it is not known if this risk is increased in copd. breo won't replace rescue inhalers for sudden copd symptoms and should not be used more than once a day. breo may increase your risk of pneumonia, thrush, osteoporosis, and some eye problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking breo. ask your doctor about b-r-e-o for copd. first prescription free at mybreo.com good saturday morning to you. i'm -- ♪ ♪ ♪ let's try that again. good saturday morning to you, i'm jonathan kaypart in for steve kornacki. we have a lot we want to get to this morning on developing situation in iraq which more than two and a half years after u.s. troops withdrew, two and a

half years after we handed over security to the country to iraq's military, two and a half years after president obama said our war in iraq was ending iraq is once again the focus of our military and our commander in chief. just hours after president obama announced we were returning to an active role in iraq, the u.s. launched two rounds of air strikes yesterday against isis fighters near erbil. the u.s. has a consulate in that northern iraqi city and thousands of americans live there. in addition to those military strikes the u.s. is trying to keep a humanitarian crisis from worsening. the u.s. military conducted a secondary drop of food and water late last night to thousands of members of the yazidi religious minority who have been trapped on mount sinjar for days and are surrounded by isis militants. the situation might be worse for hundreds of yazidi women. militants are holding them kapt of at schools in mosul. he told the a.p. by now consider

them slaves and have vicious plans for them. secretary kerry has a more ominous situation of what's going on now in iraq. >> isil's campaign of terror against the innocent including the yazidi and christian minorities and its grotesque targeted acts of violence show all the the warning signs of genocide. >> despite these air strikes, the white house insists there will be no american boots on the ground in iraq. >> what is not contemplated here is the introduction of american troops in a combat role to alleviate the situation. >> let's turn now to the white house. nbc's kristin welker is there. kristen, the headline this morning in the new york times suggests the white house was afraid of another benghazi.

what are you hearing from your sources today at the white house? ? jonathan, i don't have confirmation of that specific report, but i can tell you that senior administration officials here have consistently made reference to intervene in libya, and of course, what happened in benghazi happened in the washing of that, the destabilization in libya, so it would stand to reason that that was certainly at the backdrop of the president's decision making process as were a number of other foreign approximatepolicyh as the situation in rwanda. that happened under bill clinton. we're learning about the president's decision making process. i am told that on wednesday after he wrapped up his news conference with reporters at the africa summit, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff general martin dempsey told president obama that the situation in iraq had reached a critical moment, that the isis forces were making significant gains to erbil where the u.s. has a u.s. consulate and that the humanitarian crisis on top

of that mountain, those 40,000 religious minorities who were driven out of that home by isis and trapped on that mountain that several of them were dying and facing dire circumstances there. that is when the discussions here at the white house began. there was a very senior level meeting at the white house and the president met with his national security team on thursday. i am told there was broad agreement that action needed to be taken. there was debate about what, specifically, that action should look like, but president obama was insistent. he wanted it to be limited in scope and again, no boots on the ground. jonathan? >> kristen, there is concern about it particularly among some democrats, but what is the white house saying about that? >> reporter: right. that is the big concern and white house officials first of all, are not giving us a real sense of the timeline for this military operation although one official at the white house says this could last at least several weeks.

in terms of ramping up the scope of the military action. josh earnest essentially didn't rule it out during his daily briefing. on friday he answered a number of questions about what would happen if isis is not deterred by initial rounds of air strikes and what the response was if president would assess the situation and assess the developments as they unfolded. so he did leave open the possibility that there could be some type of broader military intervention here and insistered that is not the president's preference. jonathan? >> nbc's kristen welkera the the white house. thank you. >> absolutely. the senior fellow at the center for american progress and former assistant secretary of defense. steve clemmons is washington editor-at-large "the atlantic" magazine and joan walsh also editor-at-large at salon and

msnbc military analyst and medal of honor recipient retired colonel jack jacobs. thank you all for being here. >> lawrence, i want to start with you. isis has gained control of parts of iraq and syria and clashed with soldiers in lebanon. what threat does the organization pose to the entire middle east? >> it certainly poses a threat to the entire middle east, but i think it's important to focus on iraq in addition to the humanitarian reasons. we have a responsibility. we created this mess by going into iraq and, you know, breaking up the society a andeverything because a lot of people are saying why you in iraq and not in syria? why not do it in other places? and the other thing is we have a fighting force there, the the peshmerga that will fight. we have a better chance of prevailing in this particular area and i don't think this will lead us to attacking, for example, in syria. i think it's focused mainly on

preserving the independence or the security of the kurds which we've been trying to do for almost 25 years. >> colonel jack, let me play something the president said the other night when he first announced he was authorizing these air strikes. let's take a listen. >> as commander in chief i will not allow the united states to be dragged into fighting another war in iraq. even as we support the iraqis as they take the fight to these terrorists american troops will not be returning to fight in iraq because there is no military solution in iraq. >> can the the president achieve his goals in iraq without american combat troops returning there. >> i think he can, but there will be more concerted effort from the air. knocking out one or two towed howitzers and mortar crew will not take the pressure off erbil. i think it's interesting also to note that the president at another time said when he

authorized the the attack said we're not going to let erbil fall. i don't think that means that we're going to put the second armored division down there, but we also have to remember that we do have americans on the ground now, trainers, special forces and special operations forces right this very moment, but i think what he's talking about is no -- no conventional troops on the ground. if you really want to save erbil you will have to do more than what we've done, eight sorties or whatever we've done will not be effective in deterring the bad guy. >> as soon as the president spoke there were reactions. i want to read part of what house speaker boehner had to say about president obama's actions. he said the president's authorization of air strikes is appropriate, but like many americans i am dismayed by the ongoing absence of a strategy by countering the grave threat isis poses to the region. vital national interests are at stake, yet the white house has

remained disengaged despite warnings from iraqi leaders, congress and even members of its own administration. joan, what sort of dilemma does the president face encountering criticism from republicans about his strategy especially when you consider the president's history on this issue when he campaigned for president? >> i think john boehner should concentrate on doing his job and stop of accusing the president of being disengaged on this issue which he's not. speaking as a democrat, the question the democrats have is, yes, we all understand the concept of genocide. we all understand the need to intervene here to prevent genocide, but there is, as has been said before, this other implicit or explicit thought that we're not going to let erbil fall. we did not say that about fallujah. so there is clearly something important in shoring up the kurds, but is that accepting a kind of kurdistan?

