Transcripts For MSNBCW MTP Daily 20190729 : vimarsana.com

And a staunch supporter is in as the nominee for intelligence chief. If its monday, its meet the press daily. Good evening, im Steve Kornacki in new york in for chuck todd. We begin with an unprecedented moment in modern american politics as the president of the United States is stoking racial hostility as he looks to mobilize his base in the runup to next years election. The president is not letting up after racially charged comments this weekend going after House Oversight chairman congressman Elijah Cummings. He called his district a disgusting, rat and rodentinfested mess and called cummings a racist after he criticized the president s comments. Today the president called the reverend al sharpton, the National Action Network President , also an msnbc host, a con man who, quote, hates whites and cops. And dont forget it was just two weeks ago that the president suggested a group of congresswomen go back to where they came from. Taken together its an astounding display of president ial behavior aimed at minorities to go back where they came from or clean up their road en rodentinfested district. He cut the ribbon at the National Action convention. When he was a democrat i wasnt a con man then. He called me after he was elected president and asked me to go to maralago and meet with him. Omarosa he sent to the National Action Network Convention and asked for meetings. If he felt that way about me, why would he call me even after he won the election . And he confirmed the call. This is race baiting at its best. This is donald trump playing the race card and it is a shame and it is a sham. You heard him there say this is race baiting at its best. Its a sentiment seemingly shared by the Baltimore Sun Editorial Board which in a scathing editorial said better to be a few rats than to be one. Mr. Trump sees attacking africanamerican members of congress as good politics as it both warms the cauockles of tho who love him and causes so many who dont to scream. As the Washington Post reports, trumps advisers had concluded after the go back tweets that the overall message sent by such a text is good for the president among his base resonating with the White Working Class voters he needs to win reelection in 2020. Joining me now is jesse moore, former white house speechwriter and associate director of the office of Public Engagement in the obama white house. He is also one of the authors of an oped that was signed by 149 former obama officials critical of President Trumps attacks on minorities. This was before the president s latest tweets targeting Elijah Cummings. Also with me zerlina maxwell, john podhoretz, also an msnbc contributor, and gabe dibenedetti. Jessie, let me start with you. We mentioned this oped that you wrote. That famous line from Michelle Obama that a lot of folks associate with the obama approach to politics, when they go low, we go high. Is that something youre rethinking now in light of what the president is doing . No. Youre not going to catch me rethinking on Michelle Obamas brilliance on national tv. Thats smart. Absolutely not. If you read the oped, youll get the feeling of that 150 plus, and a lot more folks who wanted to sign on and didnt get the chance. Youll start to see that its really about looking at who we are as a country and remembering who we are as a country. Its not really focused on taking a shot at donald trump, at the president of the United States, its on trying to remind us as activists, as voters, who we really are and remind the country that there are other activists out here who are ready to work. But the context is unavoidable with this. You would not be writing this if it were not for the events weve been talking about the last few weeks . Absolutely not. This is a moment where the country is wrestling with im going to be very frank, but do we have a racist in the white house . And i try not to get into the business of calling people racist or deciding whos racist because honestly its subjective and distracts us. But go down the list. Central park 5, rental discrimination, nfl protests, puerto rico, charlottesville, shole countries, go back where you came from. If this was your uncle or somebody sitting down the bar from you, would you trust them with your kid . Would you be a little bit worried about their world view rubbing off on your children . I would. Thats all that matters to me. Leading the country is about more than policy disputes, its about more than what gets funded and what doesnt. Its about setting a tone and its about inspiring people. And obviously this is not a priority for our president. John, in terms of we showed that quote from the Baltimore Sun editorial and you hear this, this is political strategy on the president s part. This is something thats going fire up his base. Yes, its going to offend the left but maybe thats going to fire up his base any more. Do you buy that . Because theres another version of this that theres a slice of trump voter from 2016 who he risks losing with this, who simply says its too much. Im baffled. I mean im not the worlds greatest political strategist but im baffled in this sense. I think that the people who whom this message really, really, really resonates are already in his camp. And he knows based on the 2018 results that a lot of republicans stayed home in 2018 and democrats were fired up. 62 million democrats voted in the house elections in 2018. The Democratic Party over the last four weeks has been in a slightly fratricidal