i say to him, be like john mccain, the way he behaves, the way he serves his country, the way he conducts himself in public service. i want my boy to be like him. i don't want him to be like president trump. >> senator bob kerrey, i know we are talking about john mccain and the country should be talking about him. but thank you as well for your heroism and the work you did in protecting this country both overseas and in congress. middle east tensions are rapidly escalating. palestinian protesters continue to clash with israelis for the seventh consecutive we can at the border of the gaza strip. may 15th is the day after israel's declaration of independence and subsequent war in 1948 in which hundreds of thousands of palestinians were forced from their lands. fuelling more of the unrest is the of mo of the u.s. embassy to jerusalem, which is scheduled for monday, the same day as
israel's 70th anniversary celebrations. nearly an protesters have been killed by live israeli fire since the violence broke out on march 30th. at the same time, more violence between israel and iran in syria is raising fears of a possible war. it all comes the same week that donald trump officially pulled the plug on america's participation in the iran nuclear deal. i want to talk more about the unrest unraveling in the middle east with someone who helped write the iran nuclear deal. joining me now, nuclear physicist earnest moniz. sir, thank you for being with us. we appreciate this. i don't know how many ways we can underscore this. there are reasons people may not like iran. and there are valid reasons for which people may be frustrated with iran's perform an as a regional neighbor in the middle east. but nuclear deal in part authored by people like yourself was done to achieve some
specific ends. and most people agree was achieving those end. can you talk to me about that? >> absolutely. first of all, let me make clear you can certainly count me among those who are shall we say are concerned about iran's behavior with hezbollah, in syria, yemen, human rights, missiles, and the like. as you said, ali, this agreement was -- it was long known as it was being negotiated, it was focusing on nuclear weapons, making sure that everyone, we and iran's neighbors, our friends allies in that region, would verifiably understand that they had no nuclear weapon, even as we then push back on all of those other behaviors that we obviously don't like. i would just maybe offer one analogy going back to president reagan when he negotiated with the soviet union on nuclear arms control. he focused on nuclear weapons as an existential issue even as we
had many, many other disputes with the so yet union. >> you know, it's interesting, because donald trump's rhetoric about this is working with some people. i was speaking to somebody the other day who says iran's compliance with the aspects of this nuclear deal having to do with production of nuclear materials, the jury is still out on that. i want to be clear -- you made the statement after we made the announcement of pulling out of the deal as international inspectors who have been on the ground every day since the deal was confirmed the iranians have complied. let's be clear. let's be on the record. you are here. the jury is not out on whether or not iran was living up to its end of the deal as it related to nuclear materials? >> that's correct. everyone says that, including the president's cabinet members. so that's very important. secondly, i want to emphasize the compliance is not just in terms of how nuclear materials
are handled. but very importantly -- again, secretary mat nis the congress two weeks ago talked about how the agreement put forward a probust verification regime. iran is also complying in allowing the kinds of inspections that occur not only at the places that they have announced nuclear activity but also at other places that the iaea has asked to go to. and that's very, very critical. and that i want to emphasize does not, to use the popular word, sunset. we have forever the ability of the international inspectors, presumably, often with guidance from intelligence sources in the united states, israel, and other countries, that if there is suspect activity the iaea has access and has access in a time period for which no other country in the world is subject. besides iran. >> does not participating in this deal make it easier or harder to achieve the more
complicated aims in the reej, including limiting iran's activity in syria, in yemen, with hezbollah, as you have said? does it make it easier or harder? >> i think over time it will make it harder. i think there is a strategic error. and we'll see how the deal goes. but you know, the europeans have made it clear. russia has made it clear and iran at least for the moment has said it will continue to comply with the agreement. but you know, history would say that without the united states' engagement that may be very hard to sustain over the long term. and now what happens if we have lost that verification regime. >> right. >> if the international community does not have the confidence in iran not rejuvenating its weapons program? you start pull that thread, and it's not very pretty in terms of regional instability. >> earnest moniz, the former secretary of energy serving under president obama who helped write the iran nuclear deal.
mr. secretary thank you for being with us. thank you. with me live from gaza, matt bradley, msnbc news correspond on theent. these demonstrations will be taking place every friday. they will continue at least until may 15th but thing got really hot today. >> reporter: that's right we had another day of violence. we saw two journalists badly injured by gunfire on the israeli side here on the gaza strip side. i was talking to people. there is a lot of anger out there. there are protesters who are burning tires. they are lofting kites they have set on fire that have been wafting over to the israeli side and setting agricultural fields on fire on the israeli side. this is just a taste, kind of a preview of what we can expect come monday and news. that's when we are going to see this great march of return that's been going every friday for the last two weeks now turn into a big process.
organizers i spoke to today said they are expecting hundreds had of thousands of people that will rival the violent deadly protest that killed more than 40 people back on march 30th. we can expect to see a lot more violence here. one thin that's interesting, hamas while it has quite a bit of control how the protests are going. the genesis this idea, the genesis of the movement doesn't come from hamas. it comes from ingroups here in the gaza strip. they are hoping it stays that way. they are hoping that hamas which has a stronghold on civic life here that they stay somewhat independent that they are able to exercise protests against the israelis without being under the thumb of hamas. when you go out there, you can see that, there are no hamas flags. just palestinian flags in the field out there facing israel. >> we will watch on monday when the u.s. embassy opens in jerusalem. matt bradley in gaza for us. at&t issued a mea culpa
about hiring michael cohen. they released a letter to employees saying that hiring michael cohen as a political consultant was a big mistake. they paid cohen thousands of dollars for help in dealing with the trump administration on a number of matters including the acquisition of time warner that donald trump said he didn't want to see happen when he was president. the "washington post" reports that internal documents from at&t detail the $600,000 they paid to cohen and describes his contract, which highlights how he is to quote creatively address political and communications issues and advise the company on matters before the federal communications commission. i'm joined by tom handberger. tom, it's not clear to me, i'm not a lawyer. it's not clear what if anything michael cohen did may have been illegal. it seems he is involved in
questionable ethical stuff. but at&t, a company that has business before the administration, paying the personal lawyer of president trump through a company that he established in the weeks before the election does not pass a smell test to this economics reporter. >> well, i think that your first assessment that there is nothing that's obviously illegal here is correct. in fact, the payment to michael cohen, although now the ceo of at&t and another company, novartis have apologized for hiring him is not illegal. the concern is, at least in the ideas of these ceos now, it's unseemly. large amounts of money going to a guy who was the president's personal lawyer. which would appear to be paying for access in effect. rather than expertise. but it's not illegal to pay someone. it's not clear that michael cohen was required in this case to register as a lobbyist. he did not register.
