arrives in warsaw. that is technically true if you live in warsaw. it will be 12:35 warsaw time which in this case will be 6:35 eastern time. which means you will hear from the president in the next hour. that does it for us tonight. we'll be back tomorrow with more "mtp daily." stay with us. "with all due respect" starts now and we will be covering the president. i'm john heilemann. >> i'm mark halperin. with all due respect to donald trump there's no wall that can keep this out. >> there was a mosquito. i don't want mosquitos around me. i don't like mosquitos. >> lots to cover tonight. we will start with a dramatic day on capitol hill where james comey, director of the fbi, was grilled over several hours by the republicans on the house oversight and government reform committee about comey's recommendation this week not to charge hillary clinton for the way she handled classified

information on her e-mail server. for more than four hours, comey answered questions about the bureau's year-long investigation which republicans say held clinton to a different and lower standard than other government employees. comey all day was cool and confident as he over and over gave virtually no ground to critics of his view of the case. republicans' main line of attack was not that clinton should have been indicted although they mentioned that quite a bit and are frustrated by comey on that point, but what they harped on was this. that clinton was not entirely truthful in her past statements about her e-mails including under oath. the chairman of the committee, jason chaffetz, said he would send a referral to the fbi to investigate clinton's testimony which she gave under oath during the benghazi committee hearing last october. so here's comey answering questions today. >> did you look at the clinton

foundation? >> i'm not going to comment on the existence or nonexistence of any other investigations. >> was the clinton foundation tied into this investigation? >> i'm not going to answer that. >> so that is a bombshell of sorts that occurred very late in the hearing when comey was asked if the investigation included the clinton foundation. we will talk about that in a minute. but that is one thing republicans have really seized on. the other thing of course they seized on is this question of clinton's truthfulness. so john, overall, how did comey do, how did the republicans on the committee do and what is the bottom line now for hillary clinton? >> i will answer briefly. at first, at least. comey gave a master class in how you go up to capitol hill and deal with the oversight committee hearing of this kind. he was as you said calm, cool, confident, collected, authoritative and had grace

under pressure. i yesterday said i thought republicans probably couldn't do a creditable job on such short notice, especially given their history. i actually thought the committee conducted itself reasonably well, especially with such short notice although i don't think they advanced the ball very much politically, and i think for hillary clinton, this basically concludes a week that because it ended the threat of indictment, both because comey and loretta lynch saying there will be no indictment, this hearing was in the balance, good for her, not bad for her, and she is very close to being able to put this entire thing behind her as a legal political matter. >> i have one big negative to say about comey and negative things to say about the republicans on the committee and how they did but let's take a little bit of look at how comey did which on balance, as you said, for hillary clinton's point of view and for his own point of view, very strong. >> i believe this investigation was conducted consistent with the highest traditions of the

fbi. there are two things that matter in a criminal investigation of a subject. what did the person do and when they did that thing, what were they thinking. we don't want to put people in jail unless we prove that they knew they were doing something they shouldn't do. no reasonable prosecutor would bring the second case in a hundred years focused on gross negligence. should have known, must have known, had to know, does not get you there. you must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they knew they were engaged in something that was unlawful. >> so comey frustrated republicans on and off the committee today because he basically did almost everything he could to help hillary clinton, or so it seemed. a lot of them pointed to the fact he said over and over when pressed that he couldn't say what kind of penalty someone who worked for him who did what hillary clinton did, he said it could range from dismissal to, you know, reproach. he did not give a lot of stuff for republicans to work with even when pressed. however, he's going around saying today as he did on tuesday i want to be transparent, i need to be

transparent. he did not take any questions from reporters again today, and he's not being totally straight about things. for instance, there's a standard of going out and talking about this case but refusing to talk about the clinton foundation case, i don't get. my bigger criticism is of the republicans on the committee, yes, they only had a day and a half to prepare but the chairman chose not to waive the rule that limits everybody to five-minute blocks for questions. there wasn't a democrat on the committee interested in getting at any facts. they were just there to help hillary clinton. which is par for the course in washington now in partisan hearings. but no republican with the exception of one or two got any momentum on questions and a lot of them just wasted their five minutes. so hillary clinton i think won the day. comey helped her a lot but so did the republicans on the committee who just weren't ready to have the kind of strategy. wasn't as bad as the benghazi hearing but they did not have a strategy. >> there were a couple other important things. we will talk more about this with brian fallon but one

