cupping acup i couple and if they see fire at the town halls, it's going to make it less likely repeal actually happens. >> thanks to both of you. have a get weekend. mike viqueira. jennifer. that wraps this hour for me. tune into "velsih and ruhle," stephanie and i bring you a unique take of the news cycle, lively debate and analysis. "deadline white house" with nicolle wallace starts right now. hi, everyone, it's 4:00. president trump ses te's team i engaged in a -- with news that the president's son-in-law jared kushner is under fbi scrutiny bringing the russia investigation deep into the president's west wing and his family. donald trump will return to a gathering storm of legal and political problems when he returns home late tomorrow night. the president is currently dining with g-7 leaders in sicily, and we want to go straight to the reporters

covering and breaking all of the news these kaydays. joining me from the white house, nbc's peter alexander. from italy, nbc's kelly o'donnell traveling with the president. from "the new york times" d.c. newsroom, white house correspondent and msnbc political analyst, glenn thrush. we may still be wrangling him. and white house -- and the "wall street journal's" white house reporter eli stokols. e eli, i want to start with a tweet you sent out last night that caught my attention at dinner and bath time for the 5-year-old. i had to stop and read in after i read you tweet this. "just got this text from a gop nat security official, quote, had to apologize to a european defense attache just now. i'm sorry, he's an idiot." please explain. >> there was a lot of -- it's hard to really explain the level of consternation that spread yesterday after the president's speech before the 9/11 memorial and alternate toe l the nato al omitted any comment about whether or not the united states and this new administration stands behind article 5, the

central pillar of the nato alliance that an attack on one is an attack on all. 9/11, of course, the only time that's actually been engaged and tvs on behalf of the united states after it was attacked. and so that really upset a lot of allies. the white house since then sort of falling behind the president remarkably on a foreign trip contradicts the president, correcting, trying to sort of put allies more at ease after the president's speech left that out. and i talked to a lot of folks around washington who were veterans of the national security establishment in this town who said they were having conversations like that with european allies, with defense ata atto attaches, national security folks and having to apologize and said this is really concerning for a lot of them given what russia is doing. you have a president whose administration continues to be under investigation for potential ties with russia. russia is sort of setting up for these military exercises along the baltic state borders.

and those are usually a pretex or can be a pretext to action so you have a climate across europe where people are very concerned, a president who doesn't seem to really understand that and who is noncommittal when it comes to defending nato allies. and, you know, another -- i had another conversation today and they said, you know, it is a difficult position to be in having to communicate to these folks, you know, european defense folks and say, just buckle up and bear with us, it's going to be a bumpy ride nr tfoe next 40 months. >> kelly o., have you heard the white house with these cleanup efforts under way specifically in this area of what -- i heard so much yesterday from people who said the optics couldn't have been more horrific. he, you know, cajoled and laughed along with leaders in saudi arabia and israel. he got to europe where people have literally died on battlefields alongside american soldiers in normandy and other places and he couldn't say the

words, article 5 is in place, an attack on one of us is an attack on all of us. he couldn't say the one thing they all needed him to say. instead, he acted like a dues collector walking around with a bag asking them to pay up. >> because that's the message he wants them to hear and to take away. not wanting to give them what they want, again, the negotiator as president knowing they want to hear that spore, they want to hear sort of an embrace of nato and that was the one thing that he would be most reluctant to share. instead, hitting hard about paying their fair share. and it's something that we are seeing with the president as a person on the global stage. he is not one to respond to what is expected in certain ways. now, of course, the first couple of stops of this trip where he was greeted with adulation in both saudi arabia and israel and europe has a different view of donald trump and he sort of

bristles at that. advisers are telling us he's having good conversations, things are going well. there's also been a lot of confusion about remarks that were at first said to be his about germany, journ. germany being bad. someone tried to clean that up and said, no, he's referring to trade. a third iteration we just heard from senior officials a short time ago who said that was simply not the president saying that was, that was a mistake, a misquote, but it just muddied the water. so there's a lot of tension between the president and some of these leaders. at the same time, we're hearing from top officials who say they were in the room, that there has been some news here, i think it is notable that they're saying that the president's views on climate change are evolving and that the paris agreement that was done under president obama is something that he will take his time thinking about and that he's learning more about an issue like that which was certainly something that candidate donald trump railed against. so that's newsworthy. also they're telling us that he is interested in, perhaps, tougher sanctions against russia and one of the things that

