i don't think that. i know that. >> you've been saying it for some time this general election would be extraordinarily rough. it is going to be pretty tough. we were reminded, though, that that's how it was in 1800. and early part of this country. >> i know you do. you were there in 1800. >> you lived it hard. >> democracy. >> a hard turn here. we want to thank the cable hall of fame for being honored tonight. >> yes. we're going to be up in boston. >> we are blown away by this. we thank you very much. that does it for us. steve kornacki picks up the coverage. >> right there in the sweater. >> he's kind of mean, but he picks up the coverage right now. and good morning. i'm steve kornacki. topping the agenda, trump and women. "the new york times" goes after the presumptive republican nominee and says his behavior has crossed the line. but a new twist this morning.

one of the women the times relied on says the story is bogus. >> he never made me feel like i was being demeaned in any way. he never offended me in any way. >> that is rowan brewer. now she's saying "the times" took her words out of context and manufactured what she calls a hit piece on trump. we'll tell you what's going on there. also what "the new york times" is saying about it. that is ahead. also on the agenda, what hillary clinton's fans are worrying about. >> i was saying earlier in louisville where we had a big rally, my husband who i'm going to put in charge of revitalizing the economy because, you know, he knows how to do it. >> she enters the general election as the favorite. even her fans are nervous about what's to come. where do they think she's vulnerable in a race against donald trump? we have some interesting answers for you this morning. and rounding out our agend

apresident obama never mentioned donald trump's name yesterday but there was no doubt who he was talking about. >> the world is more interconnected than ever before. and it's becoming more connected every day. building walls won't change that. >> the president using his bully pulpit to try to make sure trump doesn't succeed him as president. is this a preview of the next six months? more on the obama factor in the 2016 election. that is ahead. we begin with our top story. "the new york times" blasting out this front page article. the headline "crossing the line, how donald trump behaved with women in private." one of the women now speaking out to attack the story. the article says, quote, donald trump had barely met rowanne brewer lane when he asked her to change out of her clothes.

he suddenly took me by the hand and started to show me around the mansion. he asked if i had a swimsuit with me? i said, no. he took me to a room and open e drawers and asked me to put on a swimsuit. the article suggesting they were debasing and indicative of larger issues. but the woman whose story is being told there is emerging this morning to say her words were twisted and that she never felt any ill will toward trump and that he behaved as a gentleman. take a listen. >> it was very upsetting. i was not happy to read it at all. they put a negative connotation on it and spun it to where it appeared negative. i did not have a negative experience with donald trump and i don't appreciate them making it look like i was saying it was a negative experience. >> you knew him very well? you date ed him for several months >> that's correct. >> since then trump has been tweeting about her comments.

this one from a few minutes ago. "the new york times" is so dishonest, their hit piece cover story on me yesterday was just blown up by, he says roseanne brewer. it's rowenne is the name who said it was a lie. donald trump's record with women one of the preeminent concerns looking ahead. the latest cnn/orc national polling puts hillary clinton ahead of trump by 13 points overall. and the big reason for that lead is the gender gap. trump and clinton are tied with male voters, he trails clinton by 26 points. joining us, katy tur and hallie jackson. a bit of drama here. "the new york times" tried to land this story. front page, heavy promotion. this is a big story going for impact here. but now this morning, the woman who they relied on for the lead

anecdote in that story is saying it's bogus. >> the authors of that story were trying to paint more of a picture of a complicated man who has inconsistencies if you will. somebody who would demean women on the one hand but also promote them on the other. donald trump is a much more complicated figure than maybe he has been seen as or portrayed at least in the media. that is something we've certainly seen echoed on the campaign trail. a lot of folks saying he may have some flaws or may say things a little outrageous but we believe his heart is in the right place or has the right idea. that's what "the new york times" was hoping to get out. certainly with ms. brewer coming out this morning on "fox & friends" and rebuking her portion of the story. they've got a bit of a problem on their hands when it comes to how it was portrayed, at least in ms. brewer's eyes. the campaign, though, is now