mode where theyre attacking each other. Just as theyre attack each other, looking to be divide, hard to see whos going to be the nominee, he raises his hand and says im going to Say Something horrible that is going to unite all of you and make me look incendiary. Why is that a good strategy . Everybody who is going to say, man, i love that trump, i love him giving it to baltimore is already going to vote for him. The whole question is whether he can get that three or four Million People in the middle who stayed only in 2018 to come back to the polls to vote for him. And they probably stayed home because they dont like the tweets. And that seems to be gabe, that seems to be the question here. One of the questions. Is it a strategy . Is it a strategy in the way we traditionally understand these things in politics . Because the politics on these cummings tweets have pointed out, there was a fox news segment. It seems certainly [ applause plausible the president saw the segment and then responded the way he did. Theres almost an explanation after the fact about why this might be a good strategy or why this might work. There is any real Strategic Thinking behind it or is this just the president shooting his mouth off on twitter. All indications suggest its the latter and after the fact white house officials and people close to the president have sort of suggested, well, actually theres political thinking here. But it appeared to originally at least be a response to fox news a fox friends segment. This is a kneejerk reaction from the president. We see this over and over. Not just on racial matters but on other matters. Is this a brilliant strategy or some sort of political genius we dont see . Indications are no. Its not even a stratstrategy. Then you have people in the white house trying to retrofit a strategy to it. There might be something in their numbers that suggest they might be able to gin up some more hardline base votes but theres no indication whatsoever that that would work and theres not any reporting or real suggestion that the president woke up one day and said heres a new strategy, lets try this. No, it was a reaction to, you know, racial provocation or it was a racial provocation of his. Zerlina, strategically, to use that loosely, if there is a backlash this generates, john talks about potentially swing voters. Theres also a question among core democratic voters. If you look at black turnout in general elections the past four elections, you had two spikes when obama ran, 2008, 2012, the number got up to 66 . You can see between 2012 and 2016, look at that, a sevenpoint slide in black turnout. This is the Hillary Clinton donald trump race in 2016. Theres obviously a theory here that this sort of controversy, trump behaving this way, is going to motivate black voters and get that number back up to obama levels. I guess the other question that gets asked, he behaved in this way during the campaign in 2016 and you see what the turnout was. How do you look at that . Well, theres a multitude of factors. On the one hand i think the question about whether or not its a political strategy is actually one i want to put to the side because i dont care. The child in the cage doesnt care whether its a political strategy, that the racism that put them in the cage in the first place comes from a strategy. They dont care about that. So thats to the side. In terms of 2016, i think the drop in turnout was because black millenials did not trust Hillary Clinton on issues that Impact Communities of color. She never was able to get the level of trust that is necessary to get to those obama turnout numbers of 65 to 66 that you saw in 2008 and 2012. And that is because of the 1994 crime bill in large part. And i think going into 2020, one of the questions is going to be can the democrats have a response to those critiques that is sufficient to gain the trust of those millenials of color to increase their turnout so you get to that 66 number. I think thats the issue. I dont necessarily know whether or not trumps racism is going to make a black person go outside more so than democrats actually having a compelling message on the other side. Can i in 1992 1988 by 1992, george h. W. Bush ended up from a Highwater Mark of the jewish vote for republicans in 1984, 88, in the 35 to 40 range. Drops down to 11 . Why . Because the focus, the focus on israel in the first bush presidency was very negative and jews said im done with you. I gave you a shot, 11 of the vote. In 2016, my sense is that most of the racial or ethnic animus that we looked at and thought was going to torpedo trump was hispanic, was about latinos, was about judge curiel, that sort of thing. We now have three years of racially charged attacks by trump on africanamericans. If that alone doesnt jack up that number above 60 , the black turnout number, i would be very surprised because a lot of people, minorities particularly, go to vote when they feel threatened. I dont know how you dont feel threatened at this moment. Voter suppression also impacted the turnout numbers. Voter suppression, especially in wisconsin, did impact that turnout number a bit. So its not just because they stayed home because of lack of trust, its also because there are voter i. D. Laws which impact the voters that you really need. Jesse, the other variable there politically speaking, we said barack obama as a candidate on the ballot in 2008 and 2012 ultimately obama more than anybody or anything else j generated that enthusiasm were talking about. You