so the issue here is one of ethics and optics, not a matter of the law. >> but as stephanie ruhle points out and you point out a lot, this is how washington works. just to put it in context, at&t spent $16.8 million on lobbying in 2017. so this was about 3.5% of their total of make of that what you will. but the fact is, this isn't all that unusual for the way lobeing works and the way businesses work. it's not necessarily draining the swamp, but it's not unusual. >> it's not unusual. in fact, paying individuals with access to decision makers in washington is an age-old practice. it is increased recently. that is the amounts of money that goes to those who have connections. in particular former lawmakers, former public officials. those include former head of the cia, the fbi, our most augusta institutions can become very wealthy simply providing this kind of advice to private sector
interests. what is a little bit unusual in michael cohen's case is that he doesn't have the past experience that a former u.s. official would have. that is at&t we know hired him for his expertise at the fcc -- >> of which he has none. he has a phone, that might be the level of expertise. >> has some expertise in taxi and the trump business but fcc matters, nothing that i know of. >> and defense contractors and accounting. it is a mystery why he was involved in any of these businesses. as you point out, it may not be illegal. tom good to see you as always. tom hamburger with the "washington post." let's talk more. jill wine bank, a watergate special prosecutor and an msnbc prosecutor. while it's interesting to me, jill, the optics of public companies with their legal departments and optics departments allowing this to happen, paying money to a company established a little
before the election with no expertise in any of the spaces they needed work done. put that aside for a second. what's mostly interesting here. i'm going to put that back the companies that gave money to michael cohen. money from columbus nova. that's the only group that gave money to michael cohen for real estate work. on the other hand they seem to have ties to russian oligarchs. >> this is all very strange. and i think when we are looking for crimes we need to look at where did the money go? it's clear that nobody hired michael cohen for his expertise. he doesn't have any. and he shouldn't have been the go-between. but that is the only explanation you can have is that people thought that he had access or that he would pass the money on to the president. so we have to once again, just like in watergate, we have to follow the money. we have to see where it went. that's going to be a key question. >> so the question -- and to tom
hamburger's point. if michael cohen was successful in shaking people down or ins canning him he had access he didn't have good for him. that's the american dream that he is living. more importantly, though, at&t gave him $600,000 and novartis gave him $1.2 million and he funneled that off into om place that's his business. he took a loan on a property against his in-laws property which is weird given how much money was coming into his bank account but it is curious -- the money that we need to know where it went is this columbus nova stuff, because the other money, maybe they were duped into thinking michael cohen could solve their problems. but who is this columbus nova and where did that money go? >> that is the key question, columbus nova. but i would say there are business issues involved, too. if you are a stockholder on at&t do you want your money spent wasted on hiring someone with no skills? there is no excuse for that.
and that's why apparently one top official of at&t has been forced to resign. apologies have been issued by at&t and novartis. so they made a mistake in doing this. and probably would have never said anything except that they got caught. >> yeah. >> that's the key issue. but you are right. the russian money is the money we want to find out about. equally so, what if the at&t money was given for a specific action by the president? then you have a quid pro quo and you have bribery. other than that, you don't necessarily have a crime. but we need to know where even the at&t and novartis money went not just the russian money. >> giuliani was asked about this. he said it is a dead issue as far as i'm concerned. that combined with the vice president tell reporters that he thinks that the mueller investigation should wrap itself up because it hasn't found anything. this is the most interesting stuff yet. >> it is.
and you have a real echo again of watergate. you had richard nixon saying a year of watergate is enough. and you have the vice president saying we gave 1.2 million documents. but you reason is given the ones that are needed. you haven't cooperated completely. don't shut down an investigation until it comes to its own natural conclusion. this is just wrong. and it is more of the obstruction. it seems plain to me. the more they attack the fbi. the more they attack mueller, the more they attack the department of justice. the more they attack rosenstein. those are things that are obstruction of justice. you can have obstruction even if you don't have an underlying crime. you can. and that's what this looks like. they should be more careful. and i wouldn't be taking my legal advice from rudy giuliani or factual statements either because we know how inaccurate he has been. >> jill, there is weird stuff going on these days testimony michael cohen stuff, the rudy giuliani stuff. it's hard to believe.
always great to see you, though, gives us an excuse to talk often. jill wine banks, former assistant watergate special prosecutor. >> thank you ali. to the white house. kelly o'donnell is standing by. she covered the mccain campaign i'm sure in that press briefing that's underway with the health and human services secretary but sarah huckabee sanders hasn't started her questions yet, there are going to be a lot of questions about the mccain comments. >> i would expect that our colleagues in the white house press corps would ask about a staffer who made this remark about senator mccain in the context of the confirmation process for gina haspel who is the nominee to be cia director. mccain has a long standing public rohr record against the use of interrogation methods that are commonly referred to as torture. back in the bush era after 9/11 they were deemed legal under what is called enhanced interrogation technique. he has long been an opponent of that kind of aggressive sort of
interrogation. in part fueled by his own experience in vietnam where he was held for more than five and a half years and was subjected to horrific levels of physical beatings and extreme pain. so much so that as you outlined at the top of the program he hasslingering effects today. unable to move his arms above his he will boesz. i was there for the campaign, every day of it in 2008 and first met him in 1996 covering politics. i was in dayton ohio when i announced sarah palin as his running mate. in a new book the final memoir as it's expected to be john mccain's restless wave coming out later this month. he points out he really would have wanted joe lieberman to be his running mate. there were lots of reasons based on the convention process why he was discouraged from doing that. lieberman had been the prior
democratic nominee. there is some speak now between mccain and palin. we will talk about that at another time. i know sarah huckabee sanders has take ten podium. >> those conversations as you stated, we plan for a full day of meetings on the 12th with some time reserved to carry over if necessary. certainly, the best outcome would be an agreement for complete and total denuclearization. but this is the beginning part of these conversations. i'm not going to get ahead of what we expect for that day. but certainly that would be i think the best outcome. and we have been pretty up front about that. >> do they think that can actually happen in a day? >> i'm not going to get ahead of this conferring and the process. but there have been several conversations that have taken place leading up to both secretary pompeo has had now two meetings that have been part of this process. so it's not just one day.
you have to look at the broader picture but certainly we have that time set aside at this point. justin. >> i wanted to ask about the auto meeting earlier today. i know attendees of these spitball sessions often leave with impressions that the president agrees with their position. i wanted to see if you could clarify both if the president or the administration has agreed to open negotiations with california on a national cafe standard rather than sort of the dual system that could economist. >> we haven't finalized what that looks like. but today we part of that conversation, part of discussion on how best to move forward. we are going to continue these conversations as we have a specific policy announcement on that front we will let you know. >> sarah? >> john. >> come back to north korea. the president says that he believes that it is kim's intention to denuclearization. but when you listen to the man
in charge of north/south relations he says the reason why we are doing this is because the program is complete. the reason we are shutting down the test poup is because we don't need it. akin to somebody who builds a house and enters into negotiation to tear it down. what gives you confidence that kim actually wants to take apart something that he just built? >> look, the president is going into this with eyes wide open as he said many times. we will see what happens. but this is certainly a process that has moved in the right direction. we've seen some signs of good will from north korea. just this week with the three americans brought back home. also, the stopping of the ballistic missile tests. stopping with their research and development on their nuclear program and we are going to continue to push for complete and total denuclearization. we are also going to continue maximum pressure until we see that happen.