effectively pushing her out. she's told us she's going to be appearing on news shows at the request of donald trump. so she's going to be pushing back on this idea. the campaign, meanwhile, is down today focusing on how they are going to start their general election push against hillary clinton. we got a little bit of a preview of that in "the new york times" today as well. donald trump intending to go after her for her character, something her aides have been telling me saying they're going to try to poke holes in her character and discuss the way she handled her husband's affairs and try and add this question of -- questionability about who she is as a woman and how she behaved as first lady in the eyes of voters. whether that works remains to be seen. >> katy tur outside trump tower. going to turn now to hallie jackson in washington. also the question here for

donald trump since we've started calling him the presumptive republican nominee, the question is, as always, who will the presumptive nominee run with to pick as a vice presidential candidate. there's some news this weekend on that front. ben carson who has been tapped by donald trump to lead the vice presidential search is speaking out a little bit. what can you tell us? >> even some questions about how involved ben carson is now that he's submitted a list of names. i believe we have a graphic of some of the folks bantied about as a possible running mate. john kasich, marco rubio, ted cruz, sarah palin, chris christie. if there were some sort of serious proposal made, gingrich would seriously consider it. some of these names you can cross off right away. donald trump himself tweeted about this saying marco rubio is not on that list and was never on that list. he sent out that tweet within the last 12 hours.

sort of rebutting saying most others mentioned are not under consideration. john kasich, aides have long said that kasich really just believes trump is moving in the wrong direction for this country. that's not been a secret for kasich. it would be surprising to see him on the ticket. and ted cruz. also, even though the two had sort of politically embraced for so long during this campaign, basically all of 2016, they were buddy buddy. what you saw from ted cruz toward the end was a real anger for some of those attacks he took personally. attacks against his wife and his father, especially towards the end. you'd be hard pressed to see how cruz could end up as a running mate. i want to play new video out, a finale, a good-bye video from the cruz campaign to its staffers. it features a lot of the staffers. there's a couple of very interesting points to make. how it ends with a slate that

says to be continued. one of the most obvious hints yet that cruz has his eye on 2020 and potentially another presidential bid. you also hear cruz allude to that in comments about ronald reagan. i think we have that sound. >> spark the fire and started a movement. and that's powerful and it doesn't go away with one election. ronald reagan in 1976 came up short. i suspect that at that convention, there were more than a few tears shed. >> and there's that to be continued. so you see cruz drawing those parallels to ronald reagan in '76 saying this was the beginning of a movement. cruz sees himself as the de facto leader of this grassroots conservative movement. it's a movement that donald trump is obviously trying to get in his corner as he moves to take on hillary clinton in the fall. some interesting political

speculation and intrigue bubbling up over the weekend. >> there is. there's also the question, the people that knew reagan and part of that in '76, how many of them look at that and say, he's reagan all over again. >> he's got the mantel. >> this is an interesting question about the next six months. if he's interested in 2020 and being there if trump loses this year. in terms of his positioning, there's a dilemma here for cruz. do you try to be a team player for the next six months to turn around after the election and say i did my best, or do you want to turn around and say this was unconscionable, i never was part of this. there's a strategic question here for him, isn't there? >> there's a sense that i get that it's too early to come down on either side of that line, especially when you look at where the party is or is not. and that's why you have very pointedly seen ted cruz not endorse donald trump, not talk

about donald trump in a few appearances he's made in the senate since he's dropped out. he hasn't talked much about trump. right now he's taking a little bit of a break from the political world. so you got to wonder when we get closer to convention, that will be the time you see some of these candidates, including ted cruz, figure out, where are they going to be? are they going to be team players from july to november or will there be a sense of staying on the sidelines, letting trump do his thing and seeing how it plays out to be able to then turn around and say i've got the conservative grassroots behind me. here's what i can do for the next four years. >> hallie jackson in washington. let's stay on this theme of unity or lack of unity. let's bring in philip rucker. he wrote this article over the weekend, "inside the gop effort to draft an independent candidate to derail trump." thanks for joining us. this is interesting and follows what we're talking about with ted cruz. ted cruz somebody who in the