important thing to my mind, one of the big criticisms was when comey said he wasn't going to recommend an indictment, he said it was because you couldn't prove intent. a lot of republicans a couple days ago said that's not the standard under the law. the standard, it could be gross negligence under the laws. comey had strong responses to that and made good arguments for why that wasn't really the standard and shouldn't be the standard under the law. he also i think cleared up some things with respect to the markings, the classified markings on a very small number of e-mails in a way that both was clarifying and also i think politically helpful for the clinton campaign. i'm sure that's a point brian will make when we talk to him later in the show. all right. let's move on here to donald trump. meanwhile, the republican presumptive nominee made a rare appearance on capitol hill today, meeting behind closed doors with house and senate republicans. reviews from rank and file house members were mixed about that first meeting in the morning.

some like georgia congressman tom price called trump's pitch a quote, unifying speech, while others said it did not change their view, their negative views of the party's divisive presumptive nominee. trump's meeting with the senate republicans that came afterwards was apparently somewhat less collegial than the morning meeting with the house. trump reportedly called out some senators who refused to back his candidacy including arizona's jeff flake, who in turn reportedly urged trump to stop attacking mexicans. these meetings come 24 hours after trump said yesterday would be quote, in his words, devoted to crooked hillary clinton and the rigged system under which we live. that's what he said yesterday morning. yet last night, trump spent long stretches of his rally in cincinnati meandering through a wide array of topics including, yes, mosquitos. >> i used to talk about japan. now i talk more about china but it's still japan. i could talk about my grandchildren. let's see. then we talk about golf.

jack nicholas is the greatest guy and he's a friend of mine. bobby knight. bobby knight. ladies and gentlemen, the president is going to talk about his grandchildren. i love my protesters. don't we have any damn protesters today? i love saddam hussein. i hate saddam hussein. but i love saddam hussein. this really stupid guy. i won't use his name. i refuse to use his name. i refuse to call him sleepy eyes. the problem is i'm a professional and they love ivanka and they love melania. he wants bernie sanders for vice president. that's a new one. big don king. newt gingrich is going to be involved with our government. that i can tell you. okay? isn't it nice when you don't read from a speech? ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for being here. maybe i'll open it on november 7th, the day before the big day. my boy, i love you.

come up, eric. i love you, my boy. i love this. i look thin. relatively thin. the democrats, there was a mosquito. i don't want mosquitos around me. i don't like mosquitos. >> all right. so mark, last night, that speech got let's say mixed reactions from republicans and then today, trump also got mixed reactions from congressional republicans so at this hour, in the last say 12 hours or so, 16 hours, 18 hours, has trump helped or hurt his efforts to unify the republican party under his leadership? >> it's extremely mixed. i think on balance, he's doing fine, getting ted cruz, the meeting with the house republicans and the generallying around the anti-clinton reality that trump represents. on balance, he's having a good week so far in terms of unifying but the outliers, he's picking fights with some republican senators today, it's just not helpful. but the truth is, if trump picks a good running mate, here i go

into my broken record mode, picks a good running mate, has a good convention and good first debate, he will have all the unity he needs. if he doesn't execute on those three, a meeting on capitol hill's not going to make any difference. >> look, if you look at the reporting coming out of those meetings today on capitol hill, i think there's no question that on balance, he helped himself. the reaction of house members more positive than the reaction of some senate republicans. in terms of the unity project, a good day for trump today on capitol hill. i think his performance last night, however, just sowed even deeper doubts among republican political professionals, elected officials and probably some of the same congressmen and senators in those meetings today about his ability to do the basic work that any president winning, winning presidential candidate has to do, which is to maintain some degree of message, discipline and focus and talk about the things you should be talking about that help you get closer to winning the election. he did not if my view do any of that last night and is not in any way capitalized effectively