>> again, stopping the ballistic missile testing, stopping all this testing, according to that official is because they don't need it anymore. they are done. kinds like you can put the saws and hammers away because the house is done. >> again, the president has been very clear that we are going into this. certainly we would like to see something happen. but as he has said, we are going to see what happens. we hope not just for north korea but for the entire world that they do the right thing and that this goes forward in a way that i think everyone would like to see. ayman. >> thanks sara. this week the ceos of at&t and novartis said it was a mistake for their companies to work with the president's lawyer. does the president think it was a mistake for his lawyer to work with them? >> i think this further proves that the president is not going to be influenced by special interests. it's the definition of draining the swamp, something the president talked about repeatedly during the campaign. for anything beyond that i would
direct you to the president's outside counsel. >> draining the swamp. >> i think it's clear that the deputy of justice opposed the merger. and so certainly the president has not been influenced by any or his administration influenced by any outside special interests. >> was the president aware -- >> blake. >> sarah, you said in this room the other day it is unlikely there is going to be an infrastructure bill this year. that was supposed to be the signature legislative item of 2018 for republicans in this administration. can you lay out for us what exactly is your -- is this white house's legislative agenda for this year? >> certainly we would love to see something done on immigration. it's something the president has been talking about for a long time. we have laid out the principles and the priorities that we would like to see as part of an immigration package. there is still some movement on that front. we would still like to see something happen. we would love for congress to actually show up, do do their jobs. democrats to stop opposing good
legislation and actually fix our broken immigration system. >> is it fair to think the assume that immigration is a priority item for this year. >> it has been for the president and certainly something we will like to see. david. >> two questions. we have heard a lot about white house aide kelly sadler and her comments about senator mccain reportedly saying in a meeting the president shouldn't worry about the senator's opposition to the nomination of haspel because he is dying away. megan mccain wondered allowed today why the aide still has a job at the white house. does she still have a job? >> auto aim not going to comment on an internal staffer meeting. >> do you know if he was aware when he said that about the freedom of information documents that showed last year administrator pruitt had dinner in rome with a catholic cardinal
who was under investigation for child sex abuse. >> i am not aware of that i haven't spoken with the president about administrator pruitt today. >> does the white house not think you need to condemn these remarks or -- >> i'm not going to validate a leak one way or the other out of of an internal staff meeting. >> are you saying she didn't say this? >> again i'm not going to validate a leak out of an internal staff meeting one way or the other. >> does the president regret what he said during the campaign about john mccain when he said he wasn't a war hero, he prefers people that weren't captured? >> i believe the president has spoken about that. i haven't talked with him specifically about that. jeff. >> if you won't comment on the specific comment, what does the white house believe about senator mccain? is there a tone set from the top here where it is allowed for an aide to say he's dying anyway. >> there is not a tone set here. we have a respect for all
americans. and that is what we try to put forward in everything we do, both in word and action, focusing on doing things that help every american in this country every single day. i think if you look at the policies we have put forth you will see that reflected. >> why not apologize to senator mccain. >> i am not going going to get into a back and forth because people want to create issues of leaked staff meetings. >> does the president have confidence in secretary kneelen is. >> as we have said before, if the president has no confidence in a cabinet member he will let you know. >> what more does the president think nielsen can do now under the law that she hasn't done. does he want her to close the u.s./mexico border. >> he wants us to do a number of i think this. he wants us to work with congress as we have laid out time and time again and as we have called on them to do. if democrats in congress would
stop playing political games we would love to secure the border, we would love to close the loopholes in the system. we would love to get a fix on daca. there are a number of thing we have laid out. we would love to see all of those things get done. >> is republicans pushing for a vote on the floor to get this going? >> if it addresses all of those problems certainly we would support things that actually fix the broken immigration system that we have. >> the secretary of homeland security made a statement which she said the president was rightly frustrated about congressional inaction. why was that frustration to the secretary. why did the president direct his frustration specifically at her at the cabinet meeting? >> again i am not going to get into a back and forth on an internal meeting however i can tell you that the president and the secretary share the frustration. democrats have got to stop playing games. they have got to stop doing this just because it is a mid-term
year. they still have to do their job. and ooeld wields like to see them fix our immigration system. not only is the administration frustrated but americans are, too. 80% of americans would like to see this problem fixed. they want something to be done. they are begging congress to do it. and certainly, i think not only does the president have a right to be frustrated. he has a right to be angry. he is, he is expressed that. he has done it publically and he is going to continue to do that until we can fix this flob. >> in nafta, is the white house on track to meet speaker ryan's deadline on that next thursday on nafta. >> we are continuing in the conversations and we have made progress. hopefully we will get there. >> by thursday -- is the president willing to revisit this after the elections in mexico and the mid terms? >> we will let you know. kristen. >> a follow up on one of my colleagues, to be clear, doescaly sadler still work at this white house. >> yes, shes to. >> to follow up, more broadly,
does the president set the tone or bear responsible for the tone in this white house? >> the president as i mentioned just a moment ago supports all americans. if you look at what he is doing every single day, he is showing up to work. he's working hard to make this country better. whether it's through building our economy, creating jobs, defeegt isis, fixing our judiciary system, helping with illegal immigration problems that we have -- the president is addressing a number of issues. that is what our focus is. that is what we are doing here every day. and that is what the president has i think laid out very clearly what his interests are. >> my question is a little different. does he bear responsibility for the tone set here at the white house and all of the staffers who work here frankly. >> certainly does. and i think he has done a good job of laying out what the priorities of the administration are and that what they are doing is helping impact americans all across the country. sorry kristen i have got to keep
moving. >> so many of us have spoken to people who said they have heard these comments, do you say they are lying? are they lying. >> go ahead. >> sarah, general kelly came out and endorsed in an npr issue a pathway to citizenship for temporary restrictive status for people who have been in the united states for some time. does the president share the general's view on that. >> i haven't seen that specific comment from the interview. i know that the president and general kelly want to fix the system. >> did jen alkyly oppose the administration's push to actually give a deadline to some people who have been here over 20 years to leave the country? >> i would have to look at the comment before i could weigh in. right here. go ahead. >> thank you sarah. south korea has a huge stake in whatever kim and trump agree upon. will president moon or another
representative of south korea be at the talks? >> i don't believe there are plans for them to be part of that specific day. but certainly have been a partner in this entire process. and as you know, president moon will be here on the 22nd to continue those conversations. and we continue to be in lock step with the south koreans. unt hunter. >> on monday the president tweeted quote the fake news is working overtime and said 91% of the news about me is negative, parentheses fake. do you have views about whether all the stories about the president are fake? >> no. >> why would he say that? >> i will take one more question. >> to follow up on the payments that michael cohen received from at&t and novartis. you said this is a sign that the president won't be influenced. but just to clarify, does the president think it is appropriate for his personal
attorney to be collecting payments from private companies, presumably saying that or presumably promising to influence policy or to give them strategy on government policy? >> i think the bigger point is that the president is isn't going to be influenced by outside special interests. he is going to do what he finds to be in the best interests of americans across the country. thanks guy, hope you have a great weekend. and a happy mother's day. >> sarah huckabee sanders ending her press briefing. she started with the health and human services secretary on prescription drugs, then she want to questions saying about the comments made -- reportedly made about john mccain she is not going to comment on an internal meeting. she took a few questions on that and swatted down any ability to get a real answer from it and said that they respect all americans in the white house. did not specifically offer any apology, clarity, or embrace of john mccain. kristen welker trying to get to the bottom of not only whether
it was set or what the general tone is, how the tone is set in the the white house. tell me about the exchange you had with sarah? >> first to the big question, ali, which is does selly sadler, the staffer here, who made those comments, essential saying john mccain's vote, he is quote, dying anyway. does she still have a job? one of my colleagues asked that question. sanders dodged initially. i went back and asked again. she was brief. she said yes. then i asked her, basically, does the president bear responsibility for the tone here at the white house. of course in the past he has criticized matter in mccain. that goes back to the campaign trail. he said i like people would don't get captured. he is a p.o.w. someone regarded as a war hero. a lot of people thought it was going to be the end of then candidate trump's campaign. he went on to win the primary. the two men have had a fraught relationship.
listen to my we to sarah huckabee sanders. >> does the president bear responsibility for the tone set in this white house tmplg president as i mentioned just a moment ago supports all americans. if you look at what he's doing every single day, he is showing up to work, he is working hard to make this country better, whether it's through building our economy, creating jobs, defeating isis, fixing our judiciary system, helping with the i will league immigration problems that we have. the president is addressing a number of issues. that is what our focus is, that is what we are doing here every day. and that is what the president has i think laid out very clearly what his interests are. >> my question is different. does he bear responsibility for the tone set here and all of the staffers? >> he does, i think he has done a good job laying out what the it is proo of the administration are and what they are doing is helping impact americans all across the country. sorry kristen, i have got to
keep moving on. >> so many of us have said they heard these comments. are they lying, sarah. >> go ahead. >> so an attempt to ask her again, if in fact the white house is making the case that the comments weren't said, they are not doing that, ali. that's what is so remarkable. they are not denying that these comments were stated. i was a part of a team of reporters that confirmed it with nbc news overnight. and we have three sources with direct knowledge of the conversation who essentially heard this person make this comment. so i asked her frankly, are all of these people lying? and she wouldn't answer the question. i think that is what makes this remarkable. the white house showing no signs that sadler is going anywhere. but certainly, the criticism continues and continues to mount. and continues to raise real questions again about the tone within this administration. when you have a president who has not refrained from lashing out at some of his -- some of
the people who he has challenged, whether it be on capitol hill or elsewhere, ali. >> it is kind of interesting. because this is one one of those things that good communications people can actually tachblt there are a lot of people saying acknowledge, apologize and move on. now it's become something different. kristen welker in the white house. in the last hour president trump unveiled a plan to tackle an issue since he talked about since the presidential campaign. that is the rising cost of prescription drugs. >> the american people deserve a health care system that takes care of them. not one that taxes and takes advantage of our patients and our consumers and our citizens. these reforms are just the beginning. >> okay. here's what the president is calling for. stopping manufacturers were -- the regulatory process. disk medicare plan d sponsors more power when negotiating with drug manufacturers.