and where does that lead to? we've got chaldean christians and lots of people beyond thes yazidis and the religious minorities are in some danger here. if we use this genocide. i didn't mean to put that in air quotes. we use the word genocide to defend this strike, when does that stop, and i think the president has to be very clear about that. >> steve, the president as joan points out, the president is in a tough spot. how can -- he can keep the military response limited and be accused of not doing enough and if he ramps up the campaign he'll be accused of going back on his promise to wind down the war in iraq. how does he walk the fine line? >> i think he'll do what he did in libya which is he acknowledges in the military engagements it is easy to fall under the slippery slope with a much deeper engagement, but basically send the signals to all of these stakeholders in these military decisions that

they have a very, very limited mission, and that they're going to stay on top of that mission right now which is twofold and under the brick which the president outlined before what will protect u.s. people interests and institutions there which is in erbil and also for humanitarian efforts. i think the broader issue is we need desperately. this is the time when i really miss richard holbrooke. i miss the fact that we -- we need people who can look at this region that isis grew out of our fight in syria in part and they were an uncomfortable ally of the free syrian army and they began to move and you have attached to this a large sunni-shia struggle in the region. we continue to have this as an iraq-isis issue. to solve the problems they are both looking at the humanitarian side and can do deals with the devil and begin figuring out how they can bring in other

stakeholders to look at how they're going to shape this region. the status quo, the line between countries we see today will not be here in five years from now or ten years from now and they need to be resculpted and that's the conversation the united states should do and the united states should be leading in that and we're not. >> i hear you reacting. did you want to react to something steve said? >> i think if you really want to deal with isis. your allies will be assad and iran. are you willing to work with them to deal with it? that's the key thing because too often we say well, iran is waba we don't want to deal with them or assad is bad and we don't want to deal with them either, speaking of the old foreign government establish am, ryan crocker and a lot of other people had an op ed in the washington post said and you want to deal with isis and you

have to work with assad. you have them pained as evil incar carnate. >> could the president each do that? >> not when he's campaigned against doing that now for, what, six years. i'm reminded of harry truman's observations when someone brought in samosa, the guys in success ob, they said he's our s.o.b. and that didn't work out well over the long term. first of all, we certainly don't have the one that's articulated a mid or long-term strategy that is achievable with any of the instruments of policy. and if you ask anybody, even inside the beltway, what is our strategy with respect to this area? the response is we don't have one. we certainly haven't articulated

it. the second thing that's of interest is that they use the military issue of power even over the short term doesn't seem to work very well. steve properly brought up libya, except look what happened to libya after we -- and not because of what we did, but a lot of people say it's because of what we did not do, but none of this works unless we s.t.a.r. start at the end and work backward and we haven't done that yet. >> my panel is staying here. up next a reality check on how we got to this point after the invasion of iraq. save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance.d everybody knows that. well, did you know pinocchio was a bad motivational speaker? i look around this room and i see nothing but untapped potential.

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in 2008 then senator obama campaigned hard on his promise to end the war in iraq. >> as president, i will end this war. >> we don't have to choose between retreating from the the world and fighting a war without

end in iraq. i will give our military a new mission on my first day in office, ending this war. >> and in 2012 he campaigned on delivering that promise. >> four years ago i told you we'd end the war in iraq and i did. governor romney said it was tragic to end the war in iraq. i disagree. after a decade of war it's time to do some nation building right here at home. >> we have a president in the white house who ended a war in iraq, a conflict he's been speak out against for more than a decade and we have an american public that's extremely war weary. the more we'd like to close the door on the involvement in iraq we seem to be getting pulled back in. increased surveillance there, now the u.s. instructing air strikes on yeshel. he will not send combat troops back to iraq.

it's possible more strikes are banned and it could be the toe in the door to further invol involvement. my first question is to you, steve clemmons, how did we find ourselves back here and why are we still involved. why does the u.s. seem to be only world leader involved in this effort? >> the united states is a unique power in the world in the sense that it alone has a global capacity to deliver power, to manage intelligence, to synthesize problems around the world and trying to deliver solutions. the problem with that is that a lot of other nations like china, india, brazil and others have grown in their capacity and not taken on a lot of these public good responsibilities. so we're there essentially as a kind of guarantor, but we don't do everything and you have regions like the middle east where the sense of america's weakness has changed the behavior not only on of our foes, but it's changed the behavior of our allies who don't count on the united states as

much as they did. so the equilibrium that we basically used to have has broken and it was shattered completely with the invasion of iraq which opened up -- which created chaos in iraq, but it also open onned up, and that fe paranoia and that's what we have today. the invasion of iraq was a game changer and it has punctuated in the minds of many people around the world how weak the united states is on a relative basis and that is the problem we're in. >> colonel jackson, you brought up libya in our last block, and i want to play something, talk to you about something president obama said to tom friedman in "the new york times" that overthrough colonel gadhafi. here is a bit of that sound. >> i absolutely believe it was the right thing to do. when people said they should have let gadhafi stay there. they forget the arab spring had

come full force to libya and had we not intervened it's likely libya would be syria. >> colonel, what are the implications that this has for what's going on in iraq and what's going on throughout the middle east region. >> the notion that our responsibility extends to decapitating the bad guys from any kind of society and then a miracle happens and we have republican democracy is complete nonsense and we've never, ever seen that work. we can't pat ourselves on the back for creating chaos either in libya or iraq or any other place. you really do have to do what i think it was louis carroll once observed. if you don't know where you're going any road will take you there. we've seen this happen time and time again. we confuse means with

objectives. when we say we'll drop bombs on bad guys, that's great as far as it goes. i mean, if you want bad guys to be destroyed. i'm all for that. i'm your man. i'll suit up and go up there, but at the end of the day it's got to be with some objective in mind and none of these in the current world, in the current situation, none of these things we tried to accomplish include any realizable objectives. it's just eliminating a bad guy. eliminating a bad guy ain't enough, folks. >> this brings me to something that my colleagues and i at the the washington post editorial board of which i am a part, we support air stakrikes, but our editorial says they don't go far enough. the steps the president authorized on thursday amount to more of his administration's half measures narrowly tailored to this week's emergency and unconnected to any coherent strategy to address the

conflagration spreading across the middle east. beginning with the kurds and including moderate syrian rebels and iraqi sunni tribesmen. it should seek to e rod the islamic state's will military power as much as possible with air strikes. i want everyone's response with that. >> with all due respect to your editorial board you guys were cheerleaders for the dumb war in iraq which as steve pointed out is part of the reason we have all of these problems. it wasn't that we withdrew. we put in, you know, too much. so i think the real key here is basically, like libya, we were right the way we did it because we didn't do it alone. we were only 25% of the force. now with a mistake the world community made which we should have taken the lead was to put a peacekeeping force in there like we did in the balkans, but we got rid of gaed of ay and it

cost us 1 billion or three or four trillion of whatever we spent in iraq and where are we. i do think that basically right now in iraq, it's because we created the mess and therefore we have to the responsibility, but the world community needs to worry about this, we're less and less dependent on this part of the world and they have a vested interest. we need to get the world community involved and we shouldn't be doing by urzs. >> when i was reading part of the editorial you were shaking your head no. what's your reaction? >> i shook my head specifically at the term moderate syrian rebel it is because we're always in search of the moderate syrian rebels which are aings bit like unicorns. i do know they're out there, but the idea that we could have found them and armed them in the appropriate way is a little bit crazy to use the precise scientific term. i guess, john, the thing that i

heard in president obama's conversation with tom friedman is we learned from libya. we probably didn't do enough in libya. we went in and we decapitated and we didn't do enough to create civil society there if that was even possible. we were not going to do the same thing and we were not going to topple assad with moderate syrian rebels and give a whole bunch of american weaponry that then falls into the hands of isis anyway. it's not like there are obvious things to be doing in this situation. >> we'll have to take a break. we will be right back.