final days of this campaign had the harshest of things to say about donald trump. not sure what ted cruz is going to do. there's a segment of the republican party, leaders in the republican party looking at this election and saying, still, absolutely no way they go with trump. and they're talking up third party possibility. who are they? what are they doing right now? >> the most prominent person involved is mitt romney. he's had very critical things to say about trump. he's quietly trying to draft a third party candidate. he's reached out personally to john kasich and ben sass, a young senator from nebraska. >> get anything nibbles there, any interest? >> they claim they're not interested. they've ruled it out categorically but there could be a chance they could persuade somebody. >> any idea who else? >> they tried to reach general maddis. a real favorite among conservatives. also mark cuban, the owner of dallas mavericks, reality tv star. they said you can out-trump

trump. you have the personality to take it to trump. we interviewed cuban over e-mail and he said he's not interested. didn't think there was time. >> cuban, maybe he's open to it in the future. there's a trump model that's been created for a character like mark cuban down the line potentially. >> he's very fluent in technology, an investor. knows business. knows that private world. also has a celebrity personality, persona and that's appealing to some voters. he'd have no trouble getting known by the public. >> how would this third party thing work? you've already had a ballot deadline come and go in texas. you wouldn't be able to get on the ballot in texas. how would it work mechanically. is there enough time to put a third party candidate on the ballot? >> it's very hard. i think the people involved think they only have about two or three weeks here to get something off the ground for it to be credible. some of the states they're coming up with deadlines. there's also a proposal by mark

murphy, the strategy behind the jeb bush superpac. go into three states, four states, swing states with easy ballot access rules. get in there. compete with trump. deny him the electoral votes to win the election. you'd then end up with president hillary clinton. >> if the goal is just to derail trump, why don't they come out and just endorse hillary clinton? >> they don't like hillary clinton. their pipe dream is perhaps the third party candidate could win the presidency or maybe a tie and it would go -- a three-way tie and it would go to the house of representatives to vote and you'd have an insider process to determine the presidency. but that is so unlikely. it has not happened in modern times. it really feels like this is probably not going to get off the ground. >> mitt romney went out of his way to deliver that speech against donald trump. you say he's trying to recruit somebody. is there any chance mitt romney himself would say i'll do it? >> he has said over and over

again no, he won't do it, but some around him still think it could be a possibility. i don't see it happening. he's behind the scenes trying to get somebody else. there could be a potential where mitt romney feels so compelled to do something that he'd step forward and do it, but i don't think it would happen. >> thanks for the time. still to come -- president obama making the case against donald trump. >> it's not cool to not know what you're talking about. that's not keeping it real or telling it like it is. that's not challenging political correctness. that's just not knowing what you're talking about. >> the president making it clear yesterday he's going to have something to say about this election over the next six months. more on that ahead. next -- hillary clinton begins to shift her focus toward

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my husband who i'm going to put in charge of revitalizing the economy because, you knows he knows how to do it. and especially in places like coal country and inner cities and other parts of our country that have really been left out. >> hillary clinton there for the first time offering some specifics, it seemed, on a role bill clinton could play as she tries to set her sights on the general election. as clinton turns her attention to donald trump, her supporters are a little worried about that november showdown with the presumptive republican nominee.

in today's "washington post," ann guerin and dan pauls write when democrats assess clinton they tend to zero in on her communication skills. she is scripted and thin-skinned. they acknowledge the fear among a lot of americans that they just don't like her. let's go to bowling green, kentucky, where hillary clinton will hold one of two campaign events. the kentucky primary is there tomorrow. kasie hunt is there right now. good morning to you. this is interesting. hillary saying what she just said there about bill clinton. it's interesting it's in kentucky. bill clinton carried it twice in the 1990s. maybe there's some residual affection there for him among democrats. when donald trump goes after bill clinton, the first thing you hear is hillary is the one running, not bill. if she's out there talking about a role for bill in the administration, that does open

