hit 'send all' on some embarrassing gas. hey, you bought gas-x®! unlike antacids, gas-x ® relieves pressure and bloating fast. huh, crisis averted. you're going to be very disappointed when you hear the answer, don't worry. >> why don't you just explain whether or not will are recordings? >> the president made it clear what his position is. >> i'm not hinting anything. i'll tell you about it over a very short period of time. okay? okay. do you have a question here? >> when will you tell us? >> when he's ready to make that announcement we'll let you know. how's that? >> good morning,al come to "a.m. joy." before announcing a bid to the white house with a trip down trump tower almost exactly two two-years ago he was best known for displaying his name on

building and for saying "you're fired" on "the apprentice." the former tv star carried some reality show habits with him to the oval office, seems particularly fond of one specific game show device, the tease. well now unlike tv, where the goal is to get to you come back after the commercial break, trump's teases seem designed to keep us on the edge of our news feeds, thus distracted from his many scandals. trump tweeted for weeks to tee up his final decision on the paris climate accord. it was 3:00 p.m. on may 31st. did you tune in live? spoiler alert, it was not a hit. and earlier that month trump had the entire nation waiting for the answer to one question. are there tapes of his conversation with former fbi director james comey who before he was fired was running the russia investigation. this week when we finally got the big reveal trump does not have any recordings and never

actually did, we learned the original tapes tweet was unlike his other teases. it wasn't meant for us, it seems like it was meant exclusively for james comey before the senate intelligence committee. >> when he found out that i, you know, there may be tapes out there, whether it's governmental tapes or anything else, and who knows, i think his story may have changed. you'll have to take a look at that. my story didn't change. my story was always a straight story. my story was always the truth. >> reporter: it was a smart way to make sure he stayed honest in his hearings. >> well, it wasn't very stupid, i can tell you that. >> the thing is, when a misleading "tease" is meant to influence an audience of one, the man in charge of the investigation that could take trump down, perhaps that tease is less of a trump show cliffhanger and more of a device for witness intimidation. joining us now is -- ♪

malcolm nance, author of "the plot to hack america" business and political marketing consultant tara dowdell, david jones from mother jones and former special prosecutor jill wein banks. no chair turns and do you not have to sing. thank you so much for being here. let's start with that question of why, tara. you know donald trump probably better than most of us on this panel here. why would he have set up this sort of long lengthy, you know, suspense about whether he had tapes? >> your point in the open donald trump is carrying practices over from reality tv. "the apprentice" is the most successful thing he has ever done and he is well aware of that, so donald trump is the type of person if it worked for him in the past he'll do it

again as long as he thinks it's going to work for him and he thinks this strategy "the tease" as you coined it, works for him. the other dynamic is, donald trump the reason why we saw him reveal it was, in fact, a tease and that there are no tapes the reason why is because when he does something he feels is strategic, he wants the credit. so when the reporter asked him, when the host asked him and said, that was a very smart strategy, that right there was the bait, and so for someone like donald trump, he was not going to let that go, because he wants people to know, just like when he fired comey and his staff went out and said it wasn't the president, and the next day he said i fired comey because donald trump wants the credit. >> jill weinbanks, one of the problems is that donald trump may in his own mind as tara said have this attitude i'm doing this, getting the credit and getting emotional payoff from doing it. couldn't pretending there were tapes and admitting he did it in

order to send a message to jim comey could that be witness intimidation or tampering? >> it could be. i think the combination of facts is really what becomes intimidation. that in and of itself isn't that significant but add that tweet to all of the other things he did, the conversation he had in the white house to his firing comey, all of those things make you view the tweet differently and could be intimidation. >> david corn, a former white house ethics lawyer, actually wrote in "the hill" or tweeted in "the hill" tweeted out that the lack of the comey tapes and the fact that there never were any, donald trump knew there weren't any but said it any in his own words to send a message to comey that it actually is witness intimidation. >> it may be. i've heard other people say, it's hard to make the case if you're doing it to get somebody to tell the truth as to cover up

something. in any event it's absurd for weeks and weeks he wouldn't answer the question and ultimately his position is, i had to lie or suggest a lie in order to get someone else not to lie. this is a president who says that he was wire tapped in trump tower when he wasn't, who suggests he has tapes of the comey meetings when he doesn't, and then he complains about fake news. i mean, the cognitive dissidence here should be his campaign motto next time. make america confused again. i mean it's really, it's kind of sad that the media didn't at one point at least the white house press corps walk out of the press conferences when sean or he would not give an answer to this very simple question. >> or when they wouldn't let them record. we'll talk about that later. malcolm one of the things that's happening behind the scenes in addition to donald trump putting up all of those shows for us and sort of doing entertainment as

part of his presidency, behind the scenes he seems to be significantly concerned about this probe. there was a piece, nbc news did this reporting the dan coats, the director of national intelligence told house investigators even though he wouldn't say it in the open hearing, he said his feelings, he didn't want to talk about conversations but behind closed doors he told the house committee that trump did seem obsessed with the russia probe. >> sure, absolutely. we've within at this for almost a year, ten months at this point. why? why is donald trump on sensed with covering up this probe? it's a national counter espionage investigation that now appears that it looks, based on the lawyers, that director mueller has hired, is now going into a massive financial fraud and ricoh investigation. one of those two things is going to happen or both, espionage tied to dirty money or a massive dirty money thing.

trump has to be concerned about that and he thinks as a big real estate developer can he get away with it. he's not going to get away with it. mueller is playing a reality show, called "presidential apprenti apprentice" and only one contestant and one result that comes from the end of it, you're either fired or not fired. i think trump is terrified of that. >> at the risk of asking to you psychoanalyze him, tara, this guy refused to release his tax returns. there's obviously something in the way he does business he doesn't want revealed through the tax rushes. behind the scenes, whatever he's doing they've got to be concerned. they're not digging into the way that he does business and he does do business with some characters that have got some ties to some interesting russian money, put it that bay. >> not just russia, other countries with shady characters as well. his family is continuing to do business in countries that are highly suspect, human rights abuses. donald trump is used to getting away with things. that is what he's done his entire life. he's gotten away with taking

advantage of people, not paying people, corruption. he's gotten away with so much, now he knows things are a little bit different this time. i think he has awareness that things are different this time, that's why he closed the door when he was in the meeting with comey, why he's behaving and hiding information, the notion that he does not know that the vices around his neck is a false notion, because his behavior is indicative of someone that knows there is trouble and consistent with how he's behaved in the past when he's had trouble. the difference is he's gotten away with it. i think he knows the stakes are higher and the game is a lot different. >> the jeopardy here is this is not independent counsel, not a ken starr situation. this is a prosecuteor that in theory the president could fire. he could world rod rosenstein the deputy attorney general to fire mueller or he could just somehow get him out n theory. can you talk a little bit about the jeopardy here that this is an investigation that could go in a lot of different

