Interviews with political figures and news updates. Theyre speaking from the same playbook. But this is a tough line to walk, andrea. Ken dilanian, you had dan coats, head of national intelligence, questioned about the dissonance there. Lets watch. In the runup to the helsinki summit, u. S. Officials, ambassadors to nato, ambassadors to russia, said that the president would raise the issue of malign activity with the president. Im not in a position to either understand fully or talk about what happened at helsinki. Ken, it does seem that dan coats and the rest of the team have still not been briefed on what happened during that private one on one. And thats remarkable, andrea. Dan coats is the nations top intelligence official. He needs to know these things, he needs to understand where the russians are coming from, and what potential negotiations took place between the president and the russian leader. This News Conference was such a fascinating mixture of cynical
meddling. Thats not saying whether the president has given authorization for Cyber Operations. As of a few months ago, im told, Cyber Command did not have that authorization from President Trump. Thats terribly important, obviously, for us to be going on offense. Admiral stavridis, general nakasone had this to say, lets play exactly what ken is referring to. General, have you been ordered at all or authorized to conduct any offensive Cyber Operations in response to this . So my guidance and direction from the president and Secretary Of Defense is very clear. Were not going to accept meddling in the elections. Its very unambiguous. Again, that answer is ambiguous. But there were some hints from Secretary Of Defense jim mattis that we might be ready to undertake Offensive Cyber responses. Let me start by pointing out that surreal disconnect between the president and his four
intelligence professionals. This is kind of like pearl harbor in terms of an attack on the country, andrea. And this would be as though after the pearl harbor attack you didnt get the president coming out, instead you got the chiefs of the army, the navy, the marine corps, saying were going to prosecute, were going to go forward, were going to defend the nation. This is a time when you really expect the president of the United States to be speaking to the american public. So lets really underline the strange aspects of this historically. In terms of Offensive Cyber, i know general nakasone well, hes a straight shooter. Hes trying to keep on the inside highly classified information there. We have a great deal of Offensive Cyber capability. To date, we have chosen not to deploy it. I think thats a mistake. I think its time we started to look quite seriously at a range of Offensive Cyber actions in order to retaliate for this ongoing russian activity. Look, the thing with russians,
andrea, they have an old proverb which is that when you are probing with a bayonet and you encounter pu countecounter mush. When you hit steel, withdraw. Well have to show some steel in the cyber world. I hope general nakasone is prepared to do that. I would like to hear more, at least to the congress on a classified level, about what options are on the table. Lets time we took this more seriously than we have to date. And russia also misbehaving according to treasury sanctions today on north korea. Thats something you know very well, what were doing at sea, even, theres a talk that theres a multilateral naval force. I want to talk more about this dissonance factor. This is the president talking about kim jongun and north korea at that rally last night. What i did with north korea was great. I got along great with chairman kim. I got along great. I got the hostages back. Didnt have to pay anything. Theyre not testing any more nuclear. They havent had a test in nine months. And you know what else . Theyre not sending rockets over japan and theyre not sending missiles over japan and theyre not launching missiles anymore. They havent launched one in nine months. At almost that exact moment, the secretary of state, admiral, was in the air, heading to singapore for a meeting of asian nations where hes going to talk about north korea and about compliance with sanctions. And he was telling the press on the record that they are cheating and that their neighbors are cheating. Russia, china, others are cheating, breaking u. N. Sanctions, which we now see the treasury acting on today. Indeed. Another remarkable disconnect. And, a, it tells you that the political season is really unfolding, and clearly the president is just throwing red
meat, red ribeye steaks to his base. But that is not doing our nation much good in terms of our security. And Secretary Pompeo is in exactly the right place, which is to evince frustration, to take action. And i think that if we are going to be serious about choking off north korea, its going to require an International Naval task force so that we can avoid the kind of sanction busting that we know russia and china are doing right now. Heres the good news, andrea. At least were still on a diplomatic track. And i will give the president credit ca credit, there have not been any further nuke tesclear tests or launches, but that program is continuing to build. We have to stop it. I think Secretary Pompeo is our best bet. Thanks so much for that, admiral stavridis, ken dilanian, and Kristen Walker at the white house. Breaking news, houston