him up a little bit, doesn't it? >> it does open it up a little bit, steve. i have to tell you having spent a considerable amount of time on the trail with bernie sanders and his supporters, to have hillary clinton saying, i'm going to turn the economy over to bill clinton is in many ways the opposite of what a lot of those bernie sanders supporters want to hear. bernie sanders runs against bill clinton's record in the '90s. runs against nafta. runs against criminal justice related reforms the clintons put in place and other things. specifically on the economy, there's a lot of sense among bernie sanders supporters that the economic inequality that they feel they are experiencing today is a result of a lot of those free market, free trade policies that bill clinton helped to put in place. i'm interested to see how that persists going forward. i also will say on kentucky, hillary clinton has made an all-out push to try to win here in a way that we haven't seen

her do with other recent primary states. the campaign had pulled all of its ad dollars out of primary states. they went back up on the air. hillary clinton doing five events in 48 hours, almost overshadowing bernie sanders' schedule here hitting a lot of the same places he's been campaigning over the past couple of days. this was a state they have deep history. bill clinton won here in 1996. the question is going to be the sense from both sides this is a close race. whether or not having her put in all this effort can really make a difference. i did go to an event in louisville with her and while she's hitting some of her primary themes she's also alluding to donald trump. take a look. >> there's a saying in the senate, there are two kinds of senators. show horses and work horses. i have to say, it really lifted my spirits to see exaggerator beaten in the derby.

>> that's kind of the extent of it. the underhanded jab. one thing we didn't hear about, that's "new york times" story, front page yesterday on sunday talking about donald trump and women. that's been a little bit of a difficult subject for the clinton campaign to deal with. so far, no hands on that, steve. >> i had exaggerator in the derby, so i resent that comment from hillary clinton. but let me ask you quickly. we mentioned this article in "the washington post" about anxiety among some clinton supporters as they look ahead to the general election. and they hit it right there with the vulnerability that even some clinton supporters seize when you put trump and hillary clinton on the stage she's struggled with that question of trustworthiness. and that question of likability. maybe it's a wild card when you put them -- she's ahead in the polls. when you put them side by side, that gives some anxiety to some clinton supporters. >> even if you look at kentucky,

one thing they are looking at is this idea of conservative democrats who are actually trump supporters. you saw that in west virginia. you talked a lot about it on that election night. some of these people who went and voted for bernie in the primary but said, hey, i'm going to vote for trump in a general election. those are the kinds of people in particular that are concerned about being a wild card. i also think a lot of her allies feel like now is the time to start going after trump for all of those reasons that you list and priorities usa, that superpac that's supporting clinton, announced this morning that they're going to start buying ads and running anti-trump ads starting on wednesday. they previously said they weren't going to go up until after all the democratic voters in california and other places had a chance to have a say in the nomination fight. but they'll air millions of ads between now and june. can they be more effective than the republicans who struggled to take down trump and ultimately failed.

>> kasie hunt in bowling green, kentucky, thank you for that. president obama comes out swinging against donald trump although he never actually used the name donald trump. what the president had to say that has to do with our most important number of the day which we are going to reveal next. owen! hey kevin. hey, fancy seeing you here. uh, i live right over there actually. you've been to my place. no, i wasn't...oh look, you dropped something. it's your resume with a 20 dollar bill taped to it. that's weird. you want to work for ge too. hahaha, what? well we're always looking for developers who are up for big world changing challenges like making planes, trains and hospitals run better. why don't you check your new watch and tell me what time i should be there. oh, i don't hire people. i'm a developer. i'm gonna need monday off. again, not my call.

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when you hear someone longing for the good old days, take it with a grain of salt. the good old days weren't all that good. the world is more interconnected than ever before. and it's becoming more connected every day. building walls won't change that. facts, evidence, reason, logic, an understanding of science, these are good things. these are qualities you want in people making policy. in politics and in life,

ignorance is not a virtue. >> any guesses who the president was talking about there? he never named names but it was pretty clear in a commencement address he gave at rutgers university in new jersey yesterday that the president was talking an awful lot about donald trump. the presumptive republican nominee. and that gets us that obama speech yesterday at rutgers gets us to our most important number of the day which is 24. what is 24? 24 will be in a couple of weeks the number of commencement addresses, the total number of commencement draes menment addr one we played a clip of that president obama has delivered while in office. yesterday was 23. june 2nd at the u.s. air force academy in colorado. that will be his 24th and final commencement address while president. how does that compare to past presidents? pretty much in line with george