directions, right? it's not limited just to rushqwan gate. >> it is not limited, all it may sound trite remember in watergate the phrase "follow the money" because i think your question to the last guest is really on point, and that it is the financial wrongdoings that may be the undoing of this president, and that the investigation can easily go to those kinds of dealings to looking at what would we see if we saw his tax returns? what are his dealings with the russian banks? why was jared kushner meeting with a sanctioned bank? there seems to be no legitimate explanation for that, and this investigation is led by someone who is greatly respected by many, by almost everyone, maybe not by president trump, who is now trying to impugn his credibility, but that hasn't been successful and so i think that it could really lead to something much bigger, and he

made a big mistake when he took actions that led to the appointment of the special prosecutor, and our deputy attorney general has said he will not fire him, except for cause, which means the president would have to repeat the saturday night massacre, he'd have to fire rod rosenstein so he could appoint someone to carry out his order to fire mr. mueller. >> you already, david, have donald trump trying to find an ally to put in charge of the fein. he's clearly trying to create loyalists that can protect him. it doesn't seem likely can he in any way get in mueller's way. >> he is in a bad spot. he has a guy who has a tremendous amount of experience, experience around him. i did a story this week, it's a little complicated, bun fellow who was involved in a prosecution of felix sater, a real estate developer is on the team of mueller so there are different areas of the

investigation but one big point that i don't want people to lose sight of. it becomes clearer and clearer every single day that donald trump aided and abetted putin's operation against united states and the election. throughout the whole summer and even after the election, after the u.s. government said it was putin doing this, and that it was a russian operation, he kept denying it was happening. that's the same thing as aiding and abetting, like being outside a bank robbery and saying nothing is going on when you know what's going on inside. that's the big sin, goes beyond the financial stuff. he helped this operation. >> and malcolm, he essentially admitted he knew about it today in a tweet. >> in his tweet yesterday he put out, essentially, it's actually fascinating to learn that donald trump watches msnbc and is a big fan and that being said i have something -- i have something i'd like to say to him, right? as president of the united states that i beg you, i beg

you, come out and tell us that whatever you know and whatever your staff knows about russia and collusion with wikileaks, throw them under the bus, right, save yourself, but let's get this nation past that, and if he can't understand that, he needs to take a long walk around that building that he lives in and look at all the people in this history who have protected this democracy. otherwise he doesn't have any interest in protection the nation. >> you can talk to him through the tv. he may have heard that. thank you very much. up next, donald trump finally does acknowledge russia's election attack and all it took was the chance to say it's all president obama's fault. stay with us. (microphone feedback) listen up, heart disease. you too, unnecessary er visits. and hey, unmanaged depression, don't get too comfortable. we're talking to you, cost inefficiencies and data without insights. and fragmented care-

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the president is concerned about that interference? >> he commented i think it was january 5th or 17th, something like that, on that at the time and he said, russia probably interfered but maybe some other countries did as well. >> he said i think it was russia but i think we also get hacked by other countries and other people. >> thank you. >> is he concerned about that? >> of course he's concerned about any country or any actor that wants to interfere in our elections. i confirm he stands by that. >> this, note the lack of video there on the same day "the washington post" dropped another bombshell report revealing last summer u.s. intelligence agencies had sourcing deep inside the russian government reporting that vladimir putin was directly involved in a cyber campaign targeting our election. the mission, defeat or damage hillary clinton and help elect trump. the obama administration debated dozens of options for deterring or punishing russia but

according to "the post" obama feared things could get far worse and any action perceived as political interference in an already volatile campaign. joining me is former presidential campaign manager evan mcmullen, former cia open and navid jamali former fbi double agent and author of "how to catch a russian spy." evan i have to get your reaction to donald trump finally acknowledging last night by his favorite medium twitter that the russians did meddle in the election. he blamed it on obama. just out they knew far in advance meddling by russia and did nothing about it. why do you make of blaming obama but acknowledging it? >> he cannot resist attacking former president obama. two things he can't resist. b'nai he's being investigated if he can still do that the second thing is to attack president obama.

this is a distraction. he's speaking to his remaining 35% to 40% of the u.s. voter population that he need to hold onto, to protect himself in the house. the house is important because as the investigations move forward if there's serious wrongdoing he may need the house to protect him from impeachment. this is throwing up a distraction to confuse the public. >> does it concern you this tweet indicates he was fully aware of what russia was doing. this is the consciousness of knowing it happened an he's denied it happened up until now. >> that's a given. he absolutely knows. it was in the open, in the obvious. he knew what was happening, he encouraged it. that's a given. he may try to confuse the matter and he does and has for months but of course he knows. i'm not surprised by that. >> there is a politics that

"washington post" story was bombshell we tried to pick out a few nuggets in it, one of them was the refusal of republicans to react to what was hair on fire defcon 1 information coming out of the highest levels of the white house and the national security apparatus that russia was actively interfering with our election. something we've been talking about on this show since last july and clearly the obama administration was sending alarms about. let's talk about mitch mcconnell. mitch mcconnell according to this blockbuster "washington post" story, republicans resisted doing anything in response, arguing to warn the public the election was under attack would further russia's aim. senator majority leader mitch mcconnell voicing skepticism that the underlying intelligence supported white house claims. the highest levels of the republican party were saying we don't necessarily believe this

or want to do neglect about it. august 5th jeh johnson tried to enlist the support of state officials z a conference call asking for them to secure their own systems. brian kemp, republican secretary of state in georgia used that call to denounce johnson's proposal as an assault on state rights saying i think it's a politically calculated move by the previous administration. adding he remains unconvinced russia waged a campaign to disrupt the 2016 race. that's a greater level of denial than donald trump. what do you make of that? >> this is part of a pattern of the republican party during the campaign, disregarding national security interests, so it's a divide between policy and politics and unfortunately given the election season politics prevailed. you had cia analysts who were deep in the russian government, giving information through the cia channels. these are not people who are partisan in any way raising it through their chain, directly to

the president saying that this is a national security problem, and not only something that we see in the united states, but we've seen patterns of this elsewhere, for russia to undermine democracies throughout europe and given the timing of it, the people in charge of national security in congress and for oversight really weren't able to look past the partisan politics. >> neither in a sense -- i should note mitch mcconnell sent a letter september 28th, mcconnell and the other senators issued a cautious statement to ensure their networks were secure from an attack. it made no mention of russia. navid, this "washington post" story went into detail what they were trying to do, thinking about doing or concerned about doing. some officials look back according to "the washington post" on the russia period with remorse. it is the hardest thing about my entire time in government said no former senior obama

officials. i feel we sort of choked. what do you think? >> the biggest thing when it comes to intelligence options is attribution. you want to complete the meissin but if the mission is compromised the target cannot come back and say it is this country, you that launched this. in that regard the obama administration choked on it. it's clear the president spoke directly to putin and said hey knock it off, seems the russians were very much going to physically target the physical inf infrastructure of the voting system. when the president called them on that, they backed it off. that's about the attribution. when you go out and call a foreign adversary and say you are behind, this you remove the cloak of attribution. that is a hugely important part of this. the obama administration coming out and being more forceful and really laying out the cards about what they knew, at the end