police department announcing the man suspected of killing a local cardiologist, a wellknown cardiologist, has now been found dead. Police say that the apparent murderer committed suicide. Dr. Mark hausknecht was killed bicycling to work. He formerly had treated president george h. W. Bush. He was celebrated in his field and he was tracked on a bicycle by this alleged killer who has now been found apparently a suicide. Coming up, alternate reality. President trump declaring russia was not happy about his president ial victory. Really . Despite Vladimir Putin saying the exact opposite at that summit in helsinki . Time for our reality economic. Stay with us. Youre watching Andrea Mitchell reports on msnbc. And im stillt even though i live with a higher risk of stroke due to afib not caused by a heart valve problem. So if theres a better treatment than warfarin, im up for that. Eliquis. Eliquis is proven to reduce stroke risk better than warfarin. Plus has significantly less major bleeding than warfarin. Eliquis is fdaapproved and has both. So whats next . Seeing these guys. Dont Stop Taking Eliquis unless your doctor tells you to, as stopping increases your risk of having a stroke. Eliquis can cause serious and in rare cases fatal bleeding. Dont take eliquis if you have an Artificial Heart Valve or abnormal bleeding. While taking eliquis, you may bruise more easily and it may take longer than usual for any bleeding to stop. Seek immediate medical care for sudden signs of bleeding, like unusual bruising. Eliquis may increase your bleeding risk if you take certain medicines. Tell your doctor about all planned medical or dental procedures. Eliquis, the number one cardiologistprescribed blood thinner. Ask your doctor if eliquis is whats next for you. Cardiologistprescribed blood thinner. Are you ready to take your then you need xfinity xfi. . A more powerful way to stay connected. It gives you super fast speeds for all your devices, provides the most Wifi Coverage for your home, and lets you control your network with the xfi app. Its the ultimate wifi experience. Xfinity xfi, simple, easy, awesome. Directly contradicting what Vladimir Putin told the world in helsinki, that putin did want donald trump to win the 2016 election. Also contradicting of course his own National Security cabinet only hours earlier in that unprecedented white house briefing. Joining me now, charlie sykes, Contributing Editor at the weekly standard, and michael steele, former gop chairman, both msnbc contributors. Charlie, youre in wisconsin, in the heartland. What are people there saying about what were seeing as dissonance, but perhaps its working . Well, this is the definition of cognitive dissonance. It was truly remarkable listening to that briefing yesterday and realizing that what they were saying contradicts what the president was saying, then watch them go out at that rally and once again undermine and undercut that entire message. If the point was to rally the
nation behind confronting the russian attack on our democracy, the president clearly cut them off at the knees. Now, is it in fact working . Im not sure. Obviously the president s base is still behind him. But i think at this point in the midterm campaigns, we have to ask whether or not these rallies and sort of the bizarre dark forces that hes unleashing at these rallies is actually going to work with those swing voters or those soft Republican Voters who are going to be determining who controls congress. The other thing about this, though, was that he was actually doing something for lou barletta, one of his favorite republican congressmembers. But barletta is running against a very Popular Democratic senator, bob casey, and casey has a long, the, his family roots are in that district. But you have to win the suburbs of philadelphia in that state. Michael steele, as a former
republican chair, you know thats not the way to reach out to the people in the suburbs. It is not. And i think thats one of the pennsylvania is a bellwether for a number of important races coming up this fall. And the fact that the president is so narrowly playing to a base, he feels good in that setting, hes having fun, hes riffing and cussing and doing this and the folks are loving it. To charlies point, the rest of the country, the independent voters, center right democrats and republicans, are looking at this and going, what is this all about . There is Nonan Inclination right now, i think, andrea, to empower that kind of mindset In Washington any longer. And thats why you see the numbers for the president dropping. Thats why you see the generic ballot for Republicans Holding on to the Congress Moving away from them. Its because of moments like we saw last night. You also see the tariff wars. Out where you live, charlie, wisconsin is being so hardhit in dairy, in all kinds of ways. The farmers are being hit. And also the Auto Industry is potentially going to be hit hard by aluminum and steel. Again, china today saying that 60 billion in retaliatory tariffs are heading our way. Well, yes. I mean, you think about the jobs numbers we had earlier today. You would think donald trump and the republicans would be cruising with these economic numbers. But you have this cloud of the tariff wars over the economic numbers. Were the home of harleydavidson, Iconic American Company thats been attacked and vilified by the president. The larger point that michael is also making is that donald trump is this huge Gravitational Force distracting republicans from being able to talk about the things they want to talk about. They want to talk about the economy. And yet donald trump keeps