w. bush, bill clinton, george h.w. bush. back in ronald reagan's presidency he was there for eight years as well. he only did 11. an up tick after he left office when george h.w. bush came in. obama doing about three commencement addresses a year. if you break these down, always interesting. how many were public schools? how many private? most of the places the president has delivered his addresses are public schools. some were high schools. he's delivered some high school commencement addresses in addition to a bunch of colleges as well. and you can see the number one place he goes or the number one type of school is the u.s. military academies. it's the naval academy, military academy at west point, coast guard, air force academy where he'll be in two weeks. two each at all of those. one-third of his commencement addresses military institutions. the total number will be 24. you saw this yesterday. that's a big crowd.

they filled up the football stadium. tens of thousands of people. cameras from all over the country. the president has the stage for 45 minutes, an hour, however he wants to use that. that's the presidential bully pulpit, how you can cast attention on any subject you want to. and yesterday as we showed you, the president using that commencement address to go after donald trump. and that raises the question. we talk a lot about hillary clinton, about donald trump, about that prospective matchup. but also for the next six months, barack obama still president. when you're president, you still have that bully pulpit. can he use that bully pulpit to try to keep donald trump out of the white house? as we saw him try to do yesterday. could that be successful? we're going to talk about that right now. joining s ining us is norm orns. co-author of "it's even worse than it looks -- even worse than

it was" new title there. a new and revised and expanded. it was called it's even worse than it looks. it's now called it's even worse than it was. now the obama role in the general election. i remember back in 2000, bill clinton finishing up two terms. he wanted al gore to succeed him. also limited in what he could do because of the scandal he'd just been through. obviously not an issue with barack obama. what c obama do over the next six months if he wants to keep donald trump out of the white house? >> it's interesting, steve. bill clinton really wanted to spend more time on the trail helping al gore and al gore didn't want him to. it frustrated bill clinton. i don't think you'll see that at all with hillary clinton. barack obama is very popular among democrats especially. among minorities, especially. he'll be out there. he won't be doing necessarily direct campaigning, but he is going to be using his bully

pulpit a lot and trying to convince bernie sanders supporters as well as a lot of others that donald trump is not fit to be president and that hillary clinton would make an excellent president. a president in his final days has two weapons at his disposal. executive power and that bully pulpit and that bully pulpit is going to be a big, big deal for him. >> one thing we've seen over the last few months and i'm wondering if you have an explanation for this. the president's approval rating has jumped up. he's now into the 50s in a lot of polls. 51, 52, 53. more in the mid-40s. pretty much stuck there his entire presidency. do you have any explanation for why that is? >> i think there are two things going on. we've seen an economic recovery that's been slow but it takes a long time. there's a lag before americans begin to see it. and there's a little bit of an up tuck in terms of optimism people feel out there. the single largest reason is one the president highlighted in the

joke at the white house correspondents dinner which is he put up pictures of some of the republican candidates and it's compared to what? people have watched this ugly and difficult campaign. the zoo out there in the nominating process, and barack obama looks a lot more presidential compared to some of the other candidates out there getting most of the attention. >> what about the flip side? we see how hard it is for the same party to win three consecutive presidential terms. ronald reagan did it twice, then bush sr. got in there for a term. that's the exception. is there something to the idea that people just after eight years of one party, they get an itch. they want to switch and they are a lot more open to going to the other party. >> i think it's pretty easy to see what the overall theme is in this election. any time you have an election with the president who has been in for eight years it's all about change. and the question is, how much change do you want and how much risk are you willing to take to get change?

the question about donald trump is going to be how much risk are you willing to take. with somebody who doesn't have, as the president said in his rutgers address, any experience, any knowledge at all of public policy. recklessness in behavior, and then the question becomes, will there be events as we move through the summer and the fall and the economy in the world at large with terrorist attacks that will get people either wondering whether he's too much of a risk or saying we have to take a flyer because we can't have more of the same. >> norm ornstein, "it's even worse than it was." >> great holiday gift. >> thank you. thanks for joining us. coming up, estimates today that roughly 250 americans have tried to join isis. nbc's richard engel with the incredible story of how his treteam tracked down at least 15 of those individuals.