strikes me about all of this is we are hearing it through the intermediary of top officials who are with the president, not the president directly. we've had no opportunity to ask him any questions. no press conference scheduled for a very long substantial foreign trip. that is unusual. so everything we're learning about what donald trump thinks or says is open to interpretation based on what aides are saying and what we can read in terms of the body language with world leaders. he's just not talk to us. nicolle? >> thank you, kelly. glenn thrush, we came on the air talking about yesterday being a day that a lot of white house officials are having to clean up today, this diss of our longest and most loyal friends and allies. we talked about what's waiting for him at home is really a growing stack of legal and political troubles, and i know your paper has reported that there's some talk of assembling a war-room to get the white house on a political war footing. i wonder what you think this trip has done in terms of sort of he's going to be exhausted,

we've heard since day one that he's exhausted. what is this president going to come back to and what sort of political price might he pay for the way this trip went down yesterday in europe? >> the white house folks think that this has been a huge success. i am not kidding. i think the first part of the -- >> do you think insulting na nato -- they think withholding this promise that their security is our -- i mean, i think it just portrays a complete lack of understanding of how allies work. we have mutual security interests. he seems to not understand that. >> silly, nicolle. why are you getting bogged down in all of these details? >> detail, shmetail, i got to get over it. >> he had a great moment when he shoved the guy from minuonteneg aside. read them the riot act how they're not paying up. it's base politics. >> is it, though? is this what they planned? i mean, listen, there was more

attention paid to george bush giving that awkward soldier massage to angela merkel than donald trump pushing aside the newest nato member to get in front of that photo and there's been so much reporting about how awkward everyone felt around him. >> by the way, ick on that memo memory. double ick. >> okay. fair enough. fair enough. but seriously, so you think they feel like this trip was slam dunk, home run? i mean, i see a lot of background -- >> oh, yeah. >> -- quotes in your paper with white house officials trying to clean up some of what went down yesterday. >> are you kidding me? the guy hasn't had a twitter explosion in, like, five days. >> low bar, glenn. >> for real. >> low bar. >> we're talking -- it's the lowest bar. it's, like, the old subway bar next to the train on the upper east side. it is way low, this bar. for them, he's gotten away from these controversies. the fact that he hasn't had -- it is outrageous that -- this is getting into the weeds a bit, but, you know, a lot of these

organizations that pay for this trip, the evil enemy press, is paid $20,000, $30,000, $40,000 to be on these trips, to not get a single question to the president of the united states is crazy and sort of unprecedented. he's clearly shutting down stuff down and only going for the visuals. i am not kidding from their perspective in the west wing, they think this has gone pretty well and you are totally right when you say the bar is very low, but he was just getting beaten up back here. now, when he comes back, there are a lot of questions that are arising, obviously over the russia investigation, but we're also dealing with real concrete issues like the debt ceiling and this apparently dead on arrival health care bill which the senate, mitch mcconnell, said a couple days ago they don't know what the hell they're going to do with it and we have tax reform in advance. the truth of the matter is the president's jaechagenda is in thatters right now because all of this stuff. believe it or not, this foreign

trip which as you have documented as not exactly been smooth, might be the best news that he's going to have for quite some time. >> sort of stunning. all right. everybody, stay with me. i'm going to add to the conversation former u.s. am bass dr to nato, former undersecretary of state nick burns, professor at harvard's kennedy school. nick, come clean with me. how did our european officials spend the evening last night? do you imagine your former friends there in brussels all went to the bar and shook their head the way a lot of republicans do that the takeover of the party has now extended to the takeover of longheld american traditions, one for all and all for one? >> well, they actually had dinner with donald trump. there was a private dinner of the nato allies -- >> i have to believe they all went to a bar afterward after he went to bed, no? >> they might have. i'll say this, nicolll ere, i'v worked for democrat and republican administrations. i think this was the least effective visit to nato by an american president, worst visit in seven decades.

as you've said, you really put the case here, you have to stand with the alliance on the core commitment of article 5 that we're all together in a collective defense organization. the white house had been backgrounding that the president was going to make that commitment very clear. he did not do it. number one. number two, he is -- he has put forward the weakest policy on russia in decades of any american president at a time when russia's challenging the sovereignty of ukraine, challenging the baltic states and, of course, russian interference in our election and literally no response from the president on this. there is from rex tillerson and jim mattis, they're saying and doing the right things but if the president doesn't reaffirm it, as you know, nicolle, then people really question the policy of the united states. and third, i agree with you, it's been a tale of two strtrip. he had a successful trip to the middle east. he did very well. >> he didn't always know he was in the middle east. he left saudi arabia and thought he left the middle east. you're right. you're right. we'll give him that.