throwing out this chaff, keeps stepping on their own message. I cant help but think these attacks on the media, the rise of unhinged conspiracy theories, wont play well in the suburbs and swing area of states like pennsylvania and wisconsin. This stuff that works with the base, the polling is hard to figure. Yes. We dont know what the Mueller Probe is going to be, and hes played that well in terms of Demonizing Mueller and any result of the investigation that comes. And at the same time, talking about a government shutdown, against the advice of every republican leader in the house and senate. You actually are raising a very important underlying point, i think, andrea, about, okay, so how does this really play out, given all these other variables that are still yet to fall into place, from mueller to whether
or not the president actually pursues a policy of shutting down the government sometime between september and october. For donald trump, thats his ace card. Thats what he keeps up his sleeve, the idea that were guessing, we dont know how these things play out. Some of this is defense and offense at the same time for him, where he goes out here to sort of encapsulate himself in the love of crowds like this that sort of protect him from whatever may come from a Mueller Probe, for example. But it also gives him that leverage to push back if he wants to and threaten the party, ostensibly, with shutting down the government, and to, quote, say to them, you guys go deal with that, im having fun over here, you go deal with the mess thats created over there. Its a different form of throwing a bright shiny object and people following it down a rabbit hole. Hes throwing many bright shiny objects in the air at the same time. And the question for the party is, are the voters paying attention to any of those, are there really focused on, okay, what is my situation right now
going into this november election . Job numbers and all that notwithstanding, how does this play for me . And i think, back to your point about swing voters, i think those swing voters are moving away from the trump circus and focusing more on the fact that they want something a little bit different and this aint it. I wonder how many evangelicals and family value folks, however we define that, are worried about the children and are also worried about the fact that we had to bleep the president of the United States at a public rally because of profanity today. Maybe we didnt have to. Lets talk about that later. Turning now of course to the effort to reunify migrant families, with our thanks to michael and charlie, the Trump Administration is today trying to shirk the responsibility to reunite more than 500 children still in government custody. Msnbcs Jacob Soboroff who has been on top of this Border Crisis from the very beginning has the latest from a court filing, jacob. Reporter thats right, andrea, we have a court filing
that came in from the aclu and the Trump Administration, the parties in this case. First, an update on the numbers. Remember, 2,551 children overall were separated from their parents by the Trump Administration in a systematic way that had never been done before. As of yesterday during this filing, 572 of them still remain in government custody. They have been calling this category ineligible for reunification. That word does not appear in the latest court filing, but essentially its the same group of kids we were talking about before. 410 parents from that group were deported before they were able to be reunified with their children. What is most extraordinary, andrea, but what we learned in this latest filing late last night is that the administration is essentially suggesting that the aclu now go take responsibility for tracking down and reuniting these children with their families. To say this as clearly as i can, the party that separated these children from their parents is
now saying, look, we got sued, if you guys want to reunite these kids, you go find them yourself and well do our best to help you do that. Its pretty extraordinary. The last time i looked, we did not vote for the aclu to be running the government, or dhs, or anything else in this country. I think we voted for donald trump and his cabinet. That reporter thats exactly right, andrea. The aclu is essentially defending themselves from this proposal, proposition, that will be talked about in court later today, by saying that the government essentially has endless resources. They have as much money, as much personnel as they possibly can. I talked to an Administration Official today who basically said, look, the aclu is on the air all the time talking about this issue, people are raising money to find these children. Its a preposterous theory, quite frankly. Jacob soboroff, thank you so much for taking the time to bring that to us. Coming up, lifestyles of the rich and infamous. Did Paul Manafort cook the books to support his very expensive tastes . Well get the latest from the courthouse and from the world of fashion. Stay with us, right here on Andrea Andrea on msnbc. Oh oh ozempic® vo people with Type 2 Diabetes are excited about the potential of onceweekly ozempic®. In a study with ozempic®, a majority of adults lowered their blood sugar and reached an a1c of less than seven and maintained it. Oh under seven . vo and you may lose weight. In the same oneyear study, adults lost on average up to 12 pounds. Oh up to 12 pounds . vo a twoyear study showed that ozempic® does not increase the risk of major cardiovascular events like heart attack, stroke, or death. Oh no increased risk . Ozempic® ozempic® should not be the first medicine for treating diabetes,
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