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enough to do something else. by and long the military instrument of power can't do anything and it certainly shouldn't be the default instrument of power. indeed even in the second world war we were still using economics and dip lolomacy unti 1943 until there was unconditional surrender. in the meantime we were trying to integrate the instrumentses of power and the assertion that all we have to do is drop some bombs and then the problem will be solved, trust me, it doesn't work. we've tried it before and it didn't work either. >> steve, let me get your reaction and i want to move on to the american sentiment. >> you know how i love "the washington post," john, but at the same time "the washington post" which was in part so defined in this interest area with the 45th anniversary of nixon's resignation and nixon is very important to remember

because on the one hand you have to balance issues of the heart with the balances of interest and the washington post is high on sentiment and low on strategy. it doesn't look at the contending issues of cost benefit involvement. it wants a sort of never-ending resource of american military power deployed to humanitarian problems around the world without looking at tomorrow, what capacity do you have to continue to try to shape the world in a positive way. so my problem with the washington post editorial is sloppiness when it comes to strategy. >> oh, steve, someone in the rooms where these discussions are happening you're dead wrong. >> no votes. no votes. most americans do not want to go back to iraq and less than half support air strikes against icis and only 30% support sending in ground troops and he's using it in part to prevent a potential genocide which is generally more popular and this 2012 survey from the chicago council of global affairs shows stopping

genocide tops the list of why people would support sending in troops. colonel jack, what kind of public reaction do you expect to see to the current air strikes? >> i think there's no reaction because it doesn't affect anybody and there are no planes at risk since we're firing these weapons from a great distance away and the aircraft at the moment are not at risk. i think there would be far less support for even this strategy where we were to lose an aircraft to ground fire, for example, which is very, very unlikely to happen, but it's interesting to note when people say, you know, in order to save lives for humanitarian reasons, i support the use of ground troops. yeah. that's probably because most people don't really understand what it takes to use the military instrument of power and use conventional ground troops on the ground. i'm reminded of rick shinseki at the time, the chief of staff of the united states army, in front of congress just before we went

into iraq and somebody said how many troops are you really going to need once you get rid of the bad guy and we have to consolidate on the objective and he said correctly because he studied this for many, many years, several hundreds of thousands of people. most people don't understand that once you take the objective it takes a lot more effort, money, men and material to hold on to the objective than it does to take in the first place, holding on to the objective is really what it's all about and sending even a division there is not going to be enough to hold on. >> lawrence, i want to end with you and get your take on what kind of public reaction you expect to the current air strikes. >> i think as jack pointed out, as long as nobody getses hur they really won't even be concerned about it and, for example, during the libyan operation which went on much longer than we had had expected and there was no reaction because it didn't cost us a lot of money. no american lives were lost and i don't think there will be any

reaction. i think if a plane gets shot down or we decide to even put in the special forces, i think you will see a much different reaction. >> lawrence, thank you very much. i want to thank msnbc contributor, steve clemmons, lawrence core with the center for american congress and retired u.s. army colonel jack jacobs. when we return we'll talk about how progressives view the return of american military forces to iraq. that's next. when folks think about what they get from alaska, they think salmon and energy. but the energy bp produces up here

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[ female announcer ] when the pressure's on... only secret offers clinical strength invisible solid and clear gel with 100% odor protection. secret clinical strength. (birds chirping softly in. background.) (loud engine sounds!) what! how's it going? heard you need a ride to school. i know just the thing to help you get going. power up with new cheerios protein. we're back with more coverage on the developing situation in iraq where president obama has authorized air strikes, but take a step back with me for a moment and remember this. you could argue that barack obama owes his presidency to the iraq war, well, to his opposition to it. most prominent democrat depps especially the ones with national ambitions supported the overthrow of saddam hussein by force, but not barack obama who took a bold stance on the impending conflict and an october 2002 anti-war rally in

chicago. >> when i look out over this crowd today i know there is no shortage of patriots or patriotism. what i do oppose is a dumb war. >> in the 2008 election, president barack obama's earliest political distinction from hillary clinton was his steadfast opposition to the iraq war from the very beginning. he even joined a small minority of democrats in 2007 who voted against s funding and as commander in chief he led a drawdown of combat troops within his first term and now we're back. in an address to the nation president obama said on thursday that he is steadfast against ground troops and he did somer salts to explain why this situation is exceptional. american personnel on the ground, a potential genocide, is this president -- is this president who was so opposed to intervention in iraq from the beginning still face what colin

powell and vice president bush in 2002, his infamous warning of the pottery barn rule, you break it, you own it. you're going to be the proud owner of 25 million people bob woodward's book told bush. you will own all their hopes, aspirations and problems. you'll own it all and now this belongs to president barack obama. despite all his efforts to end the u.s. involvement in the civil war-torn country. how are progressives reacting to this? we have phyllis bennes, a fellow at the institute for policy studiys for peace activists and an fa gallon of moveon.org and join us from ann arbor, michigan and robert george, editorial writer for "the new york post" and speaker for newt gingrich. do you think the air strikes will make things in the region

better or worse? >> i think it will be worse. it makes it worse one because putting more ordness nah, bombing more people always makes things worse. bombs recruit terrorists that we've seen for 15 years now, on the longer term, but in the immediate bombs kill people and i don't think that is a humanitarian act, and i think the history of the u.s. in trying to blur humanitarian and military goals has not been a pretty one. if we look back at afghanistan in the first months of the afghan war when afghans were fleeing from the bombings of the cities and running to the mountains and looking for safety. it was the beginning of winter and cold, and they escaped with what they had on their backs, no clothes, and it was very real humanitarian considerations, of course, but the decision to drop yellow plastic-wrapped mres,

meals ready to eat, military food rations, they didn't take into account that they were simultaneously dropping yellow-wrapped cluster bombs in the same zones, children were being killed running to what they thought were food that turned out to be cluster bombs and when asked about it at the pentagon, general meyers said we put out a radio call and told people to be careful and said aren't you at least going to stop using the cluster bombs. no, no. we'll change the color eventually when we finish those that are in the pipeline. so it was clear that the humanitarian considerations had really fallen by the wayside. they were simply not the the important part. now i think that what we're seeing in iraq today is a similar blurring. there is this very specific, immediate humanitarian need. upon you could argue, and i do that the u.s. military was not the best or most appropriate

outfit to be carrying that out. the u.n. before president obama's speech had said let us provide the technical help, the technical wherewithal to the iraqi government to get planes in. we know how to do humanitarian air drops. the maliki government said no, and the u.s. instead of insisting saying to maliki, we pay your salaries, we pay your army, we buy their uniforms and we buy their weapons and you have to let the u.n. in there. oh, you don't want the u.n., we'll send the u.s. air force. that's a huge mistake when at the same time the u.s. air force is going in to bomb isis and maybe they'll get the islamist state people and maybe they won't, maybe they'll miss. this is not a good mix of tactics and the claim somehow that this is all about protecting american lives simply doesn't fly. we're talking about -- go ahead.