>> he had a successful visit. he was on message. he did well. e he produced some good agreements. yet in europe, he seems uncomfortable with those democratic leaders. and for me, these are our best friends in the world, so i thikg it's been very disappointing. the white house has to adjust here. they have to get to president and explain how nato works and how important those allies are. >> nick, we have former colleagues and i'm sure friends and former associates in common that are working inside this national security apparatus, and i understand that before the president made this journey, secretary of defense had to do some work ahead of it. secretary of state is now having to do some cleanup afterward. and obviously no president is perfect, but have you ever seen someone who goes into a meeting lu like he did yesterday with so much cause for suspicion? the rush issia investigation is just in our papers every day, it's in the papers of uri european capitals every day.

go to highest levels of donald trump's west wing about whether russia was in contact, coordinating or colluding, whatever word you want to use, we'll find out at the end of the investigation, with drup. th drup donald trump. they needed to hear if russia were to invade or act aggressive with the newest, most vulnerable members of the nato alliance, america would be there and they didn't. could you just underscore for us the drama of that moment, of not hearing what they needed to hear in that speech? >> yeah, i think, initiation, colle, if you look back to the second world war, the most important commitment the united states has made in its foreign policy from harry truman to donald trump is our commitment to europe. it lasted throughout the cold war. the last 25 years of the post-cold war era. this is a vital interest of the united states. it's in our interest. it's not a gift that we give them. we have al lay lies in the worl. nicolle, i was ambassador on 9/11 for george w. bush.

when the allies came to us in bus l, pledged their support, invoked article 5 for the first time in our history,s they all went into afghanistan with us. more than 800 european soldiers have lost their lives. and for the president at a 9/11 memorial yesterday in brussels not to acknowledge that, not to reaffirm article 5, but to lecture them, was just a colossal mistake of judgment. and the irony here is, the president is right on this issue that the europeans are not paying enough for their defense. most of them. but the way -- there's a way to be effective and not effective. if he had used that dinner last night, the private dinner and had spoken to them frankly, i think he would have had more success than trying to humiliate them publicly. they all have their own domestic politics. they can't be lectured by the united states. and so it's judgment and it's people on the white house speaking truth to power and telling the president this is not how we act with our best friends in the world. >> all right. very powerful words. thank you so much for being with us. kelly o., and former ambassador

nick burns. thank you. the rest of you are sticking around. when we come back, the white house staff on its heels. senior advisers being pressed about the news that jared kushner is under fbi scrutiny in the russia investigation. and later, the great republican crackup. prominent republicans speaking out about the low road the party has taken in the time of trump. and hillary clinton goes there, drawing parallels between this white house and richard nixon. >> i do remember my commencement. we were furious about the past presidential election. of a man whose presidency would eventually end in disgrace with his impeachment for obstruction of justice. ♪

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white house chief economic adviser gary cohn refused to answer questions today about president trump's son-in-law and senior adviser jared kushner. let's listen. >> i just wanted a statement from either of you on behalf of your own opinion or the president's opinion and are you both confident that jared kushner can remain effective in his role as peace negotiator and as envoy given some of the questions -- >> i'll cut you off right now because we're here at the g-7 working on the g-7 with the president, serving him in that capacity, so we're not going to -- i have nothing to say. >> i have nothing. several u.s. officials telling nbc news that kushner has come under, quote, fbi scrutiny in connection with the

investigation into alleged ties between the trump campaign and russian officials. investigators believe he has information relevant to their probe. kushner's lawyer, jamie gorelick giving this statement to nbc news, "mr. kushner previously volunteered to share with congress when he knows about those meetings. he will do the same if he's connected in connection with any other inquiry." joining me from the white house, nbc's peter alexander, glenn thrush and eli stokols are back with us. joining the conversation to keep me honest, paul butler, former federal prosecutor, now a professor at georgetown law. peter, i want to start with you because whether you love jared kushner or don't love jared kushner, whether you love donald trump or don't love donald trump -- >> yeah. >> -- everyone seems to appreciate how seismic his role is in this white house. it's almost unprecedented. so how closely are insider watching this development? >> reporter: yeah, no, nicolle, i think you're exactly right, what's so striking about this, this is now the only known individual within this white house who is under scrutiny as