on hillary clinton's moment of vulnerability post-comey. >> more staff coming on board, they seem clearly still flailing a bit or casting about for the right running mate selection, and the convention's still coming together. trump promised a convention schedule, don't have it. it's all going to be up to trump. he will win or lose on this level of performance. i'm convinced. hillary clinton, bernie sanders and their unity project continue to move along. they are reportedly in talks about the possibility of holding an endorsement event together next week in new hampshire, on tuesday. that's the same state where the obama/clinton unity event was in 2008. sanders has of course withheld full-throated support for clinton as he tries to pull both her and the democratic party further to the left on his many policy fronts. he's doing all right so far. he's had some success on his wish list. you have the education event yesterday, then today, sanders did an interview with al hunt of

bloomberg view for charlie rose, talked about some additional areas of possible consensus. >> what has to be on the platform right now, we have made real progress. i want to see very specific language about raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. i believe that in this country, people who work 40 hours a week should not be living in poverty. >> they call for it now in the platform. >> no, they don't. it's nuanced. >> it has to go further. >> yeah. it has to be clear. second of all, i think we need to make sure that the tpp, trans-pacific partnership, which is in my view a continuation of disastrous trade policies in the past, which have cost us millions of decent paying jobs, have led to a race to the bottom, i think we should be very clear in saying that should not come up in the lame duck session. >> senator sanders, that would be a direct slap at barack obama hoshgs who is the most popular democrat in the party right now. i know you are opposed to it.

opposing it is not a slap. but saying i'm sorry, mr. president, you can't bring that up in a lame duck -- >> you know, i had the impression we lived in a democratic society. >> sanders' full interview, you can see tonight on "charlie rose" on pbs. tomorrow it airs on bloomberg tv. it looks like at this point that hillary clinton's in the home stretch. she will get bernie sanders' support from him. where does she stand with the sanders backers now? >> i don't know the answer to that question. there is still obviously a very loud and raucus group of supporters you run across out in the world and on social media who seem to be really dead enders on this question. i think she's done herself a lot of good. certainly as you said with sanders himself. there's no doubt some of the proposals, some of the platform language will get her part of the way there. i do not know, a lot is going to come down to how does that endorsement event if it happens, how does it go and what does sanders say about her not just that day but in the days after

that endorsement all the way through to philadelphia? we just don't know that yet. >> yeah. i think also, her running mate and convention choices will be a big deal as well. i allot of people on the left could be persuaded by symbolism if she picks someone further to the left, if prominent convention speakers, keynote speaker, et cetera. and do they talk, the marquee speakers, do they talk about issues that matter to sanders supporters. i think that event coming after the republican convention, when there will be a lot out there to remind sanders supporters why a lot of them would prefer hillary clinton over donald trump, why they might need to rally even if they don't like everything about her. up next, we will talk about two police shootings that are once again drawing protests around the country. ♪ using 60,000 points from my chase ink card i bought all the framework... wire...

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in the past 48 hours, two more american cities have been convulesed by the fatal

shootings of african-american men by white police officers. the first shooting happened tuesday night in baton rouge. videos of the encounter appear to show police pinning a 37-year-old man, alton sterling, to the ground when one of the officers pulls out and fires his gun. the baton rouge police chief says sterling was armed at the time he was killed. justice department has opened a civil rights investigation of that case. then on wednesday night, another video from a suburb of st. paul, minnesota, after getting pulled over for a brocken tail light, 32-year-old philando castile was shot by police in the front seat of a car while his girlfriend and her young daughter were also inside the vehicle. he reportedly had a concealed carry permit and told the officer that he had a firearm in the glove compartment. joining us now from princeton university to talk about all this is eddie glaud, the chair of the center for african-american studies. professor, good to have you.

