benefit of other countries, leaving american workers who i love and taxpayers to absorb the cost. the bottom line is the paris accord is very unfair at the highest level to the united states. >> president trump's decision to withdraw the united states from the paris climate agreement. we will have a lot this morning on the major implications and global reaction to yesterday's big rose garden announcement which for some reason featured a marine jazz band. >> what exactly were they celebrating? >> i'm julie mccoy and i'll be your cruise director. good morning. it's friday, june 2nd. with us in washington senior political analyst mark halperin. >> you go to his apartment in new york, there's always one in the corner playing. >> like a woody allen movie.

>> bbc anchor katty kay. from "the washington post" eugene robinson, "new york times" reporter jeremy peters and in new york veteran columnist and msnbc contributor mike barnicle. good to have everyone with us this morning. we begin with this, former state department speaking out the trump administration planning to roll back punitive measures against russia almost as soon as he took office. dan frooed who served until late february said colleagues asked them to appeal to congress after they were directed to develop a sanctions lifting package and to arrange a summit between trump and russian president vladimir putin as part of a grand bargain

with moscows. to these officials it felt like a win-win for putin who said they were unclear what america got out of the deal. quote, we've ben reviewing all the sanctions and this is not exclusive to russia. the administration backed down after senators made clear they would pass a law to enforce obama's punitive measures. but a "washington post" report we told you about yesterday suggests the trump administration could soon return russia's compounds in maryland and new york. trump and putin are likely to meet at the g7 summit in germany next month. so yet another step. >> katty kay, more evidence that there is something there between democrat and vladimir putin, that he would lurch and make

putin a concern at the time that his national security adviser was reaching out, improperly talking to russia, lying about it to everybody. there's something there. we don't know what is there, but there's one example after another, not just of leaks, but things he's stupid enough to do in the light of day, like invite the u.s. ambassador and invite the foreign minister of russia to the oval office, give them classified information the day after he fired comey. and he bragged about killing that investigation. >> i've been very resistant to the idea that there's some big conspiracy theory here and donald trump was deliberately working with the russians to try to influence the election. but this news out of the state department raises the biggest question yet, was there -- in e change for the meetings we keep hearing about -- hearing more about them between jared kushner, jeff sessions, senior

russians including kislyak and the banker. >> which, by the way, they all lied. let's just underline that, they lied about every single one of these meetings. they lied in front of congress. they lied on their forms. they lied repeatedly about meeting with russia. >> right. you have to start asking the question, during the course of the campaign was something said between campaign staff at some point to the russians. if you help us, we will lift sanctions against you. this news out of the state department suggests very soon after coming into office they were looking at lifting sanctions. >> why did they meet? the white house and the russian bank have vastly different explanations. the bank maintained the session was held as part of a new business strategy and was conducted with kushner in his

role as head of the family's real estate business. >> the russian bank is saying they have a business, we have money and so we talked, which makes a lot of sense because they need to -- they need funding. >> let's make a deal. >> let's make a deal, mr. bond. >> that's what the bank says. >> that's easy. >> here's the problem. the white house says the meeting was unrelated to business. so they don't even -- both sides of one meeting don't even have the same explanation. >> again, somebody is lying. why are there always lies swirling around every single meeting with russia? trump's people just can't tell the truth. why is there always a lie attached to a russian meeting. >> your "morning joe" homework begins with reading that story

which has extraordinary insight into this bank and this banker, raises the question as to why the meeting was taking place, whether it was for business or diplomatic purposes. >> even for business it would have been fishy. >> why was an incoming white house official meeting with that banker. you mentioned the flow chart in the office for the independent counsel, up on the wall, the chronology of the meetings, what was going on elsewhere in the world at the time of the meetings, unlike the media, he's got -- >> can i, gene, add as well the lies? i want to talk to my republican friends. >> the ones walking the plank every day. >> every day you want to blame this on the united states fbi, the united states cia. you attack the men and women who keep our country safe, but you never ask why donald trump and

all the president's men keep lying about russia. you can't blame this on fake news. you can't blame this on the cia. you can't blame this on the fbi. it's their words. they're the ones who are lying every day. at what point do you wake up and get out of your stupor and start asking, if you're so concerned about the paris accords and america's sovereignty, when do you start being concerned about the sovereignty of the united states when russia is now admitting they were trying to hack into our elections and your white house is lying about it every day. gene, the lies, just keep multiplying. they lied about this. >> it's amazing. if you lie again and again and again about the same subject, guess what? people are going to think something is going on. >> i always talk about bill

clinton. bill clinton lied about everything. donald trump did, too. but it was a scattered shot. bill clinton would have lied about the sun being out. here on russia, while trump lies about everything, also, you can key in on russia and on this one topic, the trump administration, they all are lying. people that are running our government have all lied about meetings with russia. >> the trump administration foreign policy is, shall we say, scatter shot, there's no coherence to it except they're very consistent with russia. they just got into office and the first thing on the agenda is how can we get sergey kislyak his village back, right? >> as michael itzkoff reported, immediately they're trying to figure out how do we lift the

sanctions. >> that's what's highly problematic about these jared kushner disclosures. in this "washington post" story, reading between the lines here, both explanations are pretty bad ones, he was meeting possibly with the head of the state-controlled bank about lifting the sanctions or he was meeting with them about his own personal businesses as he is ready to go in and take a senior position. >> neither one of them are good. it's bad regardless because, again, let's put context around this. if you were going to get money from a russian-controlled bank that putin controls at the same time they're trying to lift sanctions and you're having back channel discussions about lifting sanctions. >> and not disclosing them. >> not disclosing that you met with the banker because you needed money desperately about your building, what does that say? i'm trying to get money here while the russians are trying to get sanctions lifted. we're working with the state

department to get sanctions lifted. give me some money. there's no good explanation. >> jared kushner's sister is in china selling visas. the whole thing smacks of i'm propriety. >> a strange comment from the russian deputy foreign minister who said sounding rather regretful that their relations and expectations from the trump administration have not lived up to what they thought they were going to. behind that, there was an implication they thought they would get more from the trump administration than they're getting. >> they've been such buffoons and lied so much and so obviously, they've completely boxed themselves out of being able to lift sanctions or do these other things. >> well, they seem to be moving

forward, at least on the russian compounds. vladimir putin is in the middle of an economic forum in st. petersburg, russia. we expect to hear more from him this morning. yesterday for the first time he acknowledged that russians could have been behind the cyberattacks in the 2016 u.s. election. quote, hackers are free-spirited people, like artists. if they wake up in a good mood in the morning, they wake up and paint. likewise, hackers wake up in the morning and read about the news, about international affairs, and if they're patriotically minded -- >> also known as, if they wake up with a gun to the back of their head. >> -- they start making their contributions which are right from their point of view. putin went on to say russia does not engage in state-sponsored hacking. >> that was the 400-pound guy donald trump referred to. >> mike barnicle, it's gone from

the 400-pound guy in jersey in his underwear to vladimir putin talking about patriotically minded russians that were hacking in and trying to impact our election. >> sitting in some basement in st. petersburg. >> the pace of this dance with the russians and the trump administration, the incoming trump administration is increasingly dizzying. you have russian bankers, the russian ambassador, the trump son-in-law, you have a sitting presidency, the obama administration still in office while this incoming administration is trying to establish a secret back channel to prevent the existing american government from finding out what they're planning, plotting, talking about. this is incredible, absolutely mind-boggling. >> the backdrop of all this,

mark halperin, next thursday james comey goes to capitol hill and he is going to testify. >> you think today is friday. it's day two of the pregame tease. no matter what happens, this is such a big moment because so much of what we're hearing about now in all of these matters, russia, comey, all the overlap, is press accounts and a little bit from these hearings. comey speaking out is not a climactic moment, but a major moment. he has so much credibility with so much of washington, and the story he tells about the president now is going to be the center of attention between now and when he speaks. >> katty, it's going to be extraordinary here. >> are we convinced that he's going to be able to speak out, that the white house is not going to intervene and try to stop his -- they won't be able to? >> it would bring government to a halt. >> they could claim executive privilege. >> that's what i'm wondering. >> trump has probably waived

executive privilege by talking about the conversation so much himself. >> you know they're sitting having these conversations in the white house trying to figure out if they can do that. >> if putin's goal was to destabilize the united states, not just to help trump win, political elites against political elites, he's succeeded. you have mueller doing the investigation and comey's looming testimony, mortal threats to the administration. the white house is extremely frustrated there's so much coverage about russia. i can see little opportunity for them to break out of this. >> how does the coverage slow down as long as the lies keep coming out, as long as they keep having contradictions? again, this is self-inflicted. >> maybe this continues into today for a brief 24-hour period where we're going to be talking about a climate deal, which as

it was received on the right, among donald trump's base -- not even among his base, but among republicans on capitol hill was a moment for them. finally they were talking about something other than russia. you were having the united states extract itself from a deal that a lot of conservatives felt was unfair to the united states, that favored the rest of the world. these are the type of conservative ideals that i think they appreciated. okay. we'll talk about that for a little bit and then move on to james' testimony and then another disclosure about the russian investigation and the vladimir putin interview over the weekend, by the way, which is coming and happening with one of donald trump's least favorite journalists. is that a coincidence? i don't know. >> all right. up next we're going to break down the president's rose garden announcement on the paris climate agreement as reaction from across the globe pours in. plus this. >> i set up my campaign, and we have our own data operation.

i get the nomination. so i'm now the nominee of the democratic party. i inherit nothing from the democratic party. >> what do you mean nothing? >> i mean it was bankrupt, it was on the verge of insolvency. its data was mediocre to poor, non-existent, poor, wrong. >> that -- i'm sorry. that is unbelievable. people who worked on barack obama's 2012 re-election campaign said that they had better data in '16, more resources. you can't find anybody at the dnc that says that. that's unbelievable. >> we'll ask keith ellison what he makes of hillary clinton's assessment, especially since he backed bernie sanders.