part of this russia investigation. both paul manafort, the former campaign chair, and mike flynn, the ousted national security adviser, of course, no longer associated, not just with the white house but with the campaign. so this is a big deal because he's perhaps the closest add swriz adviser to the president which makes him one of the most powerful men in this country right now. i was speaking to senior aides at the white house today, and they cast it this way saying when the president gets back here, they want to be prepared for, as it was described to me, this new reality, with the acknowledgements of a special counsel in place, things will change. they talk about an effort to sort of create a structure to deal with this russia investigation. what you could describe as sort of a crisis management unit which some are reporting as a war-room. not entirely clear who will head that up, but some people are suggesting it would be kushner, himself, and steve bannon, with reporting saying this could be a redeeming moment for bannon to kind of punch back at a fact this is something he might embrace and might find himself in a strong position to help be a part of. beyond that, i understand that

in addition of marc kasowitz, the attorney, longtime manhattan attorney, legal counsel the president has retained to help him, they will likely be bringing in some other attorneys on retainer. they're already in conversations with some of those individuals. so it be clear when they talk about this new reality, recognize when they come back, this is a whole new world. they want to make sure they agenda isn't just completely lost, that they can try of segregate the effort to deal with the russia investigation, while to the best of their ability focusing on some things they want to be doing. >> paul butler, lay it out for us because a source close to jared kushner made clear to me today being under scrutiny by the fbi does not mean you become a target or a subject of any investigation. is that right? >> that's right. so kushner's under investigation because of the nature and the extent of his contact with the russians. so he steps away from being a target of an investigation, meeting with the russian is not the same as colluding with them. at the same time, nicolle,

robert mueller is one of the best prosecutors in the can country. he's assembling an ace team of fbi investigators. when the fbi and one of the best prosecutors in the country is interested in you, that's not a good place to be. if kushner has any exposure, they will uncover it. >> eli stokols, how do you think the white house has evolved in terms of understanding that, you know, the president hasn't been able to stay coordinated with his own press office, they're now talking about coordinating with a war-room. do you think someone has walked in and had a come to jesus with this president to say, you got to stick to the script, mr. president? jared's now been pulled into this, this is getting deadly serious. >> yeah, when you talk about this white house, i think we have to clarify and say we're talking about the president. there have been a number of people, attorneys and senior advisers and officials who have gone into the oval office and said, look, this has to stop. they are re-evaluating the process. everything from how the president tweets, to how he speaks publicly and sort of what

they need to do to button up potential leaks that could come out about things that have already taken place. so, yeah, that is under way and i think we may see that, the changes materialize when the president gets back from this foreign trip. but, you know, it is interesting, i mean, we don't know exactly what they're looking at as it pertains to jared kushner but we do know throughout the transition period, he was pretty much the guy in charge. sure, mike pence was ostensibly leading the transition, but jared kushner was the guy you called at trump tower if you wanted a job, if you wanted a meeting. he was the point person on this transition. and we also know that he did not disclose some of the meetings he had with the russian ambassador kislyak during the transition at trump tower on his social -- secret service clearance form when he submitted that. so he has a top clearance, didn't submit all these things and it just sort of fits this pattern of folks in and around this administration not being fully forthcoming about past meetings and interactions with russian officials until that stuff leaks out in the press. that usually triggers the

memory. >> richard painter, former ethics adviser in the white house which i worked said people would get fired for doing what you described, leaving names off. glenn thrush, i want to ask you about people whose stocks rise and fall seemingly faster than the 2008 stock market, but i've heard now that steve bannon and some of the keepers of the political flame in trump's orbit who were really maligned after the muslim ban 1.0 and 2.0 were badly botched, are now maybe rising in relevance and stature in this white house now that jared kushner is being pulled into the russia probe. are you picking that up? >> nah. >> nah? >> i mean, at this point, the truth of the matter is, nicolle, no one loves this stuff more than i do, who cares? >> yeah. good point. >> i mean, i mean -- >> the man with his finger on the twitter is the only one that matters, right? >> exactly. we're just -- this really is just sort of like recycling. i mean, i don't -- is it really going to matter if reince