just give us a sense, what are we to make of these two shootings and what are the implications of them? it seems like this is incredibly familiar thing we are going through once again. give us an overview what you think. >> i think it confirms for us we have a crisis in policing in this country. that we need to do more than just simply talking about -- talk about common sense policing. we need to talk about what's at the core of these shootings and i think it's a set of assumptions about who black people are and how those assumptions inform fears and how those fears are justifications for this kind of behavior. it's very hard to talk about. it's very hard to wrap one's mind around this. for me, it confirms what i have been arguing and that is that there's a value gap at the heart of american society and that value gap is the belief that white people matter more than others, and we see this over and over again in these sorts of instances. even the minnesota governor said if this was a white couple in

the suburbs of st. paul, that they would still -- the driver would still be alive. so it's devastating. i'm really angry, you know. i'm really trying to manage my emotions because it reflects in some way this idea of the precariousness of what it means to be black in this country. that any time you walk out of your house, you don't know if that's going to be the last time you breathe your last breath. simply because you're black. i'm a professor at princeton. >> yeah. professor, it's been an extraordinarily emotional period for everybody and the fact that the video from this morning is just so heartbreaking. just focus for a moment on positive. what is a city or state or anybody doing that you have seen that gives you some hope that there's best practices out there that people can adopt?

>> well, to be honest with you, i'm not in that mode yet. i don't know examples tend to jump -- to come to mind. i'm still thinking about alton sterling's son and him weeping. i'm still thinking about diamond reynolds' 4-year-old daughter. can you imagine in that moment, the 4-year-old daughter is saying mommy, i'm here for you, don't worry, mommy, she finds the resources within herself to try to console her mother in the face of this tragedy. i haven't tried to reach for examples out there of policing in which we have addressed or examples that illustrate that someone, some police force, has actually addressed the fundamental racist assumptions informing policing in this country. i'm trying in some significant way to kind of manage what it means to be a father who's worried about his son, and it's

something that i think i need to say this to you guys and to your public, right. i don't think it's hard to imagine what it's like for african-americans whenever someone they love leaves the house, you have to be concerned that they're going to come back home. you have to be worried that they're going to come back home. it's like living under a condition of terror from any direction, at any time, at any moment. we heard this in philando's sister's interview. it's this haunting public ritual. i don't have any examples to bring to you of good policing in this country. i'm sure there are. but none come to my mind in this moment. >> we have about one minute here. president obama posted on facebook saying we need better community policing, we also have to solve the underlying fissures. is this something that is -- this problem, is it something

presidential leadership can solve or does this have to be a bottom-up solution if there's going to be a solution? >> it thats to has to be all of the top to the bottom. there are habits that inform our day-to-day decisions that set the frame, the context for these sorts of impromptu decisions that lead to the death and murder of people. i think the president can be bolder, can be even more forceful. he hasn't for a variety of reasons. reasons that he may know and reasons that i may offer. but i think we need to collectively to echo james baldwin, we need to collectively look at the ugliness of who we are honestly and confront it. if we are going to ever make substantive change in this country. i'm doubtful that we can do it but i'm hopeful that perhaps a few of us, a relative few of us, will actually do it. i'm trying to keep it together, guys. >> well, good luck with that. obviously we are all feeling it.

thank you for coming on. coming up, more from donald trump's day on capitol hill. [burke] hot dog.seen it.covered it. we know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ [martha and mildred are good to. go. here's your invoice, ladies. a few stops later, and it looks like big ollie is on the mend. it might not seem that glamorous having an old pickup truck for an office... or filling your days looking down the south end of a heifer, but...i wouldn't have it any other way. look at that, i had my best month ever. and earned a shiny new office upgrade. i run on quickbooks. that's how i own it.