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xfinity mobile. in order to fulfill my solemn duty to protect america and its citizens, the united states will withdraw from the paris climate accord. thus, as of today, the united states will cease all implementation of the non-binding paris accord and the draconian financial and economic burdens the agreement imposes on our country. but begin negotiations to re-enter either the paris accord or an entirely new transaction on terms that are fair to the united states, its businesses,

its workers, its people, its taxpayers. so we're getting out, but we will start to negotiate, and we will see if we can make a deal that's fair. if we can, that's great. if we can't, that's fine. the same nations asking us to stay in the agreement are the countries that have collectively cost america trillions of dollars through tough trade practices. you see what's happening, it's pretty obvious to those who want to keep an open mind. at what point does america get demeaned? at what point do they start laughing at us as a country? we don't want other leaders and other countries laughing at us anymore, and they won't be. i was elected to represent the

citizens of pittsburgh, not paris. >> you know, actually, the great irony is that they are laughing. >> they're laughing now. >> but they're not laughing at america. they're laughing at donald trump. the world is in shock. >> i don't actually think they're laughing. i think a lot of people in europe who, of course, when trump was elected thought the whole thing was a joke, now think it's not so much scary as sad, that people are dismayed at the lack of american leadership on what is probably the most fundamental issue of our time, climate change. and there's a sense of real sadness in europe about what is happening to american global leadership. >> we were speaking at the german embassy last night and this came up, and the audience re of really accomplished women

were all shaking their heads. they had a look of a mixture of horror and disgust on their face, as pertains to trump and everything. >> let's put it in perspective. a lot of people may disagree with me. there was so much hyperbole flying around yesterday on the right, on the far right, on donald trump in trump land, the hyperbole that it was taking away our sovereignty. it's voluntary. we set the goals for ourself. it was a device to try to get countries like china and india who are now developing countries to actually also set guidelines. it's voluntary. there was no sovereignty loss by this, that's why it was stupid to get out because it was voluntary. the united states has already started making great strides towards reducing carbon

emissions. that's the first thing. the second thing is, the suggestion that this was going to hurt the united states economy is just another lie. it's just -- it's voluntary. there's a reason why gary cohn on the inside, the guy that ran goldman sachs said let's stay in, there's a reason ge said let's stay in, a reason why ceos from exxon said let's stay in, a reason why most of the leaders of silicon valley said let's stay in. it's not bad in the long run for the economy, it's good in the long run. >> lloyd blankfein's first tweet ever. >> lloyd blankfein at goldman sachs. i have to say, if you want to strip it down -- the hyperbole, this is the day the world came to an end.

no. this is hyperbole. if you want to understand what hyperbole that is, you see what some of the most progressive thought leaders were saying about the paris accords when they were first passed, that they're toothless, that they're not going to make a difference, it's symbolism more than anything else. the person -- willie geist talks about this all the time, a friend of his one of the foremost climate scientists who came up with the theory of greenhouse gases. i remember him showing me the e-mail the morning after paris was signed. he said this is a bunch of bs. except he didn't say bs. absolute garbage. these were voluntary guidelines set. gene, the impact of this, at least as far as i'm concerned -- maybe people think it's going to be "the day after tomorrow" and florida is going to disappear in a couple weeks. they don't help their cause. there are two huge takeaways. number one, the damage done to us is grave diplomatically,

across europe especially. diplomatically it's grave and europeans do believe that this is the united states withdrawing from the world, and they are very concerned. they're going to follow up on what merkel said last week, they're going to have to look elsewhere for leadership. secondly, and i think more disturbingly, even, if you can believe it, this proves that donald trump does not give a damn about the world, he does not give a damn about the united states as a whole. he cares about his core 38%, and this is the steve bannon effect, the shortsighted stupidity you're going to focus on your 38% to the exclusion of the rest of the country. >> welcome to the bizarre new normal. >> and welcome to nancy pelosi being speaker of the house. >> in terms of the actual impact on carbon emissions of what happened yesterday, it was nil.

we were never going to make the paris targets under donald trump to begin with, right? because he's trying to revive coal, trying to pump more oil and gas. but the abdication of american leadership is a huge deal. i think we'll look back on yesterday as a very, very big deal. >> in terms of american leadership. >> in terms of american leadership, the withdrawal, and it means somebody's got to step up. >> jeremy, hold on. we have the leaders of france, germany and italy issuing a joint statement saying the path laid out in the accord is, quote, irreversible and we firmly believe the paris agreement cannot be renegotiated. >> i reaffirm clearly that the paris agreement remains irreversible and will be implemented, not just by france, but by all the other nations. we will succeed because we are fully committed, because

wherever we live, wherever we are, we all share the same responsibility. make our planet great again. >> also reacting yesterday to trump's decision was german chancellor angela merkel's main competitor in the upcoming election, martin schultz who has been outspoken in his distaste for trump tweeting, you can withdraw from a climate agreement, but not from climate change. mr. trump, reality isn't just another statement you shove away. there's that. >> if you think about this as a mini brexit for trump, i think that's how they see this in the white house. this is another spoke out of the wheel of the sbinternational community. they see this as a way of dismantling a post world war ii order in which there was a global community and there were global citizens that were a part

of the community that have a moral responsibility to lead. that's just not how they see the world. the problem with that, of course, it allows france and germany and other european leaders to step into that vacuum. >> and more important china. >> china is stepping up and saying, okay, they have the biggest solar panel industry in the world by far already. they're going to take the lead in clean energy technology and we're not. >> it's more than just climate. i think climate was the third place where china has got a huge opening now. first was trade. second was security, the president comes home from his trip and basically sends the message that security order is going to be different. those three are pillars of international order where the united states was first among equals in the west. the president does not want that kind of world and is it going to make the life better for people in the united states? today does not look like that to the rest of the world and to a

lot of people. >> katty, to follow up on what you said, there is in europe a great fear and almost a mourning that the united states is withdrawing, that trump is just -- not from paris, but from europe, from the relationship we've had for over 50 years. >> i think there is a realization in europe now that the bombing in syria was a kind of aberration in trump's foreign policy, people thought trump was not going to be the isolationist president, and then the combination of the trip to europe as mark was saying and withdrawing immediately from the paris accord, not just withdrawing from it, but the language he used yesterday was -- smacked so much of that inaugural address. we were way back in the dark days where the rest of the world

is out to get america, is taking advantage of america, and i will never let them. >> again, it's steve bannon back in power at the white house and bannon -- >> with jared being under scrutiny. >> jared being under scrutiny and bannon is hell-bent in making sure that 38% of americans love donald trump. he's going to get his wish. 38% of americans will love donald trump and nancy pelosi will be speaker of the house. if donald trump runs for re-election he will get wiped off the map. >> richard haass tweeted about the paris news. he says with tpp and paris withdraws and nato uncertainty, u.s. foreign policy and health care policy increasingly one in the same, repeal without replace. mike barnicle, the president's foreign policy team, wouldn't they have some concerns about the symbolism of the past 24

hours? >> mika, yesterday was sad, it was depressing, it was cynical, it was a verbal portrait filled with half truths and no truths, a verbal portrait of america in retreat played out by a man with little understanding of history or our role in the world stage, and for that 38%, all i can say is get ready, 38% trump supporters, to buy solar panels made in china at home depot in about ten years. that's what we're looking forward to. >> and coming up, we're going to go live to russia where nbc's keir simmons tracked down sergei gorokh gorokhov, the russian state banker. >> is that the guy jared met with? >> is it called spy school? >> we'll be right back.

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joining us now from st. petersburg, russia, nbc foreign correspondent keir simmons at the site of an economic forum

being attended by president putin. here you were able to track down sergei gorokhov, the russian state banker who met with jared kushner. what did you find out? >> reporter: that's right. sergei gorokhov is the chairman of a bank sanctioned by the united states. you're right. this is the banker that met with jared kushner in december. we still don't really know what happened at that meeting. the fbi obviously looking into these questions. so we found him here at this economic forum, tried to ask him some questions. take a listen. >> you're the subject of intense scrutiny in america because of your meeting with donald trump's son-in-law -- >> i don't have any comments about that. >> but the thing is there is some confusion in what exactly happened. >> sorry, sorry. >> were you talking about business or talking about

politician? >> please. >> have you been contacted by the fbi or would you be prepared to talk to them? mr. gorokhov? it's just a question of understanding what happened in the meeting. >> i have no comments. please, please. >> was it a political meeting or was it an economic meeting? i wanted to ask you about the meeting you had with jared kushner. please explain. we really do want to hear what happened. if it was an innocent meeting, please explain what happened in the meeting, mr. gorokhov. >> reporter: sergei gorokhov close to president putin will be speaking at the forum at an event hosted by megyn kelly along with prime minister modi of india. e i suspect e he'll be asked about about intervention in the u.s. elections. he said yesterday, and we'll hear him repeat this, maybe patriotic russians were involved in the hacking, a bit of a

change, perhaps setting himself up for more evidence to emerge. unlikely they'll talk about the climate change news, the paris accord and what they make of that, india and russia announcing a deal on nuclear power just this week. >> keir, you're so polite when you're aggressively trying to get the answers. keir simmons, thank you so much. >> it's the best way. >> joining us now, former chief of staff of the cia and department of defense, now an nbc news national security analyst, jeremy bash. >> jeremy, we're trying to sort through a couple big stories leading the news today. first of all, this michael itzkoff report that they were actually feverishly trying to lift sanctions behind everybody's bank very early on and wanting nothing in return for it. >> well, this seems to be exactly what russia wanted during the election. they wanted the incoming team to

relax the sanctions in two dimensions. first, obviously the sanctions against russia for harking in the election, sanctions that the obama administration announced on december 29th. more broadly, the ukraine-related sanctions. this itzkoff report showed that people inside the obama administration were very concerned about this, they talked to folks on capitol hill and were getting a lot of pressure by the transition teams to make these policy changes early on. >> this meeting between kushner and the banker, there doesn't seem to be a good explanation. if it's about money, as the russians say it was, that's bad. if it was during the transition about policy, that's bad. >> that's right. it's sort of a multiple choice question. was it about funding kushner real estate projects, a? b, was it about relaxes sanctions on that bank? that's b. c would be a back channel to putin or d, all of the above.

all of the above is pretty problematic as well. >> all of the above is very bad. >> any of the above is a problem. >> any of the above is a problem. them meeting is a serious problem. mark halperin, where does all of this put us? yes, there's going to be -- people will be screeching about paris for a day. that's the reason why -- trump set this up, i'm going to talk tomorrow at 3:00. >> let me get a jazz band. >> and then he goes in and blabbers about things that aren't true. then the ideological world is distracted and everybody is hyperbolic for 15 minutes and we're back to russia. >> there's no doubt if the white house is trying to get his footing back, they're looking to get russia out of the news. they feel it's a good day if they can do that. the congressional investigations will go forward and we'll see when comey testifies, that will be a big moment as we said before. but it's the independent counsel, like every president who has faced this kind of

thing, that is the relatively quiet, we're only seeing a sliver of what he's doing, and these leaks which the white house complains about. why do we even know about that meeting? because someone wanted it out. >> somebody in the white house. >> someone in the white house, someone in the fbi, whoever it is. there's no doubt there is more we don't even know about. how did the meeting get set up? >> mika, there's all this talk about leaks from the cia, leaks from the fbi. when it comes to jared kushner, the leaks are all coming from inside the white house. six people leaked a couple days ago about him. steve bannon was running around from -- according to my sources, bragging to journalists a month and a half ago that he didn't have to worry about kushner and he was going to sideline kushner because of russia, that he had information on the russian investigation and that he was going to sideline jared kushner.