priebus is having a great week? you know, and if steve bannon suddenly scores a couple of victories? i mean, this is the same cast of characters that gave you the executive orders that were half baked. we have steve, like, who is steve miller aligned with this week? is he with bannon, kushner? i mean, i think you got to get to the point, and i think all of the guests pointed this out, eli makes a great point, this gets down to the president of the united states. he has not comported himself in a way that is going to lead to successful presidency. he has not steeped himself in the details of foreign and domestic policy nor has he put together a team that has been able to functionally execute things. you can have as many war-rooms as you want, what we need is a peace-room. we -- we need a room, a functional room in which we have people who are conversant with policy inside the white house are giving this president rational policy options and a process by which he makes measured judgments.

the flaws are not about who this casting -- >> yeah. >> this is classic deck chairs on the "titanic." the problem emanates from the president, himself, until we see him change his view about the way he's going to govern, it doesn't matter who's up and who's down. >> paul butler, when a president is under scrutiny and when democrats or his opponents or even an independent special counsel like bob mueller is perhaps assembling an obstruction of justice case, how involved is a president in those kind of interviews and investigations? >> well, if it's a typical president, you're not involved at all. how involved donald trump will be is a different question. again, this is a guy who after he fires his national security adviser, reaches out to him and says, hey, i know the feds are after you, keep your head up, stay strong. so we have no idea what his reaction, what his response will be to his son-in-law, one of his chief advisers, now being the subject of an fbi investigation. >> all right. thank you. peter alexander, glenn thrush,

eli stokols, paul butler. go start your weekends. thank withdrew fyou for joining up next, prominent republicans lashing out at their own party. there's nothing traditional about my small business so when

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they have embraced the coarsening of culture are the truth means absolutely nothing. conservative values mean absolutely nothing. traditional allies that have stood by us shoulder to shoulder bleeding and dying, scaling the cliffs of normandy to free a continent, that means nothing to these people. they will embrace vladimir putin and russia if donald trump does. >> that was our colleague, joe scarborough, anchor of "morning joe" going off on republicans this morning on "morning joe." joining me from milwaukee,

charlie sykes. from denver, gop strategist, katie packer. i feel like group therapy. i'm sorry to do this on tv. former deputy campaign manager for mitt romney. i want to start with my fellow republicans in witness protection with another something that moved me this morning from michael gerson, former white house colleague, wrote "the conservative mind in very visible cases has become diseased. institutions and individuals that once served an important ideological role providing a balanced and media bias are discrediting themselves in crucial ways. with the blessings of a president, they abandoned the normal constraints of reason and compassion." katie packer, what's it like to see the republican party go up in flames? >> well, you know, it's certainly a struggle that i think you're familiar with, and i don't know if i'm ready to say that the party's going up in flames but certainly the party's having a huge identity crisis and there is sort of this battle that's going on where sort of the price of admission in the republican party right now does

seem to be that you agree with everything that donald trump and the white house puts out, you have to hate the media, you have to have a vitreal for the media, you have to sort of deny, you know, many, many things that brought us into the party and into the kconservative movement to begin with if you want to bart part of this party. it's a huge identity crisis for all of us. >> charlie, you tweeted something, i don't have it on my phone anymore, it said "it is neither conservative nor it is media what some of our former friends in the kvbtive netrveti are doing." i wonder if if you can address this sea change of watching people we know on other networks celebrate julian assange and embrace vladimir putin and really not pay much attention to the leader of our party, donald trump, who goes overseas and refuses to affirm a decades-long alliance to stand with our best and oldest allies. >> yeah, this was a week,

nicolle, a lot of us were saying what the hell happened to us? you're talking about this conservative media this week -- i don't know whether this was the worst week ever for them but it kind of felt like it was all coming together. the culmination of the capitulati capitulation, the embrace of trumpism. you know, when you see people who augts ought to know better r it's sean hannity, rush limbaugh, peddling these bogus hoaxes about seth rich then justifying and covering up for, i mean, rationalizing the body slamming incident in montana, i mean, it's deceptive, it's cruel and it really does go to what michael gerson is talking about here, whatever the political fallout is, you get the feeling that a lot of these people have basically sacrificed their souls and the damage this is going to the conservative movement i think runs far deep er than the fallout or political consequences we're going to see