of the day the president has a right as donald trump to declassify anything and i think what we're learning today, there's no reason we shouldn't have learned that before the election and i think that was unfortunately a miscalculation on the current administration, and one last thing, if you look across the pond, france, how france has weathered the same storm that the russians launched against them, they're in a much less chaotic freefall than we are. there is a way to emerge from this and unfortunately between the transition and the current president we have, the russians have really gotten one up on us. >> that's exactly -- >> you were, very quickly. >> the point he mentioned about france and other countries having weathered the storm. this is part of a broader russian campaign to undermine democracy. the u.s. is not the only target. you had russian hackers who were systematically telling syrians that germany was the best destination for them to go, and that's part of why you had a massive influx of syrian refugees in germany that, germany could not handle. you have cyber attackers looking

at ukraine and forcing blackouts by hacking their energy grid. the u.s. infrastructure energy grid is horrifically outdated so we have serious vulnerabilities, not just to our electoral and democratic system. we have serious infrastructure vulnerabilities that now the russians are going to be using to their advantage. >> evan, at the same time, just to go back for a second to the obama administration's response, if you look at it at the time, you were running for president. you could probably vouch for the fact that had the obama administration, of all administrations, come out and said the russians are attempting to interfere in the election and hinted it was to help donald trump, the reaction from trump's base would have been that the obama administration was trying to steal the election. trump was already saying that the election was being stolen from him, and so my question is, somebody on the ground doing this, running for president, what would have been the reaction on the right, had the obama administration come out and said hey, red flag, russia is trying to interfere?

>> it would have been politicized absolutely, and that is, your other guests made this point but so absolutely critical that as you read that "washington post" report, read it with an eye for partisanship and you see it every step how our leaders didn't take actions that might have help in retrospect, might have wished they would have taken them but they couldn't because of fear of partisanship or partisanship itself. i draw the viewers' attention to the letter that the oes talks about that mitch mcconnell sent out and other senators in late september, he says to states, protect your voting systems but we oppose any engagement from the federal government on these issues. so that's an incredible thing to do. he was more concerned, they were more concerned about protecting states from the federal government than they were about protecting our voting system from the russians. that's where our partisanship has gotten, and that's something that we as americans have to look at, not just our leaders in

washington. >> a lot of amens on that. we're out of time. thank you very much. coming up, jared speaks! stay with us. before fibromyalgia, i was a doer. i was active. then the chronic, widespread pain drained my energy. my doctor said moving more helps ease fibromyalgia pain. she also prescribed lyrica. fibromyalgia is thought to be the result of overactive nerves. lyrica is believed to calm these nerves. woman: for some, lyrica can significantly relieve fibromyalgia pain

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remove contacts before using xiidra and wait at least 15 minutes before reinserting. chat with your eye doctor about xiidra. this week, many of us heard trump's senior adviser and son-in-law jared kushner speak for the first time. and the sound of his voice nearly broke the internet and that's because we've been waiting to hear the most famous in-law in washington speak for quite a while. as hbo's john oliver noted back in april. >> someone with the amount of power that he has, have you ever heard him speak? seriously? what does his voice sound like? you don't know, do you? look, it wasn't easy but we did manage to find an interview of him talking on tv in 2009, and here it is. >> newspaper and other websites and online media businesses.

>> i know, i know what you're thinking. hold on you just took that clip and dubbed in gilbert godfrey, but you don't know that for sure. >> why doesn't everyone sound like gilbert godfrey? when we come back, what jared sounds like for real and why his voice may be the least of his worries. stay with us. welcome to holiday inn! ♪ ♪ whether for big meetings or little getaways,

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our goal here is simple. we're here to improve the citizen. that's a core promise and we are keeping it. together, we will unleash the creativity of the private sector to provide citizen services in a way that has never happened before. >> and that my friends is what jared kushner sounds like. the interwebs were buzzing when audio of donald trump's son-in-law finally surfaced, for someone with a big white house portfolio, including middle east peace, jared isn't known to say very much but with the trump

russia scandal moving beyond campaign aides and coming close to home, kushner, wife ivanka and donald trump jr. may soon be spending lots of time talking, to their lawyers. join me is tamara holder, advocate, david corn of mother jones and david k johnston of dcreport.org. jared has beefed up his legal team per the "new york times," representatives jared kushner high powered criminal lawyers about representing him in the investigation "the times" reports and current lauer jamey garelick handled cases involving government investigations she's not a trial lawyer. >> it signals to me he's in trouble or he should be thinking he's going to be in trouble. isn't it interesting that on his security clearance he had seven years of history. he forgot his most recent

contacts, seven years, i understand he met with the russians back in 2010, but we're talking about a russian meeting with a russian spy, a russian meeting with a russian ambassad ambassador. >> and a banker. >> and a banker. and he did this in december and january and forgot to fill those out on his forms. isn't that just interesting, and this is a man by the way who is now running our middle east agreements. >> right. >> and he's going to, he can't even remember what's on his form. >> and it's interesting david corn that elijah cummings the congressman sent a letter and this was interesting, it was signed by all of the democrats on the house oversight committee and i believe they might have gotten some republican signatures, which makes it unusual and the letter says we have serious concerns about whether the white house is properly safeguarding classified information. it's unclear why mr. kushner continues to have access to classified information while these allegations are being investigated. what does it mean that you now have members of congress, and i

believe some republicans asking why does this guy have a security clearance still. >> you got to be fair. these are secret meetings for the russians. why would he tell the fbi about them? i mean, you know, there is no good explanation that's come up, and this is where it's most troubling besides the fact he broke the rules and nobody else in this situation would be granted a clearance, security clearance, but what's troubling is trying to figure out what he was doing, meeting with the head of a russian bank tied to the, you know, fsb, the russian intelligence service or the story came out saying he was looking to set up a secret channel of communications with putin's regime by which, through which he would use the telecommunications equipment at the moscow, excuse me, at moscow's embassy here in washington. would he just sort of like go in with a baseball cap and a hoodie? there are 20 fbi cameras outside that building every day. we still have no idea what he

was trying to do and why he was trying to do that. so i know it's very easy and i'm not dismissing this for the democrats to ask for this information about his security clearance, which they should get, which the white house won't give them but the russian investigators on the hill, maybe the special counsel need to dig deeper into what he was up to in the big picture. >> there were some stories surfacing the other person in some of the meetings michael flynn may already be cooperating with the fbi so a lot of this would be coming out. david johnston, they requested copies of the applications for the certificates of divestitures submitted to the office of ethics on behalf of jared kushner, ivanka trump and their children, and the pub disclosure report of divestiture. tamron will tell us what the republicans are, chuck grassley and lindsey graham.