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the volkswagen golf gti. rt of the award-winning golf family. college graduation ceremonies over the weekend. vice president joe biden and republican presumptive republican nominee donald trump were just yards apart from each other yesterday. both attending the university of pennsylvania's commencement ceremony in philadelphia. biden was there for his granddaughter naomi. she was graduating from penn. trump was there with his family supporting his daughter tiffany. she was also graduating. the third of his children to graduate from the school where he attended business school. coming up, after last week's meeting between trump and republican leaders, party unity seems closer and closer. is it only a matters of time before the party fully unifies behind trump. >> trump and the republican establishment are like a teenage

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couple of months ago, gave us a thumb drive. on that thumb drive were thousands of names. isis personnel files. after verifying the documents and combing through them, we identified the names of 15 people. 15 americans or u.s. residents who had decided to leave this country and go and join isis. so there may be others out there. there may be others we don't know about. these are the ones we had the files on. then we worked backwards from the files. who are these people? we tried to talk to their teachers, friends, families and try and come up with an idea -- >> was there a common story you found? >> immigrants. most of them muslim, but there was at least one convert who converted to islam. but we were trying to find out more about them. one thing consistently is that people knew. people in their community saw

them get increasingly radicalized. people saw them withdraw from society and time and time again didn't come forward. and i think we have a piece lined up. you can see what happened when we tried to approach one of the family members to tell his story. >> yeah. >> here's omar khatan. he was a student at the university of north texas. then he signed up to be a suicide attacker. hadnad went to high school in suburban minneapolis. alberto renteria, a convert to islam from gilroy, california, is seen here inside syria. >> the vast majority say i want to be a fighter. this one said he wants to be a suicide bomber. he doesn't want to come back. >> of all the names, two americans stood out because they appeared to arrive in syria on the same day. jaferi khan and rasal rohan.

gamal suggested we start with rohan's family. >> there's no way your kid will change from normal person to a jihadi suicide bomber or -- >> and nobody noticed. >> and no one noticed any difference. >> on a small suburban street outside columbus, we found rasal's parents home. >> can i talk to you? you don't want to talk to me? >> i said get off my property. >> he clearly didn't want to speak. get lost is what he said. he said he was going to call the police. >> reporter: off camera he told us he brought his children to america from bangladesh 16 years ago and has hat times worked two jobs to support the family. he hasn't heard from rasal in two years and disavows what he's done. meanwhile, our team tracked down this video of rasal. >> you look at him and he's just such an outgoing kid.

>> reporter: phil chu was one of rasal's best friends in high school. >> he was an exceptional student. >> he wanted to go to harvard? >> yes, he wanted to be a doctor. he wanted to help people. >> what you saw in that clip was gamal was a retired fbi agent. he helped us. we put together this very crude investigative room in a motel room and tried to story board out the people to see the connections among them. and we found in our investigation a small cell that they were of all these names. three people who were connected ended up going over to syria together and they were part of one family. there was a young woman. she married a man. supposedly met him online. the two of them were radical. they got more and more radical as time went on. and then they brought in her younger brother and then the three went off to syria. >> it's a fascinating story.

>> one died there. the other two are presumably still alive. >> that is middle america. middle of an american suburb and this kind of story. richard engel, thank you. coming up, donald trump blasts "the new york times'" blistering report on his relationship with women. now this morning, one of the women from that piece is defending trump. >> it was very upsetting. i was not happy to read it at all. they put a negative connotation on it and spun it to where it appeared negative. i did not have a negative experience with donald trump, and i don't appreciate them making it look like i was saying it was a negative experience. >> she is saying "the times" twisted her words into a hit job against donald trump. and conservative radio host hugh hewitt is going to join us next.