inevitably. >> all right. i'm going to bring in my fantastic panel. nbc news national political correspondent, steve kornacki. republican strategist susan delpersio. and the reverend al, host of msnbc's "politics nation." i wanted to bring you in sooner, i wanted to bring you in when you started nodding at everything charlie sykes started s saying. how can we all nod to decimation of the soul of a once great political party even if you didn't agree with them, but still watch it get worse? >> i think that we nod because we agree that this is not the conservative movement or the republican party that we all knew. even though we disagree. i remember when i was a kid growing up in new york, i used to go to the set to watch them do firing lye ining line and i

was a certain level of intellect, a certain level of grief and there was a standard. to go from that to what we're seeing in trump to a guy body slams somebody who's elected to congress in montana, what are we showing our kids and what has done this to the level of respectability of the republican party and republican candidates? i mean, even -- even though you want to fight on issues, you want to word the opponent and this is like -- i haven't felt this bad that -- i think when i watched holyfield fight tyson and ticer bit his ear. come on. >> is this the ear biting of american politics? >> let's go -- this is like the ear bite. donald trump is the guy that bites you. he doesn't fight fair. >> did dronald trump bite an ea yesterday at nato? >> to go to nato and did what he

did to historic allies after he embraced every -- >> duterte, putin. >> now he's at g-7, would have been g-8 had it not been for his friends in russia misbehaving. you have two days to see how far we've gone. the g-7 would have been g-8. the people mr. trump may or people around him may have had some questionable dealings with is why there's a g-7. so this is not exactly taking russia out of the news because we have to remember why russia is not in brussels at the g-7 which would have been the g-8 meeting. >> go ahead. >> we should put this in context, there's always been this kind of struggle at least during my lifetime within the republican party. think about this move to the right. the resurgence of goldwater, emergence of goldwater then of course, everybody thought the party collapsed in the face of his defeat then of course by 1980, you get reagan. then of course you get the bushes then of course the response to the bushes, you get

the tea party emerges. and now from tea party we get trum trump. there seems to be this rightward drift that's really interesting. we can tell this story. what's etch moven more interest the bargain being made by paul ryan, mitch mcconnell and other republicans who are in some ways silencing their voices because they're siding with this thrust. >> that's what's so disappointing now is looking for real republican leadership. >> let's count them. we've got six of us here, seven counting me. we've got ben sasse, we've got john mccain, we've got lindsey graham, marco rubio, at least five days a week. anybody else come to mind? seriously, charlie and katie, jump in. mitt romney. do you guys have anything else? >> nicolle -- >> it's a very, very small group. >> go ahead, katie, do you want to add anyone to the list? i'm at five. >> i just want to say this group with all due respect is sort of largely a group -- that this group that's on this show right now, i mean, is largely a group of a more elite kind of politico

and what is missing is that there is a massive group of supporters of this president out there that actually are okay with this behavior. >> i don't -- listen, i don't take anything away from the trump voter. i've spent -- i've done my penance. i've spent weeks -- they didn't vote for body slamming. >> they did yesterday. >> what they don't like about trump, this elite group -- i think the vast majority of montana voters already voted for the body slamming incident, right? >> at the -- >> let me get steve kornacki in here on this. >> i got to say, i don't know, they didn't vote for body slamming, they voted for a candidate who in his rally said, hey, in my day, that protester in the back of the hall, we'd beat the crap out of him, throw him outside. time and again in the presidential campaign, donald trump did things -- he said john mccain wasn't a war hero because he'd been captured. >> he was a crummy --

>> said that at the beginning of his -- >> crummy war hero. >> he was up ten points in the polls. what donald trump revealed is how much the base of the republican party has changed, probably post-direct, probably post the economic collapse of 2008. what is the republican base now? it is blue collar, it is old r, it is largely white and moved by populist forces. it is moved by populist forces that are restrictionist when it comes to immigration, that are very, very protective of the idea of having a nation, of having borders, of not being too integrated with the world. >> yeah. >> national identity. those are the things that donald trump in a very, very crude way -- >> i spent a lot of time with those reporters and the thing they like all that and they want all that and they love to see him legislate all that into law. they do not like the tweeting. they do not like the lack of discipline. they think he's wasted most of the 125 days he's been president. we're going to bring this -- this is too good. we're going to keep you all here. just hit pause. we're going to take a quick break and be right back on the

