Was right and mitt romney and john mccain were wrong on certain policy issues but i never thought that they couldnt do the job. There has to come a point at which you say enough. So those comments played out simultaneously with Donald Trumps rally. A short 35 miles away in ash burn, virginia. But like hes done repeatedly over the last 48 hours, trump could not let the controversies lie. You know, something very nice just happened to me, a man came up to me and he handed me his purple heart. I said man, thats, like thats, like, big stuff. I always wanted to get the purple heart. [ laughter ] this was much easier. Our veterans are being treated horribly. Were going to turn that around so fast your head is going to spin. By the way, wouldnt it be great if we got along with russia . Wouldnt that be great . Hillary clinton will be worse. She has bad relationships with people like putin. We are on the trail with trump. Also at the white house at this hour. I want to begin with ron allen who joins us from the lawn at the white house. This is pretty rare for president obama to take such a strong stance. We heard the contrast he made about trump to his former rivals in mccain and mitt romney. This is basically president obama saying i would not have wanted those men to win but i would have felt they could hold this office with respect and with experience. Well, do the job is he didnt endorse them too much but, yeah, thomas. It was striking, just sitting a few feet away from president obama it was hes a very analytical and sometimes speaks very matter of factually and very understated tone and i think all that added to the impetus of what he was saying. He has said things like this before in speeches and other press conferences but i think what really got to him was that hes been simmering about this gold star family issue more to for a couple days. He spoke about it yesterday briefly at an event where he was talking to a group of veterans at the v. A. Hospital in atlanta yesterday but he didnt want to make that event political is what his aides were saying so when we asked would he talk about the khan dispute and trump then they said know essentially. So today he knew he would get the question and he just let out in, again, a very matteroffact way. President obama has a very deep negative feeling for donald trump and i think thats putting it light ly we know the history the controversy, i think its fair to say that his essence has been questioned repeatedly by the opposition again and again and again and donald trump to some extent now running for president as the nominee for the Opposition Party is the personification of so much of that and i think this is what were going to see Going Forward with president obama. He does not want he said months ago donald trump will not become president and now youre seeing what he means and how hes going to do everything he can to make that not happen. Thomas . Ron allen at the white house for us, ron, thank you very much. I want to bring into the conversation right now ben ginsberg, an msnbc political analyst, partner at jones day and former general counsel to the rnc and Corrine Jean Pierre worked for the obama 2008 and 2012 campaigns. Good to have you both here. Ben, i want to start with you. We hear from president obama denouncing modernday republicans who wont separate themselves from the nominee. Explain the stakes for republicans who have endorsed trump and are at steake and wil be running for reelection on the same ballot . Well, look, i think what youve seen looking at the house and Senate Campaigns that i do a bunch of work with is that those campaigns are very much running as their own people. So whether theyve formally endorsed trump or not enzorsed trump theyre developing their own messages, their own ground games, their own Data Analytics in a way that will allow them to localize the races going back to tip oneills adage that all politics is local and i think thats what youre seeing in the races today. And we know coreen, the words that president obama just delivered about the matter of fact trump being unpitt to that office. We know the baton he wants to pass goes straight to Hillary Clinton who was a member of his cabinet. Why do you think or do you think these words will have an effect on voters now just clicking in and paying attention after the conventions . Well i think you just said it, tom, voters are starting to Pay Attention and click in, especially after labor day well see more of that. There are only five living u. S. President s out there that can speak what its like to be commanderinchief and two of them are republicans who have not endorsed donald trump, so, yes, the president gave a remarkable unprecedented rebuke against donald trump which is very important because the as weve seen, donald trump just continues to espouse hateful rhetoric and dehumanize groups of people and him going after the gold star family was actually the thing that probably will continue to get traction because at the end of the day its not a democratic issue and its not a republican issue its actually just unamerican and just very insulting. I want to get this on, ben, its something were just getting. We havent confirmed it ourselves, politico is reporting on this, the fact that governor Chris Christie is saying the trump criticism of the khan family is inappropriate. He said i didnt see mr. Khans speech at the dnc but ill just say this, im a father and i cannot imagine the pain of losing a child under any circumstances and for mr. And mrs. Khan the pain of losing their son while defending our country is unfathomable. I think it gives them the right to say whatever they want whether theyre right or wrong. But then again using this line saying that it is i want to read down