you're seeing digging into the forms that jared kushner turned in to divest of his companies. >> the trump and kushner families are both going to have serious problems about their finances and their connections, and i've consistently said that donald's biggest concerns have to be the money, the sources of money and the obligations and money laundering more than the russian connections, and remember, jared kushner got his family to put all their eggs in one basket, 66 fifth avenue, a building if you run the numbers on the math, cannot be paying for itself. so he's under significant financial pressure. when do we know people end up making bad judgments that get them into serious trouble especially when they have access to national security secrets? well, often when they're in financial difficulty and they have not been candid. >> that's just to get -- >> go on, david corn. >> that's what gets to one possible thing that might have been going on with the secret meeting with russian barkers, lifting sanctions on russian

banks, maybe just maybe the speculation that might help the curb mer real estate business. >> absolutely. >> exactly. >> i want to go to jared kushner's wife ivanka and his brother-in-law donald jr. and go back to david for a minute. bay rock partnership, there was another big, blockbuster story after blockbuster story when it this week. bloomberg terrific piece by tim o'brien that talks about the partnership between the future president back before and his two eldest children, donald jr. and eva ka on a series of real estate deals between 2002 and 2011, the most prominent being the troubled trump soho hotel and condominium in manhattan. bay rock during the years bay rock and trump did deals together the company was a bridge between murky european funding and a number of projects in the u.s. the president led his name for handsome fees and he testified under oath in 2007 in a deposition bay rock brought russian investors to trump tower to trump's office to discuss

deals with moscow saying it's ridiculous i wouldn't be investing in russia. russia is one of the hottest places in the world. felix sater from bay rock, now drawn into this, tell us a little bit about him, david k. johnson. >> we've written a great deal about felix and the russians at dc report and other forums. is he the russian born son of a man the reputed head of the russian mob in new york, a convicted violent felon. he ran a $40 million stock swindle and got a get out of jail free card by persuading the federal government that he could intercept shoulder-fired missiles on their way to terrorists. he was also a guy who had an office in trump tower, traveled widely with donald on his airplane even know donald said he wouldn't know what he looked like, there are many photographs of them together. what that means is donald trump is one degree of separation from middle east terrorist arms traffickers. it means that felix sater is a

connection to money in a variety of places including what happened in iceland, which was russian oligarch operation to loot wealth in the west, when step away donald trump. so we really need to know a lot more about felix sater's connections here and we're in court right now along with "forbes" and bbc and others and withish more news organizations would join us to force disclosure of a variety of court records that the federal government has sealed about felix sater in federal court and new york state court. >> i want to add quickly that felix has a business card, a donald trump business card so isn't it interesting that again donald trump doesn't know who these people are but somehow he ended one a business card. >> the big question for trump here is whether he knew that sater was a fraudulent felon when he was doing business with him. if so that could create tremendous legal liability and we had a piece other gentlemen

explained a lot of people focusing on this issue. >> of course he didn't know. there's no way. >> we're going to do a lot more felix sate on the show, we want to give you the little tease since teasing is the theme of the day, we'll do more on this and these three folks will be back to do more of that on another show. tamara and david, david cay johnson will be back later in the hour. coming up in the next hour, a republican congressman is here to tell us about trumpcare and the he man woman hater's club is back. more "a.m. joy" after the break. [vo] what made secretariat the greatest racehorse

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mike mccurry, press secretary under bill clinton, has one of the first to regularly hold live televised white house briefings and the only one to once start a briefing as an anonymous source placing a giant paper bag over his head. since then the televised briefing has become a tape staple in the relationship between the white house and the media. fast forward 19 years that

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i actually said today, let's not ever do briefings. wa i'd love to do is stop them. just don't have them. unless i have them every two weeks and do them myself we don't have them. i think it's a good idea. >> true to his threat in that interview the administration silenced a channel of communication between the president and the people. by ensuring nearly all press briefings this week would be neither seen nor heard in a live broadcast. on tuesday the one day that we were allowed to hear from sean spicer live in his first on camera briefing in eight days he gave nonanswers to two of the biggest questions facing the white house. >> does president trump believe that the russian government interfered in the 2016 elections? >> i think i have not sat down and talked to him about that specific thing. >> is the president seen a draft

of the senate health care bill? >> i don't know that. >> on friday, we learned that trump continues to trample basic norms of accountability with new guidance going forward from now on the white house will decide on a daily basis whether or not the press are allowed to record audio of the briefings. joining me is author of the man without a face, the unlikely rise of vladamir putin. thanks for being here. cnn decided to respond to the idea that the white house has said no audio or video recordings unless we say you can by sending a sketch artist in s. that the right way to respond to what essentially is a lockdown of information saying only what we tell you you can have. >> well, i would like to pause for a second to consider the idea of a sketch artist because the fact that american courtrooms have sketch artists instead of video cameras is a little bit bizarre to people who are used to reporting on court

hearings in other countries even in ushia you can generally have video cameras in courtrooms. so the very existence of a sketch art cystist is a bit of alarm bell. i think it serves a purpose. i think people should be able to see what the white house briefing looks like. i think it was the wrong thing to do. >> what about the option, i was tweeting a, not covering them, saying we won't show up for your press conference unless we record them, or we all have these phones. what could they do if a reporter were to turn on their phone and record what they were hearing? >> well, there are many things they could do. they can start having reporters turn in their phones when they walk in. they could start to have reporter shows their phones when they walk out. we've been through all of this in russia. >> this is the united states and i think americans are not accustomed yet, maybe they will get over the next four years to living in an authoritarian

state. the idea you are not allowed as the american people to have the press secretary who works for the american people, whose salary is paid by taxpayers that you can't turn on your phone and record him. >> americans have become accustomed to a great many things including for example having the secretary of state that is completelien accountable because press doesn't travel with him. he works for the american people. his job a lot more important than sean spicer's and we have no idea whether the man is doing. >> what we have from trump a chart that shows the number of press conferences that presidents held as of june 20, trump has held joint press conferences 10 times, solo once obama 9 and 6. clinton 10 and 7. you have a president who doesn't talk a lot to the press but what he does do and this is from our producers is speak directly to his base through twitter and through big rallies where he riles them up. let's look at the one recently wednesday in iowa.

>> we are making such incredible progress. we are making progress like nobody can believe. these people are being driven crazy, crazy. i mean they have phony witch hunts going against me. they have everything going. and you know what? all we do is win, win, win. it's always terrific to be able to leave that washington swamp and spend time with the truly hard working people we call them american patriots. amazing people. >> now you need to dismiss that if you're in the reality based world. we can prove that donald trump isn't get anything done, he isn't winning, he's got complete control of congress, they aren't passing things but -- yeah. but in his -- if you are a trump

supporter, if your source of information is donald trump, and conservative media, what is it -- is it effective for him to essentially only speak to that 35%? >> absolutely. of course it's effective for him. i actually think that weirdly is an argument for covering press briefings as insane as they are. they is trying to separate his reality from the media as a whole. and with twitter and rallies he does two things. repders the media irrelevant. they can do their thing and imd doing my thing of it i don't need -- he is dumbing it down. he's really dumbing down politics in a directed way by saying it really is simple. you don't need, again, you don't need interpreters, it can be summed up in 140 characters or in phrases over and over at the

rallies to rally up. that is happening not just with trump. i mean, i would argue that something similar dynamic is played with the health care bill. why would you need to read about it all. you elected us. >> right. >> now we're going to you know, we're going to write it up in secret. and so that, again, renders sort of the whole apparatus of discussion and interpretation irrelevant. >> and you've written that trump's incompetent will not save our democracy. >> i think a lot of, there is this that oh, don't worry, he's not going to build a fascist state because he is too incompetent to do it. historically people who have reverted that are states to -- were perceived as buffoons. >> thank you so much as always.