requiring manufacturers to include list prices in advertising. this all sounds good. is it going to do anything to reduce drug prices? this is a subject i like talking about. let's look at the problem. according to the department of health and human services the united states spence $300 billion a year on prescription drugs. makes sense. we are an industrialized society and an aging population. medicare and medicaid account for 40% of the prescription drug spending. medicare is the largest buyer of prescription drugs in this nation. it's actually bigger than many nations spend on drugs. here in the united states, drug manufacturers are allowed to set their own prizes and they raise them as much as they want. drug companies say the higher prices help them fund research and investment making the united states a leader in bringing new drugs to the global marketplace. critics say it makes drugs less accessible to people who need them the most. the president say americans pay more for prescription drugs
because foreign governments can export low prices from drug companies. this is nonsense. laws in canada and other places with universal health systems allow them to negotiate drug prices. the federal government is banned from negotiating cheaper prices. this isn't about other countries. this is about a law that prevent medicare from negotiating lower prices. the president also went after the pharmaceutical and health care lobbies which spend millions of dollars on lobbying. pharma, according to the center for responsive politics, it has spend $26 million in 2017. already this year, it's spend more than $10 million. obviously they going to ramp up now. joining us to talk about this is georgia republican congressman buddy carter. i love talking to congressman
carter for many reasons, one of which is because he was the only pharmacist serving in the united states congress. he was there when the president made his announcent in. alex azar understands the industry. he was the president of eli lily in america. the president carrying on about other country's extorting has to be put in context. the american government can't negotiate prices the canadian government can negotiate prices with pharmaceutical. is that the heart of the problem? >> i'm not sure it is the heart of the problem. i think what the president is also saying that intellectual property research and development that we americans pay for is being stolen essentially by other countries and they are using it and getting cheaper prices on these medications that we have to pay so much for. ali, today is a great day for american consumers. this is a president who truly gets it. he understands what common people are struggling with. the tax cuts and jobs act. now addressing prescription drug prices what we have done to
increase our military spending. all those things are things that people were concerned with here in america. >> i don't get as much a chance to talk to you as i like. i want the stay focused on prescription drugs for a minute. >> sure. >> i agree with you, i don't think that negotiation is the heart of the problem. i do think pharmacy ben fete managers and the middle man as the president calls them might be a bigger part of the problem. listen to what the president said about that today. >> we are also increasing competition and reducing regulatory burdens so drugs can be gotten to the market quicker and cheaper. we are very much eliminating the middlemen. the middlemen became very, very rich. >> i don't find myself agreeing with the president of the united states all that often but the milledmen are a big part of issue. it doesn't exist anywhere else in the world. there is no pharmacy benefit managers in the way they are in the united states anywhere else in the world. how on earth do you get rid of them?
>> well we can get rid of them. again, here's a president who truly understands. i have always said, the most immediate, the most significant impact we can have on prescription drug prices is to have transparency. the pmbms, the middlemen, if you ask them what's your mission? they will say it is to keep prescription drug prices low. it's not working out well for you at all. they bring no value to the system whatsoever. what they do is increase the price of the medications and don't pass the discounts on to patients to the consumers. >> what's the solution? let's think big. how do you make drug prices more accessible to consumers while ensuring the drug companies make money so they can continue to develop drugs. you know, they make the argument they make lots of drugs, done make money on some of them, they need to have blockbuster drugs and they have got to get a lot of money. what's the recipe for success here, as a guy who is pharmacist who has had to deal with customers who probably have had some difficulty paying for their
medication what's the answer for you? >> transparency. no question about it. that's the key here. that's all we have ever also for with the middle men, the pbms is show us, show us what is happening here. why is it when i speak to the ever inner of epipen, when i ask them when it leaves you how much does it cost? $150. i said when it gets to me the pharmacist it's $600? what happened in between? what happened there? >> do you think -- when you talk about transparency i think of stories we have done in the last several years about drugs that were increased in price by hundreds of percent. the shaming certainly from the media didn't often cause companies to do anything about it. what is the feeling that if they are transparent about pricing what will happen? there will be public pressure to reduce prices? people can't boycott their cancer medication? >> you are exactly right. what will happen is that what the president has proposed is to
have the discounts applied at point of sale. let the patient see the discount when they buy the medication. that will make all the difference in the world. >> what's the problem with the fact that the pharmaceutical companies are some of the biggest will beyists in our part of town? -- lobbyists in your part of town. they have influence. they are able to give talking points to members of congress that prevented legislation from going into effect that allow the american government, medicare part d sponsors to negotiate prices. again, the president kept talking about other countries. i come from canada, where they do negotiate the price of drugs, because that's what they can do. that's what the president proposed. he identified that today. he said look we need to be able to negotiation on behalf of as you pointed out earlier, the largest payer the biggest payer in the whole drug system is medicare. and they need to be able to negotiate prices as well. and that's part of what the president and secretary azar are proposing. >> representative buddy carter
thank you for joining us. the only pharmacist serving in the united states congress. did president trump almost lose a is her inability to secu our borders? nielsen a protege of chief of staff john kelly reportedly told colleagues she was going to resign. the white house is pushing back on that story. we'll have the details after the break. you're watching msnbc's. ♪ ♪ (baby crying) ♪ ♪ don't juggle your home life and work life without it.
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a top priority. here is some of what the white house chief of staff john kelly had to say about immigration during an interview with npr news. >> let me step back and tell you the vast majority of the people that move illegally into the united states are not bad people. they're not criminals, they're not ms13. but they are also not people that would easily assimilate into the united states. they are overwhelmingly rural people and the countries they come from, 4th, 5th, 6th grade education is kind of the norm. they're coming here for a reason and i sympathize with the reason, but the laws are the laws. >> according to "the new york times" and politico, kelly's protege kiersten nielsen wrote a resignation letter after the president bee rated her in front of the entire cabinet earlier this week. he accused her of failing to secure the border. nbc news has not independently confirmed the story. a spokesperson denied to both publication she had drafted a resignation letter.
but in a written statement nielsen didn't deny she nearly quit. it reads in part the president is rightly frustrated existing loopholes and the lack of congressional action have prevented this administration from fully securing the border. i share his frustration. these are complex issues and i will continue to direct the department to do all we can to implement the president's security focused agenda. moments ago white house press secretary sarah sanders was asked about why the president took his frustration out on secretary nielsen. >> i'm not going to get into a back and forth with you guys on an internal meeting. however i can tell you that both the president and the secretary share the frustration that congress is simply not showing up to work and getting their job done. democrats have got to stop playing games. they've got to stop doing this just because it's a midterm year. they still have to do their job and we would like to see them fix our immigration system. not only are -- is the administration frustrated but americans are, too. 80% of americans would like to see this problem fixed.
