it took place. did you know at the time about that meet something. no, i didn t know anything about it. it must have been a very important meeting, because i never even heard that. no one told you a word, nothing? i know we talked about this on the plane a bit. no, nobody told me. sounded like a very unimportant meeting. deep cuts there from haberman and schmidt. that s not what michael cohen claims, alleging that he and several others were present when then-candidate donald trump gave his nod of approval for the meeting to move forward. that contradicts repeated denials from donald trump jr. and others in donald trump s orbit. did you tell your father anything about this? no. it was such a nothing, there was nothing to tell. i wouldn t have even remembered it until you start scouring through the stuff. the president said he became aware of it very recently, right before this came out, and that s when he was notified. joining me now is jeff bennett, msnbc s white house correspondent, natasha bertrand, and kevin is with us, as well. help us sort through the confusion, kevin delaney is with us, as well, four in total. let us sort through the confusion, not only who s on with me, but this story, as well. part of a trio of tweets from president trump, in which he s trying to answer the question before it s even asked here about what he knew when, what he was told. give us the latest, if you would, jeff. hey there, david. well, president trump insists he did not have advanced knowledge of this infamous trump tower meeting in june 2016, and the reason why this is so important from the president s side is because as these investigations continue, the biggest problem it appears, the biggest present problem, is political. you have michael cohen, the president s long-time friend, attorney, so-called fixer, now saying, in effect, the president is a liar when he says there was drafted on behalf of his son, which has come under heavy scrutiny by bob mueller, because he wants to know why were there so many cover-ups and changing stories if this was a nothing burger, if this was an innocuous meeting where nothing came out of it, just a meeting to potentially find out opposition research on hillary clinton, as they said that any candidate would have taken, then why all of the changing stories? and that, of course, is one of the biggest questions here. but i think that this is going to be a very important point in mueller s investigation if cohen does decide to tell him that trump knew in advance, and not only knew, but approved the meeting, but you have to put it in context. the trump campaign had already been told by june that the russians have dirt on hillary clinton in the form of thousands of e-mails, so if you re assuming george papp dop los that was the case, then it makes you wonder did the president accept this meeting and give it the go ahead because he was looking for those e-mails and was everything else after that kind of a result of this conspiracy that the trump campaign and trump himself was involved in? so this is a very big deal if michael cohen does come forward. ken delaney, let s hone in on those two months then in the summer of 2016. we re looking at may, june, july, as well. so many pivotal things happened that summer. you ve been following the investigations, bob mueller s doings, how much is this the focus now, this period of time, this meeting at trump tower? david, i m a bit of an iconoclast on this. i m not convinced this meeting in and of itself is a meaningful episode of collusion, as people like to use the term, because i ve interviewed some of the participants and talked to people before the grand jury on this and have come to believe robert mueller sees this in a different way. he s more interested in this for the question of why the president was trying to cover it up apparently, why he issued that misleading statement, and now, if in fact he knew about it, it puts that question into sharper focus and really puts the pressure on in terms of the obstruction of justice case. if he, in fact, knew about it, he s been lying all this time while he knew that robert mueller was investigating the circumstances of this meeting, where donald trump would have been putting out a false story to the public and i think that adds up to a piece of the obstruction case, david. kevin, i want you to comment on that. strikes me we ve been dealing with a lot of potentially unreliable narrators here. of course, we can talk about the tapes in a second, but i want you to respond to what ken said about how pivotal you think the moment was. i agree with ken. consistently the subjects of the meeting and the folks who have been in the meeting and the issue of collusion are almost two entirely different points. i think that the notion that michael cohen, who at one time was a close personal confidante of then-candidate donald trump and now, obviously, that kevin, the worst ever, but there is this amazing photograph politico obtained. bob mueller there on the left, hidden, right there to the right of the board, donald trump jr., then the statement here, nbc news got the statement for the spokesperson for the special counsel. that is him, bob mueller, waiting to board a flight. if that s accurate that s donald trump jr., they had no interaction there. what s this photo say to you about bob mueller s role or presence in washington today? he has sort of a sphinx-like feel. this is a rather astonishing photograph, natasha. yeah, it s absolutely incredible. bob mueller kind of reading the newspaper, oblivious to what s going on around him, or maybe not, but donald trump jr. doesn t seem fazed by it either. just an evidence of how small d.c. is, as well. yes, at that terrible gate, as kevin said. my thanks to all of you. kent, you re going to stay with me here. after nearly two years of calling it a witch hunt and hoax, friday a meeting was held on election meddling. afterward the white house said this, the president has made it clear that his administration will not tolerate foreign interference in our elections from any nation state or other malicious actors. you wrote a piece here highlighting the fact it s been 19 months in a meeting like this, give us your sense of what caused it to happen and what might have happened during the meeting, what sort of unified perspective on election interference might have come out of that meeting. i think what caused it to happen, david, was the fallout from helsinki, where donald trump stood next to vladimir putin and appeared to call into question the whole notion russia interviewed in the election, and for all accounts this meeting lasted between a half hour and hour and no significant policy announcements or orders came out of it. it was more of a look back at review of what various agencies interfering in our politics on social media. look, the white house just simply has not made russia pay a price for this behavior and until that happens, they are going to continue to do it. what do they say about the fact there is no national security adviser for national security at the nsc? a lot hasn t been done here. how do they explain that? they don t explain it, david. they are not a talkative bunch, this white house, on substantiative policy issues. they ve eliminated the cybersecurity coordinator, also fired tom bossert, the deputy national security adviser for homeland security and are not replacing him in that capacity, so it s not clear who is minding the store at the white house level. after 9/11 we reorganized the government, the united states did, to make sure that kind of terror attack could not happen again. we created the department of homeland security, laws were passed, funding was appropriated. nothing like that has happened in the wake of this 2016 russian election interference, which some people, including john mccain, have called an act of war. not everyone agrees with that, but it was certainly a significant attack on our democracy that some would argue requires a significant response and we just haven t seen it. ken, lastly here, you were at the summit in colorado about a week ago with other national security journalists, sort of a who s who of national security personnel, as well, and from what i understand reading your piece, companies were there, as well, talking about this issue. what are they saying about the threats they are facing, about the threats the u.s. faces broadly here when it comes to cyberattacks from overseas? yeah, well private cybersecurity firms are watching on a daily basis nation state actors, you know, doing malicious things to our critical infrastructure, whether it s iran, north korea, russia, china, you know, i m not suggesting this is anything out of the ordinary. this has been going on for years, but they reiterated at this conference, as did u.s. intelligence officials, that the united states is under daily cyberattack. some of it is cyber espionage, David Gura hosts coverage of national and international news, including breaking stories. how do you win at business? stay at laquinta. where we re changing with contemporary make-overs. then, use the ultimate power handshake, the upper hander with a double palm grab. who has the upper hand now? start winning today. book now at lq.com. copd makes it hard to breathe. so to breathe better, i go with anoro. go your own way copd tries to say, go this way. i say, i ll go my own way, with anoro. go your own way once-daily anoro contains two medicines called bronchodilators that work together to significantly improve lung function all day and all night. anoro is not for asthma. it contains a type of medicine that increases risk of death in people with asthma. the risk is unknown in copd. anoro won t replace rescue inhalers for sudden symptoms and should not be used more than once a day. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition, high blood pressure, glaucoma, prostate, bladder, or urinary 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s nothing significant on it. i fully agree that in and of itself there s no evidence of a crime inherent on the little clip that we have, but it clearly speaks to the issue of prior knowledge of the president, that there was a payment scheme going on, there was a comfort level that we hear on this tape, and most importantly, we hear references to cash, finance, check, and creating a company. all of those concepts to an fbi agent, to someone like mueller or the southern district of new york, all smack of possible crime. money laundering. why are you creating a company? why would you need to create a company? have you done this before? the word cash, do you mean you re trying to avoid suspicious you are concerned about triggering suspicious activity reports of large sums of money transacting. when you say check, are you trying to avoid the cash transaction that would trigger a suspicious activity report? so those few seconds of audio actually have tremendous inherent meaning. katie, i want to get your perspective on this, as well, just about what the future use of this tape might be. how do you translate something that s been played, heard, processed in the court of public opinion into a courtroom potentially? how s something like this cross that threshold into the court? from a legal perspective, we know trump and his team waived any type of claim of privilege, so that deals with any possible obstacle that mueller or anybody at the southern district of new york might have in terms of the use of this information. as we know, attorney-client privilege information, it s the client that holds the privilege, the client that waves the privilege, so in that regard, it can fully be used to be able to be evidence against trump for possible campaign finance violations, and it could be used by cohen as proof that he has other potentially damning evidence in terms of more tapes. we know at least 100 recordings were made during the time this was seized and maybe there s other evidence, documentary evidence, that s already been seized in the possession of the government that cohen can loop together or link together to provide some value to not only the mueller investigation, but also to the southern district of new york. frank, i think you ll agree, it s been a crazy week, saturday is a good day to take stock of that. there was this report about michael cohen s willingness to testify, that donald trump knew about the meeting that took place in trump tower. i want to get your reaction to the reaction, what we saw from president trump after that was reported first by cnn and other outlets, including nbc news. he tweeted this, i did not know of the meeting with my son, don jr. sounds like someone is trying to make up stories to get himself out of an unrelated jam. gee, i wonder if they helped him make the choice. i read that, i note lanny davis isn t mentioned by name, michael cohen isn t mentioned by name, as well. your reaction to the reaction from the president? so, this fact that the president can t help himself but protest and tweet any time he believes he s being offended and infringed upon or challenge is eventually going to be his downfall, because there s tapes out there and he s not certain about exactly what he s saying on the tapes. i keyed in this week on one particular phrase where the president said why was the tape cut off? i presumably was saying positive things after that. presumably saying positive things. we don t know that. and, look, he s trying to have us believe he knew nothing about a meeting that was occurring in his own building while he was present in his own building, conducted by his chairman of his campaign who dismissed himself from a meeting in his office to attend the meeting. the meeting arranged by his son, attended by his business associate from russia. we re to believe that he knew nothing about it. it s strange. and every time he tries to challenge and push back on it, he puts himself into a box. kate, what do you make of the president saying this, we re familiar with his counsel, with rudy giuliani going on tv and doing the sort of twists and contortions along the lines of what we saw from the president. what do you make of him taking up that mantle this week? giuliani is always going to be the surrogate, legally and otherwise, in the court of public opinion. i doubt giuliani would ever represent the president in a court of law, but what giuliani is trying to do is discorrect michael cohen by saying, hey, even trump says no way this was an appropriate thing for trump to have been, you know, taped. and by the way, he says there s no way i knew about this meeting going on, but remember, david, there was such a hasty scramble to be able to cover up the main reason why trump jr. met with the russians in june of 2016, and so i agree with frank, are you kidding me? you re going to say that that kind of important meeting where even roger stone had previously been approached on dirt on hillary clinton, trump didn t know about the fact this meeting was going on, and we all know that s not true, so why is that important? some of the best cases can be built on circumstantial evidence. you don t always have a smoking gun and you can build it on the fact that if cohen knew and other people were present and cohen can say trump knew about the meeting, then that combined with other evidence can build a huge case in terms of obstruction of justice or even conspiracy. frank, before i let you go, i understand you have a story about david pecker, who s also at the center of this in some capacity. he, of course, was at the national enquirer. you ve interacted with him before. well, under the heading of you can t make this stuff up, in the crazy week that we ve had, i was reminding people that they were asking about ami, who is this company, well, they are owned by a guy named david pecker. the company now basically that s come out and said we do buy these stories, we do keep people quiet, and that s what the substance of the tape was. my brief interaction with mr. pecker was during october of 2001, when we had the tragedy, the first anthrax murder in u.s. history at ami headquarters in boca raton, florida, and we had an opportunity to talk to mr. pecker and say, sir, we re going to go into the anthrax building, have an opportunity to pull out the most valuable possessions you want us to take from the building, what do you want us to grab? and he said, there s a framed photo of elvis in his coffin and a photo of back boy, you need to grab those. that s who we re dealing with. frank, thank you very much for that especially. katie phang, thanks to you, as well. not the right time to maintain control of congress this election year, to hold back that blue wave, and with the 2020 election right around the corner after that, one of the loudest voices on the left calling for president trump s impeachment. make a run for the white house himself. i m going to ask 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keep it comin love. if you keep on eating, we ll keep it comin . all you can eat riblets and tenders at applebee s. now that s eatin good in the neighborhood. november. joining me now, tom steyer, founder of next gen america and the group need to impeach. i m a grizzled veteran, talked to tom many times. i know how this goes, great conversation, then at the end close with the question of whether or not if he s running. we re going to wait, i m going to ask you at the end of the interview. let s go back a few months. you made a pledge to spend $30 million on the midterms, 100 days from now. you had two dozen races you were looking at in particular. give us the update on the spend thus far, what you ve spent, how you ve targeted and what your indications are that that s working so far. well, david, what we do is we re a grassroots organization. we re trying to organize the biggest mobilization of voters under 35 in american history. we re focused on 33 congressional districts, which include eight gubernatorial races, seven senate races, so what we ve done, it s pretty much put in place, it s like running a business. we have people on the ground, we re on 412 college campuses. we have people going door to door, we re doing a lot on social media. i think the right way to think about this is, you know, have we seen impact so far in the primaries? have we seen impact in 2017 in the statewide elections where we were active and where this kind of program was in place? and the answer is, voter to voter contact, conversations between american citizens, are incredibly powerful and particularly for people under 35, which is the largest age cohort in america, the most diverse age cohort in american history, and an age cohort that votes about half the rate of other american citizens. that s why we believe in democracy, we believe in the broadest democracy, we want to make sure people show up at the polls. i m going to begin to make the pivot towards 2020, we re talking about return on investment here, tom, and here i want to ask about the metric for success. you re investing in these 33 races. is turnout the metric that you care most about? in other words, i m sure you d love to have democrats win the seats, but is the thing you re watching most closely with an eye towards 200 that youth turnout that you ve been talking about? well, david, when we think about elections, there are things that we can control and impact and there are things that we can t control and impact, and what we are the things that we think we can do is encourage and enable people under 35 to understand how important their voice is and how much their vote counts. what we can t control is what happens in washington, d.c., what happens across the world, the sort of world itself and the events that are happening in the world. what we can do is make people aware of how important their participation is, so we can that s what we can mark, we can watch, we can manage, too. what we can t do, where you want to win for sure, but that isn t something we can necessarily control. i want to have you react to what the president said yesterday in an interview with sean hannity, his friend and anchor at fox news. let s take a listen what he had to say on his radio show. so many things have taken place, but the economy is the strongest ever, and i think that s going to have a very positive impact, and i am going to work very hard. i ll kgo six or seven days a wek when we re 60 days out, and i will be campaigning for all of these great people that do have a difficult race, and we think we re going to bring them over the line, so i really believe that because we re doing so well as a country and so well with the economy, i think we re going to be surprising a lot of people. all right, tom, i want to get your sense of the competitive landscape there. i m going to draw two things out of that, the fact he s going to be out there campaigning i think he said in a couple dozen congressional races across the country and he s focusing on the economy. give us your assessment here and the competitiveness of those races. well, david, there s no doubt that nobody knows what s going to happen on election day, november 6th, 2018. the pollsters have been wrong every single time for the last few years. they ve not understood who is going to show up and vote, so i think that this is very much a black box and the only thing you can do is put your head down and do your work and try as hard as you can. i think that the economy, the last quarter did have very good growth, and i think that anybody who s not rooting for that isn t rooting for the american people, but what we also saw in the last quarter and that we ve seen for decades is that the buying power of people s wages isn t going up. so even though there was good growth in the economy, working peoples, any growth they got in their salaries, was more than chewed up by cost increases, particularly the cost of health care. so, in fact, if society overall is doing better, the benefits of that are not being shared with the vast bulk of working americans and american families. so the president going out and talking about how great everything is, isn t really paying attention to what s happening to american citizens around the country, who if they have any wage growth, modest wage growth, it s getting chewed up by health care costs and the costs of living. here we are at the end of the interview, you continue to be a part of the political conversation in this country. you ve traveled the country from small town to big city talking about your proposal for impeaching the president. you are spending, as i said, $30 million on these midterms. tom, are you going to be running in 2020? david, i don t know what i m going to do after november 6th, 2018, but what i do see going around the country, having a petition drive that has more than 5.5 million signatures, knowing that we have a nixonian level of disgust with this president and a desire to have him impeached and removed from office, i m going to watch and see if any of those establishment politicians step up and tell the truth to the american people about the most important questions, because that s something that we are watching like a hawk. we need to have people who are willing to talk to the american people about the most important issues, tell the truth, not back away, and not sweep it under the carpet, because that s what s been happening and that s what we don t agree with. i m going to follow up with nancy to get you back on the show november 7th. okay, david. tom steyer, always great to talk to you, i appreciate it. well, our focus on billionaires and the midterms continues. the koch brothers also spending heavily in advance of the midterm elections. which republicans are defending 42 open seats in november. that s something they have not had to do in nearly 100 years. my colleague leann caldwell is in colorado springs, colorado, where the koch brothers have convened their semiannual summit for conservative donors. let me ask you first of all what s changed. we talk about the koch brothers in tandem. how s this conference different and what are folks saying apt t about the prospects for the midterms? a lot has changed for the koch brothers. one brother has stepped down, but let me tell you about this conference. they have it twice a year. you have to donate $100,000 per year to be able to come, and so these are the wealthy, sometimes libertarian-minded donors who come together and talk about politics and policy, and we ve seen a bit of a shift among the koch brothers or about the koch network over the past few months, and that is that they started attacking republicans, as well. i mean, don t get me wrong, they are spending $300 to $400 million on politics and policy for the 2018 midterm elections. that s an enormous amount of money, and the majority of that is going to be spent to help re-elect republicans, but there is a subtle shift happening between the koch network. they are not happy with what they see. they are trying to shed this partisan image that they have, they are not happy with the tariffs, something they are adamantly opposed to. they are really upset about the fact that congress couldn t come to an agreement on daca. they call it the family separation at the border abhorrent, and they are mad about runaway government spending, a $1.3 trillion spending bill. yeah, we passed tax cuts, but these other things are really detrimental, so what they say they are trying to do is also going to try to build bipartisan coalitions to try to advance the things they think are important, and that is getting government out of the way and adopting these more libertarian ideals. david? last question for you. you re on capitol hill usually, not out there in colorado springs, and on the hill, of course, a big focus here is on the nomination of brett kavanaugh to be the next justice of the supreme court. this is something that the koch brothers and their organization are focused on, as well. what update can you bring us about their plans to spend on that to get his nomination through the senate? yeah, no doubt they support brett kavanaugh to get through the senate. they ve already spent money and plan to spend more to help kavanaugh. they are going to spend a lot of money. they ve