>> fiphyllis, i want to bring t conversation into what's being said by members of congress and statements came in yesterday from prominent democratic members of congress and keith ellison said he supports the actions, but he added if military operations continue the president should seek congressional authorization and on the senate side, senator liz beg warren said in a statement to the wall street journal, quote, i remain concerned about possible unintended consequences of intervention. we must not get bogged down in another war in the middle east. so while there's skepticism, there doesn't seem to be outright opposition yet to these actions. so, anna, let me ask you, how do you see congressional reaction going forward? >> i think that it's important to note that members of congress are responsive to their constituents and where constituents are, i think, although we're just getting this information and this is all unfolding over the last 48 hours and moveon members and the

american public at large are right to be quite concerned about what this means. we're all worried about the slippery slope here. we're all worried about mission creek and the everyone has the right to be concerned about the humanitarian crisis on the ground and we have to think hard about where this leads and i do think that president obama will need to come back toing congress to have a real discussion about what the next steps are here so that that we don't find ourselves in another open-ended conflict and another ten years of american war in iraq. >> i'll stick with you in just one second and yesterday moveon.org issued a statement against the the air strikes yesterday and it concludes the civil war in iraq can only be resolved and peace and stability can only be achieved through an iraqi-led political solution as president obama has said before there is no viable military solution to this crisis. my question to you is should america have any role in the region in your view? >> i think that moveon members

and the american public at large are supportive of an engaged united states around the world and moveon members are not isolationists and we support diplomatic engaging with the united nations and we support efforts that the humanitarian aid certainly and i think the question is is the united states ready to sign up for an open-ended war against isis which by the way is a completely new mission. this is not something that congress has approved and it's not something that the united states citizens have wrapped their minds around. so do we want to be engaged with the rest of the world? abshoutly. are we ready to sign up for another ten years of open-ended war in iraq? i think not. >> robert, conservatives are saying this is about a coherent policy in the middle east, but what -- what is the conservatives' coherent vision? reinvasion? what does that mean? >> i think there are differences among conservatives that you'll talk to.

however, since we're sort of talking where progressives are, i'm actually going to say that i have to agree with phyllis. when she's making this observation that the president didn't enforce, wasn't stronger with maliki and insisting that the u.n. go in, i'm not a fan of the u.n., but iraq and maliki, they are basically a client state of the united states, and if the president cannot enforce that as an option, he ultimately ends up looking weak and this kind of goes back to the whole argument about whether maliki should have allowed the u.s. to leave a residual force and the president at that time didn't want to push that view and it seems he doesn't want to push maliki this time, either, and i think that's something that conservatives are definitely concerned about. >> i want to thank phyllis bennis from the institute of policy studies for joining us

this morning and anna galin from moveon.org, thank you. >> president obama has a comment on the new state of the republican party. up that and more political headlines are up next. hi, cascade kitchen counselor. 1 pac of cascade complete cleans tough food better than 6 pacs of the bargain brand combined. cascade. beyond clean and shine. every time. that would be my daughter -- hi dad. she's a dietitian. and back when i wasn't eating right, she got me drinking boost.

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with verizon smart rewards and rack up points to use towards the things you really want. now get 50% off all new smartphones. >> it's time for our round-up. a look at stories making headlines on this saturday morning and we want to begin in hawaii which looks like it dodged a major bullet this weekend. tropical storm iselle steered clear of most of the state and hurricane julio is now on track to pass well north of the island later this weekend, but things still could prove to be rough this weekend for hawaii's democratic governor. according to recent polling governor neil abercrombie trails a little-known state senator known david e.j. heading into the democratic primary. he's a longtime friend of president obama and he even cut an ad for the guy, and that will not help abercrombie pull off a victory today. joan walsh, editor-at-large and the new york post opinion writer

robert george. so, joan, does this primary have any implications with democrats nationwide? >> fno, it doesn't. not at all. >> no? >> it's a democratic primary. it's not indicative of a wave. yeah. >> okay. >> moving right along. in this interview with thomas friedman yesterday, president obama also compared our current domestic political situation to what's happening in the middle east. >> our politics are dysfunctional and something that i said earlier serves as a warning to us and that is societies don't work if political factions take the maximum positions, and i have to say here i've been speaking in generalities and trying not to be too political, but that ideologicalec treatmentism and max malist position is much more prominent in the republican

party than the democrats. democrats have problems, but overall if you look at the democratic consensus it's a pretty common sense, mainstream consensus. it's not a lot of wacky, ideological nonsense and by the way, is generally fact based and reason based. >> the president went on to say that he thinks the republican party will free itself of extremist ideology, but is that a reason-based claim snz do you see signs that the two parties will work toward the middle on any issue right now? >> not right now. not in an election year and when we've got these serious divisions over immigration and, in fact, frankly, i think the divisions on immigration on the democratic side are somewhat profound, at least in the context of the context of the current humanitarian crisis, but no, in a sense there's no real logic in terms of political calculus for them to move

together until after the election. >> now to a piece out yesterday from our own joan walsh. the rights impeachment trap how pundits blame obama for gop extremism. even you write president obama has to regret his 2008 rhetoric which is part of the vengeful crusade as pundits use it to claim that he not only had, and the republicans impeach him for doing his job. they plame for the unhinged behavior of republicanses. joan, talk to us briefly about what's behind this dynamic. >> charles krauthammer can say the things he says and if the president defers deportation of some people who are here illegally that he will be doing that intentionally as impeachment bait whichy think is cynical and not at all true. i don't think this president wants to be impeached, but you see a few journalists and

suggesting that that may be correct and even if he can do what he's planning legally, even if he actually has the power to do it, he shouldn't do it because it will make republicans so mad and it will further polarize the country and this is the kind of rhetoric that has enabl enabled the right that journalists don't call them out on their extremism and blame democrats for somehow provoking it by wearing short skirts or something. >> i think if he does go ahead with the executive orders on immigration it does further poison the well in terms of getting anything done on immigration. forget about the impeachment stuff. so there is a legitimate -- >> and they're waiting, waiting, waiting for the house republicans to do something. he has not moved and it's clear he's not going to do anything. i think he should move. >> very quickly, on the humanitarian crisis on the border, it's the democrats who

are opposed to what the president suggested to change the 2008 law. so again, it's not just the extreechlism of the republicans. >> that's a nitpicking point and we don't have time to do it. ? robert and joan will be up next. develop onning fuse overnight on the continuing fighting in gaza. in keeping the denture clean. dentures are very different to real teeth. they're about 10 times softer and may have surface pores where bacteria can multiply. polident is designed to clean dentures daily. its unique micro-clean formula kills 99.99% of odor causing bacteria and helps dissolve stains, cleaning in a better way than brushing with toothpaste. that's why i recommend using polident. [ male announcer ] polident. cleaner, fresher, brighter every day.