put this oped out. I think former president obama put out a twitter retweet, said hes proud of you. Do you expect hes going to be more vocal in the runup to the 2020 election . I do. Once we have a candidate, i expect him to hes a heck of a campaigner. Youre talking in terms of supporting the democrat in the general election. There is a role for him before theres a democratic nominee, not getting into the democratic primary itself, but addressing donald trump and what hes saying . I think he picked an interesting moment right here to support this group of activists and former staffers. This is the kind of moment, this is his brand, if you ask me, to empower other people and say keep doing what youre doing. Even aside from the specifics of the oped just to say your voices are important and you have to lift them up. We can put this up. An interesting reaction coming in. Mark meadows, very conceservati republican from north carolina. He put out a statement about the president s tweets. The president called Elijah Cummings a racist. Remember, meadows and cummings are on the same committee and cummings had vouched for meadows very publicly. He said im friends with both men, President Trump and chairman cummings. I know both men well. Neither man is a racist. Period. Both love america. I think if we put aside partisanship with investigations, we can find Bipartisan Solutions that will benefit not only chairman cummings district but the country as iwhole. Im committed to working to that end with both of them. It is vouching for congressman cummings which is maybe more than you hear from some republicans here. I know folks are out of washington now. Do you expect anything different from republicans now that the president seems intent on there was the go back to your countries comment. There was some thought among republicans that they had gotten to mike pence and maybe gotten trump to back off. Now it looks like trump is intent on going down this road. There is going to be any pushback from republicans or any separation that republicans try to create in light of this . No. Not in any substantive way thats any different from what weve seen before. Obviously this is a racial provocation on an order of magnitude that we havent seen from the president but hes been doing things along these lines for a few years now. And while republicans may say theyre disappointed, we havent seen any substantive steps to rebuke that. I wouldnt be surprised to see a few more statements along these lines. You saw governor hogan, the republican governor of maryland, say he was disappointed and didnt appreciate the president s tweets but thats pretty tepid. Defending Elijah Cummings and saying neither of these people are racist is very different from outright condemning what the president had to say and move forward in any constructive manner. Jesse moore, thank you for joining us. We appreciate that. Gabe, zerlina and john are all sticking around. Up next ill talk to a democrat from the Oversight Committee after the president s attacks on Elijah Cummings. Plus the influence and importance of black voters. Plus National Intelligence director dan colts ats is out. The president wants to replace him with a staunch ally. The white house has announced on twitter that Vladimir Putin is coming to the white house in the fall. Say that again. Vladimir putin coming to the did i hear you . Yeah, yeah. Okay. Thats going to be special. You try hard, you eat right. Mostly. You make time. 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A peaceful night sleep without only imagine. Frequent heartburn waking him up. Now that dream is a reality. Nexium 24hr stops acid before it starts for allday, allnight protection. Can you imagine 24 hours without heartburn . You say it has zero to do with race. There is a clear pattern here, mick. The fact is that before his inauguration, the president tweeted about john lewis, a black congressman. Then two weeks ago, he goes after these four members of the squad, all women of color, and says they should go back to the crimeinfested countries from which they come. Then he talks about Elijah Cummings and he says his district is rat and rodentinfested. I think youre spending way too much time reading between the lines. Im not reading between the lines. Im reading the lines. Welcome back. That was acting white house chief of staff Mick Mulvaney on Fox News Sunday insisting the president s tweets attacking congressman cummings were not racist. Republicans have largely remained silent after the president s latest attacks. Yesterday on meet the press republican senator rick scott told chuck that he was disappointed in cummings. That is a big part of why democrats are divided on what to do when it comes to impeachment, because if a republican senator wouldnt criticize the president for his tweets this weekend, you can guess theres probably no way there are going to be enough votes there to convict a president in a republicancontrolled senate. Joining me now is congressman ro khanna from california. Hes national cochair of the Bernie Sanders campaign. Congressman, thank you for taking a few minutes. We were talking about the last block, theres this whole question of whether the president thinks he is going to achieve something politically with this kind of rhetoric, with these kind of tweets, whether hes doing it without any political consideration at all. Im just curious what your read is on this country right now. Do you think watching the president do this, watching the criticisms come in,