here, we have to honor their sacrifice, their sons sacrifice of this country but then again talking about the fact that this would have been inappropriate for donald trump to go after them. Four remembers right now and we had them first read today ben about there could be this gop exit ramp and this has been talked about before as a headline, an exit ramp. Do republicans that youre in contact with, folks youre talking to think there is a point of no return about certain things trump may say . Well, i think there is, as youve heard in the statements from republicans over the last few days a great deal of con Sister Mission about that. I think what Chris Christie just said is eloquent and very representative of what im hearing from republicans running for office, republicans on the hill, republicans on statehouses so thats a matter of recalibrating a campaign if its possible. All right, so karine, ben, thanks so much. I want to get to Kelly Odonnell standing by in washington, d. C. Do we have any reaction from the Trump Campaign about the president s critique . Yes, there is a statement coming from the Trump Campaign that sounds, at least to my ear as i read it, to be more of a crafted by the campaign than donald trump himself. Let me get to the that here, i was just trying to do reporting on the side while you were hey, we love that. Dont worry. Give me one second to pull this up so this is this was a lengthy statement, multiple paragraphs, which is often the trump way but let me read along with our viewers. Obama clinton have destabilized the middle east, handed iraq, libya and syria to isis and allowed our personnel to be slaughtered at benghazi. A lot of keynotes that matter to conservative voters. They have betrayed our security and workers and Hillary Clinton have proven herself unfit to serve in any government office. That gives you an idea of how almost point by point on the fitness to serve question where the Trump Campaign was responding to the president without speaking directly about his new remarks so this is a part of the Rapid Response which has been part of the buildup of the campaign to try to leave we know the candidate leaves no shot unresponded to and now the campaign in a more organized fashion is pushing throughout written statement which can be put out and talked about by various News Organizations. Saying that it can be put right back to Hillary Clinton as a member of the Obama Administration and in her candidacy now. So it is going to be this kind of general election. We knew that, thomas, but it is getting very, very intense where the news cycle is shrinking to moment by moment by moment and thats what were going to have. Nothing will be left hanging, nothing will be left without a response and thats what the Trump Campaign is doing this afternoon. Meanwhile, kelly, i want to point everybody as i mentioned about first read before, also within the reporting by our First Read Team they talk about the fact that really this is a moment where trump has overshadowed a misstep by Hillary Clinton over the weekend where she talked about the fbi investigation, the answers about james comey and whether or not she was truthful in her answers or not. His description of that when he gave testimony. But the as it is said in first read, the i guess heightened and enlightenment of lack of empathy to a gold star family is dominating the headlines about donald trump and what that means as commanderinchief as that person is in charge of our military service. And we have seen the Republican National committee and other republican candidates take up the points you just highlighted, areas of vulnerability, perhaps, for Hillary Clinton. Areas she could be challenged at and they have been running with that. But trump himself continues to be a bit off tempo when it comes to being able to directly combat Hillary Clinton on specific points or weaknesses that might be in her candidacy and he gets stuck in the news of a day or two or three ago and keeps that news cycle going. For a consumer of news with as voracious an appetite as donald trump has shown himself to be and admits to consuming so much news, he seems to be a little off on the ability to measure the news cycle and how he is feeding it by continuing some of these stories instead of going against his direct opponent in this race, Hillary Clinton so its a combination of i think some of his attitudes about things, as you know, he has characterized the kahn family as being part of the Dnc Convention therefore inserting themselves in politics while at the same time also trying to say their son is a hero. Its a convoluted circumstance that almost any typical politician would have stayed ten miles away from and its another way trump moves he is no politician and is willing to do things to step on the third rail without with really very little blowback from his own hard core supporters. Were seeing republican officials who are uncomfortable, certainly democrats who are going after him and it will be the independent voters who are so krit dmal how they assess this kind of conduct from donald trump. And you talk about him not being a politician, we have coming up Steven Cortez who is a trump surrogate. Well talk about all of this. In the past he has said on air to kristen well dhaer trump is like a weebl wobble, they can get knocked down but get right back up. The rest of the headlines that donald trump seems to be making. Were back after this. T the roof repaired like new. They later sold the cow because they had all become lactose intolerant. Call geico and see how much you could save on homeowners insurance. Try cool mint zantac. Hey, need fast heartburn relief . It releases a cooling sensation in your mouth and throat. Zantac works in as little as 30 