two days after i heard this, two days, front page "new york times" story about the links between kushner and russia. a coincidence? absolutely not. steve bannon has been leaking, i believe, based on everything that i've heard, has been leaking these stories. people very close to steve bannon were telling me before the stories were leaked that he was going to be leaking these stories. >> he has a job and wants to keep it and will do what's necessary to do that. >> we have bad forces competing with each other inside the white house one could argue. mike barnicle, reading from "the new york times" front page. it's stunning when you think about it. it does play into the potential that this is a massive distraction. we led with russia today. that's a bigger story. you're going to need a shinier penny from the white house to get us to get off that story. here is how they describe it,

the president's address, a mix of dry statistics and emotive language was designed to discredit the pact point by point. several of trump's claims relied on distorted research. it started with a faulty premise, that's missions reductions are compulsory even at one point he acknowledged they were voluntary. the man makes no sense. it almost appears, one could argue, that he's doing destruction to america standing on the international stage just to sort of move the chaos in another direction. >> sure. you can make a case even more strongly about that with the stagecraft yesterday. the vice president of the united states glowingly talking about the president of the united states who came out of the oval office at the conclusion of vice president pence's remarks like on stage, at a broadway show.

at the conclusion you had scott pruitt talking about the president's courage as the president stood next to him. all of this clearly an attempt to get us off the russia thing. in the immortal -- to para phrase the immortal words of joe lewis, you can run, but you cannot hide. russia is a self-inflicted wound on this administration. by the way, we haven't even gotten to the attorney general of the united states' role in russia, his meetings with russians, with the russian ambassador that he conveniently forgot to mention to the united states senate under oath. >> for sure. mike barnicle, thank you. jeremy bash, stay with us. we have much who ahead on the new developments of the relationship between the trump administration and russia. mem were of the senate judiciary committee, senator richard blumenthal will be our guest. "morning joe" is back after this. ♪

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all right. so the trump administration has revealed that they've asked the supreme court to allow it to enforce the president's blocked order. the move comes after a federal appeals court in virginia ruled last week to up hold a lower court's ruling that the travel ban against six predominantly muslim countries was unconstitutional. the court said the executive order was based on religious discrimination, based on statements cited by trump during the campaign. council filed back, saying that that would require psychoanalysis. >> right. >> hoping the justices take it up before its new term begins in the fall. >> well, i've got to say, i

maybe have been a little tough on donald trump over the past couple of days but this is one place where i completely agree with these administrations. these rulings are trump specific. it's hard for me to believe that any other president would have words that he said during the campaign, at the beginning of the campaign, used against him by a federal judge. i would be shocked, mark halperin, if this didn't get to the supreme court and there weren't at least six justices, seven justices ruling and saying this is, of all the constitutional authorities placed on the president, this, regarding immigrants and border security, may be the top of the president's list. >> i would be surprised if he gets to seven and maybe even six, but at this point they would take five. they can denounce district courts and courts of appeals all they want. but they've got to win in the

supreme court or a bedrock policy he proposed during the campaign will be struck down and probably not revivable. if courts really do rely on those statements -- >> but courts can't pick and -- no, i'm telling you. >> but the lower courts have, surprisingly. >> they have been incorrect to do it. >> yeah. >> i agree. >> and, by the way -- >> think everything is different. >> the courts have actually, i would argue, unfortunately, been strengthening donald trump's claims that they're political. >> right. >> because i'm going to tell you, i have not seen a whole lot of case law where -- i've seen where courts have, obviously, used debates, legislative debates but i've not seen them skip over five or six statements where somebody backed down from an original statement and go, you know, we're going to ignore those and go back to the one in december of '15. >> you're a lawyer, so i'll bow to that. however, there are a whole lot

of judges that have decided this way now pretty much across the board whenever it comes up. they looked at those statements. now they may be wrong to do that. >> they are. >> a lot of judges have done that. the fourth circuit court of appeals is not the ninth circuit. the fourth circuit is not known as some sort of wild-eyed -- >> i know. >> hippie court. >> they're not the ninth circuit, no doubt about it. >> coming up -- >> the only thing i will say about that is i had -- i spoke to a very conservative federal judge who is well thought of. and the anger that he is feeling and all federal judges, or most federal judges are feeling toward donald trump's attack on the judiciary, i just think it's having an impact. >> this is a pattern with this president. the media, the law. >> and he has offended the fbi. he has offended the courts. they're running past any chance they have to stick an elbow in

him. we've seen it not just with these federal judges in hawaii or everywhere else. we've also seen it from the supreme court in the north dakota -- north carolina voter i.d. law. >> the trump administration's headaches with foreign policy. new scrutiny over his staff's russia contacts. blowback over the paris climate agreement and now word the president won't move the embassy in israel from jerusalem to tel aviv. to jerusalem. the other way around. and what the president missed in his comments about pittsburgh yesterday. "morning joe" continues in a moment. >> i was elected to represent the citizens of pittsburgh, not paris. so you miss the big city?

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the paris accord is very unfair. the wealth of our middle class has been ripped from their homes. >> taking away the great wealth of our nation. it's great wealth. it's phenomenal wealth. >> politicians prospered but the jobs left. >> we lost jobs, lowered wages, shuttered factory zbr.

>> the factories shuttered while the wealth, strength and confidence of our country has dissipated to agreements that disadvantages the united states. while the people have born the cost. >> costing the united states a vast fortune. >> we've enriched foreign industry at the expense of american industry. >> it just transfers those jobs out of america and the united states. >> we've made other countries rich. >> and ships them to foreign countries. >> washington flourished but the people did not share in its weth. >> and the american family will suffer the consequences. >> it's going to be only america first. >> the citizens of pittsburgh, not paris. >> this american carnage stops right here. >> a reassertion of america's

sovereignty. >> right now. >> you know, actually -- and if you look at what's happened historically, you can certainly understand everything he's saying there. because the united states is ranked 43, 44th, 45th in economic prowess over the past decade. and, you know, how we went from number -- wait a second. no. we've been the top power in the world. >> well, steve bannon writes a good speech when he wants to write a good speech. and you can tell he wrote both those speeches. >> it's stupidity. it's ahistorical. it's a lie that donald trump is telling to himself and his supporter. >> or steve's telling. >> do we have that old "time" magazine article? i'm serious. "time" magazine was right. steve bannon is president of the united states. he has gone in. donald trump doesn't know anything about policy. donald trump doesn't know

anything about politics. donald trump doesn't know anything about anything. he can get up and give a good speech. you listen to him talk about any topic and he wanders from sentence to sentence to sentence. so steve bannon is now the president of the united states. and that was more clear yesterday than ever before, mika. >> which is about the worst thing that could happen to the united states. with us here in washington, senior political analyst for nbc news and msnbc, mark halperin, washington anchor for bbc news america katty kay, jeremy bash and, joining the conversation, political reporter for the washington post and moderator of "washington week" on pbs, robert costa. >> so, robert costa, i certainly do not ask you to associate yourself with any of my remarks. >> thank you for that. >> because you are a working reporter with contacts in the white house. you're welcome.

there is no doubt over the past month, month and a half especially, we've seen steve bannon fight back against jared kushner and now has the preeminent role inside the white house. doesn't he? >> the president, i'm told, is very concerned about keeping his base. and bannon, to him, to the president, is someone who helps keep that flame lit. and i think kushner's struggles with russia-related issues have helped bannon come back within the west wing priebus and bannon came back from the overseas trip early and started thinking through this while the rest of the administration was abroad. >> he was telling his friends that he was going to finish jared off with russian stories that he didn't have to, quote, worry about the son-in-law because of russia. and then smiled and laughed to his friends. and then a few days later, steve

bannon is leaking stories to ""the new york times"" reportedly, about jared and russia. everything follows. >> in areas where this executive can act with a relatively free hand from can congress, from the courts on things like trade, relations with european countries, on things like paris, steve bannon sees those as opportunities to make change. not just to appeal to the 38%, but to change the united states' role in the world and the ordering of the american economy. and there's no doubt that the president and bannon see a lot of things the same way. so it's relatively easy for him compared to the other advisers around the president, because they agree. >> bannon has a clear constituency in the country. it's not clear what the constituency is for jared kushner and ivanka trump and whose policies they are responding to. >> the good people of zip code

1002. >> five of them. and it's not the same when you're trying to lobby to the president to say if you want to keep your supporters -- >> that said, though, this entire donald trump phenomenon is a 38% phenomenon. he was in the low to mid 30s in his approval ratings until people had to decide whether they were going to vote for hillary clinton or not. and without offending hillary clinton supporters, they looked at the hillary clinton that we saw yesterday or the day before, whenever she was out, blaming the dnc and everybody else and said i'm not going to vote for a bush or clinton anymore. i'm going to vote for trump. 38% phenomenon. even if his approval ratings go up to 44%. so the constituency for bannon, president bannon and his adviser, donald trump, is 38%.

