Washington there is a problem. The New York Times reporting tonight the President Trump and his majority leader arent talking. And for now there is no trump legislation moving. We will cover it all as the 11th hour gets under way. Busy night here and good evening once again from the nbc news headquarters in new york. Day 215 of the Trump Administration and it wraps up with a Campaign Rally in phoenix, arizona for those of you joining us live, 11 00 p. M. Eastern time still going on. There is the president there taking a victory lap before the crowd. It is only his second trip west of the Mississippi River as president. And in many ways tonights political rally went back to the roots of his president ial campaign. Tonight in phoenix it got ugly early, personal attacks on the media, he blamed Crooked Media he praised fox newless fox and friends in the morning. And Shaun Hannity by name. The president relitigated his response to the traejd in charlottesville by reading aloud parts of his speeches in reaction. He complained to the crowd theyre trying to take away our heritage. He hinted at a pardon for sheriff joe arpaio. And then some. What happened in charlottesville strikes at the core of the america. And tonight this entire arena stands united in forceful condemnation of the thugs who perpetrate hatred and violence. Yoept to bore with you this. But it shows you how dishonest they are and most of you know this anyway. Here what i said really fast here is i said on saturday. Were closely following the terrible events unfolding in charlottesville virginia. This is me speaking we condemn in the strongest possible terms this ee greej us display of hatred bigotry and violence thats me speaking on saturday. I love the people of our country. The people all of the people. It says i love all of the people of our country. I didnt say i love you because youre black or i love you because youre white. Or i love you because youre from japan. Or youre from china. Or youre from kenya or your from scotland or sweden. I love all the people of our country. They were having a hard time with that one. Because i said everything. I hit them with neonazi. I hit them with everything. I got the white supremacist, the neonazi. I got them all in there. Lets see. Kkk. We have kkk i got them all. Theyre having a hard time. They asked me what about Race Relations in the United States . Now i have to say they were pretty bad under barack obama. That i can tell you. The media can attack me where i draw the line is when they attack you which is what they do. When they attack the decency of our supporters. Yes they are trying to take away our history and heritage. You see that. Was sheriff joe convicted for doing his job . Thats what he should have had a jury. But you know what. Ill make a prediction pifrpg he is going to be just fine. Okay . More on that as our hour continues. This rally comes just hours after a devastating story in the New York Times. Its about what has become a poisoned relationship between the president and what should be his point man for legislation in congress. The majority leader of the Senate Mitch Mcconnell. While the two men could not be more different, a president whose party also controls the house and senate would normally anticipate being able to run the table on legislation. That is not the case. The headline in the article reads trump and mcconnell locked in a cold war, threatening the gop agenda. Mcconnell it says in private doubts if trump can save his presidency. Lets talk about all of it with us tonight to analyzed. President s speech and the journalism out to mean National Political roert for the washlt moderator for Washington Week and pbs. Robert costa pb claim it reporter for and white house is correspondent for mcanita welcome back to the broadcast to all of you. Robert, lets start with you. What do you make of what you have heard tonight . There seemed to be some new rhetorical benchmarks lets call them, even having watched all the previous rallies. What a scene tonight in phoenix, brian. The president went there two years ago in the summer of 2015. How much has changed since then . But how little has change . He opened this rally with an airing of grievances against the media, against democrats. He went on and on about his the News Coverage of his handling of the tragedy in charlottesville. This was the same trump we saw on the campaign trail. He also took a shot at senator mccain and senator flake two republicans not by name but he certainly made it clear he was alluding to them at this rally. Jeremy, ill show germaneness of this in a moment. But i have a friend who is a former corrections officers. I asked him what he learned on the job all those years. And he said never corner a man. Always allow him an out. Its germane because tonight in many ways donald trump sounded as if he feels cornered. There were punches going out in all directions. Youre absolutely right, brian. Donald trump has been in many whiches has been a man cornered within his own white house even. His advisers with the representation exception of the recently disparated steve bannon were telling him dont do this on charlottesville. Dont reopen this wound. What did he do . Aside from going out and lets count all of the ridiculous you know outrageous extraordinary things in this appearance of his just now he threatened the government shut down. He picked a fresh fight with the majority leader of the Senate Mitch Mcconnell saying they need to eliminate the legislative fill buster. He went on a 30minute rant against the persecution machine he sees as the main stream media. This is i would i think its easy fore a lot us to dismiss it as another trump rant. But i mean these arguments are ultimately very powerful with a lot of Trump Supporters and even with a lot of conservatives who dont necessarily narch in lock step behind the president. They