they want something to be done. they are begging congress to do it and certainly i think not only does the president have a right to be frustrated, he has a right to be angry and he is and he's going to express that. he's done it both publicly and he's going to continue to do that until we can actually fix this problem. >> joining us now to talk about this is politico employment and immigration reporter ted haas en, who could wrote the politico report. ted, put aside whether kiersten nielsen is in trouble with the president or not. fundamentally the president has really hitched his wagon to this immigration question and he's frustrated by possibly a lack of understanding of the way government works, that the exec stichl is a co-equal branch of government. unless congress gets this done he doesn't get to build the wall and get the border done. >> i was speaking with a dhs official who said nielsen, the homeland security secretary is under a tremendous amount of pressure to come up with results here. but really there are limitations to what any secretary will be able to do when it comes to
illegal immigration. i mean certainly there are policies that can change, but the things the president is asking for and that he's trying to do would have to be done by congress at the end of the day. >> so, again, putting aside the president's frustrations, kiersten nielsen says this is a complicated issue. that's a fact. this is a really complicated issue. democrats couldn't fully get their head around it, republica republicans can't get head around it. we can agree a lot of americans are concerned about this issue. they are. we have lots of immigration issues. many are not about the southern border and people with a 6th grade education. they're about a labor shortage in industries in america. is there any real comprehensive work that is likely to happen in this administration? >> i think -- as you remember, back in february the senate actually tried to debate immigration and kicked around some different proposals. but at the end of the day none of they have were able to advance. and part of that is what the white house is asking for. i mean, they have a four-pillar plan that involves cutting legal immigration in half.
and that's just not palatable to most democrats. actually all democrats in the senate. and then also to many republicans, moderate republicans as well. so, unless there is some flexibility with that plan, it seems unlikely that there is some kind of immigration legislation that is going to be reached in the next few months. >> well, you're the perfect guy to ask this to. you deal with employment and immigration. when the president carries on about 4, 5, 6% gdp growth, we have squeezed all the productivity we can squeeze out of workers. the only way to get higher gdp growth it's labor and productivity. the concept of cutting legal immigration into america doesn't square with what most economists think you need to grow the economy. >> that is absolutely right. i mean, i think most economists would say cutting legal immigration will lower gdp, gross domestic product. but that being said, the administration, when they've gone out and argued for this proposal, they said it's not just about growing the economy and gdp. that it's also cultural and it's about who is coming into the
country and how that can change the culture of the united states. >> very interesting topic, ted. we'll continue the conversation. i like having it with you. ted hess en is a politico immigration reporter. let's look at markets. the markets are ready for -- let's see where they are now. as of yesterday we had a six-day winning streak. looks like we're going to have a seven-day winning streak. you can see the dow just after 2:00 was down just a little bit, but it has recovered nicely. we are not up to where we were at the beginning of the year. this market has taken a beating in the first quarter of this year. but we are -- we're doing okay. we're getting back there. we're continuing to cover that with you. where you are winning on the market. you may be losing on gas prices, though. oil continues to set record highs. so, that's it for me. that wraps up the hour for me. i'm going to see you back here tonight. thank you for watching. have a great weekend. "deadline white house" with nicolle wallace starts right now. /s >> hi, everyone.
>> here at the table for the hour, steve schmidt and matt miller. but first, to react for the first time, single threads -- different threads of a single story. questions about russians and contact with people in the president's inner circle. former cia director john brennan, lucky for us, now a senior national security and intelligence analyst for msnbc and nbc news. i understand now, sitting here today, why donald trump a week or so ago said don't believe what you see, don't believe what you hear on the news channels, because when you take all these events just this week together, they paint a very compromising position for this president on the question of russian influence. >> i think that's right, nicolle. i think we've seen over the course of the last two years basically an effort on the part of president trump and others to pry to inoculate public perceptions of what actually
happened during the campaign. first, there were no meetings. then there were meetings, but they were focused on adoption. they were benign. then they acknowledged there was meetings and some issues discussed. but now we're at the point of them saying collusion is not against the law. so i think this just reflects just this steady slide of the trump team to try to acknowledge that some things happened but they weren't illegal. that's where it's up to the special counsel and his team to uncover exactly what happened, the motivations for those who went into those meetings, and to come to the conclusions that i think the evidence will bring forth. >> is there any question in your mind about what the motivations were for the people in the meetings? i mean, the trump tower meeting was attended by natalia and others who were known to be close to the kremlin. when you first heard about that meeting, was there any doubt in
and still may be in terms of monitoring these developments. but the fbi and the u.s. intelligence community are the world's best in terms of being able to detect and to then uncover. sometimes realtime, but often you're able to determine exactly what happened by putting together some bits and pieces of data until you can see more of the puzzle. >> i think i hear what you're saying, and unlike this president, i respect the need to protect sources. i guess what i'm trying to get at is one of donald trump's attacks on the intelligence community where you spent the vast majority of your career and on law enforcement, which is both sides of those, cia run by his hand picked appointees and before that, by a political supporter, mike pompeo. the fbi now run by his hand picked nominee, christopher wray. he attacks them constantly. is it -- should he have been warned by the fbi that there
were russian agents in trump tower? do you know if there was enough information in possession of the u.s. government that in hindsight maybe he should have been warned? >> certainly the campaign was given defensive briefings by the fbi what they should be on the lookout for. but if there were ongoing investigations at the time, which jim comey and others have acknowledged that in late july, there were -- those investigations were opened. it's very, very difficult to reveal details of an investigation while at the same time protecting the integrity of that investigation. so i know that the bureau tried to balance their need to warn and to advise the two campaigns about the potential for foreign interference. but at the same time, continue to pull those investigative threads and they continued to pull them throughout the course of the campaign and during the period between election and
functions of the american intelligence community and law enforcement. i do want to get to the manafort trial. jeremy bash on this program once said that it was possible that there was a russian plant, that there was somebody who was -- who sought out employment on the trump campaign. we know that paul manafort sought out tom baric and asked to get in front of trump and paul manafort served as the chairman when the platform at the republican national convention koicoincidentally perhaps, maybe it's president trump's one true intellectual impulse on foreign policy, changed to a pro russia position. what do you make of the fact that paul manafort, while i understand this trial is about financial crimes, is one of the first characters who could have been perhaps planted or placed there as a russian agent inside the trump campaign, is that implausible to you?
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intelligence element. but a lot of times people recognize that there are vulnerabilities here in themselves. but still will pursue this because they have tremendous financial pressures upon them. and i think what's coming out in this case is that paul manafort faced very, very serious financial problems. and was seeking to capitalize on them. so i think the special counsel's team has done a good job of what i've seen so far publicly in terms of uncovering some of this. and rick gates now is acknowledging his role in this. you know, when i see this continued case evolve, i keep thinking about sort of those who are affiliated with president trump, it's almost like a pack of cars going down the highway being pursued by law enforcement. and some of those cars have been pulled over and are now cooperating with the authorities. the mike flynns and george
papadopoulpap dap -- papadopoulos and rick gates. and the other cars are going to be outmaneuvered by law enforcement or go off a cliff. they're not going to get away. >> let me ask you about a white bronco here. don junior largely thought to be thrown under the bus by his own father. they seem to have a strategy for avoiding maybe not even impeachment but conviction. but he appeared to throw his son under the bus when he said don junior took a meeting with the russians, it happens all the time. you never meet with a foreign government, let alone a foreign adversary. there are plenty of allies who have information. you never take the meeting. you don't meet with the uk or the israelis. you never, ever, ever correspond with american adversaries. so what do you think trump's doing by saying hey, don junior met with russians to get dirt on hillary clinton?
do you think it's sort of trying to signal the same defense he has for himself, collusion isn't a crime, or doesn't he understand that his son could be in serious legal jeopardy for conspiracy? >> i think both. he believes he can convince his base and supporters that there was no crime here and trying to explain it away. but also i think he has an exaggerated sense of his ability to navigate these legal shoals. and i think he has done a lot of damage to his legal defense and his son's legal defense. and i'm sure some of the lawyers that are trying to defend president trump and others, the real lawyers, not rudy giuliani, but the others are rolling their eyes and are very concerned about all of the things that president trump continues to either tweet or to say, that it's complicating and making their jobs much more difficult. >> let me ask you something else about russians. they seem to be popping up everywhere. a russian spy that infiltrated the nra, which may seem you have
t -- off topic, but it's about russians manipulating the republicans. are the russians being embold emboldened or are we getting better at catching them? >> russian intelligence spans the spectrum from very sophisticated, exquisite operations that are really difficult to detect and uncover, to maybe some of the more entrepreneurial efforts on the part of those who may be working directly or indirectly with one of the russian intelligence services, whose profile is maybe a little bit more prominent than a traditional russian intelligence officer would like. and so therefore, people like her who have come across the radar, to me it doesn't smack of very sophisticated russian intelligence trade craft. it is very aggressive and asserti assertive, and she had a profile that i think was inconsistent
with what a russian intelligence officer would want of his or her asset or person working on their behalf in the united states. >> i read "red spareio." i think i know what you're saying. you talked about whiting and unwhiting accomplices. i put don junior in the unwitting category. do the events move him over to the witting accomplices? he responded i love it. his father said he walked into a meeting with the russians, people now that we know have ties with the kremlin and sat there, wanting to receive dirt on hillary clinton, would you now, in terms of his sort of legal standing and the role that he has played in all this, would you move him into the witting category? >> i think i would put him in the witting category, in terms of knowing -- going into that meeting with an anticipation and expectation that he was going to get dirt from those individuals that were associated with russia.