minutes. Nexium can take 24 hours. Try cool mint zantac. No pill relieves heartburn faster. Jen stops working, but her aleve doesnt. Hey mom because aleve can last 4 hours longer than tylenol 8 hour. What will you do with your aleve hours . Dog chow for 36 years now. D ive been making my dog girlfriend is 17 years old. Shes been eating dog chow from her very first day and she can still chase squirrels. She cant catch them, but she can still chase them. After 17 years im still confident in feeding her dog chow because i see the high Quality Ingredients that go into it. Im very proud to make dog chow right here in edmond, oklahoma. This is daily and weekly where they are distancing themselves from statements hes making. There has to be a point in which you say this is not somebody i can support for president of the United States. So there we have president obama and the stinging rebuke of Republican Leaders who have toe it had line even while criticizing Donald Trumps rhetoric from his campaign. So the president s words there come on the heels of a pretty choppy 48 hours from the Trump Campaign. Steven or tcortez is chief strategist for bgc partners and a trump surrogate. You once said donald trump was a weeble wobble and lebron james combined. He stumbles but get right back up. Has the president s comments changed your opinion as he characterized the fact that he would look at a mccain or romney, two people he was able to beat as fit for the job to be president , obama just felt he was the better person for that job . Right, and thomas mentioning weeble wobbles, it shows my age, unfortunately. Im old enough to remember playing with them back in the 1970s. I know the slogan weeble wobbles get knocked down. Request they wobble but they dont fall down thats what i said of donald trump. Hes a political cat, he has nine lives. He takes hits but he comes back strongly. What about the collateral damage, though, of the fact that he is the standard bearer and while he may wobble and fall down and get back up there are republicans that are being crushed under the weight of having to support what he says. Having to defense an attack on a gold star family. Look, i would say this regarding first, regarding your first question id like to address what the president said today. I thought first of all it was quite unpresident ial. In your last segment one of your reporters said it was unprecedented. It is because its not right. The president shouldnt insert himself into that partisan a manner. When he says donald trump is unfit to serve i think we should focus on Hillary Clinton who is unfit to serve. She would be unable to get a security clearance for a midlevel job at her own state department or the department of defense yet she wants to be our commanderinchief so if we want to have a discussion about fitness of candidates im happy as a trump guy to have that discussion with Hillary Clinton to your second question regarding dissent among republicans, weve heard loud cries from some pretty poor candidate, people like john mccain, people like Lindsey Graham so i view those as cat calls from the cheap seats, they have either been opposed to trump or at best unenthusiastic supporters of trump so i dont expect to get ringing endorsements out of them. I think donald trump has transformed the Republican Party and to that matter gone beyond the Republican Party. I think this election in many terms isnt so much republican against democrat, its america against washington. Its the people against the power structure, the rigged crony system that washington, d. C. Embodies and sadly a lot of republicans are part of that, too. Lets talk about republicans. The Chris Christie comment weve gotten within this hour about the fact that he feels that trumps remarks were inappropriate and says we need to honor their sacrifice for our country, we need to honor their sons sacrifice for our country. But he was one of the closest advisors and someone being considered far potential running mate for donald trump so its not just, you know, the president or democrats inserting themselves in this but republicans, people very close to donald trump whether personally or politically are saying that this was inzbloept and thats a fair point, thomas, i have enormous respect for governor Chris Christie. I think hed make a great cabinet member if President Trump is a reality come january. As a trump supporter when he makes mistakes i wish he hadnt engaged with the khan family, that was a mistake but i think hes recovering from that mistake. The last thing he said regarding captain khan was that he was a hero so he couldnt be more clear about that and yesterday and today he hasnt talked about it, i suspect hes not going to talk about it from here forward and i hope he doesnt, weve got much bigger issues, its not trump against the khans, its trump against hillary and the people against washington. We need to grow again. Weve been getting miserable economic numbers, this is the weakest recovery since our grandparents day. There are growth problems we need to address and im confident donald trump will sell his winning optimistic message to the American People on those points and were done with some of the issues that arent a winning formula for us. Steven, i want to show this though because there is this moment getting attention. Of an air force mom, a Service Members mother who was asking a question of mike pence at a rally last night. Take a look at this. Time and time again trump has disrespected our Nations Armed forces and veterans and his disrespect for mr. Khan and his family [ boos ] you have a son in the military, how do you tolerate this disrespect . [ boos ] well, i thank you for the question. What different does it make . Dont politicize the military.