do feel like the media is has engaged in this ee egregious double standard against them tahoe that holds them accountable for things they shouldnt be. What frufrp is saying tonight is at public version of what he has been sating the last week 1 2. He with great ceremony took the two pages of copy out of his suit coat pocket and read selected exsermts of his remarks. The first time and then the second time trying to correct them. Skt leaving out the both sides, leaving out his point that there were fine people among other things commingled with the neonazis and kkk members. Right, i mean whats really strike something how different he was from last night. He was reading from a teleprompter talking about afghanistan. Today he was back to normal adlibbing but yes it was striking he took out the pieces of paper. He wanted to speak directly about every single thing he said. But he did leave out both sides. He also left out the name of the woman who was killed. He eventually brought her up. But it was way into that. Pan it wasnt just to talk about ewe you how his thoughts and prayer with with the family he just mentioned here. There were a lot of things strike about it. It was striking all the things he didnt talk about. All the policy issues he was ostensibly going there to talk about immigration. He barely mentioned that Health Care Tax reform barely got a mention so he could do 30 minutes on the media. Robert costa im told he cranked the one hour mark on this speech. Clearly a lot of penalties up energy. At least when we came on the air last night with the afghanistan coverage we made plain that last nights speech was designed to have a shelf life of a little more than 24 hours, i heard from a former white house aide tonight saying the poor afghanistan policy shop workers. Its been obliterated now about by this. Last might night brian was a policy speech. Tonight in phoenix you have a revealing speech. The speech was so telling for awful us reporters who have been chronicling the president and candidate trump for a long time. This is who he is. There was this exchange the riff he had talked about the elites. He kept saying the elites dont give him the approval he believes he deserved. He said he went to better schools than the elites in the media and corporate community. He said he smarter than that he lives in a better apartment he grou growls to crowd the we are the elitesless its a trumpian moment str it told us how he feels even as president. Jeremy, here is a question that may be unanswerable. Whats going on here . And also whats going on in the breitbart newsroom under new management . High fiving. This is trump exactly as they like to see him. This is Steve Bannon Bob and i were talking about this before the show. Steve bannon was never so much the whisperer in trumps ear feeding him lines as he was an echo of what was going ob inside Donald Trumps head. While trump kind of intuitive and emotionally understood this conservative populism that we sat atop bannon was the intellectual guy. He was the one who provided the framework, the vocabulary, the philosophical underpinnings of this movement. I think if you watch what happened tonight and you were worried that Steve Bannons departure from the white house meant that donald trump was losing his hard line conservative populist edge, you were not did you not come away from the speech disappointed anita sharp eyed viewers will note the president just said drain the swamp. He said we dont need the advice of the washington ds rrmt based swamp how is the swamp drain annual coming along. Not well. In a lot of different ways. I mean the drain the swamp thing was it meant so many things. It meant he wont have the washington insiders, the elites, the Business People, the traditional people. And he also wouldnt do the traditional things. And while he isnt traditional in his personality and how he gets his message out a lot of what he has been doing is traditional, the way its the way its been done. I mean Business People influential people wealthy people have a say in this kwhous. That hasnt changed. He has spent a long time off teleprompter he is now back on teleprompter. He just got a round of applause for what has been credited to him as the major achievement in the months he has been president. And that was the successful vote for Justice Gorsuch currently on the supreme court. So robert costa, he goes back to washington. And thanks to the reporting of the Washington Post the New York Times rather we know more about the ashes of the relationship between a republican president and a republican majority leader in the senate. And it was a relationship that has always been uneasy, as jotting Jonathan Martin and alan berns report well tonight the relationship frayed in august and faced a perfectlious moment. The majority leader and the president have never connected ideologically in terms of temperament. Theyre of the same generation but could not be more different. Jeremy peters, i said to read for you some of the excerpts from your newspapers reporting on the relationship between these two men between the president and the majority leader. I think we have it to put up on the screen from the story . The New York Times and a series of tweets this month mr. Trump criticized mr. Mcconnell publicly and then berated him lets see im running behind in a phone call that quickly did he involved in a profane shouting match. That was from med minister nurj during the call which mr. Trump nishlted august 9th from his new Jersey Golf Club the president accused mr. Mcconnell of bunkling the health care issue. He was more animated about what he intimated was the Senate Leaders refusal to protect him from investigations of russian interference in the 2016 election, according to republicans briefed on the conversation. Jeremy, this is where it perks up the ears of all those folks