whether he was witting of just how bad that action was, i don't know. but if he had that position within the trump campaign, he certainly should have been aware. and those working with him should have been aware that going into that meeting, in and of itself, just by definition, would be problematic. so i think it was a bit of knee yoo -- naivety, self-confidence, and also believing he could get away with it and not be held to account one day. and i think he was wrong on that score. >> yes, he hadn't met mr. mueller. john brennan, thank you for your time. thank you. matt miller, so much there. but this idea now that we're putting our finger on it, the witting accomplices to the russian effort to meddle in the 2016 election feels like maybe the public facing part of what bob mueller is investigating, the conspiracy. >> that's right.
if you stake everyone in that meeting at trump tower -- >> it's jared kushner, paul manafort, donald trump, jr. and a bunch of russians with ties to the kremlin. >> that's right. >> what did they think they were doing? >> it's not just the e-mails that we see jared kushner responding to, but you have to take that into context of what happened before. in april, george papadopoulos had been told that the russians had obtained hillary clinton's e-mails. dan scavino, a close aide to president trump, had tweeted about the russians having obtained hillary clinton's e-mails. we haven't seen this confirmed yet, but i guarantee they went into that meeting thinking they were going to get hacked, stolen e-mails from the russians. >> and we talked to a person close to the trump legal defense effort u who said that every person who told a lie about that meeting, told lies to other people repeatedly, and the idea that every single one of them
had the sensibility to walk in and tell the truth the first time to robert mueller is a fantasy, that every one of the people who probably known't the meeting, because it is a small campaign, not a lot of chances that they didn't know what the meeting was about, they all told this lie to the press, to each other, to the rest of the white house, that the idea of every one of those people on the list of six names that robert mueller sent over, after it came out wasn't about adoption, could be in serious legal jeopardy. >> no doubt that's true. what we've known for a long time, was there collusion? of course there was. when the leading officials of the presidential campaign go to a meeting with russian intelligence operatives for the purpose of receiving dirt on the democratic party's nominee for president, they were colluding with a hostile foreign intelligence power. what i don't know is does it meet the legal definition of felony conspiracy against the united states? and that's what we're going to find out over the course of the investigation. but i know this for sure -- on
any of the campaigns that we worked on together and we worked on two presidential campaigns together, and i know for sure whether you're talking about the senior people who we were in opposition against on the obama campaign, on the john kerry campaign, people that we know well. not a single person on any of those campaigns around barack obama or john kerry, the they were called and asked do you want to meet with russian intelligence operatives, officials, people with ties to the kremlin to get dirt on george w. bush or john mccain, the answer would have been hell no, and they would have called the fbi. >> that's what people do. when we come back, we go inside the courtroom where the prosecution's star witness pulled back the curtain on paul manafort's criminal enterprise. also ahead, blue wave rising. how anger at the president could get a democrat close enough to rattle republicans in a deep red part of ohio. stay with us. but he has plans today. so he took aleve this morning.
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ashley parker. barbara, take us through some of the more important moments of today's testimony. >> reporter: well, some of the testimony that rick gates gave was very tedious, walking through financial documents. they showed him e-mails, bank records, invoices and other things, which corroborated his testimony. he kind of connected the dots from all the things we've seen that shows paul manafort was using earnings hidden in bank accounts to pay his own expenses. when the money ran out, he started engaging in bank fraud because he needed cash. i thought that went very well. some of the things more interesting, once paul manafort had left his job in the trump administration, he used rick gates to try to get him favors like getting a lender of his a position on the council of economic advisers and even to be considered for secretary of the army. >> i'm reading some of your notes about the body hang wage between paul manafort and his one-time deputy rick gates. tell us about that.
>> reporter: yeah, it's really interesting. when gates is testifying, he never looked at manafort, he looks at the lawyers and the jury. but manafort himself stairs directly at rick gates, you might say staring daggers at him. from time to time, the judge calls the lawyers up, and rick gates is just left there dangling in the wind sitting alone awkwardly, not knowing quite where to look. manafort continues to stair at him, and gates looks around the room, waiting toer this awkward silence to end. >> i understand that all of the assurances the president was given about how this trial would have nothing to do with him have been erased in robert mueller's prosecutors and the idea that he's seeing the kinds of questions and the threads that could be pulled through if the curtain were pulled back on the vast neness of the entire investigation, news that you and robert costa have reported today that rudy giuliani is getting ready to get ready to respond,
sort of, to rebuff the latest offer from the special counsel for an interview. see any connection? >> reporter: well, of course. the president, you know, the people in his orbit are watching this trial theglued to it. for the president, he believes that mueller is going after paul manafort in a way that is trying to be deeply personal and humiliating to the president. so that's how he views it. the president doesn't see this trial as separate from him. and frankly, it's not. so you have to understand, as the president watches cable news on a loop and grows frustrated, he associates all of this with mueller. of course, that's going to affect his decision and his lawyers' thinking about whether or not it's a good moment for him to sit down and answer a bunch of questions. >> i want to read you a quote that rudy giuliani gave to your colleagues there. he says they're trying to get something on perjury, and that's
not going to happen. the answers with regard to former national security adviser mike flynn and the firing of comey are well known and they're not going to change. he would say the same thing in an interview that he said publicly. the idea that they're trying to get something on perjury, you don't have anything on perjury until a witness purgers himself. so he's saying donald trump is incapable of telling the truth. >> that has been a concern of the president's lawyers, not just giuliani, but people who came before him. and there's a real debate and a divide between the president and his legal team. the president believes, believed and still does believe, that his own best negotiator that he didn't do anything wrong, that he has nothing to hide, and if he could just get in the room, he would be able to convince mueller and his investigators of that. his lawyers are far more cautious because they understand
that if you say something under oath or to investigators that is not true, even if you wish it were true, you could be in serious trouble, which is why there's been all of this effort to say maybe the president once answer some questions, but they will be written questions, not the president going off the cuff in a way that could get him in trouble. >> it seems to me, matt miller, that even written responses, if they're written by the president, are not -- they're going to end up letting robert mueller ask him about the weather. they're nothing that they have confidence letting the president talk about. i heard that everyone from chris christie to rudy giuliani to emmet flood, would later body down before they would let the president be interviewed by robert mueller. >> if we see written answers, it will be answers drafted by his attorneys that go through four or five attorneys that don't answer the questions. because he has -- he's stuck on the horns oh of a dilemma here, where, in many cases if he lies about what happened, he's
committed a crime. but i think a lot of times the answers are incriminating if he tells the truth. that's why he's not testifying right now. it's not just a question can they prepare him enough without lying. if he goes in and admits well, i did fire jim comey because i wanted the russian investigation to end, that's evidence of obstruction of justice. if he admits i wanted to know about this trump meeting before it happened, that puts him in the middle of this conspiracy. >> i talked to a source, a one-time participant in the president's legal effort, who said the reason this obstruction marker is being laid down, is because they think that there is a real chance that the president, by interrogating senior white house aides after they came back from their interviews, that the president may have subborned perjury. it turns out that's the kind of thing bill clinton was impeached for, for querying aides after they testified for before the
grand jury. there is an escalating concern that the president is vulnerable on the question of witness tampering, and the questions of obstruction of justice. >> he's not the first president who lies. but he's the most prolific liar to ever be president. and when you unpack all of this, the incapacity to be questioned about anything and give truthful answers, either because you just can't help yourself from lying pathologically, which may be the case with trump. but also because what's likely to be the truth is so incriminating here. every single representation that they have made as a white house, as a campaign, trump himself about what occurred here, somewhat happened, last unraveled from the first moment that they said it. >> barbara, thank you for being there for us. ashley parker, thanks for joining us. we liked it better when you were in studio. after the break, why you might see a republican freakout tomorrow if democrats get within
striking distance tonight in ohio. that's next. ♪and i just wanna tell you right now that i♪ ♪i believe, i really do believe that♪ ♪something's got a hold on me, yeah♪ ♪oh, it must be love ♪oh, something's got a hold on me right now, child♪ ♪oh, it must be love ♪let me tell you now, oh it must be love♪
close your eyes and randomly point to any story in the newspaper these days and you're almost certain to see a theme, it's all about president trump and the special election happening in ohio. people there have voted republican in decades and the president won by double digits. so why is the margin between the democrat and republican razor thin? take a guess --