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unlike antacids, gas-x ® relieves pressure and bloating fast. huh, crisis averted. this was the scene outside senate majority leader mitch mcconnell's office thursday after he revealed the health bill. the one a small handful of senate men spent weeks concocting in secret. what it really does is devastate medicaid. the largest health care program in the country. in exchange for a massive tax cut for the rich.

like the house version, the senate bill would cap federal medicaid spending for the first time, the cbo hasn't scored the bill yet but it predicted that the house bill would cut more than $800 billion from medicaid over 10 years. $800 billion. that's nearly a quarter of the medicaid program. again, republicans want to cut a program that covers 20% of all americans. a program that covers half of all births in this country, that covers 60% of children with disabilities, and 64% of nursing home residents. a quarter of that program gone. millions of the most vulnerable left without access to medical care so republicans can give tax cuts to the rich. the hundreds of billions cut from mehdi cade would fund hundred of brillion in tax cuts. 40% of which will go to the richest 1% of americans. so how can republicans justify voting for it? joining me is republican congressman tom reed of new

york. i do thank you for coming on to talk about this bill. not easy to get republicans to come out and sort of support it, so i want to ask you to tell me how you can justify the fact that you have a bill that would cut billions, hundreds of billions on medicaid to give tax cuts, the richest .1% average 7 2 $2700 and even else 265. how can you justify cutting health care for the poor and the elderly and children to pay for that? >> thanks for having me on, joy. i reject your premise. we're reforming medicaid. your premise spending more is going to take care of the health delivery is false. medicaid is on a path of unsustainability. medicaid needs to be there, i support medicaid, and my fellow republicans do. for you to suggest that's why we're taking on medicaid is false. >> can you explain what is

medicaid? >> back stop for lower income folks, the folks that are struggling among us, our colleagues, our peers, friends, and making sure there is a safety net there. i support that. my fellow republicans support that. >> isn't medicaid money that the federal government provides to states so they can reimburse hospitals to care for the poor? so if there's less money being paid to states to care for the poor, how does that reform the program that is literally based on money to pay hospitals to care for the poor? >> because that money is hard working american taxpayer dollars, that is not an endless pot of money. we're running deficits of a half trillion. 20 trillion in national debt it's not sustainable. hard working americans cannot afford it. >> what you are essentially saying is taxpayers can't afford to pay for health care for the poor so the poor should simply receive less. that's the logical conclusion. i want to show you what the center for american progress has -- they looked at this and said by 2026, 18,000 to 27,000

americans additional americans would die, this is based on data showing higher mortality rates, assumes on the low end 15 million more uninsured in 2026 and on the high 23 million. if you actually take away the money for people to get health care, they can't get health care. so what you're saying essentially is that taxpayers are more important than the sick. >> no. wa i'm saying we need to make the program sustainable. what you have to do is change the way we do medicaid. and put pressure, because we have to be more effective, more efficient. got to reward quality not fee for service not expand, not reward states the more they bill that's how they are paid. that's how the formulas are now with the states so. for our perspective do better. i have to be part of the effort, i believe to make sure the status quo is not continuing to go forward because that will fail americans. we need to save this and fix this so americans have access to this safety net that i support

and i know my fellow republicans support. >> so in addition to the fact you guys are saying you're going to fix medicaid by giving it less money, essentially starving it of money and reforming it, when you have talked about, when you yourself and your colleagues talked about this bill, you haven't really talked about reform. i have a memo here that was put out by the members of new york delegation, this is it for people to see. applauding the house proposal that included a provision that one of your colleagues john fasto got put into the bill. and here's what that is. from "the buffalo news", gop health care bill would bar new york from charging upstate counties for medicaid meaning no money would come from upstate counties to go into the medicaid program. you sir support the amendment, you praised mr. fasso for getting that through and in your praise of it you talked only about taxes, you said essentially that you pushed this item for local property

taxpayers from the reason, he was proactive in pushing this for the local property tax payers from the region. he only talked about the taxes. he tweeted this new acha bill includes my provision to eliminate new york's medicaid mandate and save new york 19 millions of dollars. if this is reforming medicaid why is it you and your colleagues are talking tax cuts? you are praising tax cuts >> i wholly support the amendment because our property taxpayers in western new york are leaving in droves because they can't pay their bills. they can't pay their tax bill, they can't take care of their homes. we should put the burden back on the state capitol. the state capitol controls how this is delivered at the local level. new york is one of the only states that puts it on ourlogical taxpayers and local

governments cannot provide better services under the program. this is a great amendment that needs to be supported and reduce the property taxes to 40%, $145 million in my low income areas across this district, are going to be relieved of that tax burden. that's the right thing to do. >> -- is not a low income district. we're talking a more affluent district. put oup the tweet. it talks about the amend of money that taxpayers would save. this is what his focus was. those are pretty significant amounts of tax money meaning that these are more affluent. wouldn't it be more honest to say what republicans are trying to do in this sbil say we don't want tax dollars, our tax dollars to go to pay for low income health care. we don't want to the happen so it isn't about reform, it is about exactly what you praised, making sure that taxpayers don't have to pay for low income health care. >> that's absolutely false. in moo district the average is

about 30,000 a year. to say that's affluent you don't know the facts. we're talking about a program that relies upon taxpayer dollars that is unsustainable and that is going bankrupt. that is crushing our local taxpayers. across the board. we need to do better than that joy. i'm all about trying to put the pressure where the pressure needs to be, the powers that decide how this program operates and how it's delivered need bear the pressure and burden of making sure they are doing it in an efficient effective way. >> you are right about your district, it's not affluent taxpayers so i stand corrected on that. the point you're making in the amendment that you supported is it essentially you are saying you don't believe that taxpayers should pay which is not going bankrupt. just empirically. there is no empirical evidence. right. it's not -- what you're saying is you want to take the money out of medicaid. the plain fact here is that this is not about medicaid reform. you sir believe that medicaid should just receive less money and that it shouldn't be getting its money from property