investigating russia. Thats exactly right. I mean, setting aside the fact that trump does have a point that Mitch Mcconnell and the republicans in congress probably should have had a more throe legislative plan to repeal obamacare given that they talked about it for seven years, criticizing Mitch Mcconnell for for not protecting him fl russia is just like weve seen the President Trump criticize Jeff Sessions for not protecting. Its something he has been utterly unable to get out of his head. He has fixated on it. He goes back and forth all the time. Its just his its his achilles heel. Seller hold that thought aneat he he is talking fw the attempts to take away our history what he calls our history. We are going to protect american industry. We are going to protect the american worker. No longer will we allow other countries to close our factories, steal our jobs and drain our wealth. We are building our future with american hands, american labor, american iron abaluminum and steel. We will buy american, and we will hire american. I immediately withdrew the United States from the disaster ours transpacific partnership. It would have been a disaster. And you know that one of the worst deals that anybody in history has ever entered into, we have gun formal renegotiation with mexico and canada on nafta. This is a boilerplate. A lot of the president he is campaign was about i can get better deal. Anita, in the meantime weve been watching new polling this week from states that went he heavily for trump with what has become the weekly question about how much lass tisty what the floor is, the ceiling is for the trump base. The numbers have been on the move. Right, i mean there is police you reference are under 40. In key states where these were people didnt vote republican hadnt voted republican quite some time that he needed or he used to win the presidency. This is a big problem for him if he is running for reelection its also a big problem for republicans in the midterms i think some of the polls also show that the democrats have the edge in the midterm elections. He is not helping things. Now its a little bit unclear whether the polls were just over you know whats happened the last seven eight months and they also came after charlottesville could be that. Either way bad news. There is a devastating quote in the times piece tonight about the president , a rookie to politics someone saying im paraphrase does he not know in effect that if some of the senators who are in trouble, republicans who the white house has launched efforts against like heller in nevada, like flake in arizona, that if they lose, say those two to the democrats, its democrats in the words of this quote who will be deciding on impeachment . Its kuwa its quite a quote. What were witnessing a president , outsider president convowed founded by let legislative process he is complaining about reconciliation, the legislative process which allow for approval by a simple majority he wonders by democrats dont come along with him on the signature issues. Its the president who hasnt come up through the ranks in Congress Like so many mts have before. Jeremy, a man who ran as a teal maker kind of still repeating his bona fides tonight using as i said some of the boilerplate language that could have been cut apaced. Moug can he attribute hits problem the log jams, the lack of progress for how long can he blame that on others . I mean thats the question every republican in congress right now is asking themselves. Because that will then determine whether or not they are able to cut and run from donald trump which a lot of them privately say they want to do. But they have something called their own Political Base to worry about. And trump does remain quite popular though his popularity has slid and slid quickly in the last week, week and a half. He has that base. That base is pretty solid. I do nink though listening to him tonight if if most americans are probably not theyre peshl not going to follow the speech. But you know if this is the theme that donald trump continues to hit this this you know notion that the system is corrupt its beaten him down, its beaten you down. The people, the elites they dont take you seriously. They mock your values and im here to stick it to them. Thats what he won on. If he continues to push that i think hell do quite well with the core support sfleers anita what happens when fres comes back in town . Oh its going to be really interesting. What he did tonight and what he is basically doing every day in telling the sfat, telling Mitch Mcconnell, telling congress how to act is not going to help him. I mean none of the things are helping berating members, going against some of them, you mentioned jeff flake. But tonight he just had an opportunity not to do that. He mentioned again changing the rules of the senate. Mitch mcconnell does not want to hear from donald trump how he should run the chamber. Whats going to happen is theyre going to have to make a decision when theyre opinion on the spot in washington about how close willy they will align with him whether he was involved in the legislative process or not they all need a win the question is how will they do that sno. Roblt costa i was thinking of you and the piece you publish. The date line was somewhere over the southwestern United States it was in 2015 you got a taste of the political trump on a long flight with him on his plane and then a rally. Tell us about that event and tie it to tonight. It really hasnt changed that much. I was with then candidate trump back stage at the same place the Phoenix Convention center. I flew with the president when he was a candidate from phoenix back to new york. He was watching fox news the entire flight talking about immigration, complaining about media coverage. Expressing disdain for the media and other opponents. It was the same trump, the same m