joining the table, a former communications director to president obama, and the hillary clinton 2016 campaign. and former republican congressman david jolly. it seems to me, david, that people are likely to misread this, and if the republican ekes it out, saying nothing to see here. that's not the point, that's not the story. this shouldn't be a race that any of us know anything about. this shouldn't be a race that anyone talks about. i would say if the democrat comes within five points, the republicans are in deep doo-doo. >> good reference. the takeaway from tonight and every other special do congressional election is this -- only republicans trust republicans. if you're a democrat or independent, you don't trust republicans or donald trump. it's why republicans are looking at a very difficult time in november. this could be the worst midterm
election in nearly 40 years for republicans. the fact that these are competitive, and democrats have overperformed, republicans have underperformed in every single special election since donald trump got elected. going into november where you have 23 to 24 seats, where hillary clinton actually won those congressional districts, but they're representatived by a republican in congress, you're looking at a wipeout year, because those seats are gone in november. >> why can't democrats lose the defensiveness? why not say, if it comes to -- impeachment, it comes to that, but why not run with this head wind? >> democrats should do their job if they're running for congress. it's right there in the constitution, your job is to be a check on the president of the united states. >> it's the republican's job, too. to be fair. >> why are you saying why are democrats defensive?
that is in their dna. matt and i shared this cross to bear, that they are almost always on the defensive and kind of get too much wrapped up in their own heads. yes, you should run a campaign that's on local issues that people care about. but it is your job if you're running for congress to hold the president of the united states accountable. what's happening in ohio, trump came and did a big rally, that used to be the insurance policy. if his rally has proven to hurt the republican candidate, that spells worst doom for republicans in november than we anticipated prior to this week. >> i'm rustier than you are, but what is the impeachment message for democrats in the midterms? >> this is a big moment in the history of the country. this is the most significant midterm election in american history. and we're heading into a presidential election, which is the most significant since the election of 1864, when the question that was really on the
ballot is whether we were going to continue to be one country, whether we would prevail in the civil war. this is a big moment. if the democratic strategists are sitting around, all this other stuff doesn't matter. i think they're missing the larger point. the attacks on america's institutions, the assaults on the rule of law, the personal degen degenrecy of donald trump, we look at the meanness, the corruption, the cruelty, the ability to call this out for what it is. i think it's fundamental for the democratic party achieving what i think would be a very significant wave. and by the way, to say explicitly and directly to republican college educated women, for example, we know that you don't agree with us on every issue. but on these big things, the couple of things that matter most to us as americans
transcend any partisan difference. and we must join together in this country to put a check on this. that, to me, is the compelling message. >> how do you nationalize that? if you talk to democrats privately, they'll say he got elected after "access hollywood." now we've had a year of seeing a president who accepts the support from racists, he's now governed as a year, someone who dispages bleep hole countries. >> you can -- you can win a fight in two ways -- you can bring your opponent to submission, think germany and japan after world war ii. or you can break your opponent's will to fight. and to some degree, trump is exhausting the electorate. he's wearying democratic constituents. what i would say is, what i would say is this on this
point -- he has performed some level of jedi mind trick. here's the deal -- he lost by 3 million votes. he won the popular vote, he won by 78,000 votes across three straits in a narrow victory. he is weaker. the majority of the country opposes this. it is only through the magical thinking of the trump cult that there is any capacity to believe that a majority supports it. it does not. >> what democrats have to talk about is the vast corruption of this administration, the personal corruption of donald trump and the people around him, the kind of moral corruption, and the fact that the republicans in congress will do nothing to slow him down. >> they embolden people like devin nunes who are just as corrupt. >> the republicans have nothing left to run on. we talk about the democrat's message, but the republicans started talking about the tax cut, the thing they promised for
years, and they delivered it and it's not working. they are now talking about nancy pelosi, talking about immigration, democrats wanting to abolish i.c.e. they sent the president in, the vanderbi vice president in. if none of that works, they have nothing left. >> donald trump and the republicans made a mistake when heelected, which is to suggest they have a mandate. in every one of these races, people are saying this is not the government we voted for. so we'll see that. steve is right, this was a moment in american history where donald trump won with fewer votes than the other candidate. and yet they have continued down this road of republicanism that nobody actually recognizes. democrats don't recognize it and republicans don't recognize it. after the break, a profile in pandering. new reporting from "the new york times" magazine about a man addicted to donald trump's atta boys.
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it's one part exit interview, two parts greek tragedy. a new profile of paul ryan in "new york" magazine, like when the house speaker got a call in the middle of one of their interviews. he said to mark -- >> the panel is back. this was so galling to me. i mean, mark is one of the best writers, especially of these sorts of pieces where people -- they just say stuff to somebody, but it sure explains a lot. >> his weakness is just extraordinary. and i don't want to sit here and disparage paul ryan the man. because he's a good guy.
he's a moral person. he's a decent person. take him seriously when he says i want to spend more time with my kids and family, and i didn't want to fund-raise, i didn't want to do all these things, i'm not political, i'm a policy guy. the job required hardness, firmness, toughness, standing up to this lawless president. he's weak, he's feeble, unlike anybody who has ever held the position of speaker of the house. this is a constitutional office with immense power, second in line to the presidency. when you see the abdication of responsibility to the country from the republican leadership, it is galling, it is appalling, and his legacy will be a shameful one because of it. >> i was in the room when paul ryan was elected speaker and the house caucus was struggling with who is going to be the next
leader. he said i don't want the job, i'm not sure i'll be good at it. but he was the only choice we had in many ways. i think what we're seeing with his resignation, this is no longer paul ryan's party and he knows it. this is donald trump's party, not paul ryan's. he is, at this point, because of having transacted on the corporate tax bill, nothing more than a for profit republican we see in the finance community that sold their souls for benefit of president trump. the most shocking thing about that interview, though, was his admission that president trump has architected tragedies. >> what does that mean? this is -- this is from the -- from mark's piece. this is paul ryan. "i can look myself in the mirror at the end of the day and say i avoided that tragedy, i avoided that tragedy," ryan tells me. i advanced this goal, this goal, i locked in on the word tragedy. it sets the mind reeling to what
he might be talking about. i asked for an example. no, i don't want to do that, ryan replied. that's more than what i usually say. what is he talking about? >> donald trump got the nomination. i was on the u.s. senate trail, marco rubio was running for president. and when he secured the nomination, i believe coming out of indiana, every republican candidate was expected to say we support donald trump. paul ryan and i on the same day said comments that were uncoordinated where we both said, i'm not there yet. i stuck with that. paul ryan did not. and at some point, at some point, this is a reflection of somebody's own integrity, their own conviction. he was willing to satisfy the politics of convenience, and i'll tell you this, legacies will be remembered for people who stuck on principle and didn't fail in the face of adversity. he's failed in the face of adversity. >> there was no way back after "access hollywood." and i had friends that supported him. to me, some called me and said,
there's no way back. this isn't a question of a former political consultant, this is a question for your wife, daughters, for your parents. if you can get there after what you heard on "access hollywood," go for it. but i didn't see a way back and i was shocked that paul ryan did. >> i thought he might be the one person -- i had a moment after hillary lost where i thought maybe they'll get together and elect the house -- the republican house will elect somebody else president of the united states, because it was so clear this man couldn't do it. and they went along with it. >> they're still going along with it. >> the story is how mark isolates this lack of agency they think they have. what kind of conviction do you have that you think your own voice can't matter as the speaker of the house, that you think your own supporters are so bought in, that they can't hear a truth that you're willing to tell how dangerous this president is. and it's like what steve is
saying about the democrats being -- having a self-fulfilling outcome, where if we don't act as if trump is a danger, why are people going to think that? the republican party has also bought in. think that? republican party is all so bought in, they don't have the power of their own conviction or believe their own supporters could hear them when they flag him as dangerous. no wonder the republican party is aligned with him because no one else -- they don't hear anything else. >> we have a right to know what the tragedies are. he has an obligation -- this is government of the people, by the people, for the people. we have a right to know what he's talking about there. >> in the meanwhile the republica republicans, he's at his tweets all day. guess what donald trump is talking about on the golf course? we'll tell you on the other side of the break. george woke up in pain.