maybe 40% on a good day. that would -- if you were running for prime minister of israel, that would be enough. but it's not here. they are narrow casting. and even yesterday when he was talking about pittsburgh, he wasn't even getting that right. >> he wasn't getting that right. the city of pittsburgh went for secretary clinton. i did travel around the suburbs of pittsburgh, the coal mining areas, steel towns and those are trump areas. when i asked my sources what went wrong for the moderates in the west wing when they were making the case to president trump, they said there was a misunderstanding of trump. as much as he wants approval and wants to be seen as popular, he doesn't love elite opinion. this is someone who used to malign new york society, happiest when he was at 29 club having a hamburger. this is not someone you can make a case to on the paris accord that macron and merkel, these are the people you need their approval of. he actually recoils at elite

establishment stuff as much as he wants popularity. >> why did jared and ivanka not understand that, then? they know him better than anybody zblie think the kushner, ivanka trump has the president's confidence on a personal level but plimt limt limited on a poll spectrum. >> that's because the president is really steve bannon. >> steve bannon -- president bannon has never figured out that to get re-elected, president bannon needs to move past president bannon's hard-core republican base. >> so, jeremy bash, for example, what was yesterday's announcement at 3:00 pm with the ban? it's always when you're having a really conversation and adding to the international stage it's important to have live music. >> i'm sure it was president

bannon's idea but jeremy, go ahead. >> i just wanted to ask, would mattis, kelly, tillerson, would they agree with the announcement yesterday and feel that that was really good, symbolically, optically, in terms of our standing, especially with our allies, and the trip? i mean, are they sitting there, clapping at our great president bannon for making these decisions? because i would think they would be very, very concerned about what is haening. >> the pentagon has been on the record saying climate change is a threat multiplier and general mattis, secretary mattis testify bfd congress that it is a major iv at the pentagon and national security has to grapple with. secretary tillerson and others, when they sit across from their counterparts are going to have a very hard day trying to explain this. the whole political philosophy was really zero sum. if somebody else wins, america loses. the whole post world war ii

order has shown us the opposite is true. when we build these multinational institutions actually is our benefit. >> except for a decade three-quarters of americans have said we're on the wrong track. for an increasing number of americans, their kids won't have the same economic opportunity. >> but, mark, look at the polls specifically for this issue. president bannon is on the wrong side of the majority. president bannon may be right when president bannon is looking at president bannon's primary base but when president bannon is looking at the overall scope of american voters, you can talk about the past three decades, president bannon isn't even reading the polls right for today. >> depends on -- >> which group. >> again, again, a small subset of the population that president bannon is obsessing on. >> not if these policies increase economic growth. >> which they're unlikely to -- the oil and coal industries

suddenly hire a lot of workers or buy more robots? they're going to buy computer chips. they're not going to hire workers. >> but again -- >> corporate interests beyond the global corporations that support climate change. there are these oil and gas interests very dominant within the republican party. >> what about exxon, though? >> that's true. a lot of global corporations, ceos walked away from the president yesterday. within the republican party, there's a connection between the bannon wing and the scott pruitt wing. hard-core, anti-regulatory policy. >> what about mcmaster, tillerson, mattis, kelly, can they not get past president bannon and say we are off track, ever? >> what i don't understand is you have goldman sachs' ceo, general electric's ceo, jeff immelt, the most powerful people in silicon valley. >> disney. >> disney. it seems you have the most powerful corporations in

america, actually business interests, actually saying this is good for america. this is good for our economy. how does he ignore those? >> the breitbart wing responds to those companies saying those are the global elite. >> but, again, that's the breitbart/bannon wing. >> right. >> it's a small subset of the entire country. that's what i don't zblnds this idea that president bannon, in your view which, of course, will alarm president trump. he hates that phrase. >> that's what it is. >> scott pruitt is running the epa, getting rid of all these regulations. white house officials would not answer yesterday whether the president believes in climate change, okay? there's an ideological problem here. it's not just that he's not listening to the corporations. does the president believe in climate change? it's unclear. >> what does he believe in at all, robert costa? come on.

state department officials speaking out on the record, yahoo! news saying that they planned to roll back punitive measures against russia almost as soon as they took office. serving as the chief negotiator until late february and obama's assistant secretary of state for human rights said colleagues asked them to appeal to congress. >> after they were directed to develop a sanctions-lifting package, and arrange a summit between trump and russian president vladimir putin as part of a grand bargain with moscow. to these officials it felt like a win/win for puten, who said they were unclear about what america got out of the deal. a senior white house official confirmed they were weighing options. quote, we've been reviewing all the sanctions and this is not exclusive to russia. >> what would we have gotten out of the deal? putin interferes with our election. he admits it yesterday. he invades crimea. what do we get out of that deal?

why in the world would any administration try to move to unilaterally lift sanctions? >> we, america, get nothing out of the deal. the trump team got some things out of the deal during the campaign. that's clear. that's what the deal was. potentially, some people in the trump campaign thought if we can outsource the problem of isis to russia. that test failed. the pentagon looked into that. russia proved totally incapable, untrustworthy. only interested in propping up assad. >> right now they want to keep their person, assad, in power, embolden iran. iran wants to embolden hezbollah. they're working across the board against our interests. who are jared and ivanka's constituents? the american business community and those hawkish internationalists who believe that russia is not our friend. that used to be called the

republican party. but there's some disconnect here. >> but my point was that jared and ivanka, you could say that they had a constituent that was a moderate republican your zip code but by associating themselves with the trump white house they've lost a lot of their constituents. the image of the trump presidency has now tarnished their reputations with some of those people. so by floating like this, i'm not sure they've done themselves any favor. >> on this issue, there's no doubt, the republican party is who would usually be their constituency. stay engaged in europe, stay engaged with a strong nato, to fight back against vladimir putin, to fight back against autocrats, against china's growing interest. no, no, no. let me tell you who they are. those are called reagan republicans. a breed that i once knew. a long time ago. >> mcconnell republicans, too. >> i don't know. >> yeah.

but this is expectation. >> right. >> that jared kushner will be some moderating force. who worked more closely with steve bannon the last part of the campaign than anyone else? jared kushner. who was on the plane sitting with bannon? kushner. this expectation that he's suddenly going to be this centrist voice, he was with bann nochlt during the campaign. >> and who was having meetings with the russians? i'm not sure that kushner will be an anti-russian force. >> we obviously could talk about paris. we have spoken about paris. we will end today with two more stories that i'm sure you're going to have to look at. and your senate colleagues are going to have to look at. one was michael isikof's story

about getting sanctions lifted without letting anybody else know about that. and the second story was that jared kushner met this russian spy who happened to run a bank connected to vladimir putin. >> conflicting explanations. >> and russians say it was about him getting money for his business and the americans are saying it was about diplomacy. what's your take on those two explosive stories? >> what is most striking about all of these discussions with the russians, whether by michael flynn or jeff sessions, now the attorney general or jared kushner is the concealment afterward. they had not only these secret discussions before donald trump took office but afterwards and concealed them, lied about them in clearance forms and now we need to know exactly what was discussed. that's why i've advocated that

jeff sessions be brought back before the judiciary committee and that jared kushner come clean, in effect, and talk about what was discussed in those secret meetings that then were not disclosed. perhaps his security clearance ought to be reviewed and his briefings, the security briefings he has every morning ought to be suspended. but the jushs committee and intelligence committee ought to continue their review so we can get to the bottom of what was discussed and why there was this pattern of concealment of the secret discussions with the russian. >> mark halperin? >> what is your theory of the case of what was going on with the trump team and the russians both during the election and the transition? >> my strong guess or suspicion is that there was discussion about lifting the sanctions, encouraging russians to think that the sanctions, in fact, would be abdicated once

president trump came into power, which undermined president obama's policy of being tough with the russians because of their violation of the inf treaty, because of their testing us around the world. what is striking here is the betrayal of republican principles and values, as you said earlier. and the fact that the russians really are testing us successfully around the world. and i think need to be held accountable. >> senator, what are the top two questions senate democrats want to hear from director comey when he comes to capitol hill? >> in his words, whether he will confirm the accounts that have been reported very reliably, incredibly, about donald trump's command for loyalty, the pledge of loyalty that he asked comey to give, the request by donald trump to shut down the flynn

investigation and what the tone and substance of those discussions was. so, the question is, what did donald trump say to him and what did he say to donald trump? and what other discussions were there that involved, apparently, donald trump's effort to shut down the investigation of flynn, perhaps to shut down the investigation entirely of russian meddling and conclusion efforts. >> katty kay? >> the white house's response rolling back sanctions against russia very early on in the administration is that they were looking for plans for sanctions for all countries across the board and there was nothing unusual about this. what do you read into that story and how significant is it in the context of all of these meetings we keep hearing about? >> there is a real consensus in congress, at least among many of my colleagues, on a bipartisan

basis, that sanctions against russia need to be intensified, not diminished. and that was the trend that the obama administration was following, however haphazardly. and many of us criticized the lack of more intense sanctions until the obama administration. now that we see the apparent initiative on the part of the trump transition team to send a signal that these sanctions would be lifted, it is a very, very dismaying process. and i think it calls for bipartisan effort. and i'm certainly helping to lead it. to increase sanctions through legislation. we have a bill and i hope it will continue on a bipartisan basis. >> jeremy bash? >> senator, as a former attorney general, let me ask you a legal question. if the president tries to assert privilege to block comey's

testimony, what would be your response? >> the president of the united states has waived that privilege. he has talked about them publicly. if ever there were a privilege. legally i would say there isn't. in these circumstances, it was waived by the president when he talked about those conversations. even more practically important, how would it ever be enforced? is the president of the united states really going to try to go to court to muzzle jim comey as he appears before the senate intelligence committee? i don't think so. he should not do so. the president of the united states ought to be cooperating. not characterizing these investigations as a witch hunt or a charade. he should want the truth to come out to the american people. whether it's president bannon or trump, they ought to be cooperating. not just the special prosecutor. i called for a special prosecutor early and repeatedly to do the criminal investigation but also the intelligence committee and the judiciary

committee so that we prevent this kind of russian interference in our democratic institutions in the future. reports and recommendations are tremendously important. they ought to be a willing and cooperative party to the effort. >> president bannon or president trump. thank you so much. >> thank you, senator. >> from the great state of connecticut. it's great to have you on. mark halperin, i've got a question. so, obama was 44. trump is 45. is bannon 45 1/2? >> 45.5. >> 45.5? >> i call him prime minister. >> you think he's prime minister bannon? >> yes. >> no. he's the defacto president. >> i don't buy it. a month ago, everyone says bannon is out. this president is so volatile with his leadership within the west wing. you could say president bannon today, kushner tomorrow,

kellyanne, spicer. >> spicy. >> the outside friends. this white house has so many different orbs of influence it's hard to keep track. >> lewandowski. >> dave urban all have reservations about coming in for personal reasons, financial reasons, whatever entanglements they have. >> they don't want to hire lawyers the second they walk through the door? >> a lot of people are worried about that, do i need to get a lawyer now? >> yes, they do. >> think about lewandowski. you have to understand if you go in, you'll have to hire legal counsel. >> going in is always a sacrifice, as jeremy knows. going in now adds three more sacrifices. chaos in there. it's an unstable work situation. two, you're stepping into legal peril, potentially, might have legal bills and, three, the warring factions. you're asked basically to sign up to be on a team when you go in there now and there are lots of teams to sign up for.

that is a confusing and dangerous place to be. >> i can't imagine anybody in their right mind who would want to step into that. >> it is a good point that you make, bob, that we had the president bannon era and then president bannon was moved to the side. >> president steven miller. >> we never called miller president. we called him tiny dictator. >> i did not. >> it's different. >> i did not. there is a huge difference between steven miller, who we have been extraordinarily harsh to and steve bannon. steven miller knows he works for the president of the united states. steve bannon thinks he's president of the united states. steven miller does what he is asked to do in terms of speeches, in terms of all of these other things. he may have got out of the lane the first week with the executive order but steven miller works for the president

of the united states. steve bannon thinks he's president of the united states. >> and when trump reads his speeches word for word like that -- >> it's true. >> well, after the break, alex -- >> poor bob costa. >> president alex. epa administrator scott pruitt celebrated exiting the paris agreement by dining last night at le diplomat, one of the nicest french restaurants in town. nice little piece of irony there. andrea mitchell, kasie hunt and glenn thrush join the conversation. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. (avo) come with us... ...to a new world. deeper than the ocean. as unfathomable as the universe. a world that doesn't exist outside you...