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the temporary cease-fire between israel and hamas would last. violence erupted even before the 72-hour truce has expired. israel has launched more than 20 air strikes in the gaza strip today alone. one of those strikes killed a senior hamas official. militants have fired 70 rockets into israel since the truce expired. two israelis were hurt. ten palestinians have been killed since the cease-fire ended. more than 1900 palestinian s did since the conflict began a month ago. much more ahead including a report from the ground in gaza in our next hour.

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tens of thousands of yazidi and religious refugees forced to flee the rebels remain trapped in a mountaintop dying of thirst and starvation. each u.s. air drops of tons of food and dozens of gallons of water is welcome relief, but u.s. military officials predict unless isis rebels threatening the refugees are driven from these mountains, those humanitarian air drops are all that will keep them alive. it's been sick days since militants from the islamic state or isis made their first major gains into iraq's kurdish region taking over the northern city of sinjar and forcing tens of thousands of residents to flee their homes, most are yazidis, mixing christianity and islam.

when the extremists entered the city, they blew up a should i i shiite shrine and most of them fled. now thousands of yazidis find themselves trapped atop mount sinjar boxed in by extremist militants. there's no water and no vegetation to keep them alive. the mountainside is so rocky they can't properly bury the dead. >> according to "the washington post," quote, the mountain that looked like a refuge is becoming a grave yard for their children and it's these innocent civilians of military personnel in the region that president is trying to protect with the air strikes he authorized thursday. >> shechilling reports conducti mass executions and enslaving yazidi women. in recent days yazidi women, men

and children from the area of sinjar have fled for their lives. they're without food. they're without water. people are starving and children are dying of thirst. meanwhile, isil forces below have called for the systematic destruction of the entire yazidi people which would constitute genocide. >> here to talk about all of this, michael green is executive director at the treatment national security project and founding director of the iraqi refugee assistance project. isham melon is burr owe chief with the al arabiya channel and nourmalas. >> you just heard the president using the "g" word, genocide. using genocide has big implications. whot your assessment of the situation in erbil? >> reporter: erbil is north of

where the yazidis are trying to flee to the mountainside. -- okay. we're having a little problem with nour's connection. mike, i want to come to you surrounding the humanitarian crisis. the choice is often framed should we intervene militarily or should we do nothing? are there other better options here? >> i think that's a great point. >> too often we feel that the only choices are send the 82nd airborne division or sit back and watch the world burn. i think the united states of america has other options. certainly we started to exercise them. these people are on top of a mountain and daytime temperatures can reach as high as 130, 135 degrees and you're talking about without assistance, a couple of days and a week at most these people can't make it. we've done things like dropping food and water, but you have to ask if isil didn't let them walk

back down the mountain. the problem of the well-fed dead. they didn't go up the mountain to go hiking. the only option was to go up the mountain or be slaughtered. if isil backed off, we need to ask ourselves how far can we go so they have safe passage and sustainably survive. >> we talked about humanitarian military intervention, taking out targets and saving lives. how is this kind of intervention viewed in the middle east? >> well, unfortunately, many people in the region have been numbed by the continuing violence in the arab and muslim societies and that's why there was very little empathy with what's happening in northern iraq and the iraqi television networks did not cover it well if you were in iraq and baghdad and you wanted to know what happened in the north you would have to watch arab satellite stations or foreign television networks, unfortunately. iraq has been a broken country for a long time and we allowed

maliki's narrow policies, and george bush did that and barack obama did that. people don't realize that the united states has a moral responsibility for what is taking place today in northern iraq. it was the american invasion of 2003 that unleashed all these dark forces, that created al qaeda in the mesopotamia which was the antecedent of isis. did the president do the right thing? i would say yes, but the problem is also i'm not sure and we don't know whether it is too little, too late. if you're going to continue with these pinprick attacks you will not roll back isis approximately you would have to embark on the long sustainable program of training, rearming the kurds and form an inclusive government that would give the sunnis the disgruntled, alienated sunnis of central iraq and northern iraq something so they can turn against isis the way they turned

against al qaeda when petraeus and ryan crocker was the ambassador of baghdad. it was impossible to find himself face-to-face with isis because isis is a different breed of terrorism. this is al qaeda on steroids. this is not your run of the mill terrorist group. this is led by a claimant of cal fade and the violence they perpetrated in both in syria and iraq is unimaginable and the united states cannot turn its back. >> the associated press is reporting that isis is holding hundreds of yazidi women captive in mosul. the humanitarian concerns and potential genocide could be extending beyond mount sinjar. what could that mean for u.s. involvement? >> he offers a wonderful perspective on the region and right on many counts and one of

the most important ways he's right is this is more than a humanitarian crisis. we have a clear national security interest in the survival of iraq as a coherent, united representative country if they can get that far politically and isis is a threat in the last decade and it was thrown out of al qaeda for excessive brutality if you can believe that. it is now an army that is attacking population centers and seizing oil refineries and dams. so they're carving out a country by the sword, out of the remnants and the ashes of syria and out of partses of northern and western iraq. this does not end well for anybody including the united states. you have a clear national security interest. you actually have a clear, i agree, moral imperative in part because of the invasion of iraq in 2003 and i was on the ground during the initial invasion of the war. i witnessed the disintegration of iraqi society nin front of m

eyes. the united states cannot sit back and watch the textbook definition of genocide. i sustained an intention and they're trying to eliminate the the tribe on the basis of their religion. that's genocide. you can't simply watch that happen and not only do we have a national security interest, and a moral imperative, we actually have the tools to help in a concrete way here, know juf in terms of humanitarian aid, but this is one case where people talk about air strikes a lot, but this is one case where air stakes can help because there was a force on ground that can take fight to isil, face-to-face, eyeball-to-eyeball. we have nour from the bull wall journal and give us a sense of what's happening on the ground there. >> yeah. sorry. i could n hear you. erbil is pretty tense and they expected the advance over the past week. a little bit calmer today, though.

isis had pushed, continued to push up north into the iraqi-kurdish border separating the kurdish-controlled territory which is hundreds of miles -- >> i guess we laugh nour malas' line again. mike, i'm going ask you this question. this isn't the first time president obama has launched air strikes for humanitarian reasons. here is what he said in 2011 when talking about libya. >> if we waited one more day benghazi, a city nearly the size of charlotte could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world. it was want in our national interest to let that happen. i refused to let that happen. and so nine days ago, after

consulting the bipartisan lea r leadership congress, i authorized military action to stop the killing and enforce u.n. security council resolution 1973. >> actually, i'm going to take this toing bo of you. mike, i'll start with you. how does that rationale in that situation compare to the air strikes we're launching now in iraq? >> i think there are certainly massive differences between the situation in libya and iraq. >> you have a national security interest, i would say greater now than it was in libya. vastly great err. >> you have a humanitarian imperative. you have reason to believe that a lot of people will die at once and this is something that was lost in the complexity here. >> a couple of days ago it was a near center they 40,000 yazidis would die on the mountain. today their prospects are better because of u.s. action. we can can say that in a region where you can almost never say things like that. you can say that today.