spent millions of dollars attacking claire mccaskill, attacking joe donnelly, and all these vulnerable democrats who are up in the senate in 2018, and brett kavanaugh is definitely going to be a factor and issue they continue to hit until they see him confirmed. great to speak with you, thank you very much, out reporting on the koch brothers seminar in colorado springs. over the line, should homeland security secretary kirstjen nielsen lose her job over the trump administration s separation of migrant families? i ll talk to liz holtzman, who just stepped down over the separation policy. at the 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while taking xeljanz xr, and monitor certain liver tests. tell your doctor if you were in a region where fungal infections are common, and if you have had tb, hepatitis b or c, or are prone to infections. xeljanz xr can reduce the symptoms of psoriatic arthritis. don t let another morning go by without talking to your rheumatologist about xeljanz xr. well, the president s former campaign manager, paul manafort, goes on trial tuesday, the first of two trials he faces. he s charged with 18 counts of bank and tax fraud. he s also part of the trump tower meeting that is back in the news. joining me now, elizabeth holtzman, who voted on the ni nick nixon impeachment. i want your perspective on this, the first of the two trials, what you re going to be watching for as paul manafort heads into the courtroom this week in virginia. starts on tuesday. well, i think the evidence is going to be overwhelming against him. i think the thing to watch for is to see when he begins to appreciate the level of evidence prosecutors got. 30 witnesses, enormous number of documents they are going to present. a lot of this case is a paper case and the witnesses are going to be backing up those documents and there are other witnesses who are very close to him, his former business partner. rick gates. rick gates, and so, i mean, at some point it s going to have to don on him, this is not a winning strategy that he has. i think it s a very tough case for him to win. the reason i wanted to have you on is, you wrote a letter to secretary of homeland security, kirstjen nielsen, about the separation policy the administration put in place. you resigned from the homeland security advisory council. as i gather, this is a group of professionals mostly, who were meeting with the secretary, advising the secretary on things she could do. this is a rather new thing, as is the department itself. why did you decide to tender your resignation? well, the advisory council does some very important work with the homeland security department. for example, when i was there it did work on cybersecurity protection, it did work on home grown terrorism issues, it studied the issue of private prisons, so a variety of issues. outside professionals, people with long careers in government giving advice on subjects and giving fine reports. i resigned because when i first was on the council, i had some disagreements with the obama administration policies, but, you know, there s always a give and take, and i was very upset when trump started his attacks on immigration policy, on immigrants, calling mexicans rapists, refusing to find some solution for the dreamers, whole policy of mass deportations, ripping families from the united states who have been living here for 20 years without any criminal record. i mean, this was really counterproductive and inhumane, but the final straw was when he decided with his homeland security secretary to separate children from their parents. actually, it wasn t separation. in my view it was kidnapping children, taking them from their parents, and they were and as it stands right now, 700 of those children, at least, if not more, haven t even been reunited and it s not clear that our government has any intention of reuniting them. and it s horrific. it s inhuman. it s cruel. it s malign. i don t know that you have enough adjectives for it, but i couldn t associate myself anymore with this policy, and i actually said at the end of this letter to the secretary of homeland security, i said, you know, even though it s i who am tendering my resignation, you are the one who should be resigning. powerful words, i ll read them again. resigning in protest against these policies, it is you who should be tendering your resignation instead. we hear a lot and see reporting on this administration s disregard for expertise, and you ve drawn this contrast a little bit here. when you saw these policy changes happening, was the door open for you to voice your opposition to suggest that they shouldn t be happening? draw that contrast in as stark relief if you can on what it was like to be on this council before to offer your professional opinion then versus now. how open was the door to secretary nielsen s office? well, the joint letter signed by four of us others who signed with you. we all resigned at the same time, former secretary of the navy, former head of the office of counterterrorism, professor at university of virginia law school, people with long careers in government and highly respected individuals. we resigned because several things. we were not consulted, and because we all found the policy morally repugnant. i had several briefings under this new secretary, and i voiced my objection and my concern about how these policies were being effectuated and the answers i got were not truthful, not candid, and it was hopeless. we said that we weren t consulted about these policies, but to the extent that we had any information, it was inaccurate. in my opinion. and how can you tolerate that? whereas i remember under the prior administration one of the things that i suggested to the people in homeland security dealing with immigration is i had been involved with the exodus from people from vietnam. at that time the u.s. government admitted 750,000 refugees from vietnam, so you can just imagine how ridiculous it looks when the government is afraid of 2,000 children and their parents. it s absurd, it s appalling, but in any case, i suggested that we have an orderly departure program from central america, because many of these people have to brave this terrible overland trip to the united states, and they literally qualify as refugees. we did this in vietnam. they could sign up as refugees in that country and they didn t have to flee in little boats. i said why don t we do something the same here? i can t take credit for it, because they may have been thinking about it already, but i was able to share that information with them and have a receptive response. here the information we got back was untrue in some untrue in some circumstances and also the policy was greatly maligned. liz thanks for coming in. after more than a half century, north korea turned over the remains of 55 u.s. soldiers killed during the korean war. doubt lingers about the gesture. james mattis admits, we don t know who is in those boxes. joining me now is barry mccaffrey. let s start with the import of this, the president addressed this yesterday on the south lawn of the white house. talked about how there were families glad to see them come back to the united states. before we talk about the broader gee yo little issues. i think for families in general, the most important thing is to have some finality to know what happened. being missing is one thing, but being unaccounted. were they killed, what were they killed. that s what the families need to know. there s more than 5,000 u.s. troops still missing, probably in north korean areas. the north koreans extort us for money over the thing, they use it for leverage. it s a very brutal process. i want to read a tweet here, some comments from my colleague andrea mitchell about this. she writes, north create ya reality check. kim jong-un promised president trump 200 remains, he delivered 55. north korea is still producing nuclear weapons fuel. it took years to verify, some were animal bones as you just mentioned. i saw a piece that quoted danny russell. he talked about this being a strategy we ve seen from north korea before. when you look at what came out of that summit in singapore. this is one issue where it seems like there has been some moderate progress. you have north korea doing this, and the goal is for us to forget about all the rest that s happening there. drawing from that tweet that i just read from andrea mitchell. give us your broader perspective. there s a lot that hasn t changed positively. since that summit in singapore. secretary pompeo is in trouble. you have to try to deliver some reality. our sole objective is to stop the nuclear weapons process. that hasn t happened. what may happen is dialogue certainly will reduce tensions. there s a subordinate goal i feel characterizing it that way. there s 200,000 people in concentration camps in north korea, we can probably better that. what the north koreans are up to, they want the armed forces out of south korea, they want to continue and be recognized as a nuclear power, at the end of the day, i think their major goal is lift the economic constraints. i fear the trump administration is in trouble. they re using nonsense kind of proclamations of triumph when nothing in reality has changed. before this summit took place, john bolton said, you shouldn t look at that summit in helsinki, you re dealing with two different people here, i want to draw a thread between them. there was so much focus on what was happening there. as i m sure you re aware, you had this back and forth between the u.s. government and the russian government this week. you had vladimir putin saying, he would be happy to have president trump come to moscow to meet with him to continue the conversations that began in helsinki. we ve been talking about promises that perhaps were made but not kept. what could the rationale be as you see it, be that in 2018 or 19 based on what we ve seen since that helsinki summit. the russians have attacked western europe and the u.s. democratic election systems. it s ongoing, they ve not admitted to it, we have indicted several of their military intelligence organizations for carrying this out. it s simply appalling that we consider dealing with putin who s by the way, the biggest victim of mr. putin are the russian people. i think the background challenge right now is apparently having served with three white houses and watching the national security council in action. there is no national security process ongoing. secretary mattis, munchen, pompeo. mr. trump within his constitutional powers is winging it on his own. this is not a good way to protect u.s. national security. always good to talk to you, thank you very much. general mccaffrey joining me from washington today. a quick programming note tonight. msnbc presents a special look at the dramatic effort to rescue 12 boys and their soccer coach from a cave in thailand. we hear firsthand from members from the rescue team who took part in that 18 day rescue mission. can you watch out of the dark tonight only on msnbc. but now it s time to find my dream abode. -right away, i could tell his priorities were a little unorthodox. -keep going. stop. a little bit down. stop. back up again. is this adequate sunlight for a komodo dragon? -yeah. -sure, i want that discount on car insurance just for owning a home, but i m not compromising. -you re taking a shower? -water pressure s crucial, scott! it s like they say location, location, koi pond. -they don t say that. it s like they say 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this is a game changer. this is a complete flip by michael cohen. there is nothing illegal about paying somebody who wants money next change for remaining silent. you have to decide whetherrer you believe the d decide whether you believe the cnn reporting. then if it s correct you have to decide whether you believe mr. cohen now. mr. he could be was trusted by president trump for a long time. but sometimes when you are squeezing someone you not only make them sing, you make them compose. howie: are news outlets jumping to conclusions on the news tower meeting without hard evidence. the new york per magazine is reporting six women have accused Journalist Howard Kurtz analyzes the state of the news media; discusses current affairs with reporters and commentators; and examines the evolution of social. Journalist Howard Kurtz analyzes the state of the news media; discusses current affairs with reporters and commentators; and examines the evolution of social. terminated when he was supposedly saying positive things. rudy giuliani and lanny davis using the airways to snipe at each other. whatever spin rudy giuliani is trying to spin it says cash. why is giuliani dips marriaging michael cohen? because they fear him. i don t see how he has any credibility. which lie do you want to pick. the first lie, the second lie or the third lie? howie: joining us is guy benson. sara fischer, a media report for axios. and adrienne elrod. we ll drill down to the details in a minute. jail time which he faces. howie: does he have credibility? adrienne: he has credibility because more tapes are coming out. more tapes exist. guy: i m open to more evidence and we should follow the evidence. but there has been whiplash on the credibility of michael cohen. they dismissed him as a lackey loyal to president trump but now that he s criticizing him, we should listen to him. howie: you have rudy giuliani three months ago, the guy is an honest lawyer and a good man now he says he learned what a liar he is. lanny davis is drawing media fire. he comes back and says giuliani was lying about this tape. before we heard the snippets of the tape giuliani said it was exculpatory for the president. adrienne: i have known lanny davis for a long time. but he s also a good spi spinmeister. howie: he s a lawyer hired to represent a client. adrienne: there are not have much people in this business who have the legal background and p.r. background. when you get to a small group of people, lanny davis will be someone cone would hire. howie: the company is run by a close pal. they sent $150,000 to buy and bury the story of karen mcdougal. but the way they are talking about it, we ll get the rights and pay them cash or check. does that raise questions about the evethe national enquirer s rights? sara: the wall street journal reported the doj is look into how close its relationship was with the trump campaign. protection for media outlets are strong. but if this company is doing something above and yornd with working close with the president, it could change. guy: but the allegation is explosive. it s someone in the inner sanctum of trump world for a long time saying one of the major assertions made by the president about that trump tower meetle is false and would be a capital l lie if michael cohen is telling the truth. howie: would it be a lie that would be much more important, you could call it attempted collusion more so than his relationship with the woman? guy: definitely. howie: sara, are we headed for the kind of story the media loves, michael cohen protecting his own interest, he seems to be saying i did a lot of things for donald trump, i m not proud of him he doesn t use these michael cohen lied about this. if he has evidence on tape it will be very damaging. howie: there is no claim there is a tape on this. either prosecutors will find other people in the room and cohen will be able to back it up. but it s our job to follow these things. what s on tape, what s not on tape. i wonder how much it s resonating, even on this stuff with meeting with the russian lawyer with lots of people. you just look at polling. russia matter was polling at zero percent as a top election priority. it s not to say this stuff doesn t matter and some of the twists and turns. the granular constant attention paid to it in this d.c.-new york media corridor is totally outside what normal people care about. howie: if it can be shown to be true that the president says i forgot about that meeting. the people who support him wouldn t care. adrienne: donald trump uses the media psych toll his advantage and creates a lot of confusion. there is a tape? is there not a tape? why does it matter if there is a tape. it s very confusing. i think it average american is letting his slide by and not paying as much attention. howie: sara, we ll see you later. a devastating new yorker piece about cbs chairman les moonves. when we come back. -omar, look. 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[ rhythmic tapping ] hey, the rain stopped. -a bad day on the road still beats a good one off it. -tell me about that dental procedure again! -i can still taste it in my mouth! -progressive helps keep you out there. gacan start in the colon, n, tastand diarrhea uth! and may be signs of an imbalance of good bacteria. only phillips colon health has this unique combination of probiotics. it helps replenish good bacteria. get four-in-one symptom defense. i never thought i d say this but i found bladder leak underwear that s actually pretty. always discreet boutique. hidden inside is a super absorbent core that quickly turns liquid to gel. so i feel protected and pretty. always discreet boutique. if these packs have the same number of bladder leak pads, i bet you think bigger is better. actually, it s bulkier. always discreet quickly turns liquid to gel, for drier protection that s a lot less bulky. always discreet. 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. it s the ultimate wifi experience. xfinity xfi, simple, easy, awesome. howie: there is a knew accusation being made by the new york times and other news outlets that the president is trying to sell his supports on an alternative reality. president trump: don t believe the fake news. what you are seeing and what you are reading is not what s happening. howie: the new york times headlines is trump rages against reality. he s increasingly living in a world of selective information and bending the truth. is that fair? guy: it sounds like a politician that wants the media narrative he or she supports and looks good for them. trump is unusually aggressive in his public posturing on this, but it s not a stretch for an administration to cherry pick the story they want to tout and dismiss others. trump goes overboard frequently on this kind of stuff. but it s true a huge percentage of the mainstream media is actively rooting against him. they want him to fail, they want to bring him down and create lose-lose paradigms for him. adrienne: donald trump believes if any media coverage of him is negative, it s fake news. that s how he frames it. howie: we think inaccurate. adrienne: he did something worthy of the press coverage he received. just because he does something that causes negative stories to be written about him. he s doing these actions. howie: he does sometimes exaggerate or get things wrong. but there is an automatic assumption the media narrative is right. don lemon says the trump presidency is defined by lies. adrienne: i think to a larger extent this was leading us to the point where we are where sensational outlets on the left and right in media coverage and people don t know where to go to get the truth. howie: in this story it said donald trump was upset because all the tvs on air force one was tuned fox news and melan s was cnn. guy: they wanted to show there was tension between the first couple. interesting anecdote, we appreciate the president s viewership. i m sure mrs. trump is happy to use the remote control as she sees fit. i do think what we are seeing is an unreliable narrator problem. trump has his trouble with the truth and the media has a credibility problem and they don t always see it. howie: the president is always talking about the failing new york times. this morning he tweeted he had a good meeting with the new york times. the white house disinvites a cnn reporter from a press event after she shouted questions at the president. he d be stopping for more pills right now. only aleve has the strength to stop tough pain for up to 12 hours with just one pill. aleve. all day strong. high cholesterol and weight gain; high blood sugar, which can lead to coma or death; decreased white blood cells, which can be fatal; dizziness upon standing; falls; seizures; impaired judgment; heat sensitivity; and trouble swallowing may occur. you re more than just your bipolar i. ask about vraylar. howie: i m sure it seems rude when reporters shout questions at presidents. the white house pushed back hard when cnn s kaitlan collins was yelling questions at the president after a photo-op with the e.u. president. did michael cohen betray you? thank you were everybody. mr. president, are you worried about what michael cohen is going to say to prosecutors? are you worried about what s on the tape? why has vladimir putin not accepted your invitation. howie: cone says press secretary sarah sanders told her this. that i would not be invited to an open press event at the white house because they felt the questions i posed to president trump were inappropriate for that venue. howie: shine challenged that version of the event with reporters. what word would you use? when you ask her if we used the word ban. howie: white house officials said this was a one-time disciplinary action and she is free to shout questions in other venues. by the was disrespectful to do it in the oval office in front of a world leader. cnn said just because the white house is you be comfortable doesn t mean the question isn t relevant and shouldn t be asked. as a member of the white house press pool fox stands firmly with cnn on this issue of access. it s almost unprecedented. it s inexcusable for the white house to make this move. it won t be tolerated by members of the white house press corp. it was a sad moment for journalism in our country. howie: the reason reporters routinely yell questions at the president is that trump often answers them even as his press wranglers try to sho shoo repors out of the room. twitter is accused of shadow-banning republicans. yogi is a bear. when it comes to hibernating, nobody does it better. he also loves swiping picnic baskets. hee, hee, hee yoooogiiiiiii!! but when it comes to mortgages, he s less confident. here, yogi. thank you boo boo. fortunately, there s rocket mortgage hmmm. hey. by quicken loans. it s simple, so he can understand the details and get approved in as few as eight minutes. my kind of pic-a-nic basket. apply simply. mmm-hmmm. hee, hee. understand fully. mortgage confidently. rocket mortgage by quicken loans. but how do i know if i m i m getting a good deal? i tell truecar my zip and which car i want and truecar shows the range of prices people in my area actually paid for the same car so i know if i m getting a great price. this is how car buying was always meant to be. this is truecar. you might be missing something.y healthy. your eyes. that s why there s ocuvite. ocuvite helps replenish nutrients your eyes can lose as you age. it has lutein, zeaxanthin and omega-3. ocuvite. be good to your eyes. howie: the new york times touched off a media debate by reporting robert mueller is possibly showing obstruction of justice by trump. joining us now from new york, morgan ortagus, and bill press, host of the online bill press show. morgan, this was the lead story in the new york times, mueller scrutinizing trump s tweets. i am thinking tweets? morgan: i m not a lawyer. but what i found interesting is three major things happened. the gdp was put at 4.1%, which is the largest economic growth since the third quarter of 2014. it added $7 trillion to the economy in new growth. what s important to me as a member of the military is the fact we got our remains home from core there are from our men who were lost their decade ago. i bring that up to say i think those things are what s important to the american people. if you are running a small biz like lie father is in florida, having a gdp growth of 4% is important. another story about the president s tweets aren t important to him. but i have got to say he probably doesn t read the new york times. also doesn t it suggest robert mueller doesn t have the super secret evidence you can imagine. bill: if i were in the white house i would talk about the economy and north korea. but donald trump keeps tweeting and he attacks robert mueller and michael cohen. he steps on his own story. howie: rudy giuliani says if you are going to obstruct justice you do it quietly and secretly. bill: traditionally you would. but donald trump doesn t do anything the way everybody has has already done it. in the press room. sean spicer. we didn t know how to deal with these tweets. we asked sean spicer should we take things seriously or not. spicer said every tweet is a presidential statement, take them seriously. the president of the united states is going after sessions or comey, i think it does raise an issue. howie: another story there was a lot of coverage of. 11 house republicans introducing impeachment for rod rosenstein for allegedly slow-walking requests for documents. it got a lot of coverage to compete with the 4.1% jump in the gdp. morgan: i think the tea party wanted that coverage. they are frustrated with a slow-walking effort by the doj getting these documents out. and they were frustrated with the amount of redactions. howie: particularly like the new york times lead story on trump s tweets, why don t you view that as a distraction. they don t have the votes in the house to impeach rosenstein. morgan: this is what the tea party wanted. you saw jim jordan announce for speaker this week. for republicans in vulnerable districts, i don t think though love this story at all. but for the past 7 years, the loudest people in your party on either side, the people heart loudest are the ones who get the microphone shoved right in right in their face. howie: given it was never going anywhere should it have been covered as a p.r. stunt? bill: mediabuzz. they wanted some media buzz before they left for the break. they wanted to help jim jordan and his impossible quest for speaker. there ain t going to be an impeachment and there ain t going upon a speaker jordan. paul ryan will not bring this up for