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that the paris agreement remains irreversible and will be implemented. not just by france but all the other nations. we will succeed, because we are fully committed. because wherever we lead, whoever we are, we all share the same responsibility. make our planet great again. >> all right. that is -- this has been an incredible 24 hours. by the way, it was so interesting to talk to people at the german embassy last night. we went there for an event, and it was an honor to be host there had. but the reactions we got about what the trump administration, how it's been operating over the past few months, were very interesting. >> you know, it wasn't -- there wasn't the hostility that we may have seen during the iraq war. >> right, no. >> it was actual -- they were

mourning what they had seen as america's retreat. and let's bring in right now host of "andrea mitchell reports," andrea mitchell. i know you heard the same thing. this wasn't the germans or the french, or anybody else saying now is our chance to take advantage of the united states. what they say is, we look to america for global leadership. we look up to america to help us in our battles. there was nothing -- there was no animous there. it was almost like a father who decided to leave. >> exactly. >> the worst part of all this is that it wasn't fact based. >> right. >> similarly to the nato argument about you haven't paid up your dues, when that's not the way it all works. and they had all made their commitments and they were on track to increase. but this was even worse.

and katty and i both had the experience of interviewing john kerry immediately afterwards and he was on fire of the fact when the president talks about opening it up for renegotiating, he would be negotiating with himself. these are voluntary limits that we were actually meeting and we could pull it back, he could stretch it out. >> andrea, what are you going to negotiate with when it's voluntary to begin with? >> it made no sense. so, it was sort of a strung together series of punch lines or political hot button lines. >> like the inaugural speech. >> that didn't fit together. >> it was so much steve bannon's -- president bannon's fingerprints were all over it. it was like that horrid inaugural speech. >> horrid. secretary kerry, as you discussed. take a look. >> extraordinary abdication of american leadership, shameful moment for the united states. and the president, who talked about putting america first has

now put america last. he has made us an environmental paragra pariah in the world and one of the most self destructive moves i've ever seen by any president in my lifetime. >> i want to underline, andrea, what i said at the top of the show. there was hyperbole on both sides. people were saying that the polarized caps were going to melt in the next 15 minutes because of what happened yesterday, that the world was coming to an end, that florida was going to be under water in three weeks. it was insanity on the left and stupidity from trump's corner. i want to underline, again, these were voluntary guidelines and we got in there because we wanted china and india to reduce their carbon emissions.

>> the people really laughing here -- >> china. china wins. >> i mean, that first tpp, we pull out of that and give them the space to move in. so, we are retreating from asia as much as we are retreating from europe. and the fact is, secretary tillerson was, unless he was hiding behind a rose bush, he was not in the rose garden, the secretary of state, who was against this. mattis was in singapor they were against it. they believe that it's a national surity priority. exxonmobil, one of the compaes like ge and the others that you've cited, lloyd blankfein from goldman, who believe this is good economics. 53,000 coal jobs in our country. in january a year ago and half a million solar and renewable jobs. economic powerhouses of our country are seeing the direction of the global economy and, as

you said earlier, china is going to be producing all those solar panel panels. >> china wins again. it was china who has been the big winner so far in the trump administration in the age of bannon. we remove ourselves from tpp. china has a free run across asia n now. >> europeans for a long time believe it's worth reaching out a hand to china and distancing themselves with russia. you're going to see europeans fleegsly reaching out to china, whether on trade or climate change. >> that's the most important point last night that we heard from not only the ambassador, but others there.

it's not like europe is going to remain stagnant. they were concerned that china would step into this void. >> we have to go, andrea. really quickly, does this -- is this any indication that tillerson and this strong team has to get through bannon first? >> yes. and initially tillerson, one of the reasons i believe he held back from us and the press corps and not wanting to do briefings, he wanted to figure out his moorings, develop a relationship with a president he did not know and make sure he was not being sidelined by the bannons and flynns. flynn is gone. he thought bannon was taken down from the national security council and he and others, obviously mcmaster and mattis, had this concord. now bannon is coming in from the inside and i think they've got a whole new challenge. >> he has to figure out his relationship with president bannon. andrea mitchell, thank you very much. >> we'll go back live to keir

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middle east deal, president trump has decided not to move the u.s. embassy to jerusalem, for now. the president will keep the embassy in tel aviv at least another six months but aides say he still plans to move the embassy when the conditions are right. president trump made the decision to, quote, maximize the chances of successfully negotiating a deal between israel and the palestinians. trump promised throughout the 2016 campaign and after his election to move the u.s. embassy. so, bob costa, where do any of these promises stand? i mean, it seems that there's a little bit of add in the white house on these issues. >> well, we've been told that jared kushner, the senior adviser, will be leading the middle east peace process and the president's team says that during his trip abroad he was able to meet with the israelis and the palestinian leadership. in terms of the actual blueprint for what this peace process looks like, we've only had

signals in different gestures, like this statement on the capital. there's not been a lot of forward action that's really coherent. but certainly some positioning that the american government and the trump administration, as friendly as they are to the israelis, they are not moving in a direction to embrace every element of the hard line right in israel. >> and, you know, trump was dead set on going to jerusalem and early on he got the message from people he was negotiating with across the middle east. if you want peace, this is a dead end. at that point, he backed off of it. >> up next, our political round table continues this morning with reporting from kasie hunt and glenn thrush. much more live from washington.

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>> how can you say he's an enviere environmentalist? >> very good question. the jazz band, who selected it? let's talk about president bannon. it seems he is now, once again, firmly in charge after -- it's sort of like a bureau. i wish they could have the mayday so we could have a visual of who is up and who is down but president bannon seems to be up in the salad. >> i will agree with you so no one ever talks to me again. no. look. i think what's happening here is not just bannon but trump realizing he's completely cornered politically. like a guy who can only pick one number in roulette and keeps put

morgue and more chips on it. he hasn't moved in any direction. all he does when he's under siege -- look at this in context with all the russia stuff. i think the russia stuff prodded him into this decision. he may have come up with a more moderate decision but didn't think he had the option. >> so true. >> strange. >> he keeps his hard-core base going. and congress, interest iing wha paul ryan and others said. this was a bad deal. but it was voluntary. we set our own standards. that's not a bad deal. i wish my bod boss would give me that deal. i set my own schedule mierks own salary. you would have to be a fool to say that's the bad deal. >> look, to glenn's point, for a lot of these members of congress, sure, it's where they are politically. there was some outside pressure, a group that got 20 some odd

republicans together to sign a letter to say, hey, the president should do this. but i don't think, again, this is necessarily the front that republicans in congress want to be fighting on. i think they are more focused on all of these -- i mean, look, i got the sense when they left town last week, they were ready to be out of the spotlight of the train wrecks for a week. they went home because this has just been, again it's -- everybody at this point thinks it's all about russia all the time. you're reaching a potential tipping point with republicans in congress who, at some point, will say we can't handle this anymore. >> it seems glenn's got it right again. >> yeah. >> this really was -- it was a distraction. >> i totally believe that. >> the michael isikof story saying they were being squirrels, weaseling around, trying to lift sanctions with russia while nobody was paying attention, and jared with this

spy banker, connections with putin. was it for business? russians say it was. was it for government? that's what americans say it was. so, you're saying you'll have an announcement at 3:00. you bring a jazz band. >> exactly. you always do that. >> from comey speaking next week. >> exactly, so you try to change the subject. presidents do that all the time. this looked from the outside like a particularly clumsy attempt to change the subject. you make that decision. so what's the policy then going to be and i think glenn is right that in choosing this policy, president trump went back to the base because where else could he go. they haven't really expanded beyond that base. they obsessively keep track of what that base is feeling. and i believe tell themselves that well, as long as we have the base -- >> it's a 38% -- >> you look at the race in georgia though, that's not the 38% that's in that congressional

district. you've got suburban educated republicans who obviously can't be distracted by a jazz band. >> and where is the battleground for 2018 going to be? in he had indicated suburban districts where thr republicans going to be in highly competitive -- >> by the way president bannon's idealogy doesn't fit. president bannon is not their cup of tea. >> and if you look at the polling around the paris climate accords, more republicans favor than oppose it. i think this is the problem you're going to see playing out and it's magnified in georgia. republicans can't figure out whether to run too close to trump or too far away from him but somehow they have to do both. even among republicans, they see this as a bad idea. >> i think that's right. look the one thing about the

midterms that i think is flying under the radar right now, i'm not sure president trump realizes the degree to which losing the house of representatives would change his world. i don't think he's thought about it. it may or may not be a realistic possibility but if we continue it's getting more realistic by the day. if he loses the house being here in washington every day will be way different. >> he doesn't have to lose the house. he only has to lose five or six seats. how many votes was it? three or four on the health care vote. you can't pass a gallstone in the house with any more diminution of authority -- >> if you have nancy pelosi running the show she suddenly has power. >> not only nancy pelosi running the show, most important thing and this is what i saw in the house, the power of the subpoena. >> right. >> the power to investigate. >> exactly, that is turned again trump but immediately.

>> but everybody who stands up who lifts their head above the wall for trump gets its shot off. look at devin nunes, there's absolutely zero. no one wants to work, can you imagine the amount of self- -- >> and jerry peters, republicans running for re-election, what do they do? >> you look what's happening in georgia. a good test case for what we'll see in 2018. you have the republican candidate, held a fundraiser with donald trump but kept it closed to the privates and thinks some of the russia stuff is made up but thinks there should be a proper investigation. when the white house sends someone to campaign on her behalf. >> it's not going to be donald trump, it's mike pence, exactly right. >> delicate dance. >> they are going to find

themselves trying to figure out how do we keep donald trump far enough away from us so we don't offend our suburban educated voters by don't pushing so far away that we're offending his hard core base. >> exactly, his hard core base is so far sticking with him. maybe some people argue there's been a bit of a rush but hasn't been much. he's got that base. so they are really in a quan dri and going to have to start deciding, really. we're going to be in the election cycle soon -- >> think about what it was like to be a democrat running in the midterms in 2014 when you needed the president's base of supporters and couldn't run around trashing president obama but sure as hell couldn't run toward him either. they loss drastically. >> they had to deal with that

'10 and republicans have to deal with it in '18. >> thank you, guys. >> glenn, we look forward to seeing you saturday night. >> still ahead on "morning joe", the political world is set to come to a standstill when james comey testifies on capitol hill. but before he does, this morning there is new reporting that the trump administration began planning to roll back punitive measures against russia almost as soon as they took office. we'll go live to russia, tracking down a top state banker who had an audience with jared kushner. hey. hi. hi. you guys going to the company picnic this weekend? picnics are delightful. oh, wish we could. but we're stuck here catching up on claims. but we just compared historical claims to coverages. but we have those new audits. my natural language api can help us score those by noon. great. see you guys there.