taxpayers. or from taxpayers. >> not correct. it's going to be a taxpayer funded safety net for american people low income having a hard time. what you have to do is make sure that you don't reward inefficiency like we do. this is what the problem of the program is. the more they serve, the more money they spend the more they get from the american taxpayer, we need to change that formula. we need to make sure that the formula rewards doing more with less. not encourage us to do more ineffective inefficient delivery of health care. >> let's talk about the medicaid expansion this is one of the sticking points. this isn't about whether or not medicaid does more with less or spends more. this is about adding millions of people just to the eligibility so they can get it. if the expansion is rolled back those people who fit in the new formula, meaning up to i think 125% of the poverty rate they just get medicaid at all. that means that group of people just doesn't get medicaid at all. what should happen to those

people? how should they get health care? >> that's exactly when you're talking to people of 100% of the poverty level or less, will get medicaid. will continue to. >> i'm saying the expansion. you want to get rid of the expansion. so they will no longer get medicaid. they won't have insurance. how do you believe those people should get health care? >> that is where we have to make sure we design a health care system that is lowering the cost for delivering better outcomes based on lower cost and get the cost of health care under control so that health insurance costs then go under control and people have access. >> those people would simply not have, i mean the situation they were in before the expansion they didn't have a policy at all. they didn't have an insurance card to go to the doctor. if you go back to the situation where they don't have an insurance card, more efficiency in the system won't change anything. they won't have insurance. how will those people get health care at all? >> absolutely. that's where the republican plan puts the tax credits in place to provide the resource to purchase health insurance and the whole

idea is get highlight insurance costs down getting health care costs under control. that's the third step of the process. >> you don't get tax credits, you get a tax refund. these are not people itemizing and can get a tax credit. talking about people who are 125% of the poverty level. that's not a lot of money. >> actually joy, that's wrong. these are advanceable refundable tax credits folks get them up front that these go to the carriers to relieve the premium costs that they are going to be absorbing in that expansion policy. we phase out of medicaid expansion that is the back stop upon which we replace it with. >> you are so we understand what you guys want to do you essentially want to give a very substantial tax cut in your case you don't want the tax payers in your district to fund medicaid. rolling that back making it unlawful for your taxpayers in your district to fund medicaid, cut overall the cost of medicaid, it gets less money, and then give individual people tax credits. that's the plan. >> that's the fundamental

essence of what we are trying to do is empower people than expanding government to a point where it's not sustainable. american taxpayers can't foot this bill endlessly and without a limitation because they are tapped out. >> all right. sorry, one second. we have a guest here whispering that she wanted to ask you a question. i want to let one of my guests in. she has a question for you. tara, you seem to have a question for the congressman. if you don't mind i want to let her ask that. >> the tax credits are less under the senate bill, so they are lowered so while you are taking away medicaid they won't be eligible for the same level of tax credits that they would have been eligible for before. so you are giving -- less. >> well, because where we're going to end up they sought to do the amendment process. our credits in the house were basd primarily on age, the senate took a step in the right direction when you incorporate income into that equation. income has got to be the corner stone i think. that's a sweet spot i think to

get this to the finish line. >> so you acknowledge the fact that for those people who are not going to be eligible for medicaid anymore, that the tax credit they receive is less which will put a greater financial burden on them in terms of purchasing insurance. >> no, no. they will have -- they will have access to a tax credit they can access themselves to purchase the insurance that works for them. it's not lower, it's a different way of getting health care rather through government, as actually through themselves as individuals. >> i think we understand where you're going with this. essentially you want people to essentially, it is a roll back of medicaid, it's a decrease but i want to ask you this question in the end. will you stand by in the end the idea that the wealthiest people in this country, as a result of this bill, if it is signed into law, will get a tax cut that if they are in the richest 1% more than the average income in your district so the average very wealthy person gets $37,230 back

and at least 20 million people will have no health care coverage in your view is that a fair trade-off to get an obamacare repeal enacted? >> there's no doubt i believe in reducing the american tax burden and that includes what we've done in this bill. and at the end of the day you know who foots the bill is hard working americans that are paying the costs where the taxes are assessed back to and from my perspective anything we can do to alleviate tax burdens is in the right direction for america's future. >> i think you made it very clear. thank you so much for coming and doing this. appreciate it. >> i appreciate the debate. thank you. >> thank you. when we come back, tara and the panel weighs in.

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elizabeth warren had choice

words about her colleaguesing new health care bill. >> medicaid is the program in this country that provides health insurance to one in five americans. to 30 million kids to nearly two out of every three people in a nursing home. these cuts are blood money. people will die. let's be very clear. senate republicans are paying for tax cuts for the wealthy with american lives. >> now let's bring in my panel political marketing consultant tara, investigative reporter david johnston and president of the foundation for research and equal opportunity and former health care policy adviser to mitt romney. i'm going to start with you on this. i applaud congressman tom reed for coming on. he came on and i thought in the end was quite honest about something which is that if you are a middle class sort of

homeowner taxpayer in upstate new york, and your congressman says to you as they did in this e-mail praising their compromise they gave which said it would be unlawful to tax those middle class homeowners to pay for medicaid for the urban poor, if you're that homeowner you're saying if my congressman is going to give me $265, and i don't have to pay for those people, i don't even know, you might actually say that's a fair trade-off, that all you personally care about is your little $265 tax rebate that your taxes will go down, that you don't have to pay for those people. isn't what the republicans are doing essentially is pitting americans who may not need, not have a catastrophic health emergency now. now get rid of medicaid. they only find out that a refundable tax credit may not be great when mom goes in a nursing home. by then mitch mcconnell will have passed his bill. >> i think there were a lot of

factual deficiencies in the discussion with the congressman. it's important to understand that $882 billion in reductions in medicaid spending, 85% of that comes from the phase-out of obamacare's expansion of medicaid. it doesn't touch the traditional medicaid. there are reforms as well. we can get to that. the majority of that dollar figure is the phase-out of the aca's expansion of medicaid which is replaced in this senate bill with robust refundable advanceable tax credits that are structured similarly to the affordable care act's exchanges. pretty much the same kind of mechanism to deliver coverage to that same population. that was on the medicaid expansion before. so in texas where i live, there are going to be millions more with health insurance as a result of this bill because texas didn't expand medicaid but these tax credits will be available to everyone in texas who is under 100% or 130 of the

poverty line. >> how does the cbo get to the fact 20 million fewer will have health insurance? most of that figure, the medicaid expansion if you repeal it, the raw number of people made eligible for it become ineligible. they lose their medicaid card. so if what you're saying is no, they are just trading in their medicaid card for a different kind of insurance that's a tax credit. how does the cbo get to 20 million losing health insurance? >> we don't of course have the score of the senate bill yet. >> the house version is similar. >> right. i think so too. and the vast majority of the krr cbo's is the repeal of the mandate of the 23 million who will lose coverage, about 18 million of that is accounted for in the cbo's model by the fact you are repealing the mandate, i.e. 18 million only signing up because they are forced to by a fine. >> you're saying 20 million do not want to be covered by health

n. >> that's what the cbo says. >> i don't think so but let's david respond. >> can we step back out of the deep weeds here. >> please. >> think about health care. >> donald trump said health care should be like the roads. we already have a rube goldberg machine. let's simplify all of this. we need to reform health care. no reasonable student of this fails to understand that our health care system isn't a health care system it's a non-system sick care system that kills people, it's inefficient, it allows people to game the system. and let me give a simple number. we spend 6 percentage points of our economy more than the french who have the best health care system in the world with no out-of-pocket costs or virtually. if we had the french system it would be the equivalent of everybody who makes less than 5 hup$,000 a year paying no income taxesful that's how much we would save.