we have the ability to make things better and you put together the tools for the job that can actually work, a national security interest that's clear and a moral imperative that can't be ignored and the imminent threat to so many people and the united states of america has to act or it's not the united states of america anymore. >> john, final thoughts from you? >> look, we cannot escape the responsibility in iraq and the president has to review his whole approach to the region and he has to include america's friends in the region, the gulf states, jordan, egypt has to work on his relationship with turkey, but the united states has to lead, and i think he was a little bit rate because he did not get involved in syria. we allowed isis to grow for the last two years and we don't know if there are a great deal of sack refises and he has to commit the day for the long haul

and this is the fourth american president to do battle with iraq, but there are certain things only the united states can do. the united nations cannot do it. there is no leadership in europe and no leadership in the arab world and most of the arab world is broken. call it the version of empire and it cannot escape its responsibility in iraq. half of the population in iraq fled the country when we had 100,000 soldiers there. we failed them when we were there and we cannot afford to fail them again. >> apologies that we couldn't keep nour mala s with us, technical difficulties reporting from iraq. thank you both so much for being here today. >> thank you. >> up income, i'm going have a heart to heart with you, america. we need to talk. that's next. ♪ in the nation, the safest feature in your car is you.

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america, we need to talk because i'm thoroughly confused. you're down on president obama, 40% approval rating. the lowest that was ever registered in the nbc wall street journal poll, at the same time you seem to really hate congress. 14%, polyester has a higher approval rating among supermodels. america, you can't stand the fighting and dysfunction running rampant in congress, believe me, i can sympathize with that. 79% of you, i repeat, 79% are dissatisfied with the country's political system. if that were an election, it would be a landslide. america, you have a chance to do something about this dysfunction in november to change it, in the mid-term election only when you're asked who you want in charge, you say the republicans. the party that is trying to grind washington to a halt, a

slim plurality favors the republicans to keep the house and an equally slim margin wants them to take over the senate to give republicans complete control of congress, full gridlock if not another outbreak of 1990s impeachment fever and what baffles me even more, this new poll shows that 71% of you think gridlock in washington is to blame for our economic problems. you're saying gridlock is making it harder to find a job, but actually i think i'll take more gridlock and on top of all this, america, you're saying that the economy is getting better. so, america, let's talk because i thought we knew each other, but this? what is going on with you these days? here to help me figure it out we have msnbc contributor jared bernstein. he's a senior fellow with the center of budget and policy and former adviser to joe biden and robert george, opinion writer with the new york post and my

sun-times toppel ganger is back and historian journalist and journalist rick pearlstein. i asked you this before, he's got a great new book called "the invisible bridge" upon. we'll be talking to him later in the show about it. in the new poll 50% say they believe the economy is improving. while that number seems low, it's the best it's been for a faw years. so, jared, what are the indicators that the american people are experiencing that are making them have a slightly more positive outlook here? ? well, i'll share some of those indicators with you in a second, but first, veis-a-vis your very good, tough question you're adding an economist when you may need a psychiatrist. the cognitive disnance. what matters to most people is

their job, their paycheck, their sense of economic security and the extent to which they're linked to the growing economy. you know, this poll result and it's probably the only favorable result in the poll you've been citing shows that the percent of respondents who think that the economy is still in recession is actually still pretty i had. about 50%, but if you go back a year it was 60%. so the slow, steady improvement, particularly if the job market is seeping into people's consciousness. we've now added over 200 jobs a month for the past six months. the unemployment rate is coming down for the right reasons and not because people are in the job market and we're not seeing it yet in the paychecks and that's why the dissatisfaction figures are too high, but we are moving in the right direction. >> joe, given what we have known from the poll and 71% think gridlock is the problem and 43%

want the republicans to stay in control of the house and the same percentage want them to be in control of the senate. as i said in the opening, none of it makes sense to me. i'm confused. help me out. >> well, to continue on with what jared is saying, yes, the economy is getting better and yes, people are starting to perceive it, but the poll had interesting numbers on the economy and why people say they're not feeling the improvement. they have adult kids living with them. they or their kids are paying off student debt. they've got credit card debt. someone in their household lost a job in the recession and there's still a lot of part-time work that's involuntary. and so what you have, what president obama inherited was not just the bush recession, but he inherited 30 years of declining living standards for the living class and the working class, stuff that began under ronald reagan and rick can talk to you about that later, but these are long-term trends. we stopped being an opportunist

society a while ago and people are still digging out and don't have a way to expect their paychecks to r s ts to rise. >> i think there is something to that, and i wish i could take credit and i wish i being remember who originally said it it, but in terms of how people see this as a divided country, somebody once said that the american people elect democrats because they want things and they elect republicans because they don't want to pay for them. >> that doesn't make much sense. the republicans are the ones who run up the deficits. >> true. >> be that as it may, but i think this issue, it seems that the economy is increasing, is getting better. we've got 200,000 jobs created for the last six months. the problem is, though, there is a certain kind of a credibility gap where the public is not actually crediting the president or the democrats for the improvement in the economy

partly because, you know, there is a concern that he wasn't, you know, honest with them on obamacare and -- >> right. >> and so forth. that is why you do have a definite enthusiasm, more enthusiasm on the republican side to turn out in november. >> jump in there. you're itching to get in. >> let's put some of that on the president and i wrote this about reagan who was the great communicator and he blamed the bad guys. when there was bad news, he always was able to put it subtly and with a smile put it on the democrat democrats. you showed a segment about barack obama and the next sentence out of of his mouth was i don't want to get political with this. the whole idea that barack obama cannot play the political game of taking credit for the good stuff and blaming the bad guys for the bad stuff is very much at the center of his appeal in 2008, but when you're doing hard

game of getting credit i'm not really sure that's enough. >>. >> let me jump in there, i think the problem that the president faces, it gets back to some of the things joan was saying. it's actually kind of a dissident to use that word again for people to hear the president crowing about the economy when they've got their kid living in the basement and when their paycheck has been relatively flat. he's actually had to stick to a pretty kind of balanced message that doesn't jump out with optimism. he's constantly saying which happens to be the case, things are improving, but they're improving slowly and we know we haven't reached the middle class yet. >> the fact that we're not improving is the republicans' fault. >> i'm sorry --? i think that's a strong point. he really able to do more.