a vote in the house. it was not even a hail mary pass, it was a stunt. howie: it worked because they got a lot of coverage. if the president wants to get rid of rosenstein he can fire him tomorrow. coming up. cbs chairman les moonves is facing allegations of sexual conduct and harassment. paying too much for insurance you don t even understand? well, esurance makes it simple and affordable. in fact, drivers who switched from geico to esurance saved an average of $412. that s auto and home insurance for the modern world. esurance. an allstate company. click or call. paying too much for insurance that isn t the right fit? well, esurance makes finding the right coverage easy. in fact, drivers who switched from geico to esurance saved an average of $412. that s auto and home insurance for the modern world. esurance. an allstate company. click or call. howie: a report of sexual misconduct in the new yorker against les moonves. a woman said he pinned her down so she couldn t breathe and kid her. and then he called her and removed her from a sitcom in which she had already been cast. this accountly douglas is revolting and underscores based on ronan farrow s reporting, and cbs which followed charlie rose for similar allegations also has a problem. if this is the behavior of the chairman of cbs, other executives. there are a lot of things we have to look at whether this culture needs to be dismissed. howie: there are questions whether he tolerated what other people were doing. the writer janet jones said after les moonves locked the door and threatened her. he locked the door. he said you will never get another writing job and i will fire you. and she threw up. these are harvey weinstein-type allegations. it could be physical harassment as well which is another level. these people feel their careers were destroyed are impacted by some of these victimizing allegations. howie: cbs confirms in the case of douglas that moonves kissed her, but denies other stuff. not since the late roger ails was forced out of fox news have they faced these times of accusations. in other instances or other industries. once the allegations come out there is immediate action. les moonves is still the chairman and chief executive at the company. howie: i credit cbs for saying there will be an investigation. and i credit cbs for reporting on this. but can you immediately suspend the head of the company? he did at mitt to some unwarranted he did admit to some unwanted advances. and to me that s a cultural problem. how are s involved in a corporate battle with some of the controlling stockholders who want to combine it with viacom. could these sexual misconduct allegations be related to that battle? it doesn t mean that people around her aren t leak. there is an ugly battle happening with sherry redstone. some say maybe she was involved in this and she can take advantage of this situation. but there is no proof she had anything to do with this. howie: all these women on the record, you would have to say there are questions about les moonves. absolutely. they are investigating. more to come on this. sara fischer, thanks for your reporting. coming up. mark zuckerberg loses billions. charlie gasparino is on deck. hawaii?! nice! yeah i m excited. finally earned enough rewards points. so jealous. yeah i can t wait to get that shave-ice! what s shave-ice? it s like a hawaiian snow-cone. why not just say snow-cone? i don t know, they call it shave-ice. you fly to hawaii for this? i don t go there for the ice. you saved up your rewards points for ice? .that s a lot of ice. go rewards® credit card from navy federal credit union. our members are the mission. gacan start in the colon, n, and diarrhea and may be signs of an imbalance of good bacteria. only phillips colon health has this unique combination of probiotics. it helps replenish good bacteria. get four-in-one symptom defense. howie: it was the largest charlie gasparino is with us. wasn t this market plunge in part due to facebook admitting it will have to spend more money to protect people s privacy? charlie: don t you feel sorry for mark zuckerberg? the bottom line is all these social media platforms are essentially free. but you do pay in other ways. you pay in the lack of privacy. anything that will cut back they use your user information. anything that sort of limits, that helps privacy and limits the amount of user growth that goes on to these platforms, you can sell ads to them as well. the ad metric will hurt the stock price. it happened to facebook and twitter in the same week. howie: it seems to me the company is projecting slowing growth. younger people think it s uncool so they go to snapchat. but is the market punishing facebook and twitter . charlie: i don t believe it s political. you re user growth if you police bots and fake russian accounts and other metrics will go down, the ad revenue will go down therefore your stock is not worth where it is now. this may change. facebook may come up with a new app that increases user growth. i can say the same thing about facebook and twitter. it s all about user growth. if you can t grow it, the ad revenues come down. howie: alex jones was find and they changed their mind and now some videos have been banned and jones has been suspended for 30 days for hate speech. i want to get to twitter. on friday the stock was down 21%. a lot of it has to do with twitter purging one million fake accounts. and we have controversy where twitter was shadow-banning the rnc chairwoman, top gop lawmakers and donald trump s spokesperson. the dnc chairman. they said they would look into the discriminatory practices. charlie: i spoke with twitter senior management that they are anti-conservative. they are extremely sensitive to this. that doesn t mean they don t have human beings that create algorithms that can shadow-ban conservatives. but the company said they are taking extreme measures to be equal for conservatives as well as liberals. we had interesting conversations about president trump. this is a guy who essentially drive traffic to twitter. some of his tweets go close to the lines of violating the terms of service. i said did you ever think about banning donald trump. they said they seriously considered that in the megyn kelly tweet tboolg she asked him during the debate. but they are saying we are not going after trump. we believe he s a vital voice. he s the president, he uses twitter. they say they are trying to be equal here. now, it s imperfect equal, we know that. they did fix that shadow-banning problem. howie: i take the company at its word. facebook has also been accused. silicon valley is biased against conservatives. charlie: mostly people on the right. that s kind of weird. who creates the algorithms that creates the discrimination? some silicon valley left-leaning kid. right? howie: the tech giants are having a hard time this year. the president denounces an fcc decision that went against sinclair tv. and roseanne says she is sorry again. there s little rest for a single dad, and back pain made it hard to sleep and get up on time. then i found aleve pm. the only one to combine a safe sleep aid, plus the 12 hour pain relieving strength of aleve. i m back. aleve pm for a better am. howie: the fcc sidelined and derailed a merger that would have created a tv giant that would have led to national conservative programming that would have competed with fox news. trump said the decision was disgraceful. he said it would have been a great and much-needed conservative voice of and for the people. the fcc said the news was misleading. roseanne barr got an apology do-over after the racist tweet about jal are you jarrett. reeseian who said she thought jarett was white. said this. if you are watching i m so sorry you thought it was racist and you thought my tweet was racist because it wasn t. it was political. i m sorry for the misunderstanding that causedy ill-worded tweet. and i m sorry that you feel harmed and hurt. but she has got to get a new haircut, seriously. howie: that s better than the youtube video she posted where she called jarett the b word. herself-humiliation was pretty sad. this is pretty sad, but maybe it stops the bleeding. i m howard kurtz. check out my new podcast. you can subscribe at apple itunes or foxnewspodcasts.com. i post my daily columns.
A look at the day s top news and headlines. opinion, it s ridiculous the corruption and dishonesty with the witch hunt, the president has watched this process play out but he also wants to see it come to an end as he stated many times. we look forward to that happening. dana: i understand why she would want to answer it that way, last week we found out that mueller s team is looking at the president s tweets to see if there was a pattern of obstruction. this is just his opinion, just fighting back, it s not obstruction. amazing when you have the white house under siege like this one, much as with the nixon white house or the clinton white house, the way in which the team there comes to reflect the attitude, the language, the perspective of the boss. and you can hear it there, and the loaded words and the hard language. this is a white house under siege and this is an administration that is ready to fight, fight, fight. the problem for trump is the same as it is with, you know, all of that stuff about they re going to impeach rod rosenstein and that business. it comes down to this, trump can act 450eshgs has constitutionally appropriate he can act. he has constitutionally appropriate remedies that he can do. he could order the documents to be released. he could discharge rod rosenstein. he would intervene yet he doesn t. this is the predicament. if he acts then he creates a constitutional crisis and loses republicans in the senate who say you ve gone too far. but he wants to talk about it and rally his fwas. dana: they also made a decision, the president decided he is not going to throw paul manafort under the bus. paul manafort isn t being charged here or tried on charges of collusion or anything to do with the campaign. this is separate and apart. what he s charged with, are the very things that president trump campaigned on, saying he would drain the swamp from. he can t let paul manafort twist in the wind y worry about him? this is outside and apart from the campaign, why? we don t know what donald trump knows that paul manafort knows. this is the wilderness of mirrors situation. what you see may not be so. and this also goes for his former fixer, cohen, and bunch of other people in his orbit. we don t know what they know or what he thinks they know. for manafort this a logical gambit. he s richer than he made $60 million off the oligarchs. dana: don t say that, you will be struck from the courtroom. he s old and he s rich. for him it makes sense. take it to trial, see it through. as they get through the trial and i ve covered enough of these to know. if it gets to the trial and they re getting close to the end you can see plea deals in cases like this right up to the last minute. understandably playing out his hand. dana: let me switch gears and talk about the mid terms. president obama announcing today his first wave of endorsements for house candidates, some i guess senate. i noted two things that he didn t include on his list, two types of people, one was the new instantly famous alexandria owe casio-cortez who beat joe crawley in the primary. oept bam a does not have her on his list. why would he, she doesn t need help. she won with, what, about the same number of votes as nothing. nd if she s in a safe seat she doesn t need help. she has enough visibility. dana: can i ask you, is it better for her not to be endorsed by president obama? she s running an anti-establishment campaign. i m not sure, do the democrats consider the clintons and the obamas establishment or just the clintons? if she can find any way to lose in this district it would be a miracle greater than the senate reds winning the world series. it s not going to happen. the issue here is, is it good for democrats for obama to be doing this. i think no. i think this is hub ris, he has to stand back and let the chaos reign in the party. he can t show up and say i m out but here are the people you should do. dana: do you feel the same way about him not endorsing any current red state democrats up for re-election or are they glad to the to have the endorsement? you think joe manchin wants barack obama to say that s my guy? no, does not help you. dana: he said this is his first wave of endorsements, do you think he will have an impact on any of the races? he will have an impact in some places. but again the larger impact is a negative one for his party. you won t find relief here. congestion and pressure? 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you re seeing a major enthusiasm gap in this race as well as races across the country. one reason why democrats over the past year, in special elections, have been consistently outperforming even in states that were historically red or went for president trump in 2016. to win the house democrats need a net 23 seats. republicans are defending 25 seats that hillary clinton won last cycle n ohio and other suburban districts, the more the president wants to campaign in the suburbs we welcome that. if you look dana: why? if you look at the you be in of suburban women who strongly disapprove of the job that the president is doing, nearly 6 in 10. and even among republicans who support the president, there s a major, major gap between men who strongly support his performance and women. it s overwhelming. democrats are enjoying a 30-point lead with the suburban women, that s going to translate into gains in november. dana: collin, the other thing i learned is that the democrat candidate not only is there enthusiasm on his side, but to the extent there are independent enlts left, and apparently there are, they re leaning toward the democrats. that s typical in this type of a mid-term election. can the president s visit change any of their minds? you have to believe if he s going there, he would look at a poll and assume he s going to be helpful and not an asset not anything that s going to drag down the republicans. look, these mid terms in the middle of august, people have a lot of other better things to be doing than paying attention to politics. and what s happening there. i think you just need to pay attention to what happens on turnout and who shows up. dana: let me ask you about a poll, i ll go to texas, this was a little bit of a surprise, this morning the texas iceum group poll showing that ted cruz is just two points ahead of o roarke, cruz the incumbent. o roarke on his heels. i would heat the quinnipiac poll came out saying that ted cruz is up 49-43. but that race, dave, is probably closer than ted cruz would like. i think it s very fair to say it s closer. i thought it was striking, i think last week, when an incumbent sitting senator ted cruz challenges beto o roarke to five debates. that s crazy, an incumbent wants to debate, that speaks to his sense of waeshgness at this position. beto o roarke is running an interesting and compelling campaign, the small dollar donations he s generated and keeping up financially with senator cruz and running on kitchen table issues, whether it s insuring affordable healthcare, whether it s ensuring that they are able to have a winning wage. dana: he s been doing it in a different way, facebook live. collin, the last word, the democrats have had this dream of flipping texas blue. are their dreams to be dashed again this year? yes. texas isle into s gold for the democrats. cycle after texas is fool s gold. they want to make it competitive, they never do, the republican usually wins, i m confident that will happen as well in the state of texas. dana: we ll make you buy is a drink if it s not true. thank you. thank you. dana: one group making a major push for a member of the national guard running for congress, i ll speak to lt. colonel ashleigh niklos about her primary fight tomorrow night. gas, bloating, constipation, and diarrhea can start in the colon, and may be signs of an imbalance of good bacteria. only phillips colon health has this unique combination of probiotics. it helps replenish good bacteria. get four-in-one symptom defense. 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. it s the ultimate wifi experience. xfinity xfi, simple, easy, awesome. reported getting sick after eating at a chipotle restaurant in powell, ohio. they re still testing samples to try and determine the cause of the jo it break. loyal customers won t be deterred. xwechb that the health inspengtors have given it the all clear, i m not worried right now. no, if i get sick, we ll see. but as of now not worried at all. dana: the restaurant was closed monday after the illnesses first surfaced. officials say they inspected the location and found no reason for the outbreak and the store reopened yesterday afternoon. ashley nickloes, serving eight deployments since 9/11, trains military and civilian groups on disaster response. her most important job, devoted mom. now, nickloes is on a new mission, challenge the career politicians, rebuild our military, grow our economy. dana: that was an ad recently released in support of lt. colonel ashley nickloes. the republican is part of a crowded field running in a primary tomorrow hoping to win the open seat in the second district. i m joined now by lt. colonel ashley nickloes. thanks for being with us today. you re running for seat held in the duncan family for many, many decades. yes, ma am, 54 years. dana: why did you decide to run? you brought were you brought to my attention by this group called with honor. david ignatius is a columnist for the washington post, wrote this today, the coalesce evens of young veterans of iraq and having a may be the most positive trend on the political horizon. they have been through the nightmare of combat, they know what it means to serve the country beyond flag waving and slogan earring. did they re chute you to run for this seat? how did they find you? no, ma am, i just got tired of how broken washington is. my view from 18,000 feet over syria, iraq, and afghanistan is different than the view with a. after multiple deployments, after the pad few decades, i thought it was time to bring a new voice and voils of experience to congress. dana: what do you think are your main issues you re concerned about? . national security of course is my top priority, closest to my heart. healthcare is also very close to my heart, my husband is a trauma surgeon and dedicated his life to healthcare in addition to serve 2g 2 years in the military serve 2g 2 years in the military. and term limits. i believe it s time to bring congress and the representatives back to the voice of the people. term limits would bring it back to what our founding fathers original intent was. kp there are many more women running for congress than in years past, the democrats doing better than republicans. where democrats are running in a primary with at least one woman and a man and no incumbent, 66% of democrats have won, they were women. 38% of republicans have won. tomorrow, in a crowded primary, trying to win it tomorrow. i know that you don t go about talking about how you re a woman and that s why you should vote for me. what do you think about the republican party trying to promote women in this year? it s imperative that the republican party show what the actual republican party is. we re looking at over 435 seats in the house of representatives and only 11 of them being held by women after this election campaign. so we want to make sure that republicans reflect what we really are in this nation. as you said, i have a crowded primary, there s seven of us. i am the only female. but i ve run on my experience and the power of our message. i believe i m the most experienced to take this message to congress. dana: let me ask you about the on issue of a lot of people in tennessee, the effect of the trade policy that president trump is pursuing, while he tries to work out the trade deals there are consequences for tennessee, with canada, for example, being the top sip yent, soy beans, and whiskey. i m curious what you say to your constituents when you come to washington who you would do to stick up for them on this issue? well, i applaud president trump s ability to try and bring a level playing field to our trade policy. we have over 850,000 jobs that are dependent on the trade policy here in tennessee. over 1.4 billion in money that we bring in to our state because of trade. i hope that president trump makes it an expedite, the negotiations, because the longer we draw it out the harder it will be on my constituents in tennessee. if ever there was a time to negotiate a better trade stance for us internationally, then right now is, they are into the booming economy. dana: lt. kol them ashley nickloes, thanks for being here today. thank you so much, it was a privilege. dana: pension problems to the tune of trillions of dollars corks your retirement fund face insolvency? new tariff talk, what the president is tying when it comes to billions of dollars worth of chinese goods. president trump: everyone that says hello mr. president, congratulations on what you ve done for the economy. it s the talk of the world. china paying hundreds of billions of dollars a year with nobody there to protect your money. but you re there now. to improve short-term memory. prevagen. healthier brain. better life. dana: a new place to raise the stakes with china, fox news learns president trump floated the idea of boosting property moesed tariffs from 10% to 25% on billions of dollars worth of chinese goods. here s the fox business network live with this story. tensions are is d.ca lating, the proposed move from 10% to 25% is more than double obviously. some see it as a tactic aimed at the chinese government. beijing has reacted with anger, threatening retaliation. we ve seen 25% tariffs on $34 billion, largely industrial goods that. s imposed on china amount the u.s. on schedule to heavy similar tariffs of an additional $16 billion, either this week or next week. as for this next proposed level, the white house probably going to make a decision towards the end of august. those in favor of the tactics say they re justified because of the chinese yuan has fallen about 6% against the dollar since the end of may, a clear advantage of chinese exports when they sell their goods overseas. trade tensions clearly between the u.s. and china escalating but they are calming down between the u.s. and europe. president meeting with the e.c. president last week, the e. you have freeing to import more u.s. soy beans, very important big $20 billion export crop for us. and more liquified natural gas. the u.s. stood down on imposing tariffs on imported european cars. dana: and american consumers are paying more for certain items. which ones stand out? they certainly are. basically, hearing from a lot of ceos that metals, that cost more, it costs them more for certain products, packaging, the ceo of coca-cola saying the company is taking an unusual step of raising soda prices midyear, referenced the rising costs. he said freight rates and prices for plastic and aluminum went into his decision. executives at sam adams brewery and boston beer company saying prices would go up 2% in the second half of the year. r.v. manufacturer winnebago won t say how much it raised prices, but the company has admitted to modifying r.v. floor plans to trim costs. separate from tariffs, americans are also paying more this summer to fly due to rising fuel costs. you have american airlines for example spending more on fuel, jet fuel prices up around 50%, that company said it s hurting its bottom line. delta s ceo saying ticket sales are up about 4% from last year. american consumers taking a few hits from all sides. kp. dana: all right, thank you. good news on the economic front for the american worker with the employment cost index showing that pay and benefits are climbing at the fastest pace in a decade. joining me is arry fliescher, former secretary under george w. bush and fox news contributor. great news for the president, unemployment at 4.0% and news about increase in pay. i want to spring this on you, i just got this in, president trump doing an interview with rush limbaugh, he called in, rush limbaugh celebrating 30 years on air, pretty remarkable. trump saying this about farmers and trade. our farmers were we re going to open up markets for them but they re great patriots. i watch them all the time, saying we trust our president. you know they make take a short-term hit. you look at farm and farming has been going down for 15 years. sow beenls five years before the election cut in half, the price was cut in half, i wasn t there. he made comments on other things, but relevant on the economy, everything seems to be going well. one question about trade. that s right, donald trump is trying to do something long term when it comes the tariffs. it s high, high risk and high, high reward. on the fundamentals of the economy and the most important fundamental, are you making more money. working class, blue collar americans, first the time in ten years they can report a significant raise in pay. that s huge. and that has a tendency, historically, to change how elections come out. dana: in terms of, we do these stories about mid terms all the time. republicans out there running are not running on the economy. they re talking about other things like immigration, things that will get the base out. i understand it s a mid-term election. but is the good feelings about the economy, are they baked into people s thinking? i don t think so, not yet. unemployment is low and he gets credit for that, that s baked into the economy. but the missing picture, one of the big reasons why donald trump got elected, wages were stuck for 10 years. blue collar americans weren t getting a pay raise, but the wealthy were. that was pal possible, the weakness of the obama years. now, it s going up. that s a tremendous development. the parallel to the 90s when bill clinton was under investigation by ken starr and the economy boomed. people didn t really care about the investigation. if that s the case here, it benefits donald trump and republicans. dana: any concern for that deirdre was reporting because of the trade issues, prices are going up, even coke a cola saying they ll to have raise their prices a little bit. middle class wages, low income going up, but do they get eaten up by cost increases? everything feels different these days, with donald trump. inflation unless it s rampant doesn t hurt you as much as if your wages are not going up f your wages are going up you feel better. you don t foo notice that your coke costs five cents more or airline ticket costs 5% more. you re making more money week-to-week. dana: and maybe your anxiety is alleviated and that makes you feel better about things. i want to ask about this, the economy is so good, should we be trying to make hay while the sun shines, in terms of the structural problems? there s a problem with pensions, people forget about pensions, we don t talk about them as much any more. a lot of states are underfunded with their pensions and there are laws that kick in that says taxpayers don t have to bail them out. aren t these great issues, the issues republicans wrangled with for decades and we haven t talked about them for years. this is the time with a booming economy to go after tariffs as trump is doing, when the economy is strong we can take the risk. secondly, deal with long-term pension issues and the underfunding of them. this is the time to get your books in order when the economy is well. when the economy is doing poorly, the resources aren t there to do it. this is better than before. dana: and impact on the budgeting for congress, they re looking at that as entitlement spending continues to grow, the stuff that you can t mess with, the amount of money that you have to put around to other things is basically smaller and smaller. exactly right, the government gets squeezed. one of the things about the trump years, he doesn t want to do anything about social security and medicare going bankrupt. we have to one day. i guess it won t be on donald trump s watch. dana: maybe a second term. he says he s going to do it. dana: greg gudfelled is coming up, were you at an event last night. i was at the mets national game in washington, dwk my son who got to watch his favorite player, trey turner, what a pounding. 