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clinton. >> well, obviously choosing not to indict is a win for hillary but the statement he made was chock full of material that in any conventional campaign would be severely problematic. severely damaging for hillary clinton. i still think it could potentially be, but far less so because trump has inserted himself into the last 48 hours in a way that's inexplicable to me and has lit up a whole bunch of issues from whether or not saddam hussein is a good or bad guy and whether or not he supports counterterrorism or not, and then revisiting this jewish star controversy. but look, if donald trump were not our nominee, and hillary just had the last couple days like she did, our nominee would be up ten points. if hillary were not the nominee and there were another democrat, she's obviously very flawed running against a guy like trump, the democratic nominee would probably be up 15 points. right now, where we have two very flawed candidates, it's tragic for the republicans that

yet we are reminded of another missed opportunity that seems to be the theme of this cycle. >> we have a very very short time before break, then we will come back and still have you. was having this house hearing today a good idea or not? >> look, i think that what congress is trying to get into here is -- are legitimate issues including whether or not hillary clinton lied before congress when she testified in the past. they have a right to do it. i don't think as a political matter, these hearings never work out that well as we saw with benghazi. >> more after this. ... ...i was always searching for ways to manage my symptoms. i thought i had it covered. then i realized managing was all i was doing. when i finally told my doctor, he said humira was for people like me who have tried other medications,... but still experience the symptoms of moderate to severe crohn's disease. in clinical studies, the majority of patients on humira saw significant symptom relief... ...and many achieved remission. humira can lower your ability to fight infections... ...including tuberculosis.

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we're back with republican strategist dan senor and joining us from washington, d.c., national review editor, eliana johnson who has a story out about ted cruz's expanding political operation. we were just talking about the comey hearing today. was it well executed? was paul ryan watching that

hearing and saying my guys did a good job? >> i haven't spoken with paul ryan. i think the house republicans have legitimate issues that they need to address. i think the hearing is in principle a good idea. these hearings tend to not work well politically. we have seen that in the past. the hearings are not the places i think to kind of make the political point. if that's what they were trying to do. >> so you think that basically the hearing did was on political grounds a failure? >> i wouldn't say a failure. i just don't think it moved the ball forward. i don't think it was a setback. i don't think it helped hillary clinton. i don't think it helped prosecute the case. >> the things comey said on tuesday were damaging but they didn't -- weren't made more damaging today. >> right. >> we had a report yesterday, some reports yesterday about a bad whip count for donald trump and optimism among the dump trump crowd. how do things stand in that? >> unlike the recruitment effort for the independent candidate,

the free the delegate movement, we don't call it dump trump, free the delegate movement is very organic, very grassroots, a little chaotic, but very dynamic. so i think it is real. i think it is far more real than the press have given it credit for because the press tends to take a snapshot, saying where is it now. it only has 400 delegates, therefore it's not going anywhere. what you have to imagine is on the floor of the convention, 400 or 500 delegates revved up against the backdrops of a couple nights like we just had by trump, and there will be more of them, there will be bad fund-raising numbers coming out, it will look the poorest it's ever looked, and more and more panic and those 400 or 500 delegates could grow pretty quickly. >> two things going on with ted cruz. one is meeting with donald trump today. they say no talk of endorsement but he will speak at the convention. there seems to be a little thaw there. your reporting on the very broad remake of the ted cruz operation both on the political side and the senate side. tell us what you think is going on overall in cruz world.

>> yeah, hi, guys. well, suffice it to say i think this is a guy, ted cruz, who is going to be campaigning for president essentially for the rest of his life. he's not going away. and i think that's what you can make of his agreement today with trump that he will speak at the convention. he wants to be a presence and a player and he's trying to make calculation of how best to position himself for 2020 or 2024. i think he's somebody who would look to inherit some of trump's supporters. he doesn't want to alienate them completely. he would need them for a future run. but also, wants to keep his position as somebody who holds the line for principled conservatives who trump has completely alienated as well. cruz, the news we broke yesterday was that he's expanding his political universe essentially he's started a nonprofit that essentially will serve as a holding pen for his

campaign, supporting his policy positions and so forth between now and whenever he runs for president again whether it's in 2020 or 2024, and switching out his chief of staff in his senate office from long-time capitol hill aide paul teller, coming in will be political strategist david polianski. i think the message is clear there. >> in the fall, there will clearly be some candidates who don't want donald trump to campaign with them. who do you think will be most in demand to be out on the trail? >> i think george w. bush will be in demand a lot for senate and house candidates for a number of reasons, not the least of which he's a draw to donors. romney will be out a lot because he's a draw to donors and activists. those are the two highest profile. they will be in much more demand than donald trump will be for house and senate candidates. >> let me ask this. we got news today that ted cruz will speak at the republican convention.