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i truly believe that among the most important qualities of leadership, whether it's in the armed forces or any other endeavor, our humility, orientation to authority and self-control. >> charlie sykes, humility and self-control, has the vice president met president trump? >> yeah, he seems to forget who he works for. look, donald trump reflects the culture of his base, but he also shapes it. he is the role model in chief. and there's no question that he has enabled, he has encouraged and he has modeled certain behavior. we're seeing that playing out. i understand all the frustration out there. the fact is what we're really seeing is donald trump, leave him aside for a moment, how he's toxifying the republican party and the conservative movement. this was my great fear all along, what would happen to conservatives if they got into bed with donald trump? and, boy, we have seen sothat

dramatically. >> katie, your old boss mitt romney warned the party for man lungs. it's about all of us as parents. i got a kid who couldn't do happhalf the things donald trump did or he'd be kicked out of pre-k. >> i don't think it's the elites being snooty but i think it's a struggle is what i was trying to communicate, you got this base of voter support that believes one thing and i got to tell you, it's interesting to watch vice president pence, he seems to have this uncanny ability to just ignore all the noise, ignore everything that president trump does and kind of go about his business and talk as if none of that actually exists. but donald trump is sort of a tsunami that kind of rolls along and people either can kind of float with him or try to hang on to something to resist him but he really is sort of a force of nature and i don't think people have figured out how to react to

it yet. >> all right. hang on, hang on. charlie, i'm on deadline, actually, it's not just the title. we grab people when they have other places to go. i want to thank charlie and katie and turn back to my panel. go ahead, rev. >> i think the difference at some point is the populist things that he ran on, he's going to have to deliver. >> yeah. >> or all of the other things will become very annoying and offensive. >> right, because it's not in balance. >> they're overlooking some of that because he's promising -- >> the stuff that they wanted, the stuff -- >> he is an embarrassment to many people, and i done think it makes us elitist to say that if you're a role model, you ought to at least be decent. i've been called a lot of things. elitist has never been one of them. >> right. >> if i'm an elitist because i'm saying not body slam a reporter, i'm an elitist because you shouldn't talk about women the way he did on the video, then call me an elitist. i think people at some point are saying, wait a minute, i'm going

to overlook that because i'm so against this, so against that, i so want that. when -- we're less than 200 days in. you get six months in and hasn't delivered anything, and he continues this crude kind of behavior, you're the man who knocks a head of state out of the way so he can get in a photo op, how much of this do you overlook and still get your medicaid cut and still don't have a wail in mexico and still don't have the other things he promised? you're going to say, wait a minute, that's a -- >> go ahead. >> you're going to see that. it's very hard to govern with 35%. >> right. >> that's what the president is looking at right now. he can't get anything done with 35%. and he's not going to be able to deliver on tax reform or a wall or anything else for that matter. health care especially. look, the senate is so busy right now and they're afraid to go near health care. they're not going to do it. and people are fickle. they will remember this. they are going to end this year saying there was no wins, and

let's not forget, donald trump did it in one other way, he said it was easy. remember? he said, i'll fix this, it's easy to get things done. >> but steve, i think you hit on something that their economic despair, they felt invisible. he said in the message in the final week of the campaign about the forgotten man and woman which is exactly the thing that's going to keep them with him. what did we learn out of montana last night? >> i think the bigger thing that i learned from the last year's election is i'm not taking a value statement here, i'm not making a value judgement here, but i'm through making confident assertions and confident predictions that the voters will only stand with him until "x can "or eo, when they see this wall isn't delivered, they're gone. when they see that nafta has not been burned up, they're gone. he survived 24,000 moments like that during the campaign. if you think back, take these item by item, he -- >> let's relive them. "access hollywood." what you just mentioned, calling john mccain a crummy p.o.w. >> in between -- >> remember the south carolina

primary, it was an article of fate. republican politics. the one thing republican voters will never stand for is questioning george w. bush -- >> after 9/11. >> he lied us into iraq, you can't not just say that in republican politics especially in south carolina, my goodness. military voters there. he won every single congressional district in south carolina. >> he still got 2.8 million less votes than hillary. she didn't run the right campaign with electoral college. >> here's -- >> you act like he won with a landslide. >> i act like he won. if he -- >> won the electoral college. >> he won. >> if those votes -- >> rev -- >> she lost michigan by less than 20,000 votes. she went to three churches -- >> maybe it would have got worse if she went to michigan. >> maybe it would have gotten better. >> my point is -- my point is this election was an invitation, i think, to us to step back and say, we don't know nearly as much about the connection between campaigning and about the connection between governing and voter behavior.