26 runs for the nationals. what a game. dana: fun park, too. it is. dana: best part of washington sometimes. it is. they don t tax when you you walk in. dana: keep an eye on. thatari fliescher, thank you. vice president pence is in hawaii to receive the remains of american service members who died during the korean war. a solemn ceremony taking place at pearl harbor. stan springer is live in honolulu. this is an emotional day for anyone who served in the military. but it will be especially powerful for the more than 7,600 families who lost servicemen in the korean war whose remains have never been identified, never brought back to the united states 65 years after the fighting ended. vice president mike pence is in hawaii now, to take part in today s honorable carry ceremony. it means a lot to him personally, his father fought in korea and received the bronze star. he will be accompanied by two people whose fathers were killed in the war and their remains still missing. also attending will be 10 local korean war veterans who will be part of the honor guard. dozens of vets have been meeting every week on tuesdays for the last 20 years. the group s president is herb shriner whose brother was killed in korea. you know how hard it is to hear that they re missing in action and you don t know where they re at, what s happening to them, are they captured, are they suffering? families think about that. 55 boxes of remains were turned over by north korea late last week and flown to a u.s. base in south korea draped in the united nations flag. when they arrive shortly at joint base pearl parlor hick couple, they will be covered by u.s. flags. then the painstaking work begins to identify the remains. it will be done by the defense p.o.w. m.i.a. accounting administration, one of the premiere anthropologist groups in the world. last year it made 201 identifications of our war dead giving families a chance at some closure. but it is not a quick process. one of the few countries that spends this type of effort and time and money to bring closure to our military families. each and every one of those families has been made a promise by the u.s. military to come home. we are the end of that promise. the relatively easy identifications will take at least a month, dna will be part of that process. some of these identifications could take many years, if ever. yet getting done. those 55 boxes could contain hundreds of individual service members. dana: dan, thank you. a new ruling today by a jum on something very up judge on something very upsetting regarding the children separated from their parents at the border. what one major league pitcher did to get himself out during a game that his team won by 21 runs. oh! oh! ozempic®! 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(vo) ask your healthcare provider if ozempic® is right for you. officials from giving kids psycho troepic medications without permission, saying they need parental consent or court order. legal filings show officials at the shila treatment center were giving kids medication without approval. the baseball world is talking today after the washington nationals pounded the new york mets 25-4 last night. it s new york s most lopsided loss in the 57 year history but not the score everyone is talking about. it s nationals pitcher sean kelly, cut this morning after throwing a tantrum on the mound in the ninth inning with his team way ahead. i m joined by my co-host on the five and the author of the gutfeld monologues. kelly s agent put out a statement, that kelly had no issues with pitching in the game, that they were winning, kelly was fresh from four days rest, warming up in the bull pen before the phone rang to tell him he got the call to pitch the ninth inning. the they said he grew frustrated when the umpire implored him to work quickly and trip gibson told him to slow down or get called for a balk. the whole story, they were looking for something to get rid of this guy. they released him because he threw his mitt down. there s a backstory. he s probably not a popular player. what would you call him, dane? what would be the word? dana: a diva? [laughing] no, i would be respectful of maybe a jerk. he might be a jerk. i think, like, this is the equivalent of a yard sale. they put him out, there so somebody could pick him up. a teachable moment for him, he hah to prove to the people who pick him up that he isn t what you might call, um dana: not like he took an ally gator into a convenience store and chased people around. no, that would be terrible. dana: i would call them something then. [laughing] okay, everybody. what would you call that, dane? dana: i might call you that. are you going to explain this on the five tonight? you know what it is, something that outrageous and immoral happens on family television, it s incumbent on the host of the show to talk about it. and i think we need to air our grievances. a lot of people at the table, need to have a discussion. dana: family counseling? it needs to be a toechable moment. dana: show counseling. because of what happened to me on the five no, what i did on the phi last night, let me take full responsibility, i m sorry, we ll lead the five with it. but we ve been talking about twitter outbursts. what i did last night was sort of like if you did it on twitter, the mob might come after you, right? or if you did it, like sean kelley, he s throwing his mitt down, on twitter that would be seen as, you know, ridiculous. but you might get fired for it, too. i think it s a testament to the amount of leisure time that we have that we can examiner sides those kind of exercise, i don t know, crucifixions where we go after somebody and have the time to do it. i call it, sort of like a ritual sacrifice almost every week, we find somebody and cast them out. and then we find somebody else. it s such a strange thing. it s almost like we need to create a ritual to replace that. you know what i mean? something that people can do. to take their minds off? right. like mass is like that, you go mass and take part in a ritual that keep from you doing actual sacrifices and actual crucifixions. there almost needs to be a mass for social media that teaches people this will replace that, so stop hurting people. dana: i love this mass for social media. you had a great time. i did special report with brett in d.c., he s a jolly foally and molly and jonah and myra. never try to maybe everybody. dana: you had a good time. it was great and i did a couple of talk shows, too. at fox it s unusual to see somebody plugging a book. dana: doesn t happen very off. right, so people are shocked and surprised to see me here plugging a book that s a collection of all of my monologues, which are bursts of thoughts that you probably would have had. dana: it s brilliant. i won t go that far, i don t blow my own horn, i m not like you. [laughing] but dvp i know this, i have been warned that your monologue today on the five is must-see television. my mom, she s going to be there and watching. she better be. and i don t think she s not a proud mother right now. [laughing] dana: all right, mom, bail me out on twitter. greg, thank you. three republicans fighting to replace senator jeff flake, a live update in arizona, straight ahead. no matter who rides point, there are over 10,000 allstate agents riding sweep. call one today. are you in good hands? and help you feel more strength & energy in just 2 weeks. i ll take that. ensure high protein, with 16 grams of protein and 4 grams of sugar. ensure® withthat s the same thing ti want to do with you. it s an emotional thing to watch your child grow up and especially get behind the wheel. i want to keep you know, stacking up the memories and the miles and the years. he s gonna get mine but i m gonna get a new one! oh yeah! he s gonna get mine but i m gonna get a new one! when it s time for your old chevy truck to become their new chevy truck, there s truck month. get 10 or 14 percent below msrp on 2018 silverado pickups when you finance with gm financial. plus, during truck month make no monthly payments for 90 days. find new roads at your local chevy dealer. stirewalt moved this race from tossup to leading democrat. there are a few things going on. first of all, two of the three leading republican candidates, they re trump-based far right conservatives, including maricopa former sheriff joe arpaio. he said he will not ask for an endorsement, that s up to mr. trump. he accuses the other hard liner of promising him a lot offy job if he would drop out. they ve been after trying to get me out of the race from the beginning and i don t like them bribing for money to get me to drop out of the race. now, ward the former state senator who unsuccessfully challenged john mccain in 207 16 brushes off the words with this. joe has been a folk hero, somebody who has been important in arizona. and i hate s to see the people he s surrounding himself with on his campaign really ruining the legacy that he has left. the frontrunner is two-term congresswoman and former fighter pilot martha mcfamily, a moderate. but they say she s warmed to the president of late, even though she s critical of him in the past. i welcome an endorsement from the president. i don t expect him to win this race for me, but we d welcome it. early voting evens august 28. dana: is the democrat that strong or something else at work here as you mention chris making that ratings change a couple of weeks ago. right, well maybe to your first, the first part of the question, and yes definitely to the second. the electorate is definitely changing. latino population is up to 30% here in arizona. and independent voters are much more influential. all of this of course helps democratic congresswoman kirsten cinema who has a strong past, including being a green party activist. she s worked to move and distance where self from that past and even signaled she would be willing to work with the president. dana: all right, alicia, thank you for that. a man searching for a diamond in the ashes of his home destroyed by the california wind fires. watch this. i was thinking, okay, there s not going to be anything left. maybe some molten metal. ham has no added nitrates, nitrites or artificial preservatives. now deli fresh flavor is for everyone. like those who like. sweet. those who prefer heat. and those who just love meat. oscar mayer deli fresh. a fresh way to deli. oscar mayer deli fresh. i start at the new carfax.comar. show me minivans with no reported accidents. boom. love it. 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these are the slicers. they slice people up. they wanted me to walk up and go like this. some of the president at his rally in pennsylvania last night and much, much more of that. good morning, everyone. it s friday, august 3rd. welcome to morning joe. we have a number of important developments to get through this morning, including a stark warning from the intel community. russia is at it again. they ve got the public s attention, but what about the president s? does he care? what s going on? plus, dan coats speaks truth to power, again. the director of national intelligence admits he still does not know what the president told vladimir putin last month in helsinki. think about it. the director of national intelligence. and ivanka trump says that it was a low point for her when the separations of children from their family were happening Former GOP representative Joe Scarborough and Mika Brezinski interview newsmakers, politicians and pundits about the issues of the day. barletta or candidates across the country, republican candidates. there s a reason i m asking. i m going completely around the table, rapid fire here. david ignatius, we ll take you next. especially specifically on the media and on russia. your take on the president last night. well, it s as if we have two governments. one government that states responsible policies drawn from what our intelligence agencies have discovered issuing warnings to state governments, doing the business of government, and then we have this other government, this other ring in our national circus in which the president conducts a daily anti-elitist rant, the principle targets are people in the media. ate to say it, we re the best thing he s got going for him. he doesn t have other issues besides rousing the public to think se are elitiselitist, to s phrase enemies, but he s making us the central theme of his campaign. we have to see that right in the eyes, but it is as if, mika, they re two separate rings to this circus now. yeah. and it seems like some people are beginning to really understand that. especially he was going after generals last night. jon meacham, anybody in history, a figure in history, that parallels what s happening with this president? i think it s joe mccarthy. as if mccarthy had become president to go to john s point about it getting old. roy cohn, joe mccarthy s counsel and donald trump s. sometimes you don t have to make this stuff up. it falls in your lap. he wrote a book about mccarthy saying, a., he bought anti-communism the way other people buy a used car, it was just a vehicle to take over the american politics and particularly in the right wing, cbs news had an amazing poll stunning. people defined themselves as strong trump supporters. 90% of people who say their information from trump they believe is accurate. 60% from friends or family they believe is accurate. 10% from the media. think about it again. people in that audience, we have to describe them as strong trump supporters. if their friend or family member told them something they re less likely to believe it than that goff ball up there, crazy uncle donny. going back to the two governments david brought up, crazy uncle donny, a figure we continue to have completely unaccountable to even his own staff and no repercussion. we were talk this today, chris wray, bolton, this is a fact, this is a fact, their boss gets onstage and says it s not. crazy uncle donny talking to his base stunningly regardless what he says will continue to go, but but the voters will speak in november. they will. and 33%, 34%, yes, a lot of vote in the primary, but a wave of likes have never been seen before. my take is this. it s blunt. fair to say. i ve been there before and i did it when it wasn t cool to do. i m going to do it again. he s not well. that s the bottom line. there s no way nine knows donald trump but has not bought in in some way could watch him last night and not come away with the feeling that the president of the united states is completely unhinged and getting worse by the day. perhaps the stress is really squeezing in on him. it s interesting that a former reality tv star and colleague of trump is releasing a book with the title unhinged. this is a woman who knew him during his reality show days, very well. and then went with him to the white house and in it she describes a reaction to a man that she had known for over a decade who is in a state of mental decline. it s a concern we ve voiced on this show during the campaign and over the last tumultuous 18 months. try and find someone who s not politically invested or too fearful of donald trump or the republican party who knew the man a decade ago who will tell you that his mental state has not deteriorated erratically over the past few years or changed or come out in some way. it is transforming what we re watching. you will not find that person from donald trump s past. if they re telling you the truth. we were told of his unfitness for office by those closest to him on the campaign and we saw it ourselves up close in the december 2015 interview in which he first pledged his fealty to vladimir putin. let me tell you, you can pull that interview up. it s a little embarrassing, but i will say you can see in our faces in realtime us kind of going from jovial and fun to state of mind watching that rally last night, and with that we go to the major developments yesterday. willie? i mentioned those national security directors in the white house yesterday. they gathered in the briefing room reportedly at the president s personal instruction, top national security and intel officials delivering a strong and clear message about russia s continued interference in the u.s. election process. this threat is not going away. as i have said consistently, russia attempted to interfere with the last election, and continues to engage in maligned influence operations to this day. this is a threat we need to take extremely seriously and to tackle and respond to with fierce determination and focus. the intelligence community continues to be concerned about the threats of upcoming u.s. elections. both the midterms and the presidential elections of 2020. in regards to russian involvement in the midterm elections, we continue to see a pervasive messaging campaign by russia to try to weaken and divide the united states. these efforts are not exclusive to this election or future elections but certainly cover issues relevant to the election. our focus here today is simply to tell the american people we acknowledge the threat. it is real. it is continuing, and we re doing everything we can to have a legitimate election that the american people can have trust in. in addition that that, it goes beyond the elections. it goes to russia s intent to undermine our democratic value, drive a wedge between our allies and do a number of other nefarious things. our democracy itself is in the cross hairs. free and fair elections are the cornerstone of our democracy and it has become clear that they are the target of our adversaries who seek as the dni just said to sow discourt and undermine our way of life. during the day in the white house briefing room, a pretty clear message. fast forward a few hours later. this is what the president said in that rally in pennsylvania. in helsinki i had a great meeting with putin. we discussed everything. had a great meet. i had a great meeting. we got along really well. by the way, that s a good thing. not a bad thing. that s a really good thing. now, we re being hindered by the russian hoax. it s a hoax. okay? i ll tell you what. russia s very unhappy that trump won. that i can tell you. but i got along great with putin. and everybody said, wow. that was great that was great. a couple hours later i started hearing these reports that, you know, they wanted me to walk up, here s the podium here. they wanted me to walk up and go like this son of a they wanted me to go up and have a boxing match. i said, whatever happened to diplomacy? and, by the way whatever happened to diplomacy? and know? i used to study not too much diplomacy. i said, whatever happened to getting everything you want? so there s a lot in there, obviously. president putin at that press conference in helsinki said very clearly he wanted president trump to win, the then donald trump to become president. twice. davis ignatius, walk through this. what we heard yesterday is not a new conclusion. wa what s the intelligence agencies came to in january 2017, 19 months ago, just going out stating it s still happening and continues in the 2018 midterm elections. so why would president trump, if reporting is president trump sent them out to do that only to undercut that a couple hours later? obviously, it s a mystery in some ways, but what i ve sensed since the helsinki summit is that in the public, i know dan coats in his famous interview with andrea mitchell, he was stuned by what he didn t know, but he just, you know, told the truth. question after question. secretary mattis, i ve listened to secretary mattis speak at a dinner in public. he s gone into the press rooms, followed into the pentagon, much more forthright about what he sees and thinks is going on. some of that from secretary pompeo at the state department. i was interested to see kristen nielsen, dhs secretary often backed up by criticism from president trump saying emphatically, our democracy is in the cross hairs. they re using strong language to describe to the public what they say. and then you have the president, it s almost like lawyers talk about jury nullification. going to the jury. what those people tell you is not as important as these te terrible outrages down me and minimizing it. it s not the first time a politician has gone the other way from his administration and tried to arouse the base completely independent of what the government does every day. right. i think the question that we re facing, we re going to get an answer in a couple months. what the public makes of this weird two two-stage circus, two-government thing we re watching, but it was good to see the senior officials of our government be so emphatic and clear in stating the truth as they understand it. those men and women don t stand up there in the white house briefing room without the president knowing about it and probably signing off on it. is he giving himself cover saying we have come out strongly against russia and then can continue to say that it s a hoax on twitter and at rallies? i actually there there s two tracks. has to cover himself on the security side. doesn t want to seem weak here, but as he went after mueller and the team and tried to bring them down, i think he s trying to he knows what he s done, and i think he s trying to build up putin so when we do find out what his dealings were, he s not seemed as such the bad guy. he s basically just doing a reverse mueller to help himself, that the facts come out and we say, oh, well, putin s not such a bad guy. the president s been telling us that that. we can be friends with him, so whatever he s done won t seem as bad. lots of evidence of contrary, that vladimir putin is not such a bad guy. we know that, but as donny mentioned. the people who believe in donald trump believe what he says and they will to the end. can we ask republicans a question? based on what the entire intelligence community has said, why, two weeks ago, they voted down an amendment to spend an additional $250 million to make our election safer? actually said, no. we don t want to spend that money to protect our election. i have a question for mr. meacham, i often do, john, call you up tuesday and thursday nights to get historical perspective. everybody tosses the word impeachment around. if we have a president whose job is to serve and protect this country. protect this country. and it s clear his entire intelligence team said this is a threat and when you think about a threat. god forbid we had elections and the day after it came out they were truly tampered with, we d have chaos in the streets. so if the president denies that, why is that not an impeachable offense? any historical perspective in a situation like this? no different than a missile aimed at us, that our intelligence he says, no, it s not. we re okay. why is that in his basic job not in the most simplistic terms an impeachable offense? i think it would be. the phrase in the constitution as you know, donny. i appreciate you re setting me up for this, is treason, bribery and other high crimes or misdemeanors and treason is defined as giving aid and comfort to an enemy, and so i think that would fall clearly within the definition if a majority of the house and if two-thirds of the senate wanted to do it. gerald ford once said that, an impeachable offense is whatever a certain number of legislators think it is at any given time. one of the issues about impeachment is in the constitutional convention james madison and others did not want it to be a weapon to fight what they administration. immediately for it to move to an impeachable one. our three big impeachments, andrew jackson, richard nixon, bill clinton, but this would fall within it clearly. mid-term election is essential here. what i ve been hearing and you all, too, i m sure. democrats do extremely well on the generic ballot around the country. when impeachment