>> or perhaps the federal reserve, there is an element there why there is not more job creation there because they've kept interest rates low, but that's a very complicated and political argument to make. >> i can point to one other thing i thought was fascinating in that poll? msnbc did a word cloud around the words that people mentioned in the poll, democrats versus republicans, in the republican word cloud, impeach president obama and stop violating the constitution, fix the borders and some other really negative, harsh thing. the democrats was immigration reform, fix obamacare and compromise, compromise was one of the biggest words in the democratic word cloud. there was no compromise even in tiny, tiny print in the republican word cloud, and i think that is really a problem because you have this a symmetric engagement in the business of compromising because it's the business of government and a president that has been reluctant to call out the evildoers. >> and don't forget you

compromise with an extremist, and that's work of the things that the president's base and the progressive movement and the left complained about president obama about in his first term that he constantly compromised with people -- >> the idea that we'll have to hold that and this is tv, hold that thought. we'll be right back with some thoughts on this from the president himself. [cat meows] ♪meow, meow, meow, meow... it's more than just a meal, it's meow mix mealtime. with great taste and 100% complete nutrition, it's the only one cats ask for by name.

take them on the way you always have. live healthy and take one a day men's 50+. a complete multivitamin with 7 antioxidants to support cell health. age? who cares. >> over the past year we've added more jobs than any year since 2006 and all told, our businesses have created 9.9 million new jobs over the past 53 months. that's the longest streak of private sector job creation in our history. >> that was president obama at his press conference last friday shortly after the latest reading on unemployment was released. i'll direct this question to you, is the president doing an effective job at explaining the strengthening of the job market and do americans want to empower

republicans because they're not hearing enough from the president? >> well, you know, it's funny just listening to that clip he sounded like he was reading his microwave manual there. so, you know, i guess you could talk about communications because i know rick raised reagan's prowess in that regard. i think, here's the thing, as i mentioned earlier this poll shows market improvement in the trend in the way some americans feel about key variables. in economics we often differentiate between the level and the trend, okay? so the trend is your friend right now. it's going in the right direction, but these levels are so unfavorable that it's going to take a long time before the the trend actually helps anybody. as regard to this political question you've been asking, this very tough question, i actually don't think that people look at the situation we're dealing with and say, boy, we have a ton of really intractable problems. congress is dysfunctional and they're not compromising and

that's why we ned more democrats. is that's just not the way people are thinking about these days and they really don't have a sense that either party is ready to step up and do what needs to be done, even though it's factually correct that it's hard right republicans that are blocking so much progress. >> there is a real leadership component here and rick touched upon it. this -- president obama doesn't like to be politically combative, and i think actually that shows both in domestic policy and even actually when he's negotiating on the world stage. you know, strength tends to recognize strength, and if you have somebody who seems to be risk averse and is not -- is unclear and doesn't want to either call out his enemies or, quote, evil or so forth, the other side sees that. i think republicans can see that and vshg lad mir putin also sees

that internationally as well. that's not the same case with reagan or bill clinton. >> to be fair, when he does call out evil or pick on the republicans, he is called petulant, whiney, mean, he won't lead and compromise. what's wrong with him? >> that's a question of rhetorical skill, and reagan was able to say really nasty things with a smile on his face. i called out obama before and let's widen the frame to the democratic party as a whole. the kind of mean that should be on every democrats' list is look, historically, the worst democrat is better than the best republican when it comes to historical job growth. we don't seem to say things like that. >> let me ask you this question, rick. president obama was reelected in 2012 when the unemployment rate was 7.9%. that's the highest unemployment rate that the president has been reelected rate since franklin roosevelt and the other president since ronald reagan

was above 6%. so my question, rick, is how much does the strength of the economy matter in elections and will it play any role in november? >> it matters enormously when the unemployment rate was 10% in 1982 and reaganomics seemed to have completely failed and the democrats received a shellacking and the economy turned around in 1984 and that was for decisions that jamie carter made and that's another question. reagan got his 49 states and the thing about it was when he got his 49 states he didn't say i have a mandate for economic policies. he said i have a mandate for everything and he ignored the defeat when he gave his press conference in 1982 and said it doesn't matter. it was only because the democrat depps were mean and unfair on the campaign trail and in 1984 he said i have a mandate to do

whatever i want and just like bush when he had to privatize, quote, unquote, social security. >> just a quick point. i'll go out on a limb and make a bit of a prediction here. i actually think that the economy will be a bitter mo of a wen that the democrats back in the midterm and 2016. i know that's looking out pretty far, but my sense is what i've said before. you've got some trends that are moving in the right direction. i think they'll keep moving in that direction and i think they'll bring unfavorable levels that can help democrats if as others have suggested they take credit for. >> i seem to recall -- treeing to use the between 12 as a mandate and was pushed back because in a review on ronald reagan, you wrote about the

republicans' problem, there is a conservatism that draws a nerve in people. could this explain the contradict renumbers we see in the polls? >> well, yeah. i think people are not necessarily paying very close attention to who is doing what, but i also think what i -- what i've seen in rick's books over the years and i'm a big fan is when they're defeated and we're talking about democrats still doing fairly well and still not making the most of it. when republicans are defeated they double down and go back to work and democrats we often are in love with the idea of our own moral superiority or democrat's destiny or republicans are dying out. >> it doesn't matter if you have a democracy deficit. if obama can win in a state of pennsylvania and you still have republican congressmen and democrat depps and when you have

unlimited money we can't rely on democracy, we can't rely on what richard nixon recalled seaing the silent majority become a screaming minority. >> and that's why the democrats are trying to base their survival on turning out african-american votes and turn out women's votes and that's why the the president is pushing the envelope on immigration and what he can do with executive power to bring out hispanics, as well. >> maybe he thinks it's good for the country. >> but it's political in terms of pushing the demographic argument so that -- the democrat base shows up. >> good politics and good. policy. >> my thanks to you, msnbc contributor, jared bernstein with the center on budget, approximately see and priorities. >> the country that is offering to help some of the victims of the conflict in gaza. details and a report from the

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right now, hundred hads of palestinian orphans and children are on their way to venezuela. they'll receive medical attention and other care in carac caracas. two u.n. agencies are supervising the transfer and it comes after a 72-hour truce expired. bill neily is chief global correspondent for nbc news and he's in gaza. bill? >> reporter: hello, jonathan. israeli warplanes and drones circling above us firing off flares. we are once again in a deadly and frankly depressing situation here, a second day of fighting since the truce ended and a conflict that is now entering its second month. people on both sides of the gaza border are now asking when and how on earth this conflict can be over? the sound of war across gaza once again, israeli air strikes

by day, more than 30 overnight. five palestinians reported dead. three of them buried in the rubble of one of several mosques hit. israel says it's striking hamas positions, a command post, a weapons store, but civilians are also dying once again, a 10-year-old boy, the first casualty mourned by his inconsolable father. across the gaza border in israel, two civilians and one soldier were injured by rockets, but the return of the war, the sirens and the terror is wearing people down. ash callon, the first town hit by renewed rocket fire. >> nobody wins in a war. everybody is getting hurt and getting damaged. it's a lose-lose situation. >> the renewed fighting has forced thousands back to u.n. shelters in gaza. this school held 600 refugees during the truce. today it's nearly 3,000. some of the children who should be at school are recovering in

hospitals from terrible injuries. the same tragedy, he says, keeps repeating itself again and again, there is little sign of peace in the new rubble. what about the future? >> no future in gaza, man. no future. never going to stop. >> egypt holding peace talks is calling for a new cease-fire, but israel won't talk while the rockets fly and missiles are still being fired by both sides here. >> so, jonathan, the israeli warplanes and the drones are still circling here and not long ago, about 200 yards up the road there was a double israeli missile strike and one bomb by a much larger explosion. the target was said to be a police building which we believe was empty at the time and no casualties reported. if there are signs of hope here and it's that the pace of the attacks recently had somewhat diminished and that the cairo

peace talks which both sides say they're interested in continuing. no one has yet declared them dead. back to you, jonathan. >> many thanks to nbc's bill neil ney gaza. we've just learned president obama will speak about a half hour from now about the situation in iraq and he'll talk before heading to martha's vineyard, a trip he is cutting short to monitor the crisis. we'll tear the president's remarks live here on msnbc. take a closer look at charmin ultra soft and you'll love what you see. not only can you use less, but you can actually see the softness in our comfort cushions. plus charmin ultra soft is so much more absorbent you can use up to four times less. what are you boys looking at? my main squeeze. rotorooter approved. charmin is clog-free or it's free. ahhh! what is it? there are no marshmallows in this box of lucky charms!