i know you say he will be running for president for a long time. does this surprise you at all that he ended up speaking at the convention, not holding out any hope that maybe this dump trump movement might be able to create some space for him to make some mischief there? >> well, i don't think they are mutually exclusive. if the dump trump movement is successful at the convention or as dan says, the free the delegates movement is successful at the convention, their problem really is once the delegates are freed, who's their candidate. ted cruz can surely have a speaking slot at the convention and if the delegates are freed, make it clear that he's open to being the nominee. he's said that he's not open to that and that he doesn't support the movement but who knows what could happen at the convention. >> dan, let me ask you this question just because you're a good member of the tribe. you are a jewish person. when donald trump tweeted that

star, did you say this is obviously an antisemetic tweet or did you think there's some argument it might not be? >> i didn't even think for a second that it was not an antisemetic tweet. i knew it was an antisemetic tweet. my mind just raced to did he actually consciously upload this graphic, or was this done for him and he doesn't really know what's going on. then once that story broke that it came from this antisemetic website, it just unfortunately confirmed all my fears about trump and his organization, which is not that trump wakes up every day thinking antisemetic thoughts. i don't think, i have to know reason to believe he himself is antisemetic but he panders to a crowd that traffics in antisemitism and he's been resistant to say emphatically this is unacceptable. that alone is horrifying. if this were a democrat doing this, republican leaders across the board would be up in arms putting a spotlight on this. it's a shame that, a, it's happening to our nominee and b, more and more republican leaders aren't speaking out against it. >> what does it say to you that

trump not only did this thing but has defended on on two consecutive days, where he said he regrets taking it down. it seems repetitive, but does that say anything more to you? >> at best it says he is shall we say unsteady, i can't quite figure out where his head is at. at worst, it tells me the crowd that traffics in this stuff, that crowd, that constituency is important to him and he wants to stand by them. i asked friends of mine who -- jewish leaders, jewish republican leaders who have signed up to be on the trump victory rnc committee raising money for him, at what point do you start asking the really tough questions, at what point does this become unacceptable. >> conventions always have people campaigning for the next cycle even if there's a strong incumbent nominee. besides ted cruz, who is going to work his current delegates and others in cleveland, who else do you expect to be trying to build up support for 2020 in cleveland? >> i think the most interesting people to watch are going to be tom cotton, arkansas senator,

and ben sasse, the nebraska senator who have taken very different positions on donald trump but are considered the two rising stars in the republican party. it will be really interesting to see how they navigate the convention. >> thank you both. up next, the clinton campaign spokesman, brian fallon, will talk about today's hearing on hillary clinton and the fbi.

the president is in warsaw,

poland today but he is making some previously unscheduled remarks about the recent spate of police-involved shootings involving black men. so the president will be speaking. let's go to ron allen, who is traveling with the president in warsaw. ron, do we have any sense of what the president might say to us today? >> reporter: well, we know based on a statement he put out on facebook earlier today and statements by the press secretary josh earnest on the way over to warsaw, the president's deeply concerned and troubled by what has happened. it's very unusual for him to arrive here at what's going to be after midnight and make a statement. that speaks to his level of concern about all this. he is going to say, express his grief and concern to the families. he's going to talk about how this is not an isolated incident. these cases are not isolated instances. as you know, the president has set up what's called a 21st century task force on policing around america that tries to get

best practices to different departments and more aggressively, we know this administration has launched more civil rights investigations of police departments around the country than any before. clearly this issue of how police and communities relate to each other is one of the president's biggest priorities. in the past, he has often said that the biggest issue is trust and developing trust and trying to institute practices that generally revolve around the concept of community-based policing, that is officers -- >> ron, i'm going to break in. the president is walking to the podium right now. hold on. >> -- the extraordinary interest in the shootings that took place in louisiana and minnesota, i thought it would be important for me to address all of you directly and i want to begin by expressing my condolences for