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and the majority were rated as cleared or minimal at 12 weeks. be the you who talks to your. the paris climate accord is the latest example of washington entering into an agreement that disadvantages the united states. to the exclusive benefit of other countries, leaving american workers who i love, and taxpayers to absorb the cost. the bottom line is the paris accord is very unfair at the highest level to the united states. >> president trump's decision to withdraw the united states from the paris climate agreement, we will have a lot this morning on the major implications and global reaction to yesterday's big rose garden announcement. which for some reason featured a

marine jazz band. >> yeah. >> what exactly were they celebrating? that's -- >> i'm julie mccoy and i'll be your cruise director this morning. it's friday, june 2nd. we have senior political analyst for nbc news mark halperin. >> you go to his apartment in new york, always one in the corner playing. >> like a woody allen movie. >> washington anger for bbc, world news america katy kay and associate editor for the "washington post" u gene robinson and jerry peters and in new york veteran columnists and msnbc contributor mike barnicle. good to have everybody with us this morning. we begin with this. former state department officials are speaking out on the record to yahoo! news saying that the trump administration began planning to role back punitive measures against russia almost as soon as they took

office. dan freed a veteran state department official who served as chief coordinator for u.s. policy until late february and obama's assistant secretary of state for human rights says colleagues asked them to appeal to court after they were directed to develop a sanction gs lifting package arrange a summit between trump and russian president vladimir putin as part of a grand bargain with moscow. to these officials it felt like a win-win for putin who said they were unclear what america got out of the deal. a senior white house official confirmed they are weighing options, we've been reviewing all of the sanctions and this is not exclusive to russia. and the administration backed down after senators made clear they would pass a law to enforce obama's punitive measures but a "washington post" report we told you about yesterday suggests the trump administration soon returned russia's compounds in maryland and new york.

trump and putin are likely to meet at the g-20 summit in germany next month. yet another step. >> and just katy kay, more evidence of that there's something there between donald trump and vladimir putin, the fact he would -- putting in proper context and make putin a special priority in the midst of this rising concern at the time, that his national security adviser was reaching out improperly talking to russia, lying about it to everybody. again, this -- there's something there. we don't know what is there. but there's one example after another. not just of leaks but of thinks that he's stupid enough to do in the light of day. like invite the u.s. ambassador and foreign minister of russia to the oval office, give them classified information and day after and bragged about killing

that investigation. >> i've been resistant to the idea there's a big conspiracy theory here and donald trump was deliberately working with the russians to try to influence the american election but this news out of the state department raises the biggest question yet of what -- was there in exchange for meetings we keep hearing about and hearing about more even today between jared kushner and jeff sessions and senior russians, including kislyak. >> they lied about all of them. they all lied. let's just underline that, they lied. >> admitted to -- >> every single one of these meetings, they lied in front of congress and lied on their forms. they lied repeatedly about meeting with the russians. >> you have to start asking the question, during the course of the campaign, was something said between campaign staff at some point to the russians if you help us, we will lift sanctions against you? because this news out of the

state department suggests that very soon after coming into office they were looking at lifting sanctions. >> why did jared kushner and a top russian state banker meet during the presidency transition? according to the "washington post," the white house and the russian bank have vastly different explanations for this. the post reports the bank maintained this week that the session was held as part of a new business strategy and developed with kushner in his role as head of the family's rereal estate business. >> the russian bank is saying they have business, have money and so we talk which makes a lot of sense because they need fundi funding. let's make a deal. >> that's what the bank says. here's the problem. the white house says the meeting was unrelated to business. >> wait a second, this is get a little murky. >> diplomatic encounter, the soon to be presidential adviser was holding ahead of the

inauguration. like both sides have one meeting, don't have the same explanation -- >> again, somebody is lying. why are there always lies swirling around every single meeting with russia. trump's people can't tell the truth. why is there a lie associated with a russian meeting? >> extraordinary reporting on background of this bank and this banker. i think the best that's been done i think so far. raises the question of why the meeting was taking place, whether it was for business or d diplomatic business -- >> even for business it would have been fishy. >> why was an incoming meeting wi that official banker? e flow chart in the office of the independent counsel, one of the first things they'll do in a fictionalized version up on the wall, chronology of the meetings and what was going on elsewhere in the world at the time of the meetings. that independent counsel every day has more to work with.

unlike the media, he has subpoena power. >> can i, gene, add as well the lies. my republican brothers and sisters and say -- >> the ones walking the plank every day ruining their election possibilities. >> every day you want to blame this on the united states fbi, the united states cia, you attack the men and women who keep our country safe but never ask why donald trump and all of the president's men keep lying about russia. you can't blame this on fake news. you can't blame this on the cia. you can't blame this on the fbi. it's their words. they are the ones who are lying every day. at what point do you wake up and get out of your stupor and start asking, if you're so concerned about the paris accords and america's sovereignty, when do you start being concerned about the sovereignty of the united

states when russia is now admitting they were trying to hack into our elections and your white house is lying about it every day. gene, the lies, just keep multiplying. they lied about this. >> it's amazing and so if you lie again and again and again -- >> about the same subject. >> guess what, people are going to think something is going on. >> i always talk about bill clinton. he lied about everything, donald trump does too. but it was a scattered shot approach. bill clinton would have lied about the sun being out, but here on russia, while trump lies about everything, also, you can key in on russia and on this one topic, the trump administration, they all are lying. people that are running our government have all lied. >> nthey have all lyle e lied a russia. while the trump administration foreign policy is shall we say

scatter shot, there's no co-heerns to it except they are very consistent with russia. just get into office and like the first thing on agenda, how can we get kislyak his village back. >> and michael isikoff reporting, immediately they try to figure out how to lift the sanctions. >> that's highly problematic about the jared kushner disclosures, in the "washington post" story, reading between the lines, both explanations are pretty bad ones. he was meeting possibly with the head -- >> about money. >> state control bank about lifting sanctions or he was meeting with them about his own personal businesses as he is ready to go in and take a senior position -- >> and neither one of them are good and it's bad regardless because, again, let's put context around this. if you are going to get money

from a russian controlled bank that putin controls and at the same time trying -- they are trying to lift sanctions and having back channel discussions about lifting sanctions -- >> and not disclosing -- >> not disclosing you met with a banker because you needed money desperately for your building, what does that say? i'm trying to get money here while the russians are trying to get sanctions lifted. we're working with the state department to get sanctions lifted, give me some money. >> by the way -- >> there's no -- there's no good explanation. >> by the way, his sister jared kushner's sister is over in china a few months later -- selling visas. >> $500,000. >> the whole thing smacks i am propriety and self-enrichment. this is not going away. >> the russian deputy foreign minister sounding regretful that their relations and expectations of the trump administration are

not lived up to what they were hoping they were going to. somehow behind that this implication that they thought they were going to get more from the trump administration than they did and hasn't panned out. >> maybe promises remain that they haven't been able to live up to. >> they've been such buff foons and lied so much and o obviously, they completely boxed themselves out of being able to lift sanctions or do other things. >> they seem to be moving forward, at least on the russian compound. vladimir putin is in the middle of a economic forum in st. petersburg, russia, we expect to hear more from him this morning. yesterday for first time he acknowledged that russian could have been the cyber attacks in the 2016 elections. hackers are free spirted people like artists. if they wake up in a good mood, they wake up and paint. and likewise hackers wake up in the morning and read about international affairs and if they are patriotically minded --

>> by the way, if they wake up with a gun to the back of their head, go ahead. keep reading. >> they start making contributions which are right from their point of view to the fight against those who say bad things about russia. but putin went on to say that russia does not engage in state sponsored hacking. wow. >> that was the 400-pound guy that donald trump referred to -- >> mike barnicle, it gone from the 400-pound guy in jersey in his underwear to putin talking about patriotically minded russians trying to impact our election. >> some basement in saint petersburg, eating cheetos. >> the pace of this dance with the incoming trump administration is increasingly dizzying. you have russian bankers and russian ambassador. you have the trump son-in-law.

you have a sitting presidency, the obama administration, still in office while this incoming administration is trying to establish a back channel, a secret back channel to prevent the american government, the existing american government from finding out what they are planning and plotting and talking about. this is incredible. it just absolutely mind boggling. >> just ahead, the democrats have come up short trying to win special elections, uphill battles. can they finally find a foothold in georgia? later this morning keith ellison joins us to answer that question. going through withdrawal and backlash in the business community as the president exists the paris agreement, you're watching quts morning joe, we'll be right back. new bikes aren't selling guys... what are we gonna do? how about we pump more into promotions? ♪ nah. what else? what if we hire more sales reps? ♪ nah. what else?