if tax savings is the goal here then let's go adopt the french system and transfer into it and we can eliminate the income tax for 99% of all americans. the idea that we're going to these tax credits, why are tax credits always the solution to every problem? why not have a simple system. you're an american, you have a card, you need health care, you go and get health care. and then the debate is simply how robustly do we want to fund it. make people wait two hours to see a doctor or two days. and that's a debate that's easy to have. and by the way -- >> what's important to know -- >> i do want to ask that question of you because we had debates about other issues. typically your response to what you would say reforming systems in the country whether it's health care or others is tax credits, meaning that people spend out the money out of their pocket i'm assuming, then at april 15 tax time -- >> no. >> they fill out and get money back. or sending people a check? >> tax credits are the go to

sort of conservative solution for everything. >> joy, this is a really, really important point. i'm glad you raise this. the subsidies that people get in the obamacare exchanges to buy health insurance are tax credits, they are advanceable refundable tax credits. and so why i think this bill is such an advance, is just to david's point i agree i like the swiss model not the french but we have a lot to learn from europe. this is a system that switzerland has. instead of medicaid and the exchanges, you have to disenroll and enroll with different doctors and different networks and copays, put them on the same system where if your income goes up and down you're on the same exchange with the same tax credits, maybe your financial assistance goes up and down based on income but otherwise you're in one system. that's going to provide better care to these individuals, going to allow them to stay with one physician and one set of people who are caring for them. and i think that's going to be a much better, have much better

health outcome as a result of that continuity of care. that's one of the reasons this is better than the status quo. >> you were a business owner in addition. and one of the targets for republicans, one of the reasons that i think they are sort of succeeding in pitting different elements of society against each other and the poor and the elderly and the sick and children, they aren't the most power statistical constituency. they are on the losing end of this. on the winning end not just the homeowner who wants his $265. i don't care what happens with those people. you have business owners who the one place i will give -- agree with ovik, i talk to small business owners who feel it is a burden on them to have to provide health care to employees. so if you have somebody who's got 20 employees and they don't want to foot the bill under the obamacare mandate they in theory could free 20 people in their mind because they won't have to

pay for their health care. so isn't that what is happening. it's pitting people who may not want to do this, they may not want to provide this care to employees against people who needed. >> right. well no, that's exactly what this is. this is all about picking winners and losers, right. and pitting people against one another and also playing on people's fears, right. and also misinformation. so for one thing i am a small business owner who has purchased a gold plan recently on the obamacare exchange for one of my employees where i cover 100% of the premium of that cost and there's no deductible on the plan. so let me be clear about where i stand on that. but, with respect to small business opposers, if you have 50 employees or fewer, you do not have to comply with the mandate. so if you have 50 employees or more, then you are doing very well. i have, i'm in the 10 employees or fewer range of this. so that's number one. so a lot of small business owners don't have to. if you choose to provide it as i

have, i am eligible because i have 25 or fewer employees to receive a tax credit which helps me as a small business owner. the other point here is with the individual mandate, this is something i think is missing here, when you take away the individual mandate what's going to happen is healthier younger people are not going to sign up. that is why it was put in place. so by definition costs will go up without them helping to subsidize the sicker people who need to sign up. >> this is a great debate. we should bring you back and do it again. it's hard to get around the data that's coming out of the cbo that says empirically, avik saying 20 voluntary get off but you're talking about medicaid that i don't think there is any one who is on it that wants to lose it. we can continue to have the debate. appreciate you doing it. tara will be back later. thank you. we'll bring you guys back.

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i think our message is under every roof in america are the dreams that every family has for their kids for their job and their health care and we're for you. and we just need to do a better job of communicating that. >> the other way to look at this, candidates matter, you had a very young candidate, a charismatic one but he didn't have the longest resume, he didn't live in the district so that was a challenge. >> there is no question millions of dollars were spent in tieing the democrat candidate in georgia to nancy pelosi and i think that was a significant factor in the final result. not the only thing. >> republican karen handle's

victory turned democrats into armchair. a host of reasons for what went wrong. to the party's candidate 30-year-old jon ossoff and some reached all the way to the house of representatives to blame the party's minority leader in that body, nancy pelosi. her supposedly toxic image weighing down democrats. lost in the game is the political reality of a republican district that hasn't sent a democrat to congress in 39 years. back with me at the table joining me is jimy williams, jason johnson, so this is like the perfect panel for this. i do believe all you, he's not going to win. but the main he's not going to win guy is my buddy jimmy. what happened? you said he wasn't going to win. you want to say i told you so for three minutes or explain

what happened? >> no, simple. it's a very republican district and it doesn't matter how much money, what is it 20 million, the dccc spent 6 million in that district and ran ads with pelosi. set the pelosi thing aside. that's not my problem. my problem is the dccc blew its entire like bank account but you get my point, on a race of a 30-year-old who didn't live in the district who never had run for office against a very bad candidate and by the way, the campaign put out a postmortem memo that said ossoff never went below 50% approval. he lost. why would the dccc spend 6 million on that race when on the same day about 150 miles away in south carolina in the old john sprat seat, archie parnell was running he lost that race by 2700 votes. eight votes per precinct.

how much did they spend there, around $275,000. they sent out mailers, none of which had archie's name on them. did radio, they did tv, they didfacebook, all kinds of things. heck, they even wired $145,000 to the south carolina democratic party who then proceeded to wire it back to them for some unknown reason. i don't understand that. i do understand is this. what i understand is this. the democratic party, the dccc and the leadership, made a huge massive mistake, they could have elected at least one democrat last week and they made the mistake and didn't do it. >> or the other way you could say is that they lost the ossoff race. could have lost for free. i wanted quickly -- >> right. >> you wrote what i thought, before i get to your piece just the stats, the political report looked at the rating of the georgia six race and it's r plus