comes up, that number, i m told, goes down somewhat. which is an interesting dichotomy. i think people still have some regret over the bill clinton episode. so i don t think the country broadly put is there yet, but i think if you have a democratic majority in the house and i think it entirely depends on what director mueller comes back with. mueller is the iceberg in american politics. we see the tip. we don t know what s below, and it s coming. all right. also i want to get to this story. it s important. this week the passing of former congressman, mayor and united states marine ron dellums. ron was a former u.s. representative and oakland mayor known for helping found the congressional black caucus and speaking out against apartheid in south africa. joe describes ron as a progressive hero who was a fierce advocate for all the liberal causes he embraced but managed at the same time to be a man respected and beloved by conservatives and liberals alike. and joe wrote on twitter, one of the great surprises in congress was meeting this guy and loving every second around him. ron dellums and i rarely voted together, but he was beloved and respected by everyone from john lewis to tom delay. ron was a marine. a dedicated public servant and a great american. ron dellums was 82. we ll be right back. hey allergy muddlers. are you one sneeze away from being voted out of the carpool? try zyrtec®. it s starts working hard at hour one. and works twice as hard when you take it again the next day. stick with zyrtec® and 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specialist about harvoni. of former trump campaign-aid paul manafort. yesterday prosecutes sought to knock down an argument calling to the stand manafort s former bookkeeper testifying manafort was very knowledgeable and detail oriented adding he approved every penny of everything we paid. the book cokeeper had no idea at his bank accounts. rick gates handled some business matters but manafort was the main source of approval. she added gates was not involved in manafort s personal expenses. in an effort to clear up confusion from the prior day, the prosecution says it does intend to have gates, its star witness, testify. joining us now, contributor barbara mcquade inside the courtroom most days this week. good to have you with us. get us caught up on day two. how important is this bookkeeper to the story the prosecution wants to tell? critically important to the case, because the defense really has been that it was all rick gates. that paul manafort was a very busy man running his business. he didn t have time to attend to the business side of things and it was rick gates who was doing these things that committed these crimes, but when we heard from the bookkeeper, she made it very clear that paul manafort was paying very close attention to the details, and that he approved every penny of expenses and was involved in the revenues and so i think most of what she said undercut that defense strategy. so barbara, you ve handled prosecutions, many of them, some like this. it feels from the outside and looks like prosecutors have a pretty strong hand. if you are prosecuting this case, how would you be feeling right now? well, i think prosecutors are by nature pessimists and careful and worried about failure and so i think that it feels like it s going in well, but they know that there s also snag can trip you up. so they are always attuned to every detail and you can tell this team is as well. to look at it objectively, it s going in very well. this judge is a little bit cantankerous. a little bit of a micromanager. but most of the evidence is coming in and it has shown a couple things so far. number one, paul manafort had incredibly lavish taste, was buying expensive suits, expensive cars, landscaping for his homes, multiple homes and that he used these accounts in cypress to pay for those things. that s been clear. yesterday it came out that his business began to dry up in 2015 and so that he submitted what appeared to be false income documents to obtain loans on mortgages on these properties. so one interesting observation, won t really come up as part of this case but could come up in the september case, at the very moment from paul manafort, someone who loves money, issing wering flat broke, goes to work for the trump campaign for free. what was that all about? an intriguing factor relating to the other part of the case, which is the russia part. john heilemann here. an amazing thing to see just how broke. i mean, we say he was in financial duress, the man was dead broke in early 2016. i saw a piece of reporting yesterday from some of the documents that he had a credit score of about 550, which would have put him in sort of subprime territory. the question that you just raised is a totally fascinating question. how can this man afford to go to work for donald trump for free? what s the story there? but i think it s very important, and super crucial to the overall narrative, but does it matter to this case why paul manafort was able to, or would want to, go to work for donald trump for free in the spring of 2015? no. for this case his work for donald trump i don t think is even going to get before the jury. i don t think they ll know about that aspect of the case. what matters here is he was broke, and why that matters, because that provides the motive for him to engage in his bank fraud. why would this incredibly wealthy man engage in bank fraud? so desperate for cash. at one point the bookkeeper testified she warned them, so low on cash, they weren t going to be able to afford health insurance for david manafort partners, that s when she reviewed documents that appeared to be fake inflating the income by $4 million, that were submitted to banks to receive loans and that s because the cash flow for paul manafort was completely absent after, in contrast, to what we heard of these incredibly expensive tastes of the money he was pumping into this luxury lifestyle. barbara mcquade in the cum. day four of the trial starts in about three hours. thanks so much. appreciate it. now to the overpriced rare jacket correspondent donny deutsch. the ostrich on the left, 15 grand. python, 18.5. what s the better buy? insulted you even asked me. anybody who kind of follows exotic animal jackets. python. right? this show is of a high intellectual caliber. you ask obvious questions, audience is disappointed. they come to us for news you can use. this is news you already know. disappointed by the ostrich jacket. we expected feathers, no skin. the jacket was made of ostrich. you kept thinking plumage. looks like a leather jacket. big deal. one of more liberace and less manafort. we won t daudon t want peopl disappro disapprove. enough. 95 days until the midterms. some congress republicans are having a hard time. talk how an endorsement from president trump can affect a candidate s chances this fall. morning joe will be right back. for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won t raise their rates because of their first accident. liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. looking forward to being in the great state of ohio saturday night where i will be campaigning hard for a talented future congressman troy balderson. the republican nominee who will face democrat danny o connor in next week s special election. that mixup aside, if president trump manages to back the accurate candidate in a race, it could be a deciding factor between a win and a loss. let s bring in national political reporter for axios, jonathan swan, looking at how much value a trump endorsement has for some of these midterm candidates. so is there a lot of value, jonathan? or does it depend on where exactly? well, trump among republican primary voters, the interesting thing about trump is, he s historically popular among republican voters, and very, very unpopular among the jeng p general public. it makes republican officials very nervous, because a trump endorsement in a primary is incred pkrecredibly powerful. list the former gubernatorial primary, pushed ron desantis to a double ditch cgit conservativ knows the state well. then you push them into a general election, they re tied at the hip to trump. a lot of republican officials that we re talking to are very nervous about the next phase after trump pushes them through to win the primary. so jonathan, it s hileman herhilemann here. talked yesterday about the stump in pennsylvania. strikes me that message is well tailored to a republican primary audience and not so well tailored to a general election audience, especially not well tailor in a purple or blue state. your very familiar with a lot of polling data and analytics. is there i d like to talk a little about what the data says about the stuff trump is saying and how it will play in places where republicans need to win if they re going to hold control of the house and the senate. well, you have touched on the central problem with all of this, which is that the messages that trump the messages trump puts out there, very hard-line on immigration, trade, some of these other issues and also just the general, as you say, rambling kind of character attacks and fairly extreme language about the media, that is woptd ewonderful in a republ primary. one of the problems, earlier in the year when trump stress add desire to barnstorm the country and basically visit every house district, he had people like corey lewandowski saying, mr. trump you are the greatest campaigner the world s ever seen. you should be out on the trail, everwhere, blitz the country. the problem some of these republican members were kwee qu approaching the white house political shop and saying we don t actually want the president in our district, because some of the vulnerable republicans thinking of c carbellows from florida, they don t want him there. appealing to voters who don t necessarily appeal to the president s messages. jon meacham, the senate race between marcia blackburn, republican and former tennessee governor phil bredesen. popular in the state for a long time. how does it look like it will shake out in tennessee? the primary was last night. and it s bredesen versus blackburn. i think bredesen is up unusually. i think a little bit in most of the polling that i ve seen. as you say, very business friendly. very moderate democrat, very high-ranking republicans will say privately is, this is exactly the kind of democratic nominee they fear the most. because suburban women, millennials, african-americans are going to come out driven by an anti-trump fervor, but establishment republicans who had to put their principles to some extent in a blind trust in 2016 will be able to vote across the aisle in a race like this. vote for a democrat, and it matters n s nationally, not jus because i hope some day you ll be doing the weather on channel 5 one day. that s a promise. we have the helicopter chopper for you, the traffic thing. in a in a senate that s so narrowly divided, this is a republican pickup, because this is bob corker s seat. so what s going to happen is, you re going to see, i think, a lot of images between now and november where trump will be in the state, doing these big rallies for blackburn, trying to keep that base moving. congresswoman blackburn is a figure on fox news. she s someone that campaigned for the president. he knows her. so you really do have a great microcosm, as you say, of what will be shaping the make upof the congress. all right. jonathan swan, thank you very much for your reporting, and coming up, ivanka trump says it was a low point for her, the separations of families from their children, and she also talked about whether or not the media is the enemy of the people. but the press secretary, given multiple chances, refused echo the sentiment on the media that ivanka put out. we ll talk about that ahead on morning joe. with the fastest retinol formula to visibly reduce wrinkles. neutrogena®. lean on me, when you re not strong and i ll be your friend i ll help you carry on lean on me. new laptop with 24/7 tech support. yep, thanks guys. i think he might need some support. yes start them off right. with the school supplies they need at low prices all summer long. save $200 on this dell laptop at office depot officemax. well. i feel very strongly about that, and i am very vehemently against family separation, and the separation of parents and children. yeah, but you can do better than that. i m sorry, willie. low point? ivanka trump. people seeking asylum in america trying to escape poverty, abuse, fear, violence. coming here and facing never seeing their kids again? that was ivanka trump yesterday acknowledging the impact of her father s policy on herself. the policy that tore children from their parents at the u.s. border. ivanka has never talked about the topic, other than congratulating her father over twitter after he stopped the policy that he created. yet hundreds, possibly thousands, of children s lives still hang in the balance, but that was a low point for her. so these kids are sitting in detention facilities. they re at summer camp some would say, facing potentially never seeing their seeing their again. but also a low point for the administration, as into suggest that it s not like it s something that happened to the administration as opposed to something that the administration inflicted on these children. a low point for the administration. like the weather. a low point for her. i just want to say that because ivanka trump has her own political aspirations you re going to have to do this a little better. you ll have to try and act like you care. you have to try and act like people are not merchandise products. you ll have to try and act like this matters to the fabric of what this country was created upon. who we are. this is not just a low point for you. this is not something you can throw away by calling it a low point for you. like maybe your company and all the people you had to fire because it s no longer politically convenient for you. this is not something you throw away because it s an out of production ivanka trump dress. no. these are people. these are children who right now we don t know where they are. we don t know exactly how many there are. we don t know how they are. but we know that they are being abused because they have been ripped away from their families, and some of them will never see their families again. and i just want to point out that this administration, this administration was warned about this policy. you heard the hhs secretary early this week talking about the effort to warn this administration, to warn you, it was an hhs official, warning you that this was the prong thing to do. that there would be bad outcomes here. and yet the president put this policy into place. the attorney general announced it. the dhs secretary said we hope that people get the message, this policy will help them get the message. this policy ripped children away from their families and some of them will never see their families again. and you, counselor to the president finally speak on it and you call it a low point for you. i don t think ate low point for you. i think it s a national disgrace and i think there s a lot of people who still want answers how these children are going to be reunited with their families feign care get yourself to the border and stay there until something really substantive is done. otherwise your words don t matter. we actually don t care what this was like for you. we care about the children. and we care about their families. we care about people coming here seeking asylum, coming to america the way many of our family members did, the way you talked about your mother. i believe you talked about people who come here from around the world, the melting pot that is america. you talked about it so positively. and yet what a low point for this administration and for you personally. it s still going on. it s not over. it s still going on. willie. the other maddening part about this is ivanka trump continues to talk like she s a bystander to all of this. she s the certificate advisor for the president. she s supposed to be with the president s ear. of all the children she s the one with her warning she could not stop it and bummed out for herself. again and again she comes in after the fact and talks about how distressing it was as though she has no say in the matter. that s exactly right. is she out there as the president s daughter. she has a west wing role and she does nothing. she voiced no agenda. she did have one thing she was kind of involved with. this should be her agenda. and to talk about things in the way of what i was upset and my low point, stop it and do something. she is not on tv as the president s daughter. that s the question she was asked. that s not how she was asked those questions. frankly she sold her doe be more involved in washington what s going on. i think it was either do something or go back to new york. all right. we ve got to get to the press angle on this and we want to get more on that. sarah huckabee sanders, more with david ignatius on that topic coming up. and whiskers on kittens bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens brown paper packages tied up with strings these are a few of my favorite things welcome back to morning joe . it s a few minutes before the top of the hour here. we ve been talking about ivanka trump calling her father s family separation policy a low point for her and the white house. ivanka told mike allen that the press is not the enemy of the people as her father had said repeatedly. do you think that we re the enemy of the people? sorry? [ laughter ] we re the enemy of the people? no, i do not. she says no i do not think the press is the enemy of the people. president trump later tweeted they asked my daughter whether the media is the enemy of the people. she correctly said no. it s the fake percentage which is a large percentage of the media that s the enemy of the people. at the white house briefing yesterday sarah huckabee sanders refused to answer whether she agrees with president trump that the media is the enemy of the people. it s ironic, jim, that not only you and the media attacked the president for his rhetoric when they frequently lower the level of conversation in this country. repeatedly, repeatedly the media resorts to personal attacks without any content other than to incite anger. the media continues to ratchet up the verbal assault against the president and everyone in this administration and certainly we have a role to play but the media has a role to play for the discourse in this country as well. the president of the united states should not refer to us as enemy of the people. her own daughter acknowledges that. i ask you to acknowledge that right here and right now. i acknowledge your passion. i share it. i ve addressed my personal feelings. i m here to speak on behalf of the president. he s made his comments clear. she says she speaks on behalf of the president. his comment has been that the press is the enemy of the people. even in these times at an extraordinary moment when the press secretary will not say that the working press is not the enemy of the people. yeah. as you say, it s hard to determine which is a lower moment. it s an elective kind of base management. it s pernicious. this is dangerous. this is not media elite people defending elite media people. to declare that a free press is the enemy of the people. and i just would say this, if i had two minutes with president trump, which is very unlikely, what i would say is this, we know you care about success and ratings. most people do. what do you want us to think when we look at your portrait down the years? do you want us to think of the reality show impresario and continued to govern just for his base or do you want us to look at you he got there by unconventional means but he tried to reach out beyond the people who didn t support him. the latter which is what you should want because this cycle is for a moment, sarah huckabee sanders will be dealing this with the rest of her life. these moments are for the moment. history is forever. and i just would think that the fact that it s in the national interest leave that aside. it s in their self-interest to stop playing this totalalitarian card. somebody will get hurt. it s not worth it. david ignatius, after sarah huckabee sanders had that moment in the briefing room, it was only amplified at the president s rally last night where he spent a large chunk he was there to campaign for somebody a large chunk of that speech railing against the media calling it the fake, fake, disgusting news was the term he used. on and won this obsession he s not treated fairly he s not given the credit he deserves for his achievements. it s a toxic situation. i think the president knows exactly what he s doing in his populism, media is the symbol of the elite that he wants to encourage the country to denounce. pretty soon we ll be getting the lock them up, the way things are going. that press room that sarah huckabee sanders is running is toxic. i ve never seen anything like that in 40 plus years of being a journalist. she should be ashamed of the briefing process that she s running. it s just unbelievable when she s asked to deny that the press is the enemy of the people after the first daughter said that is nonsense and she won t do it. and she won t do it because she s afraid of her boss, she s afraid of donald trump, and you can see watching him last night in pennsylvania why she s afraid of him. that s the big contrast. ivanka can t be fired and sarah huckabee sanders knows she can be fired. she s caring more about keeping her job. ivanka did what she needed to do for ivanka. sarah huckabee sanders is doing what she needs to do for president trump. in the process we re losing something incredibly important in this democracy. join the conversation to continue on this, eugene robinson. it s staggering to watch sarah huckabee sanders every day at the press briefing, every say it gets, if possible, more shocking and more disturbing when it comes to manipulating or devaluing the truth. what i saw yesterday was something worse, and she was reading prepared statements. this is a strategy, this is not something that trump or she is stumbling into. the strategy of playing the victim. it s why i didn t agree with what at the white house correspondence dinner because we make ourselves potentially vulnerable to being chipped away at by those who want to hurt exactly what it is we do. but she played the victim but had a prepared statement. did you see what i saw? i saw the same thing. i certainly saw her reading the prepared statement. you know, this segment of history is playing out as tragedy and farce at the same time. it is stunning. i had thought months ago that sarah huckabee sanders, you know, was the worst press secretary i had ever witnessed in my 40 years here in washington, and that her briefings were useless if she was just going to read, you know, sort of prepared nonresponses to perfectly reasonable and necessary questions and that s what she does routinely when she bothers to have a briefing. i think it s a, you know, on that level it s a waste of everybody s time. yesterday i guess it wasn t a waste of everybody s time. everybody put their cards on the table and we heard something that was just grotesque, i thought, the way that she sort of in a toady is the only word that comes to mind in her stance towards the president and she was so afraid to deviate from this line, this enemy of the people line, even a little bit. and so she had to write it out and read it and wouldn t go beyond it because, you know, i mean she can get fired. but look, sarah huckabee sanders, mike huckabee s daughter, a god fearing woman, what does she say when she kneels down to pray at night. and what sort of, you know, is she bargaining? because how can she be proud of this? how can she i don t know. that s something she has to live with. we care about what s happening to the national conversation, and to the safety of our democracy, and donny and susan, this is a strategy that works with the base, i believe. i saw her perfection for the base when i watched that briefing. yeah. look, without getting too, you know, high minded there are basically two pillars that protect our democracy. free elections and free press. and those are both obviously under assault. you know, what s scary is meacham mentioned a moment. trump is in a moment now. unfortunately the assault on the depression is not a momentary thing. even, thank goodness when trump is gone the combination of what he s left behind plus this little crater over here basically because we get information from so many places we forget what s the new york times or what s nbc versus what s some guy in his pajamas putting something out. those two kind of javelins coming at the press and the news will leave a lasting scab on what we as a people believe about the press. if we don t if we didn t have watergate. but that to me, just on a personal level, when trump gets up and says the press is the enemy of the people, i think of all the things he s ever said is the most frightening because that s the direct, direct line to a fascist. that s it. also you have to look at what happens as you just mentioned as it trickles down. i ve been involved in politics and government for almost 30 years. there s no trust left between reporters and politicians and their representatives. lying is now common practice. i ve never in a million years i thought i saw people who lie to the press or even the principals, politicians themselves, i had clients say just lie. that s unacceptable. it goes to the concept of a free press. it sounds quaint but at the same time it s so fundamental for everyone to be doing their jobs and to be held accountable in that way. so i think that s the biggest deteration, the thing that scares me the most the amount of lying that happens between those responsible for elected officials and conferring their communication. also at yesterday s press briefing, top national security and intelligence officials delivered a strong message about continued russian interference in the