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honey, look at all these smart rewards points verizon just gave me. ooh, you got a buddy. i'm like a statue. i just signed up and, boom, all these points. ...and there's not-so-good more. you're a big guy... huh. oh no. get the good more with verizon smart rewards and rack up points to use towards the things you really want. now get 50% off all new smartphones. we are waiting for remarks in morning from president obama. he will speak in about a half hour from now about the situation in iraq. he'll talk before heading to martha's vineyard for his summer vacation, a trip he's cutting short to return to washington to monitor the crisis. well carry the president's remarks live here on msnbc. in the meantime, exactly 40 years ago today president richard nixon formal leigh resigned from office, and if you're like me you probably read more than a few think pieces

about his legacy this week. former white house speechwriter reminded us of this quote, it's from kevin phillips who was an aide in nixon's 1968 campaign. the whole secret of politics was knowing who hates who. richard nixon knew that and unfortunate leigh for him, he let it show. so much so that on this day in 1974 he had to walk across the white house lawn to an awaiting helicopter and fly off to exile in california. california gave america another leader, a leader who inherited the nixon legacy. a leader who also knew the political secret about knowing who hates who except he did it all with a smile. >> we may be fewer in numbers than we've ever been, but we carry the message they're waiting for. we must go forth from here, united, determined at what a great general said a few years ago is true, there is no substitute for victory.

mr. president --? that was ronald wilson reagan at the 1976 republican national convention. that speech came after reagan failed to capture the nomination that year, but in the time between nixon's resignation and that convention, reagan captured the hearts of conservative america and he led them to capture the republican party. back with me now to talk about how reagan restored the republican party after watergate and cemented the silent majority in power, we have rick pea perlstein, "the invisible bridge." how did reagan help the republican party brush aside watergate? >> it was a fascinating thing. at the time when nixon resigned and for a long time afterward, we were talking about polling. 18%.

every time he was asked about watergate in the press conference he would dismiss it. he would say it wasn't a big deal or the watergate conspirators were notburg lars at heart. he would say richard nixon was being the victim of a link, right? it was a partisan democratic attack on a republican candidate meant to erase the mandate of 1972, and it was really fascinating to see how pundits responded to that, right? in the summer of 1974 two very influential pundits, evans and novak wrote a piece in which they said reagan's political aides are beside themselves because they don't know how they could possibly position ronald reagan for the presidency unless he repudiates richard nixon. he never repudiated richard nixon and what the pundits didn't understand is this was the soul of ronald reagan's appeal. he gave the american people permission to not worry and just

kind of ignore problems. >> i want to go to something -- a bit of ronald history that sticks with me, and it's the first trip reagan took after becoming the 1980 republican nominee. and it's a place where three civil is rights workers were murdered in 1964. here is a clip from nbc's coverage of that event is. let's take a look. >> ronald reagan fans waved and flashed the victory sign all along his route to mississippi's noshoba county fair. ronald reagan said 90% of them he figured were democrats. the crowd shouted by no. he told the deep south crowd he believes in states rights. the he believes government is out of balance because the federal establishment has taken powers never intended in the constitution. the real purples of reagan's trip is a speech to the urban league on black unemployment. in mississippi it was difficult to find a black face in the crowd. >> i mean, 16 years after civil

rights workers were murdered. >> a couple miles from that site. >> yeah. so my question is, how were racial overtones part of conservatism rise? >> a historian discovered not long before he went to the fair grounds his campaign got a letter saying you have to get the wallace vote. which meant the segregationist vote and the great way is to go to the noshoba county fair. that means they had motive and opportunity in mississippi. but, you know, you can't go down to the south and say, you know, i think we must preserve the southern way of life. you can't be like george wallace saying if i see a protester in front of my limousine i'm going to run him over. like lee atwater said, code words. states rights, everyone knew what it meant. it was states rights to i go are more the federal government when the federal government told them

they had to let little black boys and little black girls go to the same school. >> thanks, rick. again, we've learned that president obama will address the situation in iraq live this morning. he will speak from the south lawn of the white house in about half an hour from now. we'll carry the president's remarks live right here on msnbc. and we'll be right back. she's a dietitian. and back when i wasn't eating right, she got me drinking boost. it's got a great taste, and it helps give me the nutrition i was missing. helping me stay more like me. [ female announcer ] boost complete nutritional drink has 26 essential vitamins and minerals, including calcium and vitamin d to support strong bones and 10 grams of protein to help maintain muscle. all with a delicious taste. grandpa! [ female announcer ] stay strong, stay active with boost.

i want to find out what my guests mo now that they didn't know when the week began. let's start with rick. he mott only writes about the 1970s, but wears them as well. can you see them? what are they five inch? three inch heels. >> six, seven is. i learned the 70s are the best decade ever. short guys could feel what it was like to be tall. quite a feat. >> i learned that senator rand paul has a fitness program and it involves sitting down at a table, taking a bite of his hamburger, meeting a dreamer. you drop the wurg er, you don't finish it, you run and you stay

very slim. >> it's called the dream dash? >> yeah, the dream dash. >> robert george? >> moving away from politics, we found out that, surprise, college athletes have economic rights, big -- very big decision handed down yesterday that said that college athletes have the rights to endorsement deals and things like that. it frankly may change college sports forever. >> and i know i'm not supposed to take part in this, but i now know that herman cain is right when it comes to the tea party and only that. i want to thank all my guests this morning and thank you at home -- well, he said that the tea party and the republican party are basically one and the same. thank you at home for joining us today pour "up." i'll be back tomorrow, same time, 8:00 a.m. eastern. up next is melissa harris-perry. melissa will have is the latest on the air strikes in iraq including remarks from the white house. "mhp" will carry those remarks live.

keep it here on msnbc. don't go anywhere because "mhp" is next. thanks for getting "up." take 4 advil in a day or just 2 aleve for all day relief. peanuts! peanuts! crowd cheers!

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this this morning, my question -- did the jury reach the right conclusion? we'll take paul ryan serious ly. the ebola outbreak is an international health emergency. first, the u.s. returns to iraq. good morning, i'm melissa harris perfect ary and we have breaking news this morning. the president is expected to it address the media to talk more about the situation in iraq, and we're going to bring you his statement live when it happens. the we expect to hear from the president just a little later this hour. the united states military conducted a second is round of humanitarian aid friday dropping 72 bundles of supplies for iraqis being threatened by