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hours long, 18 holes. must have been four hours that felt like 64 out on the course. look, he's clearly obsessed by it. not surprising. but again, what lindsey is saying, it's political. this is a campaign tactic, not about the subversion of the rule of law, not about the is undering of the western alliance and the advancement of interests. there are big controversial issues at stake and every comment by an elected republican leader of the party is small. it diminishes the epic question that's before the people of this country which is do we want to put a check on this or not. >> i had heard last wednesday that donald trump was again using on the phone in the morning or around the time he sent that tweet about firing jeff sessions. my thought when i saw this is
that i'm sure robert mueller has already thought to subpoena all his golf partners. he's talking to everybody about what is on his mind. >> including hope hicks who was back on the plane with the president this weekend. my takeaway from the lindsey graham story is tpt hasn't moved off the idea of firing bob mueller. it surfaces, goes away for a while. everyone tells him it won't work. we all like to think it's impossible. but it would be so cataclysmic. the one person who hasn't let it go is donald trump. the desire to fire robert mueller, jeff sessions and the efforts his aides have had to undergo are all flash points in the obstruction of justice investigation. >> it is. the president likely faces criminal culpability at some point. i think the gaslighting of the trump base is fully complete, the republicans on capitol hill are fully bought in. i think it's under serious
consideration to dismiss rosenstein and mueller ahead of democrats likely taking control in january. the president, what i saw in front at the trump rally is a base that would fully support him. >> we have to sneak in our last break. we'll be right back. it's time now for your "your business" of the week. in the summer of 2017, schepp her's was getting complaints from all sites, from customers to local officials. they didn't have good answers to problems like why their lines were so long. find out how this company redeemed itself and saved its reputation on "your business" sunday morning at 7:30 eastern on msnbc. back every step of the- back every step of the- whether it's the comfort of knowing help is just a call away with global assist. or getting financing to fund your business. no one has your back like american express. so where ever you go. we're right there with you.
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department. >> it is a risky strategy. and you saw biden. there is bad blood between biden and trump. the white house is looking his chops at prospect of a re-election. any question about biden's energy level changed and shifts the moment that donald trump is invoked and you saw some of that on camera when he answered that question. secondly, yeah, what they're doing is allowing the voters to make their own decisions. voters is hyperaware of the chaos on the other side of the legal jeopardy and all of the challenges he's embroiled in as well and so they're hoping that voters will make the informed decision, biden is a creature of the senate and he governs and keeps his head down and he hopes to get credit for those things and that is where the white house is falling short off. but allow the voters to make their own contrast decision. >> there is always a risk. you don't say anything and someone filled up the vacuum by contending these are political prosecutions and then there is
particular moment in american history, when we are taking on somebody, the former president, who in fact does not believe in democracy, he's an authoritarian, and a very, very dangerous person. i think at this moment, there has got to be a unification of progressive people in general. >> is that going to work for left? >> it might. senator sanders i think felt a real urgency to deliver that message. because he doesn't feel as though that democrats are talking enough about the working class. and that the democrats are ceding those voters to republicans. so it makes a lot sense for him to be elevating this. we know that progressives feel underutilized and they're not elevated enough in the party and something that this president is going to have to confront. i know from my own conversations with young progressive voters that if trump isn't ultimately the nominee, it is going to be
more like governor chris christie. it is hard to think who they think their audience is because they're running in a republican primary that, you know, now the republican base voter, ramaswamy, trump, that is seeming to be what they are looking for. nikki haley was great. but when you are hypocritical on attacks on spending and hedging on abortion compared to your other rivals on the stage and talking about defending u.s. aid for ukraine, these are all positions that may make sense in a general election audience, and maybe with some swing voting women. but i don't know how they're going to play -- >> also, what they believe, it is a conundrum. if the things that you believe are really far away from the core tenants of maga or trump politics and you're at 3% or 5% anyway, why not say what you think. i mean, like if you're goal in this race, chris christie for example, is to get republicans to rethink what they've signed
to be trump's policies, it looks more and more like it will be his demeanor and it will be his extremism. so, that is what we saw on the stage. so whether it is former president trump or not, i think that it will be everything that he has brought the republican party to. >> one thing i'm not hearing from the biden campaign is what is the agenda for next four yearsba that is not what they're running on. tear running on trying to disqualify the republicans. >> thaey're running on what they've done already and contrasting that with the chaos they believe republicans would create if they were in office again and they need that contrast. the campaign could be summed up in biden's statement when he said don't compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative. that is the campaign. finish the job is a murky slogan for what the next four years will be and most of it will depend on whether or not they have democrats running congress or not. if they don't, there is only so much they could do. they will talk about protecting
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up for, to rethink what the party stands for, to cleave the party and say it is better to lose a general election and re-set the party than to sign on for another four years of this. if that is your goal, it makes sense to do exactly what they're doing. >> will the republican -- the people that will decide that nominee, are they going to -- >> it is just so fascinating to see the old guard versus the new guard within the republican party. mike pence for instance pushing a lot of the issues. more support for ukraine. that is something that is supported among the base, just such a fundamental philosophical divide and so much to play out in the months ahead. ahead, trump's fourth disciple was in the books. but will any of the trials kick off before republicans decide on a nominee?
entitlements and lower costs for families and all of the things that have been overarching themes of what they've done so far but they do need to define that more for voters and that is what wul see in the months ahead. >> and there is a strategic decision by the biden white house not to talk about the trump many legal issues and there is plenty of ammunition for them to seize upon. they've decided to stooer clear. this is how biden responded to the mug shot when asked about it last week? >> have you seen his mug shot yet? >> i did see it on television. >> what did you think? >> handsome guy. >> i mean, he was joking there. but he obviously does not want to discuss this. does it become a point where the biden campaign and the democrats say, you know, talk about this. or is it too risky because republicans have been accusing him of weaponizing the justice
get into later in the program about the calendar is just going to completely consume the presidential election season. but for voters, at what point did republican voters say these legal problems could be problematic for our nominee of our party? >> well the base of the party, if you speak to them, i was recently in iowa are just not there yet, manu. but i can't get out of my mind that republicans have long claimed ownership of law and order. sometimes in explicitly racialized ways. and now the standard bearer, the face of their party is facing four criminal indictments, and is fundraising off of a mug shot. so our politics are truly upside down in this country. the very same institutions that republicans have long held up as part of the example of why america is a great country, there are now castigating those very same institutions. so it is -- i mean, really, post