u.s. election process. this threat is not going away. as i have said consistently, russia attempted to interfere with the last election and continues to engaging maligned influence operations to this day. this is a threat we need to take extremely seriously, and to tackle and respond to with fierce determination and focus. the intelligence community continues to be concerned about the threats of upcoming u.s. elections. both the mid-terms and the presidential elections of 2020. in regards to russian involvement in the mid-term elections we continue to see a pervasive messaging campaign by russia to try to weaken and divide the united states. these efforts are not exclusive to this election, future elections but certainly cover issues relevant to the government. our focus today is simply to tell the american people we acknowledge the threat. it is real. it is continuing. we re doing everything we can to have a legitimate election that the american people can have trust in, in addition to that it goes beyond the elections, it goes to russia s intent to undermine our democratic values, drive a wedge between our allies, do a number of other nefarious things. our democracy itself is in the cross-hairs. free and fair elections are the corner stone of our democracy, and it has become clear that they are the target of our adversaries to sow discord and undermine our way of life. fast forward a few hours later and this is what the president said in the rally in pennsylvania. in helsinki i had a great meeting with putin. we discussed everything. i had a great meeting. [ cheers and applause ] we got along really well. by the way, that s a good thing, not a bad thing. that s a really good thing. now we re being hindered by the russian hoax. it s a hoax, okay. i ll tell you what, russia is very unhappy that trump won, that i can tell you. but i got along great with putin. and everybody said wow that was great, that was aggravate. couple of hours later i started hearing these reports that, you know, they wanted me to walk up to his podium, they wanted to go up and go like this. [ laughter ] they wanted me to go up and have a boxing match. i said whatever happened diplomacy? by the way, whatever happened to diplomacy? you know i used to study, not too much, diplomacy. i said whatever happened to getting everything what you want. set up a lot of awful straw man. nobody suggested you should fight putin. you were to perform the basic defense of democracy. but president said russia did not want trump to win. let s remind you at a news conference two and a half weeks ago. now we re being hindered by the russia hoax. it s a hoax, okay. i ll tell you what, russia is very unhappy that trump won that i can tell you. president putin did you want to president trump to win the election and did you direct any of your officials to help him do that? translator: yes, i did. yes, i did. yes, i did. yes, i did. david ignatius, there s a lot to wade through in there. the president filing grievances about the way the press covered what he thought were a couple of great summits in singapore, in helsinki. but his general theory of foreign policy, this idea that it s better to get along, that the goal is to have a good personal relationship with these leaders is something we ve not seen before. well, the president in this schtick as i can describe his presentation in pennsylvania last night, rambling, kind of breaks off in different directions, is trying to set up this idea of, as donni search said, uncle donald will be friends with vladimir putin, make deals. all the country expected the president to do when he was standing next to vladimir putin in helsinki, with overwhelming evidence of russia s effort to manipulate our election was to stand there forthrightly with dignity and pride in america and say this is unacceptable. people didn t want him to get into a boxing match. they wanted him to speak for the country. he doesn t seem to get that. why is that? we ll find out in the coming months. but this sort of whining narrative of how nobody is fair to me and they don t value all the great things i ve done, coming after a dignified presentation by the senior member of his cabinet, i have to say my esteem for dan coats is somebody who is prepared to speak out and say what he thinks and for secretary kirstjen nielsen who says it absolutely right, our democracy is in the cross-hairs, looks in the camera and says the words. they ve gone up in my estimation and we have to hope that they are the continuity of government that the country needs, not this show we get when the president is on the road. so just on that point, david, my gut on that is dan coats and christopher wray, they did not get oust by the president to go speak to the press my gut is we re going to go out to speak to the press don t stop us. at this point if you re in there you got to do what you can do to save this country. you won stay in there to stay silent when something needs to be said. that s just my gut on the background. i don t think president trump is pulling the strings on those guys. it s interesting because we had reporting from a variety of sources from places like the washington post and nbc news other places where administration officials telling reporters president trump wanted those people to go out, he directed them to go out. i think the instinct especially the way just hours later came out and contradicted them effectively by saying russian hoax makes you think perhaps that david ignatius view of them that they are acting that they are doing something that s not a partisan act, not trying to help donald trump, they are trying to speak truth to power here, that maybe more accurate. so, gene, i ask you, when you look at this, what does your gut say, what does your reporting say. are we looking at a bunch of, the front line here of the defense of the american democratic process and our election infrastructure or are we looking at kind of a janit janitorial crew trying to clean up the president s helsinki press conference. the latter. this is based more on analysis than reporting. but i think they are trying to clean it up. these are the top intelligence and security officials of our country went out there yesterday and i think it was in part because each of them has thousands of talented dedicated patriotic professionals working for them who see what s going on. and so that s another constituency they have. and officials who would have to go through a senate confirmation process, while no one has job security in the trump administration, they might have a little bit more because i think the president knows if he were to, you know, sweep away all the people who were pointing to russia, he would have some trouble from the senate. so, you know, i think it was more in their initiative than his certainly and what did the president do? he came out and said it s all a hoax. what they said is all a hoax. it was basically a generous invitation to vladimir putin to just keep on doing what you re doing. you re my buddy. you re my pal. we re going to make all sorts of deals, and if he doesn t care, if the commander-in-chief doesn t care what putin is at this moment trying to do, to disrupt the 2018 mid-term election that s only a few months away, if he doesn t care about that, the commander-in-chief doesn t care, then, you know, why should anybody else care? all right. joining us now, former u.s. diplomat, served as director of global engagement at the white house and is now president of the consulting firm global situation room. good to have you on. so here s what we heard from top intel directors yesterday. here s dni director coats the intelligence community continues to be concerned about the threats of the upcoming u.s. election both the mid-terms and the presidential elections in 2020. fbi director wray, the threat is not going away. is the american president paving the way for the process to be completely flawed, and could this be part of a grand strategy? what are you hearing when you listen to these intelligence leaders speaking out so publicly at the podium yesterday? well, five agency heads do not a strategy make and i think the absence of presidential leadership on this issue is incredibly concerning. we don t have the resources, we don t have the direction that s needed to deal with this issue, and while i think efforts were made yesterday to try to plug some of the holes in that dam, information warfare is like a flood. unless you have a real strategy to deal with it it simply is going to find another route in and that s unfortunately what we re facing now. i m looking at these pictures of yesterday s briefing. david ignatius, there s no way that the president, in my opinion, wanted this to happen. i think this might be a set of american patriots stepping up and doing the right thing. but what they said, david, was staggering and frightening about our future elections. well, mika, you re right. they are describing an attack on the united states and so i want to ask brett if the united states was going to get serious enough to really deter that attack, what would it need to do that it s not doing now? first thing is, let me steal a word from russia. we need a czar. we need an information warfare czar, someone who is going to take the work that s being done at each of those agenciesand make sure it will have an effect. they need resource. nothing yesterday talked about additional resources that would be able to be brought to bare for this issue. we know something is serious when resources are put behind it. brett, this is willie geist. the implication yesterday was things have gotten better in 2018 than they were in 2016 presidential election in terms of stopping some of that russian interference. how do they arrive at that conclusion? what is that the result of. more resources? more focus on the problem? my theory is things haven t gotten better they got more sophisticated in hiding them. i think what we re going to face in the congressional elections are microefforts. they will microtarget key districts. they will go into key states. we won t see the national effort so it won t be quite as visible. still ahead on morning joe, we re seeing more and more reports about alleged abuse of children who have been separated from their parents. congresswoman karen bass is calling on congress to do something about it. with the fastest retinol formula available. it s clinically proven to work on fine lines and wrinkles. one week? that definitely works! rapid wrinkle repair®. and for dark spots, rapid tone repair. neutrogena®. see what s possible. when did you see the sign? when i needed to jumpstart sales. build attendance for an event. help people find their way. fastsigns designed new directional signage. and got them back on track. get started at fastsigns.com. and got them back on track. but behr premium stain y can weather any weather. overall #1 rated, weathers it all. find our most advanced formula exclusively at the home depot. 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. it s the ultimate wifi experience. xfinity xfi, simple, easy, awesome. . the trump administration says it believes the spotlight for finding hundreds of deported parents separated from their children at the border rests with groups like the aclu and not with the federal government. just think about that for a second, since the federal government did this. in court filings yesterday the justice department wrote that the aclu should quote use their considerable resources and their network of law firms, volunteers and others to contact the deported parents of separated children. the administration also suggested that the group find out if the estimated 431 parents who were deported without their children wished to be reconnected, or whether they waived that option. attorneys for the aclu responded to the administration, saying it was trying to evade its responsibility bypassing its work off to private groups. meanwhile a 32-year-old employee at a shelter for migrant children in arizona is accused of sexual abusing a 14-year-old girl housed at the facility. according to court records the employee is accused of slipping into the girl s bedroom late at night and allegedly forcibly kissing and inappropriately touching her. the suspect was arrested and charged on tuesday with molestation of a child, sexual abuse and aggravated assault. in a statement southwest key programs which operates dozens of shelters for migrant children across the country did not address questions about whether the girl involved was previously separated from her parents at the border. the company said the employee in question has been fired. damage done. quickly, what s happened to us? yeah. you know, on break we were talking just as humans, and it s easy to get lost. all the stories i want to rehash that we talk about today. those people at the rally, the 35%, are they so different from us? moment after moment after moment this man shows on a basic human level and this is the epitome of this story are we so different. is everybody s moral code off base? just the lying and the detestable behavior on a simple human level. what are we missing that those other people it s not 5%, it s not 10%, arguably one out of three or two out of five people in this country go that s right. what are we missing? joining us now a member of the house foreign affairs committee, democratic congresswoman karen bass of california. here on set best selling author, very good to have you both. congresswoman, how do we ever get the answers about these children and also pointing to donnie s question. thank you for talking about the children. here s what i m concerned about. i spend a lot of time on focusing on our nation s foster care system which is already exploding. in some states it s doubled by numbers because of the opioid crisis. we don t have enough foster homes for children that need be there because they were abused or neglected. so the clock is tick on these children. if they are not reunited within a certain amount of time parental rights can be terminated and they can be put up for adoption. can you imagine years from now looking for their birth parents and the only reason they were put up for adoption is because of our policy. and some children are ineligible to be returned to parents. what on earth makes a person ineligible. our child welfare system if you have a conviction and by the way when i went to one of the detention facilities i asked what would make a parent ineligible. well the parent might have a conviction. give me an example of a conviction. we had a father who had a dui. can you imagine not getting your child back because you had a dui? i m curious, are you exploring legal options? at this point aren t we looking at defendings for what s happening here that perhaps we ve never seen this before. isn t this abuse of children? isn t this kidnapping? isn t this now leading to more problems? and what are the legal rights of these children and their parents? well, not only that, we are taking them away and then may or may not reunite them but you know that we re charging the parents, so for example, if you get deported there are examples of parents who are told you have to pay $1500 because we re going to fly your kid home along with a chaperone. that s a lucky parent that knows where their child is. this is state sponsored child abuse. only reason you should ever separate a child from their parent is if there is documented abuse or neglect. not as punishment or as a deterrent. it s a complete misuse of the child welfare system. i think there should be a legal avenue to defend these children if they are being abused unless anybody here at the table disagrees this appears to be a complete and utter abuse. absolutely. the administration s statement of the aclu that this is an aclu responsibility is cynical. we have a country that s violating its moral principles right now and we re projecting on our fear, on the most vulnerable population. people who are children, the most innocent and vulnerable population. we have fear. we should put it about the destruction of our institutional, the foundation of this institution on this country other than the most vulnerable people. so for me right now what we need to do in america is about individual actions, individuals regardless of who you are, what your beliefs are. if you have a heart we have to stand up for these children and for their parent because this is about our hearts at the moment and our souls. congresswoman bass? you know, i think that we re going to have to keep up the pressure. i introduced a piece of legislation 37 days ago that said that it is the federal government s responsibility to reunite the parents and i think unless we completely expose this problem, they are just going to hope that it goes away. mika, i can t tell you what it was like to be in the detention center when the parents were reunited with their children. there wasn t a dry eye in the room. the idea that the secretary of homeland security would say some of these parents, maybe they will waive their right, maybe they don t want their children back. we treat animals better than this. in a few minutes we ll hear an organization protecting immigrant rights. congresswoman bass, thank you very much for being on. stay with us. we ll talk more about this. we ll keep talking about it. it s more than just a low point. coming up, is the enemy of your enemy your friend? some authoritarian leaders may be willing to fight back against terrorism but what do they represent in its place. it s a fundamental challenge for american foreign policy in the middle east. we ll talk about president trump s approach to it next on morning joe . come away with me barnabas! but i am a simple farmer. my life is here. 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- anncr: prevagen. healthier brain. better life. work. history is likely to repeat itself. you can suppress people for a certain amount of time but in the long run it comments back at you hard. what do leaders across the middle east think about the president of course i would sit down with rouhani. does that turn previous u.s. orthodoxy on its head? it s not like the monarchs of the persian gulf are confronting me. they take the president s statements with a grain ever salt. people s perspective on that statement is what you see. what do you think about the situation now in egypt. this alliance that s formed between egypt, israel, saudis and uae. we ve never seen anything at this level before. it all began in 2013. you were there and i was there when the military took over and removed the democratically elected president who was a muslim brotherhood. and what forged the current alliance we see across the region between israel, cc and persian monarchs. when we talk about iran, as david said a lot of the middle eastern countries they want america to have a war with iran. let s not forget that obama administration was talking to iran. so the fact that you have a president of the united states who says let s have overtures with iran is nothing new. to david s point you would see trump would be met with a lot of resistance if he tried to meet with rouhani. the aback gulf countries would not welcome that meeting. we saw that with mike pompeo who a few hours after trump said he would meet with rouhani came out and said to when would not happen without conditions and here s the conditions we want to see. in the book you write about the coup that brought cc to power in egypt and as we read the book the extent to which the obama administration was not only aware of but helpful in that coup is astounding. i stopped before helpful. this is not iran 1953 when the cia deposed a government. this is a little bit different. what you see is a pattern of mixed messages where obama down to the last hours is trying to say to the president i want to help you stay in power let s pull this off. kerry the secretary of state has given up on him and letting everybody know that he thinks he s toast. and the defense minister is saying look whatever happens i want to be friends. we got your back. then you re probably wondering what is the intelligence agency doing. the day of the coup, he got a call from an arab diplomat who said what do you think? he said i know this is inconsistent with stated u.s. policy. i think it s a good idea. not helpful in a material way but as you write in the book some familiar characters like general mattis and general michael flynn were supportive of the coup. much of the american government outside of the president s office greeted it with applause. to the extent that the military relationship is now with the united states and somewhat strained in the last couple of years especially during the transition period, helicopters were suspended, aid was subject to being suspended what is the u.s.-egyptian relationship today? solid as a rock. most people and some others with chagrin would say the egyptian military has paid no price whatsoever for removing the democratically elected president in 2015. what s your assessment on america s credibility prior to 2015. always discredited. is it clear for the egyptian population or the middle eastern population right now? i wouldn t say it s clear. people remember things that the obama administration was saying for a period of 30 months about how the only way to lasting durable stability is an open responsive government that reflects the will of the people. the u.s. government is not saying that now. not long ago that was main talk point. a lot of people are talking about russia right now, russia s interference in american democracy. do people find america has done that to us in many parts of the world? somewhat, but as you know you ve traveled around the region there s plenty of people who like to feel that. our own president seems in some ways to resemble their president these days. he brings his family to the white house. he scoffs at the court. sort of endorsing their own authoritarian will. a shot in foot. david kirkpatrick, great interview. thank you very much. the book is into the hands of the soldiers. it s on sale this tuesday. you can pre-order it, though. we ll be watching morning joe first look at 5:00 a.m. still ahead new reporting about what went down in the oval office the day before mueller was appointed special counsel. it could help explain the president s anger. we have the latest reporting ahead on morning joe . oh, milk. another breakfast, another dilemma. am i willing to pay the price for loving you? you ll make my morning, but ruin my day. complicated relationship with milk? pour on the lactaid. it s delicious 100% real milk, just without that annoying lactose. mmm, that s good. lactaid. the real milk that doesn t mess with you. and for chocolate lovers, try rich, creamy lactaid chocolate milk. booking a flight doesn t have to be expensive. just go to priceline. it s the best place to book a flight a few days before my trip and still save up to 40%. just tap and go. for the best savings on flights, go to priceline. have been treated for heart failure, or if you have persistent fever, bruising, bleeding, or paleness. don t start enbrel if you have an infection like the flu. since enbrel, dad s back to being dad. visit enbrel.com and use the joint damage simulator to see how your joint damage could be progressing. ask about enbrel. enbrel. fda approved for over 15 years. the full value oft wyour new car? 