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. in order to fulfill my solemn duty to protect america

and its citizens, the united states will withdrawal -- from the paris climate accord, thus as of today, the united states will cease all implication of the nonbinding paris accord and the draconian financial and economic burdens the agreement imposes on our country. but begin negotiations to reenter either the paris accord or in really entirely new transaction, in terms that are fair to the united states, its businesses and its workers and its people and its taxpayers. so we're getting out but we will start to negotiate and we will see if we can make a deal that's fair.

if we can, that's great. if we can't, that's fine. the same nations asking us to stay in the agreement are the countries that have collectively cost america electrictrillions dollars through tough trade practices. you see what's happening. it's pretty obvious to those who want to keep an open mind. at what point does america get demean demeaned. at what point do they start laughing at us as a country. we don't want other leaders and other countries laughing at us anymore and they won't be. i was elected to represent the citizens of pittsburgh, not paris. >> actually, the great irony is, they are laughing. >> they are laughing now. >> but they are not laughing at america. they are laughing at donald

trump. the world is shocked. >> in hysterics actually. >> i don't think they are laughing. i think a lot of people in europe who of course when trump was elected thought the whole thing was a joke now think it's not so much scary as sad that people are dismayed at the lack of american leadership in what is probably the most fundamental issue of our time, climate change and there's a sense of real sadness about what is happening to american global leadership. >> i remember this came up and the audience have really, you know, accomplished women, they are all shaking their heads and have a look of a mixture between horror and disgust on their face as it pertains to trump and everything. >> let's put it in perspective and we'll get through the story. a lot of people may disagree with me. there was so much hyper bolly

flying around yesterday on the right on the far right on donald trump in trump land, the hyperbole that it was taking away our sovereignty and going to destroy -- it's voluntary. we set the goals for ourself. it was a device to try to get countries like china and india who are now developing countries, to actually also set guidelines. it's voluntary. that -- there was no sovereignty lost by this. it was stupid to get out because it was voluntary. the united states has already started making great strides towards reducing carbon emissions. that's the first thing, the second thing is, the suggestion that this was going to hurt the united states economy is just complete -- another lie. it's just -- it's voluntary. you can have -- there's a reason

why gary cohen on the inside, the guy that ran goldman sacks says let's stay in and reason why ge, let's stay in. there's a reason -- >> exxon. >> ceos from exxon said let's stay in. there's a reason why most of silicon valley's leaders said let's stay in because it's not bad in the long run for the economy. it's good in the long run. >> the first tweet ever -- >> lloyd blankfein at goldman sachs. if you want to strip it down -- but the hyperbole on the left. this is the day the world came to an end. >> that's the overreach everybody needs to watch out for. >> if you want to understand what hyperbole that is, to see what the most progressive thought leaders were saying about the paris accords when they were first passed that they were toothless, not going to make a difference. that it's really symbolism more

than anything else. the person willie geist talks about this all the time, a friend of his one of the foremost climate scientists who came up with the theory of greenhouse gases, i remember him showing me the e-mail the morning after paris was signed, he said this is a bunch of bs, except he didn't say bs. he said it was absolute garbage. these were voluntary guidelines set. gene, the impact of this, at least as far as i'm concerned, maybe people believe it's going to be the day after tomorrow and they don't help their cause because they are exaggerating, but there are huge takeaways i believe from this. number one, the damage it's done to us is grave diplomatically across europe especially. diplomatically it's grave and europeans do believe this is the united states withdrawing from the world. they are very concerned and they are going to follow up on what merkel said last week, they are going to have to look elsewhere for leadership.

secondly, and i think more disturbingly even, if you can believe it, this proves that donald trump does not give a damn about the world, does not give a damn about the united states as a whole. he cares about his core 38%. this is the steve bannon effect, the shortsided stupidity that you're going to focus on your 38% to the exclusion of the rest of the country. >> welcome to the bizarre new normal. >> and welcome to nancy pelosi being speaker of the house. >> you know, in terms of the actual impact on carbon emissions of what happened yesterday, it's -- no, we were never going to make the paris targets under donald trump to begin with, right? because he's trying to revive coal and trying to put more oil in gas. but the addit is a huge deal an

look back on yesterday as a very, very big deal. it's -- >> in terms of american leadership. >> in terms of american leadership and withdrawal and it means somebody has to step up. >> coming up on "morning joe," we're awaiting the big jobs report and monitoring st. peters burg and new comments from vladimir putin. we'll go live to russia after this.

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let's go back to nbc foreign correspondent keir simmons. putin just spoke at the economic forum there. what did he say? >> reporter: that's right he gave a long speech in which he talked about economic changes in russia. russia has had a very difficult time economically and beginning to turn that around, he said. he also poignantly perhaps at the beginning talked about russia's efforts on the environment, not specifically talking about president trump's decision to walk away from the paris climate accord, but it seemed as if there was a meaning behind his words right at the beginning of his speech.

he was asked by nbc's megyn kelly then about the way goods have become so much more expensive in russia. and said russians have been telling me itdifficult to affor expensive things. we are trying to tackle that. earlier in t day he didpeak to senior u.s. businessmen and said according to quotes from the meeting, help us restore normal political dialogue. i ask you on behalf of addrerus and address the american side, help the new administration. president putin weighing in in favor of president trump. not so far in the speech he has been giving and set to have more words. no f this forum will continue for three hours. we expect to hear more as time goes on. >> keir simmons, thank you very

much. >> let's introduce everybody. unbelievable. >> joining us now staff writer for the atlantic magazine julia yaffy and rick tyler. >> you said it before we came on the air, at this point, putin is -- the quote is on behalf of russia, help us restore normal political dialogue on behalf of russia, help the new u.s. president. yikes. >> is trump going to see that as a compliment but understand he's been troled. >> i think he'll see it as a compliment, including what putin said yesterday, which said he's a direct and genuine person and has fresh thinking but he also said i'm not friends with him. how can you be friends with somebody you never met. i never met this guy. >> right. >> also he said -- putin said yesterday that these were artists. >> hackers free spirited

artists. >> who may or may not be 400 pounds. >> in jersey. >> wake up in a good mood and morning and wake up andpaint. and likewise hackers read about the ws, about international affairs andf they are patriotically minded they start making their contributions, which are right from their point of view to the fight against those who say bad things about russia. >> so, somebody pointed out yesterday, he's saying that this was a patriotic thing to do for russians, right, to hack the dnc and hurt hillary clinton and help donald trump. this is very similar to what putin was saying during the crimea invasion and war in ukraine, he was saying, we have nothing to do with this. these are patriotic russians going spending their free time, their money to fight on behalf of russia's national interests. he has never -- he has always issued blanket denials saying we did not hack the americans. we did not meddle in in

election. since somebody did, you have -- we helped you learn some good information on your. >> on your people. >> do republicans look at this and say we're really not comfortable being on the side of vladimir putin and putin's property. michael isikoff reporting that the trump administration secretly was trying to lift sanctions and the kushner meeting with the spy, the banking spy with connections to pun. how long can our party turn a blind eye to all of this? >> let's start with putin is an enemy of the united states and russia is an enemy of the united states. >> republicans -- why don't more republicans on capitol hill say that? >> it's beyond me. it's beyond me why kushner would choose that meeting of all meetings and all of the things to do during the transition and appointments he had to make and direction to go, why take a meeting with the russian business person unless you had

some sort of interest? we don't know the answer to that question. i said back in october this russia story will not go away. they have to clear the decks on this and the republican party has to decide that russia is not -- by the way, russia is not the huge beam off the economy to deal with. they are relatively small country with nukes but we pay so much attention to them. the punk ie punking would be fut putin except it's so deadly serious. >> for sure. katty. >> what's the bit of the whole russia story so far? is there a single meeting or a single piece of evidence that's come out that is the mepiece of evidence. when you say it's never going to go away, what's the real red flag to you? >> a series of meetings that the people in the trump administration from jeff sessions who covered up and lied and jared kushner not being

forthcoming about the russian banker meeting and kushner trying to set up a back channel. if it is true -- i don't know that it is -- that kushner asked to use a secure communications facility controlled by the russians, that is -- >> they've lied about all -- that's all been done this morning, even innocent meetings, they'v lied about, mark. >> athe subpoenas start to fly and people start to be interviewed by capitol hill investigators and fbi, a big question is who knew what about what other people were doing? did the president know jared kushner had the meeting? did he know what michael flynn was doing?iebus know about the meetings? >> did the president ask flynn to talk to the russians about sanctions? >> did he know about any of it? that's when the complex theories

get flushed out or knocked down. people have to hire lawyers to worry about themselves. >> i remember the interview we've shown many time on "morning joe" of you and i interviewing candidate trump. >> this is december 2015. >> refused to say anything critical about putin -- >> even the killing of journalists. we had to press him three times -- >> he couldn't do it. >> to be honest, he's not out there criticizing putin's treatment of journalists -- i think he is a candidate talking about tightening up libel laws and he has called the american press -- and admires these guys, including chinese -- at tiananmen square -- duterte in the philippines. i don't want to -- i think he's

sim patco with ideas of being tough on the press. >> if what rick is saying, the immediate reaction rick had, sme are covering stuff up. why is somebody in the white house not going into the oval office and saying to the whole of the white house team, we need every single meeting ever had with any russian, we need it out now before it comes out next week on the front page of the "po "post"? >> nobody crosses trump. second secondly, there are six people around him at all times vying for his loyalty. if somebody says something he doesn't like, they step back and others walk forward. they are disorganized and unprofessional. they weren't ready for this. they didn't expect to win. sean spicer and reince priebus didn't expect to win. nobody expected to win. >> the russians didn't expect to

win. >> i wanted to follow really quickly, kat ty had asked rick what was the meeting? what was the issue? what was the lie? from what you've seen julia, what is the one thing if you're bob mueller that you're looking at right now the closest? >> if i'm bob mueller? >> looking at all of the russian information that's been coming our way -- >> i think you pointed out correctly that what did the president know and when did he know it? here's the thing, i think these -- both russians and trump administration didn't expect trump would be in the white house. these guys to some extent are in way over their heads and playing with the big league guys but the trump people are not the big league guys. when you're meeting with the russians, after 17 years of vladimir putin being in power you don't quite know who is intelligence and who isn't.

who's affiliated with the fsb or svr, they are so intertwined. >> that seems to make a lot of sense. >> the may jobs report just crossed and 138 jobs were added last month -- 138,000, that's a bit shot of the 184,000 jobs economists had projected. the unemployment rate falls to 4.3% down a tick from 4.4% the month before. the jobs report, 138,000 jobs. >> mark halperin, the targets about 200,000 jobs and donald trump talking about how extraordinary the economy was. >> the stock market is having a good -- none of the fundamentals have moved in a dramatic way. for a guy staking it on bragging about the economy, he needs more

robustwth than this. -- tax reform i believe the markets are going -- the real world is going to be -- they can't survive or make deal on 2% growth. >> why did the markets explode yesterday? was it paris? despite the fact that most -- >> your guess is as good as mine. jobs properreport is a real pro. the russian investigation, all of this about russia will keep the congress -- as a republican i want to see economic reform and tax reform. i believe the u.s. economy could explode. i think we could get 2 and 3% growth but we are never going to get there because we got -- the presidency and nothing wonderful will happen. in 2018, what is it the republicans will run on? >> nothing. i mean, that will be the bumper sticker.

>> nothing wonderful is going to happen. >> just ahead, the dnc has high hopes of retaking the house this midterm season. but is coming off one of its worst fund raising periods, the dnc deputy chair keith ellison joins us next. "morning joe" is back after this.