we don't know nearly as much as we thought we did. >> what if i -- >> confident -- >> i want to concede that, but what does that say? you were hesitant to make what does that say about where we are as a nation? i believe what we are -- >> that's where i started. i started with joe's comment about the coarsening of the culture. >> i think we've seen the normalization of ignorance, a banality of evil as was talked about. what do we know? we know that a young black student at buoy state was killed, stabbed in the chest. we know that a person -- >> you're talking about the coarsening of the culture. >> the baniality of evil. stupidity becomes unexceptional. so from the top, we get this

ugliness. then it trickles down. >> it trickles down to the culture. stupidity and vile behavior has become presidential. that's the danger. you can't allow the presidential emblem to be behind someone doing what he is doing as president, that's where i think the challenge comes for some real republican and conservative leadership to say, that is not what conservatism is. >> we have to hit a break. up next, hillary clinton gets in on this conversation when we come back. the friends, the independence. and since we planned for it, that student debt is the one experience, i'm glad she'll miss

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you are graduating at a time when there is a full fledged assault on truth and reason. people denying science, conco concocting elaborate hurtful conspiracy theories about child abuse rings operating out of pizza parlors. drumming up rampant fear about undocumented immigrants, muslims, minorities, the poor some of the are even depping things we see with our own eyes. like the size of crowds.

and then defending themselves by talking about, quote/unquote, alternative facts. look at the budget that was just proposed in washington. it is an attack of unimaginable cruelty on the most vulnerable among us. let's call it what it is. it is a con. >> so oddly, i heard echos of what charlie said to us in this hour. when hillary clinton was talking about fake news and we were talking about it in the break. >> i understand why she is bringing up these issues. they were actually all factual. what i'm not sure is what she was trying to do with that. she was playing to an audience at wellesley. >> she was giving a commencement address at her alma national ma. >> she was hoping for a tweet after that.

are they out front and center making an argument? is she really going to take mantle for the democrats? i don't think so. i think this speech is something that she's going to probably regret. i think she will have the thumb put on her by leadership. >> who is the better person to deliver that message? >> that's what they're trying to find out. >> what you have, the most prominent names are biden, sanders, warren. all three would be in their 70s in 2020. i'll not sure any of the three of them would run but that seems to be where the conversation starts. think of types here, think of amy from minnesota. somebody who, she has that midwestern appeal. >> it is an interesting contrast to trump.

i remember the weekend before the campaign, everybody was making fun of trump for going there. she knows something about that. >> what about cory booker and senator harris? are those people still -- >> here's the other issue. i think this is something democrats have to think about. among other things, has the strategic question. you have a drop-off in mari african-american support. from barack obama. you had a drop-off. >> that's my point. if they go after identity politics, they lose. what they have to do is energize and get their own base that did not come out. that was my point about michigan. if you waste time going after archie bunker, you're not going to get archie bunker. he likes what trump is saying

and forgiving him -- >> but they come out because of her. >> but because of the kind of campaign she ran. i kept saying during the campaign, you are acting like this, this is a boxing match. she was at my convention. a boxing match with rules and a referee. there is a street fight. you have to say, fine. if this is way you want to fight, take him on and you would have rallied your side. i ran in 2004. i wish one night somebody would have stopped me on a debating floor like did he that night. i would have turned around and won the election that flight. first of all, what is wrong with you? go stand over there until i finish. she acted like it was normal this man was stalking her around the table. >> i don't want to us forget millennials. the young folks. when we look at the data, millennials broke third party and for bernie sanders. part of what we need to see is

that this is not just a, a disagreement around personalities. this is around content. people are tired of the democratic party being the republican party in blue. which is what you're doing if you're running around the archie bunker vote. let us become elephants with donkey skin on. >> all right. we're cutting into chuck's time. thank you so much. that does it for this hour. i'm nicole wallace. m. "mtp daily." >> you have to let the rev finish. amen to him. if it's friday, the u.s.'s russia war room will be up and running soon. tonight, as the president returns to washington, we are learning just how close to home the filibuster's russia investigation is getting.