the families of alton sterling and philando castile. as i said in the statement that i posted on facebook, we have seen tragedies like this too many times. the justice department i know has opened a civil rights investigation in baton rouge. the governor in minnesota, i understand, is calling for an investigation there as well, as is my practice given my institutional role, i can't comment on the specific facts of each case and i have confidence [ inaudible ]. but what i can say is that all of us as americans should be

troubled by the news. these are not isolated incidents. they are symptomatic of a broader racial disparity that occurs in our criminal justice system. i want to give people a few statistics to try to put in context why emotions are so raw around these issues. according to various studies, not just one, but a wide range of studies that have been carried out over a number of years, african-americans are 30% more likely than whites to be pulled over. after being pulled over, african-americans and hispanics are three times more likely to be searched. last year, african-americans were shot by police at more than

twice the rate of whites. african-americans are arrested at twice the rate of whites. african-american defendants are 75% more likely to be charged with offenses carrying mandatory minimums. they receive sentences that are almost 10% longer than comparable whites arrested for the same crime. so if you add it all up, the african-american and hispanic population who make up only 30% of the general population make up more than half of the incarcerated population. now, these are facts. and when incidents like this occur, there's a big chunk of our fellow citizenry that feels as if because of the color of

their skin, they are not being treated the same. and that hurts. and that should trouble all of us. this is not just a black issue. it's not just a hispanic issue. this is an american issue that we should all care about, all fair-minded people should be concerned. let me just say we have extraordinary appreciation and respect for the vast majority of police officers who put their lives on the line to protect us every single day. they have got a dangerous job. it is a tough job. and as i've said before, they have a right to go home to their families just like anybody else on the job. and there are going to be circumstances in which they have to make split second decisions.

we understand that. but when we see data that indicates disparities in how african-americans and latinos may be treated in various jurisdictions around the country, it's incumbent on all of us to say we can do better than this, we are better than this. and to not have it degenerate into the usual political scrum. we should be able to step back, reflect and ask ourselves what can we do better so that everybody feels as if they're equal under the law? now, the good news is that there are practices we can institute that will make a difference.

last year, we put together a task force that was comprised ofseof civil rights activists and also law enforcement officials, police captains, sheriffs, and they sat around a table and they looked at the data and they looked at best practices, and they came up with specific recommendations and steps that could ensure that the trust between communities and police departments were rebuilt and incidents like this would be less likely to occur. and there are some jurisdictions out there that have adopted these recommendations but there are a whole bunch that have not. and if anything good comes out of these tragedies, my hope is

that communities around the country take a look and say how can we implement these recommendations, and that the overwhelming majority of police officers who are doing a great job every single day and are doing their job without regard to race, that they encourage their leadership and organizations that represent them to get behind these recommendations. because ultimately, if you can rebuild trust between communities and the police departments that serve them, that helps us solve crime problems. that will make life easier for police officers. they will have more cooperation. they will be safer. they will be more likely to come home. so it will be good for crime

fighting and it will avert tragedy. and i'm encouraged by the fact that the majority of leadership in police departments around the country recognize this, but change has been too slow and we have to have a greater sense of urgency about this. i'm also encouraged, by the way, that we have bipartisan support for criminal justice reform working its way through congress. it has stalled and lost some momentum over the last couple of months in part because congress is having difficulty generally moving legislation forward and we're in a political season. but there are people of good will on the republican side and the democratic side who have seemed to want to try to get something done here.