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the complete pullout from the climate agreement wouldn't take place until after the next presidential election. about that time it was tweeted that paris will be on the ballot. joining us now, deputy chair of the democratic national committee, congressman keith

ellison. congressman, is that going to be an issue for democrats? >> well, for all americans. i mean all americans who have been hit by super storms like sandy and katrina and many others, they are worried about climate change and yes, it will be on the ballot. our message at the dnc, if you're worried about preexisting conditions and climate change and financial reform and control in wall street, the democratic party is your party and the party we need you to get involved in right now -- >> shift every day? >> yeah. help me out here. we've been critical of the white house, only for you know -- since they -- only since the inaugurati inauguration, president bannon's inaugural address. donald trump ran saying he was going to get us out of paris and ran saying he was going to repeal obamacare. it seems like this guy when he does things that offend the press the most, he's actually

just following through on campaign promises. >> well, you know, people famously said don't take him literally, take him seriously. and i think what that means is there's a lot of folks who didn't really believe he was going to try to take health care away from 24 million people. they didn't really believe he was going to do some of the things he said -- he sort of channelled a lot of anger. but now the reality of trumpism all over the country is setting in and you know, we have a broader -- a bigger vision than just him. we believe we should be active on climate and people have a right to go to a doctor. we're pushing that forward. and that is an attractive thing that -- >> i guess what i'm trying to figure is, republicans own washington, d.c. right now, most republicans have been running against obamacare for six years and most republicans were against paris climate accord. what's changed? what's going to be different in

2018 than was different than 2016? and why aren't you guys raising more money if everybody has turned against trump so much? >> well, let me tell you, man. there's a new spirit running through the democratic party. i've been to state parties idaho and maine and wisconsin, all of these state party dinners are packed and people are filling them out and ready to move out. there's 90,000 people who didn't vote at all in the last election who are eligible -- >> but let me say this as a southern baptist. if the spirit is moving that's when the preacher sends around the collection plate. why -- i guess the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. how are you guys going to start raising more money? >> let me tell you, man, we've been refueling but we're busting out hard. we have a day of action on june 3rd and want everybody to participate, go online and figure where to be involved. the fact is we're coming out strong, joe and we're knocking

every day and we are a coast to coast in all in between party. we're an every race party. we're involved in all of these things. before we may have been too focus odd on the presidential every four years, it's a new way of moving forward. democrats are for the whole country, everybody, not just democrats, all americans we're fighting for. >> mark halperin. >> being optimistic and realistic, both of which you are, how would you most like this year to come out in terms of what washington gets done, being realistic? >> well, i mean, look, we've got to get some kind of budget passed. we cannot pass the trump budget until they are getting something done. we've got to push the trump budget aside, the one that cuts meals on wheels and ap lach cha regional county, the no good budget, we need to pass a bugtd that reflekts the needs of the

american people, not this this tax giveaway bill. we need to stop the repeal of the affordable care act and republicans need to stop doing it and figure where things might be improved. this thing of getting rid of the affordable care act with this bill is a nonstaer. maybe we come back to the table and don't strip it outf0 million people's hands. >> julia? >> congressman ellison -- ellis -- sorry, ellison, we're looking ahead at 2018 and people are saying the math is not in the democrats' favor. how do you feel going into that? how do you overcome that hurdle? >> i never believe stuff like that. if you get in there and fight and talk to people all over this country, you go to the union hall, the vfw hall, church basement and synagogue and

mosque and talk to americans you can change the prognosticators predictions, you have to build relationships. >> i want to ask about hillary clinton's comments. she had very harsh me tell you, we're looking forward. we're looking ahead. the truth is, we do need to do some improving, a little bit of criticism doesn't hurt us. we need to take it seriously and move out on what we have learned. >> shouldn't she also take responsibility for what she did? she didn't seem to? >> let me tell you, hillary clinton, is a wonderful american. i think she is a wonderful person that served this country and we need everybody's help to go inspire voters all over this country. so i'm not looking back. i'm looking forward. and we're trying to employ everyone, hillary clinton too. >> i'm interested in information, though. >> it's not platitudes. >> she says it was bankrupt, totally disorganized and said it was a complete mess. is that the case? >> they didn't give her anything. >> they didn't give her anything. is that true? >> let me tell you, you know, we

can't relitigate the past. you know -- >> no. >> but the truth is -- >> seriously, let me finish my point. the truth is that trump is getting -- is abandoning climate action. he is taking away people's protection for preexisting conditions, he is trying to ban ople based on relign. there is no time for us to go back and figures out who shot john. we have to figure out what went wrong so we can fix it and then move forward. >> i just don't know what you said. >> that's where i'm at. >> at all. >> all right. >> congressman keith ellison -- >> i didn't catch that. >> i said thank you so much for being with us. we appreciate it. we're awaiting a question and answer -- actually we'll go there now. >> st. petersburg. >> vladimir putin is making news asking u.s. businessmen to support donald trump. >> shirking america's role as a global leader, president putin, how do you see it?

>> translator: while i'm not among the european leaders the european leaders do not believe me to be that. but, of course, i mean, we in russia do have our own view and by the way, do yourself read through those paris accords? you did not. well, i see that. but generally speaking, the paris treaty is a very good document which is aimed at resolving one of the global problems of the current times. in order to deter the climatic changes. the issue is whether we are in a position to allow the climate to change. it's about not letting the climate temperature go up by two. we don't feel here that the temperature is going hotter.

and i should say that we should be grateful to president trump because today in moscow, i hear they're saying it snowed and it's raining here, very cold, so now we can blame him for that and the american imperialism. it's all their fault. but we're not goingo be doing this. but if we are to look at what the paris accords are, this is a framework document, and whatever you read in the paris accords, it is left with the national government to make decisions. there is nothing obligatory. all the countries make up their own minds and the united states, the obligation, i believe, to reduce by 26, 28%, the emissions into the environment, by 2025, while russia took on an

obligation to achieve the 70% level of emissions compared to 1990 level, by 2030. now the united states -- >> all right. we are watching vladimir putin right now. again, it is -- julia said at the beginning of this, mika, this guy is trolling. it is absolutely unbelievable. he's now lecturing us on climate change and vladimir putin, when he speaks, the whole world stops. this is -- this guy -- >> perfect -- >> this guy -- >> he slipped into a tub of butter. >> this is perfect. i remember watching the debates during the election season and questions kept coming back to russia, to putin. it was perfect for him. this is what he wants. this is -- he wants us to talk about him. him lecturing us on climate change is rich because russia is banking on climate change happening on the climate warming. >> right. >> because of all the oil and gas buried under the arctic and

which is now really hard to access, which is why he was so against sanctions against exxon and particularly why now secretary of state rex tillerson was so against sanctions. >> wow. >> they needed -- they can't access those reserveshemselves right now. they're too difficult to get to given the weather conditions and the like the geo conditions, they need american technology to do that. if the earth warms and the arctic becomes more accessible it's great for russia and they're open about it. >> can you give us perspective on russia, just that's all we've been talking about russia for the past six months to a year. can you -- give -- i remember one of my law professors coming back went to russia, i'm so old, cold war was going on, and he came back and said, we're all asking what was the soev quovien like, it's a third world company wait lot of nuclear weapons.

the guy said, i was shocked. are we exaggerating the power and the reach of russia? >> absolutely. we're playing vladimir putin's game, talking about him right now. you having me on to talk about vladimir putin and what he thinks and wants, this is -- this is perfect for him. this is a win. when you do to russia it's a country struggling economically. we're talking about double digit inflation on basic food stuff. the ruble has lost half its value. the economy barrelry moving. they're saying 1.3% growth. gdp growth in the coming year and saying this is good because at least it's not negative. a country like russia should be growing at 7%, 8%. it's a developing country. that's again, the -- >> developing but never getting there, right. they're developing and never developed. >> and it's massive corruption, massive inefficiency. when you have -- back in 2010, then president dmitry medvedev who is now the prime minister

accused by the opposition of having massive luxury real estate holdings when he says a third of our federal budget disappears to corruption. >> oh, wow. >> you know it's at least half. >> a pretty fantastic return on investment for putin with almost no resources, he's maged to cause ite a lot of disruptn in europe's political systems, caused quite a lot of disruption in the american election, and what did he do? paid off a few hackers. that's not going to cost him very much. >> he's brilliant at leveraging his limited resources. he has nuclear weapons and energy. >> hackers. >> he's got hackers. he's got great pr sense. >> he's got president -- >> he's also got a toehold in hot spots in syria, he's threatening europe, just by remaining in the ukraine, he's threatening all of europe. the guy is better at doing more with less than anybody on the world stage. >> he's a master of the media. we look at trump as being a master and manipulated the media

to get elected, not just the russian media but the american media. >> he knows we're obsessed with strong men. he's a master of the media after, you know, hobbling castrating jailing, killing, half of it. of course he's the master. >> how we talk about it and perceive him in the united states and why we talk about him when again they're a third rate -- >> i would hand that to trump. >> still in the cold war. >> before trump became president i don't think he had thissings control or ability to laugh. i think trump has given him a red carpet to become a lot more significant. >> that's history here. >> donald trump asked yesterday, the question about the world is laughing at us, which are the countries laughing at us, the only country really laughing at the moment is russia. >> absolutely. >> and literally laughing. >> not the people of russia. they're suffering. just putin. >> trump era has opened the door

for him to do more. when obama was there, it did putin grow stronger or weaker. >> he did not grow stronger. >> he grew weaker. >> it depends. he threw his muscle around. >> look, putin is a giant o clay legs. he is strong today and strong tomorrow. everything he does is, you know, for the next two or three steps ahead, but what happens tomorrow. i've said on this program, you know, some people joked about it, he's going to die at some point and he has no -- no exit strategy, to succession plan. >> he'll die as the richest man in the world. >> he can't take it with him. you know. it's not going to go to the people. like what happens when he's gone? everybody in russia is actually worried about 2024 when his next presidential term is over, what happens. >> he is popular in russia. >> he's popular because there's a lack of alternatives as one foreign correspondent based in russia put it, he is the most passively supported leader in the world. that changed with crimea, but that -- the crimea is waning and again, you know, it's like well

if you haven't experienced anybody else in 17 years, they don't know. there's no alternatives. >> well that does it for us this morning. on this friday. >> wow. >> wow out of washington. >> wow at the same time. >> stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. >> thanks, joe. he's popular because what else are they going to do. good morning. i'm stephanie ruhle. guess what we've got? breaking news. nbc's megyn kelly questioning vladimir putin. what he's saying about russian meddling in the election among new revelations the trump white house sought to drop russian sanctions. >> the incoming team was going to unilaterally remove the sanctions on russia. >> also breaking, a mixed bag jobs report just out. weaker than expected but unemployment now the lowest since 2001. as president trump pulls the u.s. out of the paris climate accords and the world is in an uproar