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"the new york times" told us several times that they would make sure that my story that i was telling came across. they promised several times that they would do it accurately. they told me several times and my manager several times that it would not be a hit piece and my story would come across the way that i was telling it and honestly and it absolutely was not. >> that is from within the past few hours. that was rowanne brewer lane, one of the women profiled in a "new york times" story on donald trump and his behavior toward women. trump's former girlfriend saying that her quotes in the "times" article were twisted into a hit piece. now, in the last few minutes we have a response to what she is now saying from "the new york times." this is from a spokesperson for the paper saying, quote, miss brewer lane was quoted fairly, accurately and at length.

the story provides context for the reader, including the that the swimsuit scene was the start of a whirlwind romance between ms. brewer lane and mr. trump. let's bring in hugh hewitt, national syndicated talk show host. the headline from this article was crossing the line. how donald trump behaved with women in private. the woman we're talking about here, rowanne brewer lane was the lead anecdote they used in this story. she said he was a gentleman toward me. there were no issues. i had no problem with him whatsoever. the "times" twisted this. what's your reaction to it? >> "the new york times" is not covering itself in glory here, steve. my first reaction when i saw the piece yesterday was i wonder if there was any similar piece on bill clinton from may of 1992. of course there isn't. there was some coverage of jennifer flowers but no in-depth

reporting on bill clinton's past relationship with women to whom he was not married so the double standard is already at play. then to have one of your key participants in the story step forward and say she has been mischaracterized on the morning after is a significant hit on "the new york times." i'd also add that this morning on "morning joe" the name jeffrey epstein came up for the first time. bill clinton, jeffrey epstein, that's not a google search that the clinton campaign wants to have people undertaking on a daily basis. on the end of this news cycle or halfway through this news cycle, i don't think it's hillary clinton to be talking about the past infidelities or alleged improprieties of any candidate or their spouse right now. >> let me ask you too, we've spent so much time since donald trump locked up the nomination asking can the republican party unify and bring this party together. i wonder listening to your reaction to this, i imagine this is something you're probably hearing from your listeners as well. is this the kind of thing that rallies republicans, rallies

conservatives around donald trump, just this idea that, hey, the media is out to get us, they're trying to take down our candidate, our front-runner. does this help donald trump unify the republican party? >> very savvy, steve, in fact it does. i've got my concerns with donald trump. i want the tax returns released. i want them to put a young and hopefully female pointing on the vice presidential ticket. i want to know who he's going to put on the supreme court. i'm not part of never trump but i'm also not committed to mr. trump yet because he hasn't fulfilled some commitments he's made to me. when i read the facebook story about the curation of their news feed, when i see google news leading with the trump interview with piers morgan but not leading with the questions about mrs. clinton and the double standard or the repudiation of the "times" story, it does get all those old juices flowing that the clinton machine has been protected and camouflaged boy mainstream media for decades now, and she has been around in the public eye since 1992. so i think people need to focus

on that. when i see president obama at rutgers being as deviivisive as was and suggesting donald trump is ignorant. there are a lot of things you can say about donald trump. i've interviewed him 15 times and been on four debate stages with him. he isn't ignorant. i'd love to see he and president obama talk about the science of engineering and architecture and see who would win that duel. i do think the democrats will do a good job of bringing republicans together. there's some healing to do on the republican side but, boy, days like this, the facebook, the "times" story makes it a lot easier. >> conservative radio host hugh hewitt, thanks for the time. >> thanks, steve. coming up, bernie sanders expected to hold a rally in puerto rico. much more on tomorrow's democratic primaries in kentucky and oregon. i'm steve kornacki. kristen welker is up next. i'm terrible at golf. he is. people say i'm getting better. no one's ever said that. but i'd like to keep being terrible at golf for as long as i can.

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to you. i am kristen welker in new york, and it is a busy morning on the presidential campaign trail. up next, donald trump starting the week on defense. two months until the gop convention, and the presumptive nominee is taking heat for his business. those still private tax returns and past treatment of women. trump now dismissing a report in "the new york times" on women who say they faced unwanted comments and advances, calling the article nothing more than a, quote, hit piece. but the chairman of the rnc and prominent trump supporters say he will have to answer for his past. >> they will have not expected purity on his part. what they're concerned about, they're deeply concerned about is somebody strong enough to take on washington, will he challenge the establishment, will he end the illegality and immigration, will he insist on trade agreements that lift our economy and increase manufacturing and will he stand up to the elites. and he's doing