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[ cheers and applause ] i just figured that out right now. the president is speaking last night at a rally in pennsylvania. joining us now editor-in-chief of instyle magazine, laura brown. hello. i love instyle, the latest issue s cover story takes a look at five women. five amazing women trying to protect immigrant rights in texas and they are amazing women. what are they doing when this aberration started happening on the border we put a call out firstly on social media asking women who are working in immigrant advocacy to put their hand up and discuss what they were doing and we got a huge response from that. of course as soon as the prominence writers started because there was a facebook fundraiser by a family who was so distressed by the image imag h honduran girl crying at the border. they ended up raising $50,000 to help women pay bail. but what i want to do is get to behind this organization because there is a lot of outrage, and justifiable, but for us it was like, who are these women and what do they do? these guys have been working for something like 35 years, and now there s more of a spotlight and now it s more challenging. so we went down to their office and shot this image which is beautiful with the women and the train and people crossing the border. it s amazing. they re stepping up because they feel it in their heart, they feel it in their bones. yes. not to sort of harp on this, but note to ivanka trump. if you vehemently disagree with what is happening with these families, profile these women. put them on your instagram. celebrate them. support them. help them raise money. perhaps join them. really. if it s what you believe, that s what you could do. or honor them. yeah, ivanka has a lot of followers. this is the most beautiful thing about america, i have to say. i ve worked all over the world, and to raise $20 million for these immigrants, this is so beautiful, and we have to remember the values. there is goodness there. to the distressing segment you had before about the abused girl, we need these women to get these girls out of these places. they shouldn t be in there, but these women, it s a constant fight. yes, they are in the spotlight now, they don t care about that. they re doing the work. they re sitting there in court with kids who should not be there. with kids who are signing waivers with a four-year-old. how many kids are not with their parents? i don t really know. who are actually written down. they re in there every damn day. they don t get paid that great. everyone can act. everyone can join them, show your support, show your love. go to the borders. this is what is beautiful about america, is that people, individuals, can act and do something. donate, volunteer, anything. and use your platform to help. what is the divide of keeping families away, no matter what color they are? to your point, laura, this group didn t sprout up as a reaction. they closed 51,000 cases last year before there was a focus on this zero tolerance policy. what are the obstacles they re finding right now? who is in their way? trying to find people to put together. trying to find these children who were shuttled all over the place and parents who were sent back home. it s like looking for a needle in a haystack. it is not even having this group, it s this. that s altogether harder. but what they do have is public support and funds to be able to do this and to be able to get these women out of detention. what you talked about, ivanka, i ve always liked ivanka, and if i could give her some brand advice right now, more than anyone at this table, she is in a position to do something. can you imagine what it would doob fdo for her brand, her political career i hate to be transactional, but what it would mean if she took the football. she doesn t have to diss her father. she could say, i m going to spearhead this. if it s 491, i m going to find them. here s why it won t happen. we ve all found this in our lives. the most important things that we ve done, i think about know your value, you do it because you care deeply about it. you have to care deeply. and i m sorry, you re not seeing that from this president or the counsel to the president. it s stunning. i always thought of ivanka as a decent person. just do a transaction. she needs to be authentic. that s what this country wants. she is, trust me. we need hearts, we need authenticity, we need truth, we need people to show up. this is the time to show up, any individual. it s a little late for authenticity on her part. she hasn t done anything for three months. wherever it s coming from, do the right thing. laura brand, thank you, and thank you for profiling these women. it is my privilege. and people can go to the website and find out how to support them, and we ve got all kinds of women working on this. please join the aclu. if you haven t joined, do so now. that s why i gave you a plug. thank you for being on this morning. we ll go live to the new york stock exchange for reaction to the jobs report. it s due out soon. plus this. i had obamacare done except one guy at 2:00 in the morning went in and said he went thumbs down. even though he campaigned for years repeal and replace. more from trump s rally in pennsylvania last night where, as you saw there, he continued his mockery of a u.s. war hero and senator who is now battling cancer. morning joe is coming right back. with drivewise. it lets you know when you go too fast. .and brake too hard. with feedback to help you drive safer. giving you the power to actually lower your cost. unfortunately, it can t do anything about that. now that you know the truth. are you in good hands? 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[ booing ] these are the slices they slice people up. they want me to walk up and go like this. some of the president at his rally last night in pennsylvania, and there was much, much more of that. good morning, everyone. it s friday, august 3rd. welcome to morning joe. we have a number of important developments to get through, including a stark warning from the intel community. russia is at it again. they ve got the public s attention but what about the president s? does he care? what s going on? plus, dan coats speaks truth to power, again. the director of national intelligence admits he still does not know what the president told vladimir putin last month in helsinki. think about it, the director of national intelligence. and ivanka trump says that it was a low point for her when the separations of children from their family were happening under her father s administration through her father s policy. she says it was a low point. she was felt bad about it. the big question is, will she do anything about it besides prepared comments? with us we have national affairs analyst for nbc news and msnbc john heilman. donny deutsch is here. susan del persio is here. columnist for the washington post, david ignatius and jon meacham, the author of the soul of america. a battle we re in right now for sure. joel will be back on monday. what did you think of the president last night watching him? two things. i thought extraordinary two hours after his intelligence apparatus, he was laying out how russia continues to interfere in our elections and he went to that rally and called it a russian hoax. reportedly he sent those people out as director of national intelligence and the fbi director. i also thought it was another pathetic grievance session, airing his grievances, talking about how unfairly he s treated by the press. i wondered what it would be like if he spent the time and energy he spends on that focusing on things like clean water in flint or visiting troops in a war zone, for example. it just strikes me as a monumental waste of time for a president of the united states to go on and on and on on one or two subjects that he can t get past. john heilman, your thoughts. watching this rally last night as it pertains to all the rallies we ve seen, but what are you thinking at this point watching this man? i m thinking it s getting old. the things that he s talking about are really i agree with everything willie said, there are things that are disturbing, especially the way he is able to knock down his intelligence chiefs who supposedly sent out. the reporting was, i want those five people to go out there and make the case for me. then he goes out on the stage and basically undercuts them, but as a political story, right? it s not just red meat, it s red, raw meat for the 35% that we as the core trump base. he s in a state where he s got a senate candidate who is trailing, he s not in a super strong position. he s not going to win pennsylvania by appealing to that 35%. he s got to be talking about other things, but what is he not talking about? he s not talking about the economy, he s not talking about things that will matter to the pennsylvania voters who will determine that election. so great to rev up the base. he s very good at that. he s proven that over and over again, but this message and the grievance fest that it is does nothing to expand the voter pool that s going to be drawn on by lou barretta or republicans around the country. there s a reason i m asking. david ignatius, we ll take you next, specifically on the media and on russia. your take on the president last night? it s as if we have two governments. one government that states responsible policies drawn from what our intelligence agencies have discovered issuing warnings to state governments doing the business to government. then we have this other government, this other ring in our national circus in which the president conducts a daily anti-elitist rant. the principal targets are people in the media. i hate to say it, but we re the best thing he has going for him. he doesn t have any other issues other than arousing the public to make them think we re somehow elitist or enemies. he s making us the central theme of his campaign. we just have to see that right in the eyes. mika, there are two separate rings to this circus now. it seems that there are some people who are beginning to understand that. he was going after generals last night. jon meacham, is there a figure in history that parallels what s happening with this president? i think it s joe mccarthy. this is as if mccarthy had become president, to go to john s point about getting old. roy mccomb, who was both joe mccarthy s and donald trump s. j he wrote a book about joe mccarthy, that a car was just a vehicle to take over american politics and particularly in the right wing. and secondly, people got tired of the show. they got tired of having, as fdr once said, the highest note in the scale repeated again and again. susan dell persio and then donny. what is your gut? the first thing i thought of listening again to all his falsehoods was, wow, this is why all of the president s attorneys do not want him to go in front of robert mueller. he just gets all revved up and he simply cannot tell the truth. and yes, it s getting old, but thank goodness people are still speaking up and trying to speak out against it, but boy, is he in trouble if he goes in front of mueller. donny? the saddest and most frightening thing to me when trump goes to these rallies is not trump himself, it s the people. people are excited to meet mr. trump. excited is a nice word, but the rigor they accept his information people had an article about people who consider themselves strong trump supporters. 80% said they believe the information they get from trump is accurate. 60% thought information they get from their family is accurate. if their friend or family member told them something, they re less likely to believe it than that goofball up there, crazy uncle donny. there is the government that exists and we now have this figure that we continue to have completely unaccountable to even his own staff. and there is no repercussion. so we will talk this day today and say dan coats and chris wray and john bolton came out and said, this was a fact, it is a fact, and then trump gets on stage and says it is not. so we have crazy uncle donny talking to his base that stunningly, regardless of his base, will continue to go, but the voters will speak in november. 33, 34%, yes, a lot of them vote in the primary, but there will be a wave the likes of which we ve never seen before. my take is this. it s blunt, fair to say, and i ve been there before and i did it when it wasn t cool to do and i m going to do it again. he s not well. that s the bottom line. there is no way anyone who knows donald trump but has not bought in in some way would watch him last night and not come away with the feeling that the president of the united states is completely unhinged and getting worse by the day. perhaps the stress is really squeezing in on him. it s interesting that a former reality tv star and colleague of trump is releasing a book with the title unhinged. and this is a woman who knew him during his reality show days very well and then went with him to the white house. and in it she describes a reaction to a man that she had known for over a decade who is in a state of mental decline. it s a concern we voiced on this show during the campaign and over the last tumultuous 18 months. try and find someone who is not politically invested or too fearful of donald trump or the republican party who knew the man a decade ago who will tell you that his mental state has not deteriorated radically over the past two years or changed or come out in some way. it is transforming what we re watching. you will not find that person from donald trump s past if they re telling you the truth. we were told of his unfitness for office by those closest to him on the campaign, and we saw it ourselves up close in the december 15 interview in which he first pledged his frailty to vladimir putin. you can pull that interview up. it s a little embarrassing, but i will say you can see in our faces in realtime us kind of going from jovial to fun to sitting up and listen to him and realizing, this guy is not right. this is bad what s happening here. we showed you this person throughout the campaign and we pointed out those issues. you listened to him talk about russia during the campaign on this show. we were told repeatedly that it was somehow out of balance to comment on the candidate s declining mental state. no, i m not a doctor, but i know what we see and we know donald trump. we all know what campaign staffers told us two years ago, and i know that the dangerous blustering bigot on the stage last night is even more boorish and less connected to reality than tehe was ten years ago. donald trump is not well, and everyone close to him says it. they re all scared of what he s going to say or tweet yet. his republican dupes know it, and yet no one, seemingly, will do anything about it, not the people who can. same as it ever was, but much more precarious right now for the media, the press, far more dangerous for our democracy. mika, i want to jump on that for a minute. that popped in my head last night also, and a few months ago i watched a harrowing interview i did with him in 2007. his cadence, his eyes, he was a different guy. i would ask everybody to go and look at some old interviews with donald trump. he s not just younger. his entire mannerisms, his entire way of speaking is different. so i m glad we brought that up because we all kicked that around for a long time, and then it became the page turns, the worm turns. i m so glad you brought that up because that is an ongoing i think at this point almost a given when you watch this man s behavior. still ahead on morning joe, as we mentioned in just the space of a few hours yesterday, president trump boasted of his burgeoning relationship with vladimir putin as putin warned of his attacks on america. first, bill karens with a check on the forecast. bill? we haven t had really horrible flooding like we did last week in harrisburg, but take a look at lynchburg, virginia. the river was so high, one of the dams was overflowing. they thought it was going to fail. it didn t, thankfully. then they had evacuations of about 124 people. right now the water has dropped a little bit. let s get into the radar here. we re watching heavier rain develop in north carolina. once again the rains will move up into virginia, into the mountainous areas of the appalachians. 36 million people are at risk of flash flooding today. now we ll watch heavy rain shift through the mountains of virginia, washington, d.c., state college and new york. middle of the country is dry. there is no reason to really talk about any wet weather in the west because there is not going to be any any time soon. on saturday watch out for early heavier rain. scattered storms in the southeast and getting better. finally, your reward in the mid-atlantic, a dry sunday. that s the day for the pool, the beach, the lake. get outdoors. still sunny and hot in areas of the west and the fire season continues to roll on. new york city, you have a dry morning on timing those thunderstorms out. right around 2:00 to 4:00 this afternoon. you re watching morning joe. we ll be right back. another anti-wrinkle cream in no hurry to make anything happen. neutrogena® rapid wrinkle repair® works in just one week. with the fastest retinol formula available. it s clinically proven to work on fine lines and wrinkles. one week? that definitely works! rapid wrinkle repair®. and for dark spots, rapid tone repair. neutrogena®. see what s possible. new laptop with 24/7 tech support. yep, thanks guys. i think he might need some support. yes start them off right. with the school supplies they need at low prices all summer long. save $200 on this dell laptop at office depot officemax. save $200 on this dell laptop 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. it s the ultimate wifi experience. xfinity xfi, simple, easy, awesome. we mentioned at the top of the show at the white house press briefing, reportedly at the president s instruction, top intel officials delivered a strong message about continued russian interference in the u.s. election process. this threat is not going away. as i have said consistently, russia attempted to interfere with the last election and continues to engage in maligned influence operations to this day. this is a threat we need to take extremely seriously and to tackle and respond to with fierce determination and focus. the intelligence community continues to be concerned about the threats of upcoming u.s. elections, both midterms and the presidential elections of 2020. in regards to russian involvement in the midterm elections, we continue to see a pervasive messaging campaign by russia to try to weaken and divide the united states. these efforts are not exclusive to this election or future elections but certainly cover issues relevant to the election. our focus here today is simply to tell the american people we acknowledge the threat, it is real, it is continuing and we re doing everything we can to have a legitimate election that the american people can have trust in. in addition to that, it goes beyond the elections, it goes to russia s attempt to undermine our democratic values, drive a wedge between our allies and do other nefarious things. our democracy itself is in the crosshairs. free and fair elections are the cornerstone of our democracy, and it has become clear that they are the target of our adversaries who seek to sow discord and undermine our way of life. that was a pretty clear message there. fast-forward a couple hours later. this is what the president said at that rally in pennsylvania. in helsinki, i had a great meeting with putin. we discussed everything. we got along really well. by the way, that s a good thing, not a bad thing. that s a really good thing. now, we re become hindered by the russian hoax. it s a hoax, okay? i ll tell you what, russia is very unhappy that trump won, that i can tell you. but i got along great with putin. and everybody said, wow, that was great, that was great. a couple hours later i started hearing these reports that, you know, they wanted me to walk up his podium they wanted me to walk up and go like this. they wanted me to go up and have a boxing match. i said, whatever happened to diplomacy? and by the way, whatever happened to diplomacy? i used to study, not too much, diplomacy. i said, whatever happened to getting everything you want? there is a lot in there. obviously president putin at that press conference in helsinki said very clearly that he wanted then donald trump to become president. david ignatius, let s walk through this just a lgt bittle . what we heard yesterday from dan coats and others was not a new conclusion. that is what intelligence agencies came to in january 2007. they just are stating that it s continuing here in the 2018 elections. why would trump tell them to do that if he s going to undercut them a few hours later? what i ve sensed since the helsinki summit is the senior officials of this administration are pushing back harder, are more willing to speak frankly in public, to the president. i ve noted that from dan coats who, in his famous interview with andrea mitchell, he was stunned by what he didn t know, but he just told the truth question after question. secretary mattis. i was at a dinner where secretary mattis spoke in public. he is going to the federal pentagon. he s more open about what he sees and hears going on. we got that from secretary of state pompeo. kirstjen nielsen said very emphatically, our democracy is in the crosshairs. so they re using strong language to describe to the public what they see. then you have the president. it s almost like lawyers talk about jury nullification. that s not as important as these terrible outrages being done to me and minimizing it. it s not the first time a politician has gone the other way from his administration and tried to arouse the base, completely independent of what they do every day. i think we re going to get an answer in a couple months, because what the public makes of this weird two-stage circus, two-government thing we re watching, but it was good to see the senior officials of our government be so emphatic and clear in stating the truth as they understand it. coming up on morning joe, brand new numbers in the economy. plus, if president trump ever sits down with bob mueller, it won t be the first time. bloomberg s shannon pettipice has an interview for a job. that job. more when we come back on morning joe. it s the ford summer sales event and now is the best time to buy. preparing classic campfire trout. say what? trout. trout. all right. you don t think i need both? why does he have that axe? make summer go right with ford america s best selling brand. now get 0% financing for 72 months plus $1,000 ford credit bonus cash on a great selection of suv s. during the ford summer sales event, get our best offer of the season 0% financing for 72 months plus $1,000 ford credit bonus cash. we ve helped the marine mammal center go solar, install electric vehicle charging stations, and become more energy efficient. pg&e has allowed us to be the most sustainable organization we can be. any time you help a customer, it s a really good feeling. it s especially so when it s a customer that s doing such good and important work for the environment. together, we re building a better california. joining us now, veteran chief of warfare, anderson benjamin witti and reporter from bloomberg news, shannon pettypiece. shannon, we ll start with yours which looks at the potential origins of president trump s anger with robert mueller. you re right in part. president trump sat with robert mueller in may of last year to interview him for a job, director of the fbi. the next afternoon trump was in another oval office meeting when an aide interrupted with news that mueller had taken a different post, special counsel to investigate trump s campaign. trump and jeff sessions were blindsided. the president immediately blasted sessions for not knowing the announcement was coming and challenged how the person he had just interviewed for the fbi job and who trump said had a past dispute with him over golf club fees could now be investigating him, the person said. sessions was so rattled by the president s anger in that interrupted oval office meeting that he resigned verbally that day and later submitted a formal letter of resignation. acco according to the person briefed on the meeting. shannon, where do we begin? the president blindsided and what about the club fees? the point i m trying to point out here is these two people have a history, a history that maybe hasn t been obvious to robert mueller but very significant to donald trump. so the moment he found out about mueller s appointment, he was not just angry that a special counsel had been named but that it was mueller. and i talked to a number of white house advisers who were around at the time and they said they would hear repeatedly trump raising the issue about these golf club fees. the version of the story that was recounted to people was trump said mueller wanted to get back some golf club fees when he left as a member of trump s northern virginia golf club, and trump said those fees were nonrefundable. in trump s account of this dispute, they got into some sort of heated exchange, is the way trump have been talking about it. robert mueller denied there was any dispute. we couldn t get him to comment on this again. the other part that trump can t seem to give up is that robert mueller interviewed about 24 hours before he was named special counsel. in the president s telling of this story, he turned mueller down for the job. other people contradict that. just to put a little bit of the president s mindset and what he is telling those around him, he feels like he s being investigated by someone who has a grudge against him or some personal ven did he tevendetta. that is certainly in the president s mind. the president tweeted that bob mueller is, quote, totally inflicted. you had this scene where sessions was so rattled by the president s anger over what mueller, he believed, had done to him in a disloyal way that he resigned verbally and submitted his resignation letter. what changed that cap ter in histo chapter. jeff sessions was completely blindsided by this announcement as well as jeff sessions chief of staff was also blindsided by this. they felt they should at least have been given heads up by rod rosenstein. they could be told, we re making a decision about the special counsel. they didn t need to have approval, they didn t need to sign off on anybody, they just wanted the encouragement. he resigned right will in the oval ofls. i was told that my president s advisers told her you cannot lose cohen at this point, that it would be too damaging to the special counsel even if your attorney general resigned in some way at this point. it s john heilman here. i just want to ask you on about snft stuff that shannon is reporting. he said there was this contentious relationship with bob mueller over golf fees, he said he tried to become director, et cetera, et cetera. given bob mueller s history, and given donald trump s we ve ever heard from an american president, whose credibility are you going to why do we have any reason to believe trump s claims on this, given the subject in question? imagine the scene in bob mueller s office where they re sitting around trying to decide whether to clear the president get rid of all these witch hunty allegations they ve got. they re all sitting around a conference table and bob mueller s cracked staff. mueller looks back at him with that glare, and he said, yeah, but the golf club fees. if that s as comical as it sounds, that s clearly what bob mueller is not thinking about. and, you know, the other issue is a little bit more substantial, i think, where mueller was interviewed for the job that he had had for 12 years the day before he was appointed. but here s the thing, there are very few people you would talk to about taking over the fbi in that crisis situation. and bob mueller is one of them, and he was there, presumably, at the president s request, not as a result of having, right? so then, you know, rod and says, hey, i need you to do this in a crisis situation, take over this investigation. . i don t really see what the issue is other than it looms very large in the mind of the president. the department of justice seeming to confirm to you that president trump made up department data during his national televised first address to a joint session of congress. so here s what the president claimed in that speech back in february. according to data provided by the department of justice, the vast majority of individuals convicted of terrorists and terrorism-related offenses since 9/11 came here from outside of our country. you have people behind him nodding. but ben, you were not nodding. tell us your reaction upon hearing trump make that claim, and what did you do about it? when i read that claim, i knew immediately that it was false. there is a lot of terrorist and terrorism-related crimes in the united states perpetrated by americans. you know, things like charlottesville, right? and the only way you can make a statement like that is if you ignore all the domestic terrorism that we have. you know, tim mcvey and that sort of stuff. i was stkeptical about it from the moment i read the speech, and i asked a couple of my law students to study it, and they produced an analysis that really gave me confidence that the president was wrong. i submitted a foyer request to the justice department for any data that would support that. and to boil it down, we had a long litigation. it took a year, but the other day the justice department wrote me a letter that said that there were no records describing the universe of terrorism cases that the president referred to in that speech. and so it s very rare that you get a letter from the justice department that basically says the president of the united states made up justice department data about terrorism in a speech to a joint session of congress, but that s really what happened. you know, maybe the first time it s ever happened in the history of the country. that was not wilkes-barre, by the way, that was a joint session of congress, that speech. that s right, it was a prepared speech. the president lies all the time, as john said before, but this was a remarkable thing because this is, you know, the president standing in the well of representatives making a formal address and it came right at the time of the you know, the travel ban, the initial travel ban, and, you know, it was a particularly offensive thing to do because it was sort of part of his, you know, campaign of of vilification of immigrants and this suggestion that a vast majority of terrorism is a function of immigration is just nonsense, and the attribution of that to justice department data struck me as a particular abuse of federal government statistics. well, we re at a point, i really think we re well past the point where politicians and members of the president s team and cabinet, they have to choose what side of history they want to be on. and they have to start being competent. that s a competence issue. they have policies that they have no idea what they re doing. or that they believe in or that they do. shannon pettypiece, we ll be reading your new reporting at bloomberg news. we ll go live to the new york stock exchange for reaction next on morning joe. expert medicine works here. learn more at cancercenter.com wmust have cost a lot. a fancy hotel. actually, i got a great deal. priceline saves you up to 60% on hotels, but that s something the hotels don t really want other guests to know. i saved about 120 dollars a night! did you say you saved 120 dollars a night on a room? 120 a night on a hotel room. that s a lot of savings! i saved even more on my flight. save up to 60% on hotels with priceline. new laptop with 24/7 tech support. yep, thanks guys. i think he might need some support. yes start them off right. with the school supplies they need at low prices all summer long. save $200 on this dell laptop at office depot officemax. breaking economic release of the monthly jobs report. how many jobs were had last month. 