep an eye on whats going on in phoenix. Historian and more john meacham standing by to talk to us next. Whooure searching like the perfect deal. On the perfect hotel. So wouldnt it be perfect if. There was a single site. Where you could find the. Right hotel for you at the best price . There is. Because tripadvisor now compares. Prices from over 200 booking. Sites. To save you up to 30 . On the hotel you want. Trust this birds words. Tripadvisor. The latest reviews. The lowest prices. We are back 50 minutes after the hour. Lets go back to phoenix where theres been a development in the Police Crowd Control efforts. Reporter so since we last spoke there have been a couple of new blast its and smoke filled which is closer to the entrance of the Convention Center. And you can see in our shot that smoke in the distance. What weve also felt is the effects of what feels like cs gas or tear gas. Thats people coming from this direction with, you know, runny noses, spraying water in their faces which, would appear to be crowd patrcontrol at this point. We know this particular area has cleared out substantially and the police have moved in in force. They have a helicopter above, we can see the search light. It would make sense. We have been getting reports that most of the counter trump demonstrators had been moving along, minor scuffles but nothing major in items of damage to properties or threat to lives but you can see the police are serious about enforcing the police lines. Self any gas on the edge of whatever ear tenant gas has been fired off in phoenix tonight. Well come back to you if need be. Jon meacham is standing by. New york times entitled why lee should go and washington should stay. This is important. Jon rights quote facts as john adams said are stubborn things and for southerners they are often uncomfortable. If we dont face them forth writely we risk living in worlds of fancy and in such alternative realities, the civil war was not about slavery but about what neo conservatives refer to as heritage. And john there was that word, heritage from the podium tonight. What do you make of it. . Its a tell if you will. History, President Trump said tonight, theyre not going to take away our history and our heritage and well talk about what he meant by they in a second. History is the study of past events. Its a discipline that applies the rules of evidence. It tries to, with a kind of intellectual integrity, what happened and why. Heritage means something different. Heritage is something thats handed down. Heritage is can be a fab elor a legend. In many ways what neo confederates are heritage. Weve tried to wreft it was a rear repoliceable conflict over the future of africanamerican slavery, full stop. People can argue bit but its unconvincing and a waste of time. What President Trump has done is found a new plank in his right wing populous platform. This is something were used to hearing from politicians of a younger name, when you and i why younger names, this has also forced a kind of motivated inventory of all the statutes in the country, certainly all the statutes in the south. So, jon, how to know when enough of them have been moved, covered up, taken down, how to know when were covering up too much . Well, i think the test on public property, which is where i think we have to focus the conversation, is was the person to whom the monument was erected devoted to the american experiment, liberty and self government, as embody in the union of the states or not. George washington was, Thomas Jefferson was, Andrew Jackson was, robert e. Lee, stone wall jackson, thagt and bed ferd forest whether not. They were sues sessionists. He took up arms against his government, the national government, that had been essentially born in the Continental Congress of 1776, the phrase United States of america was used in the articles of confederation which was thrown out in favor of the constitution in 1787. Generally decided to stand with virginia against the union. The union is only on a journey toward becoming more perfect. The men i mentioned before, washington, jefferson, jackson, were flawed. They were slave owners, creatures of their times and place on issues of time and race that makes us deeply uncomfortable and outraged but they were devoted to the preservation of a union that would get us way too late and after too much tragedy and blood shed but got us the Voting Rights act of 1964, this diverse and vibrant country that President Trump can talk all he wants about building walls, but weve always become stronger the wider weve opened our arms, and the union was the means for that. And now fast forward to 2017, phoenix arizona, what did you make of the president s tone, tenor, content of his remarks tonight . I was really disturbed by one thing in particular, which was the the head long attack on the medias role in american life. It was almost as though he were speaking he was endorsing a couple of outlets like they were state run somehow, they were approved outlets and everybody else was not. He said something particularly disturbing. I dont think they love our country. Yup. Thats pernicious stuff. You can disagree all day long. You and i have talked for a thousand years or longer about president s who have been outranged and fair use about the press, john kennedy cancelled his subscription in the harold trib you know, even the once that pretend they dont read it do. Thats the dirty little secret of the white house. Ive always thought Thomas Jefferson was overstating matters as he was want to do, if i could choose between a government with newspapers or a government without, i would choose one without. I always thought that was classic jeffer sawn high pesh oely. I think thats where we are. President trump is building toward this tribal struggle. Maybe it is a tribal struggle. He was around his camp fire tonight. Well, that raises so many questions in and of itself. It is it is tough to hear a takedown of a media that, when things get serious, you suddenly depend on the national media. If we go into, god forbid, any kind of National Moment or crisis. Well, hes its a cata comb strategy hes doing. Youve put your finger on the governance question where he does have to have credibility when he tells north korea what to do or not to do, when he talks about pakistan, afghanistan. I had a sneak sinking and sneaking feeling, watching tonight, that to some extent this is a preemptive strike on the credibility of much of the press in preparation for whatever bad news might be coming. Uhhuh. And whether its about russia or whether its something that even hes not sure what it is, but if you wound the messenger, if you discredit the messenger to whom the vast majority of the country turns, then you raise skepticism, you raise doubt about whatever is reported. You make the point that thats could harm him as he attempts to fulfill his constitutional oath im being a little more sin call at this hour, which is i think that might be part of the plan. Thank you jon meacham for loning your voice to our broadcast. Tonight is either the first or second night of his presidency when the president has not been at a trump owned property or at home in the white house. Its his second trip west of the michigan river. Hes goelg to overnight in the phoenix area tonight, certainly a eventful evening inside and outside the Convention Center there. That is our broadcast for this eventful tuesday night. Thank you so much for being here with us and good night from nbc news headquarters in new york. Big show tonight the mayor of phoenix arizona is here with us live in just a few minutes President Trump is in phoenix arizona night despite requests from local authorities, including the mayor, that he pleas not do this trip the mayor is a democrat but some of the news breaking tonight about the conflict over the president s arizona rally really is not democratic versus republican politics, its very much just republican politics. Republican politics sort of pushed to the