that too would help provide greater assurance across the country that those in power, those in authority, are taking these issues seriously. so this should be a spur to action to get that done, to get that across the finish line, because i know there are a lot of people who want to get it done. let me just make a couple of final comments. i mentioned in my facebook statement that i hope we don't fall into the typical patterns that occur after these kind of incidents occur, where right away there's a lot of political rhetoric and it starts dividing people instead of bringing folks

together. to be concerned about these issues is not to be against law enforcement. there are times when these incidents occur and you see protests and you see vigils, and i get letters, well-meaning letters sometimes, from law enforcement saying how come we're under attack. how come not as much emphasis is made when police officers are shot. and so to all of law enforcement, i want to be very clear. we know you have a tough job. we mourn those in uniform who are protecting us who lose their lives. on a regular basis, i have

joined with families in front of capitol hill to commemorate the incredible heroism that they have displayed. i have hugged family members who have lost loved ones doing the right thing. i know how much it hurts. on a regular basis, we bring in those who have done heroic work in law enforcement and have survived. sometimes they have been injured. sometimes they risked their lives in remarkable ways and we applaud them and appreciate them, because they are doing a really tough job really well. there is no contradiction between us supporting law enforcement, making sure they have got the equipment they

need, making sure that their collective bargaining rights are recognized, making sure that they are adequately staffed, making sure that they are respected, making sure their families are supported, and also saying that there are problems across our criminal justice system, there are biases, some conscious and unconscious, that have to be rooted out. that's not an attack on law enforcement. that is reflective of the values that the vast majority of law enforcement bring to the job. but i repeat, if communities are mistrustful of the police, that makes those law enforcement

officers who are doing a great job and are doing the right thing, it makes their lives harder. so you know, when people say black lives matter, that doesn't mean blue lives don't matter. it just means all lives matter but right now, the big concern is the fact that the data shows black folks are more vulnerable to these kind of incidents. this isn't a matter of us comparing the value of lives. this is recognizing that there's a particular burden that is being placed on a group of our fellow citizens and we should care about that. we can't dismiss it.

we can't dismiss it. so let me just end by saying i actually genuinely, truly believe that the vast majority of american people see this as a problem that we should all care about. and i would just ask those who question the sincerity or the legitimacy of protests and vigils and expressions of outrage who somehow label those expressions of outrage as quote unquote, political correctness, i just ask folks to step back and think what if this happened

to somebody in your family? how would you feel? to be concerned about these issues is not political correctness. it's just being american and wanting to live up to our best and highest ideals. and it's to recognize the reality that we've got some tough history and we haven't gotten through all of that history yet. and we don't expect that in my lifetime, maybe not in my children's lifetime, but all the vestiges of that past will have been cured, will have been

solved, but we can do better. people of good will can do better. and doing better involves not just addressing potential bias in the criminal justice system. it's recognizing that too often we are asking police to man the barricades in communities that have been forgotten by all of us for way too long in terms of sub-standard schools and inadequate jobs and a lack of opportuni opportunity. we got to tackle those things. we can do better. i believe we will do better. thanks very much, everybody.

>> president obama in warsaw, addressing the recent spate of killings by police of unarmed black men. the cases in baton rouge, louisiana and minnesota really rocking the country, taking over social media. the president directly addressing them, saying people of good will must agree that we can do better, that the country must do better. he cited several statistics that show the african-americans are more vulnerable to arrest, more prone to be pulled over, subject to greater penalties in the criminal justice system, and he said that while there is in a lot of cases bipartisan agreement that this must change, he said change has been too slow. good evening. i'm joy reid at msnbc headquarters in new york. i'm joined by reverend al sharpton, who is on set with me, eugene robinson, who is also with me. we were listening to the president together. here we are again. here we are again in another case of black men who were

killed. these two back-to-back, philando castile's case coming just as the alton sterling case was also really sort of rocking people's emotions because both of them, so much of that captured on cell phone video. the president said change has been too slow but is there any momentum to go beyond the outrage and the rage people feel but get something done? >> the momentum will be determined by how much we sustain what we are doing now. i think that when the president was speaking, i thought about how 16 months ago, we met with the president, many of us from the civil rights organizations, activist community, he unfolded at that point his commission to deal with these things and they made recommendations. and we continued having marches, vigils, but slowly the media goes elsewhere and politicians go elsewhere. what i hope, and i clearly got that message from the id