157,000, which isn t too bad, but they were hoping for 190,000, so this is a slower pace than we have seen. the unemployment rate did tick down, that s good, to 3.9% from 4%, right around that 18-year low of 3.8% we hit back may. so 3.9% wages, which are very important, rising 2.7% from last year. that s what economists were looking for. it s not the 3% robust number we want to see. with this level of employment rate, you would expect to see bigger wage gains for employees. we want to get near that 3% level. haven t been able to do that. just in terms of the overall picture, because month to month it can be a little messy and volatile. jobs have been created each month. that s better than the pace of 2018 and it s impressive for this stage of economic recovery. we re entering our tenth year and firms are still hiring jobs, especially looking health this month, and manufacturing and construction. importantly for the markets, it doesn t do anything to alter the policy of the federal reserve, and importantly for the economy, it doesn t really do anything to alter the somewhat healthy pace of job creation and economic growth we ve seen lately. susan dell persio, your gut on the impact the economy has on the midterms as we look at this report leading up to the midterms. it certainly helps republicans in the swing district if they can point to the economy. the trick is they have to point to the economy without pointing to donald trump. that s the needle that needs to be threaded. up next, it s not meant to be a horror film but it could be the scariest movie of the summer for parents. we ll tell you what movie it is and explain why, next on morning joe. because you ve made sure this sensor and this machine are integrated. atta, boy. & yes, some people assign genders to machines. & with edge-to-edge intelligence, you ll know your customers love this color, & don t love this one. never getting grape again. & you can adjust in 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because it s, like, weird or scary or something like that. i think you re so cool. i m going to stop eating with you can i say one thing please? fine. thank you. look, when i was your age, i was not cool like you. you have all these interests and your videos and just how you express yourself in them is so it s just so cool. it s so great. and i just think maybe you need to put yourself out there a little bit more. please stop. oh, my gosh, this is so good. a look there at the new movie eighth grade about a teenage girl about to enter high school, navigating today s all-consuming social media age. did you see the phone at the table and she was like, you know, looking at it. joining us now, the film s writer and director beau burnen. there s so many things. this is like an exploration of human anxiety in the technology age. i wanted to write a movie about how i was feeling at the time which is anxious. the more i realized i think i was feel like a 13-year-old girl for a reason. i feel like maybe culturally we re going through a bit of an eighth grade moment. feels like, yeah, the culture s sort of eighth grade is the worst. it feels like right now is a very crazy time to be alive and eighth grade was the craziest time in my life. the idea of being in eighth grade now feels impossible. we have a president who acts like he s in eighth grade now. eighth grade reading level. this is a connection, him and his phone and his twitter. this is about this kids, if you re i have a 14-year-old, 11-year-old daughter, this is the dominant thing in their lives. can you imagine? it s the dominant thing in your life, what are you talking about. it s the difference between news it s pure social media. it s a daily scorecard every second about how they re doing against every other kid. the constant reminder of what they re not doing. and their self-worth is so tied up in this. and as a parent, if you talk to any parent of teenage kids, it s like the number one thing you re navigating. you re in the i feel like we re all act like 13-year-olds on the internet so i wanted to tell a story about the internet one group of people that was acting their own age maybe. the internet means something to me. i grew up with it, i mean, a little bit. it sort of became ubiquitous, social media, when i was 17, 18. i felt it wasn t being talked enough honestly. there s not enough depiction of that s you right there, right? that s me with awful hair. okay, so you re doing you re kind of downplaying the thing you just said. i was a little familiar. you were one of the first personally one of the first viral youtube sensations when you were like 16, right? 16, 17, yeah. this isbiographical in a way? yes. the girl in the movie, she makes videos but no one sees them. yes, the way kids express themselves online, to me, people see them as narcissistic and a lie. it isn t just that. it isn t just fake. trying to speak yourself in existence. trying to live out loud in the air in front of you before you can put it into action i think is beautiful and isn t talked about. they all go hey guys, they all start hey, guys, hello. it s how we start the show many mornings. here s more from the movie. this is kayla and her dad. can you not look like that please? what? like what? just, like, the way you re looking. looking at the road? you can look at the road, dad. i obviously didn t mean that. just like don t be weird and quiet while you do it. sorry. hey, how was the no, you re being quiet, which is fine, just don t be weird and quiet. because i look over at you and i think you re about to drive us into a tree or something and then i freak out and i can t text my friends. be quiet and drive. don t look weird and sad. please. okay. that s worse. oh, my god. you nailed it. talk a little bit about these performances. the father, josh hamilton and the daughter are like giving incredible performances. how do you get these performances? the dad josh hamilton and kayla, elsie fisher, for me, it s giving the actors permission to be inarticulate. sometimes young kids in movies are forced to be able to speak with an ability that is suspiciously similar to a screenwriter s ability to speak. like young poet laureates. the experience of being a young kid is struggling to say so the script is written like, yeah, um, the thing about being yourself, like, wait. and then add in your own. which makes it better. just about giving them permission to speak. i have two daughters and i have to tell you that impossible feeling on the part of the parent. you feel that with the father. you don t even see him in the shot. you re just like oh. i ve never seen adolescence nailed like that or a father/daughter dynamic. that was me. what do you want me to do? i ll do anything. and they re so mean. especially girls i will say. but in eighth grade life, girls and boys can be incredibly mean to each other on this. is there any interaction with others? for me, the bullying has become much more subterranean. even if it is that, it s much more just withholding attention. i think attention is sort of the currency kids measure themselves against. so it s much less i think kids would love to get swirlies and be shoved in lockers again. it s a much weirder stranger space to navigate. impossible and also unpredictable space. like, your day can go from, you know, from wonderful to the worst day of your life with the touch of a button. and you just don t get away from it. you wake up with your social life and you go to bed with it. at the end of the day, you have a choice between the back of your eyelids and all of the information and history of the world. that s a how do you share let s help some kids at home or some parents. you both are somebody who is kind of on one side of it, now you re write, documenting, analyzing it. as a parent, give me some rules or guideline, how do i manage my children with this? part of it for me, i don t want to speak with too much authority because i feel as in it as anybody. i think part of it is also paying attention. i hope the movie takes inventory of this. it s not just looking at kid, why are you on your phone all the time, but what is the world we ve made for them to look up at and why they may want to ignore it. also, to just, you know, listen to them and communicate. i think part of being an adolescent, an adolescent/parent relationship is about the parent being a punching bag. like, they re working out some of those feelings. that might be it s not meant to go perfectly. but i hope the movie because i ve seen i think movie helps the kids sympathize with the parents and vice versa. it s got great reviews. we ve got to plug this a little bit. new york times, great reviews. surprise hit eighth grade now playing in theaters nationwide. beau, congratulations. thank you. that does it for us this morning. before we send it over to stephanie ruhle a little early i might add you going to punch me? stef. no, i m not going to punch you because you want me to. we want to play for everyone this. remember from seth meyers that stef is no one to mess with. take a look. wealthy ceos keep going on cable news to lie about the impact of the gop tax cuts. like this guy who went on msnbc this morning to repeat trump s lie that the economy hasn t surpassed 4% growth in years. only to be fact checked immediately by host stephanie ruhle. since the financial crisis until just recently, we were growing at 2%. correct. compare that to 30 years of growing at 3%. that s one-third less gdp each year for ten years. that is less prosperity. are we turning around? 4% gdp? when is the last time you heard 4% gdp growth? five times during the obama administration. okay. that right there is the face of someone who was waiting. that wasn t the side eye, that was the full-on kill. stephanie ruhle, i hand it to you. this is why you need to have your facts. i want to know how it ended with that guest. was everything okay? everything was okay. actually, he could have double fact checked me because the answer is four, not five. but alas he didn t. and we kind of got to middle because you know this world as well as i do, mika. the frustration. these businesspeople know better. they know there are some deregulation that has been very good for our economy. there are actually some trump wins. yet trump steps on his own narrative with constant lies. if you are the ceo of a company, you could not lie about numbers. i have watched your show for the last three hours. it s amazing that i m here on time. i ve been like a crazy old lady screaming, right on, mika, you ve got it right, all morning. the president lies time and again. when you watch people that run major corporations allow it and kind of giggle through it, it s really distressing. they couldn t do it in their business. they d be fired.
Coverage of national and international news, including breaking stories. overall, because this is, you know, i think a lot of americans do view this as the president of the united states attacking a major institution, the fourth estate essentially. so depends who you are talking to. but with his base i would say he wins this argument absolutely. and ozzy, ivanka trump also mads headlines with the take on the trump immigration policy. let s listen. it was a low point for me as well. i feel very strongly about that. and i am very vehemently against family separation. and the separation of parents and children. some criticized her for just talking there, making no effort to go down to the border. what exactly is her role? do we know? we covered new york. is there any evidence she has a mitigating influence on her father for anything. she and supporters have always said her influence comes from behind the scenes conversations with her father not public conversations with them. but secondly this is good politics for her and trump as a whole. if she is seen as someone opposing this policy. if donald trump can say i don t like this but we have had to do it and it s not my policy. if earn distances themselves from what s happening it s good for them. the reality is this started under president trump. and continued because of president trump. ivanka saying she doesn t like it is good for ivanka s brand which she is trying to manage. it s not clear what she does beyond that conversation. ozzy, what is the conventional wisdom here? what does she do in general? what is she doing in the white house. that s a great question. i wish she would come on the show and talk about that. she said she gives advice and counsel to her father looking out for the american people. i want not clear beyond that. those are two jobs. looking after the president and the public. when her father is the president those two missions it becomes difficult to see which takes priority. we might not know what happens behind the scenes ever. julie, the other extraordinary headline this week the five main national security advisers of the president declaring war on russia interference in the elections. do you think this came with full support of the president? or did the officials force this display. yeah, it s hard to say. there is a lot of confusion. i would say i m confused by the administration s rollout of the statements. it seems to contradict a lot of what the president has said about russian interference. i mean, it seems one minute he questions the intelligence community s findings. the next he doesn t question them. he is onboard with them. but, you know, it was extraordinary to see press secretary sara sanders next to christopher ray, dni director dan coats. and those two men were essentially saying, yes, there is an effort for russia to interfere in the u.s. election. but sara sanders has somewhat back the president and i guess she reflected his skepticism on the matter and said the president really speaks for himself in this on this issue. so lots of confusion, i think, in the public where the administration stands. it seems the president says one thing but his officials are saying a completely other thing. well julie and ozzy stay with us because we have another white house staffer making headlines omarosa to talk about next. the president and the russia probe and the manafort trial, how the three intersect and why at least one legal scholar says it s left president trump very worried. that s up next. what?! -welcome. -[ gasps ] a bigger room?! -how many of you use car insurance? 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do you think they are factoring this into this whole investigation? everything we have seen about robert mueller to date indicates that he is as by the book as it comes and that he does everything ke to insulate himself from partisan politics. i would expect that his guide is essentially the u.s. attorney s manual and all of the charging policies and not anything to do with u.s. elections. well, we will see. i do want to ask you about paul manafort because this trial has made headlines last week. and the washington post has an op-ed titled the manafort trial has president trump worried. what legal implications from the manafort trial should be the most alarming to the president? it s possible that if manafort is convicted and there is a strong possibility he will be that he will seek to cooperate after his conviction with u.s. attorneys in order to secure a more favorable deal in order to get what s called substantial assistance to decrease his sentencing guidelines by several levels. if he does so the complaint lodged by many defense attorneys like me is that there is tremendous inincentive to embellish or even factor information to the u.s. attorneys. the u.s. attorneys, the government will try to verify and vet claims if manafort ends up cooperating. but the inincentive remains for a convicted defendant to embellish to help the government get his former cohoerts. danny, so far in the trial the prosecution paid a lot of attention to the manafort lifestyle, including the lavish wardrobe. what is the legal angle here? how does any of this relate back to president trump? the judge has been getting in issue right in the trial. the government is permitted to introduce evidence of a lavish lifestyle only so far as it relates to the motive to commit crimes in order to the support the lifestyle. however, the same evidence becomes of questionable admissibility when it crosses to the area of area of saying to the jury look at the rich guy and hate him for welt because of the fact that he spends money on ostrich skin jackets. that would be an improper purpose. the judge has been watching the prosecution closely on that issue during the trial. former federal prosecutor had a prediction for president trump. let s take a lesson. i think it s likely that we will see the president as an unindicted coconspirator. and what that means is he won t be named, won t be indicted. and justice department policy is not to include the name of a target that you don t diet in a case. so that s why his name won t be used danny, what is your reaction to the idea of president trump being named as an unindicted could conspirator. this practice serves an important benefit to the government. you can introduce that person s statements against the other named coconspirators. it s a by pass of the hearsay rule. on the other hand the reason defense attorneys think it s a denial of due process is that that unindicted coconspirators can never be deleted from the indictment even if the defendants are acquitted. it acts as probably an unconstitutional stain on that person s reputation for the rest of their life. if you look back our press den we have plenty of precedent in this area. most notably nixon who was an unindicted coconspirator because the prosecutor believed he could not as the sitting president be dieted danny, thank you so much for legal expertise on this saturday morning. great to have you. well omarosa s new book on her time in the white house, what she saw and why she says it worried her. up next. and the president s tweet comparing manafort to al cappen brings late night laughs. is it a good move to defend your campaign manager by comparing him to al cappen sent to alcatraz and stabbed in the laundry room. why is al ka pony. yes the esteemed company of alfonz and hess his theodore bundy and charles manson. right this way. if you re on park street in reno, nevada, the high winds of the washoe zephyr could damage your siding. and that s very different than living on park ave in sheboygan, wisconsin, where ice dams could cause water damage. but no matter what park you live on, one of 10,000 local allstate agents knows yours. now that you know the truth, are you in good hands? i m ray and i quit smoking with chantix. i tried cold turkey, i tried the patch. they didn t work for me. i didn t think anything was going to work for me until i tried chantix. chantix, along with support, helps you quit smoking. chantix reduced my urge to smoke. i needed that to quit. when you try to quit smoking, with or without chantix, you may have nicotine withdrawal symptoms. some people had changes in behavior or thinking, aggression, hostility, agitation, depressed mood, or suicidal thoughts or actions with chantix. serious side effects may include seizures, new or worse heart or blood vessel problems, sleepwalking or allergic and skin reactions which can be life-threatening. stop chantix and get help right away if you have any of these. tell your healthcare provider if you ve had depression or other mental health problems. decrease alcohol use while taking chantix. use caution when driving or operating machinery. the most common side effect is nausea. i can t tell you how good it feels to have smoking behind me. talk to your doctor about chantix. his job in december. but now she is ready to cash in on her time in the white house. it s bad. we are worried but i need you to say no it s going to be okay. no it s not going to be okay. it s not. omarosa s ominous warnings earlier this year on tv s big brother served as a sneak preview of the bock in the public excerpt of unhinged she noticed a mental decline in the president s mental ability pch many people thought trump was being trump off the kuch. incidentally omarosa has authored two previous books and has a net worth of $$3.5 million. joining me now, jewel, what is the case about the president s mental health. i think omarosa is trying to i guess in her way explain what she thinks is president trump s odd behavior and past statements. i would like to say i m not surprised by any of the statements. i think anyone that watched omarosa on the apprentice celebrity prentice throughout the years knows she looks out for herself and doesn t seem to be exactly loyal to those who she worked with. i think that big brother appearance from i believe it was last year earlier this year really showed what she was going to do how she was going to depict her time in the white house. you ll see a lot of tell-all books of people in and out of the revolving door in the white house. and you ll hear a lot of different i guess descriptions and stories of how they saw the trump administration play out. and omarosa is just one of them. and ozzy is this about selling books? or has anybody else inside the president s circle made this suggestion before. well it s hard to take omarosa seriously because of all the stuff she said before. but b because she makes it through a rechlgs that has to be bought and sold. and she has also known trump for many years. what didn t she know before she learned working in the white house with him? all of those things sort of raise questions. but it is an issue that other people have raised, not so much in the white house per se, but critics who watched trump s public appearances have questioned whether or not he does things deliberaterily or he can t help himself np omarosa is jump on helping her sell a book. there is another excerpt about the reason for firing comey. she writes then she had been picks had gone over the topic saying it was based on recommendations from the doj, from the doj reinforcing that. but we know that the president said that he fired comey because of the russia investigation. so julia, what does this tell us about how he operates. yeah, i mean, it just it just tells us she has been speaking to other people. i mean, you know it s hard to tell at this point. julia manchester, ozzy, great to have you here this saturday morning. that will do it for me. i m dara brown. it s time for your business with jj ramberg. stay with us here on msnbc. age-related macular degeneration, amd, i wanted to fight back. my doctor and i came up with a plan. it includes preservision. only preservision areds 2 has the exact nutrient formula recommended by the national eye institute to help reduce the risk of progression of moderate to advanced amd. that s why i fight. because it s my vision. preservision. also, in a great-tasting chewable. and the wolf huffed and puffed. like you do sometimes, grandpa? 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