8. 71 republican held districts have a smaller gop lean than that, and democrats need 24 to control the house. to the point that was made, the ossoff campaign put out a memo where they did a postmortem. georgia 6 a deeply red district. tom price was consistently elected by double digit margins. they are twice as many republicans as democrats, no path to victory here without independents and some republicans. in this environment, fighting right wing groups. your thoughts on that. >> i thought it was reasonable. there was one thing that they were missing, joy, the lesson that could have been learned from south carolina. there's this crazy idea that like when you want to win an election you should spend money on your own people and not trying to convince people who don't like you. the ossoff campaign if there is one mistake, they didn't spend enough in the african-american and latino community. it's not a guarantee they were

going to win but they left that to a lot of outside groups. the reality is with so much early turnout and attention paid, republicans came out an voted early, the right leaning independents came out and voted early. ossoff overperformed and you speak to anybody there and that's what they say. they still missed the boat, you need to focus on black men, black women, latinos and single peop people. >> jason did write, it's a great piece, on white people generally don't vote for democratic party in georgia or any other southern state. to send a message to donald trump from georgia was a fantasy created by the plu screen and cgi who wanted a happy ending to the trump narrative. democrats are crying over losing in montana, kansas, south carolina and georgia. and they are acting as if there was some way they could have won when they to jason's point are

paying sole attention to flipping white voters who are republican. >> right. and so you know where i stand on this, joy. you know we had this conversation many times. i am a big believer in the you cannot maximize turnout which jon ossoff did, i don't want to -- but if you cannot maximize fully turnout among your own people, then it is pointless to then -- if you can't convince the people who are already primarily aligned with you, and just may not be motivated to vote, if you can't convince them you are going to have a heck of a time trying to convince people who are not predisposed to your position. so i do think that the thing the democrats need to focus on in my mind is massive voter registration and i think that let the outside group dues what what they do but you need have your campaign need as process for that as well. >> voter suppression is still an issue in this country and it's

not getting enough attention and it's only getting worse. so you judge gerrymandered districts already an uphill battle. combine that with the fact they are active and aggressive efforts going on to disenfranchise people and black, brown, asian, but not just that, white voters who align with the democratic party are having trouble. college students are not being able to use student i.d., gun owner's permit is eligible. early voting cut. so there is a massive assault on voting rights in this country and that's something that democrats need to aggressively attack. >> jason, to that point the thing the democrats do in that vain is say john lewis or do an add or have barack obama cut a radio add and then don't do anything. >> exactly. in john lewis is great and everybody heard his stories and he is wonderful but there is this problem. this is the difference, what they did in south carolina. it was very experimental. if the democrats had focused on south carolina it would have

gotten blown out. the reason they did well is it stuck up on the candidate. what they decided to do is develop targeted messages for african-americans. you said look, this affects heart disease which affects the black community. turnout has to be specific tike the people that you're talking to. and all too often democrats seem to think that telling black folk and telling hispanic hey there is an election is enough. that is the lesson that should be learned. it's not nancy pelosi's fault, nothing to do with him outside the district. it had to do with the basic facts. one last thing, when you poll someone out of congress to join your administration you only poll from safe districts. >> i think that's the other point. bringing nancy pelosi into it assumes that voters are sort of helpless victims that you can say nancy pelosi and go my god. isn't it also the case, you talk about ina lot, nationalizing these elections isn't also the way to go. you need to pick the district. who fits the district, run

somebody and spend some money. right? >> let me follow up on something jason said. the dnc did do that money to south carolina '05 and it worked pretty well. to that point though, yes, look, nancy pelosi you can blame her all day long. if i have hem roids it's not nancy pelosi's fault. however i'm also never running for an office no matter what so no one is going to be able to blame nancy pelosi for that. i can tell you this. in georgia that did work to a large degree. in south carolina even if south carolina, the democratic party here, had spent that money before they sent it back that would have never shown up on the reports until the middle of july well after archie parnell had been sworn in as a member of congress so. the pelosi effect wouldn't have mattered in south carolina. it simply wouldn't have. you do have to -- listen. tara is right. jason's right.

voter registration, calling out suppression, that stuff has to be a priority for the parties, building parties means building people. if you don't do that you can't win in south carolina, and so do the -- the dccc, they failed in both of these. >> i like the fact that you called out the dccc. nancy pelosi doesn't run these, it's the job to win these. and one more editorial thing. spending all of that money on tv as opposed to spending it on voter registration and ground game might be a problem too. if you did have hemorrhoids i bet you nancy would send you a designer pillow. that's how you know, she's going to send you something. >> i have a designer pillow. thank you. >> you guys are great. tara, jason, wish you were all here. coming up. former actor or acting attorney general sally yates.

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sally yates, the former acting attorney general whom donald trump fired for refusing to support his muslim travel ban is once again taking on the administration. in an op-ed in today's "washington post" she criticizes ag jeff sessions for ordering prosecutors to go back to seeking harsh mandatory drug punishments. sessions says it's the only way to fight resurgent crime. sessions wrote, that argument just isn't supported by the facts. while there is always room to debate the most effective approach to criminal justice, that debate should be on facts not fear. sally yates just joined twitter and among the few she's

following, her colleague vanetta gupta. congratulations of being one of the three people sally yates is holding on twitter. she's also following eric holder. why do you think that ag jeff sessions is so set on saying crime is on the rise and it isn't. >> they are ignoring the fact that the country remains at historic lows for a handful of crime. there are a number of cities that have seen a rise in crime, but for some reason this attorney general is intent on using fear mongering to double down in writing the op-ed last week in "the washington post." i think this is a result of a lot of criticism he was getting from conservative colleagues who are pointing to evidence on the

contrary that crime is down at historic lows. and there is no evidence that exists to establish that the violent crime upticks in a ha handful of cities we see has anything to do with the drug convictions on serving long sentences. it just defies the imagination. it seems like a highly politicized rhetoric that he's using. and it has dangerous consequences. >> and to say ideological, jeff sessions in the senate was known to be fixated on the issue of immigration and the idea of the violence in the cities. the op-ed you referred to that sally yates responded to says it's time to get tough again. he's claiming that somehow he's assuming the previous administration was tough on the -- soft on crime. let's listen to a may 25th speech that sessions gave in front of law enforcement officers in memphis, tennessee. >> every one of our citizens no matter who they are or where they live have a right to be safe in their homes and in their

communities. safe from gangs and rapists and carjackers and drug dealers. we must act to reverse this surge in violent crime and keep our country in every single community safe. >> and he is also claiming that the federal government softened its approach to drug enforcement, drug abuse and violent crimes. he's saying that as part of the administration you're a part of. how do you respond? >> it is highly ideological. in fact, i would say the attorney general holder, when he instituted smart on crime, which was aimed at preserving federal law enforcement resources to prosecute the most serious crimes and complex crimes, was really actually following the suit of countless states in the last several years, red states, blue states, that had recognized we needed more evidence and data-driven policies driving our criminal justice system rather

than a set of ideologists that had promoted mass incarceration for the last several years. and the smart on crime policies instituted at the justice department were aimed at the most serious offenses and were actually about trying to take away the harsh indiscriminate mandatory minimum that is have tied the hands of federal judges. you have conservative judges resign over the fact that the inability to calibrate sentences according to the facts of any given crime had just tied the hands of judges and resulted in the grossly unfair racially disproportionate system. and so, you know, to say that somehow this was soft on crime is really ignoring the fact that crime continued to go down even while the federal prison population started to go down. and that it's really important for the federal prosecutors to be able to have this at their discretion to calibrate sentences and to not impose long severe sentences for low level drug crimes.

that has been the case for far too long in this country. >> i want to put up the chart to show the violent crime rate in 1991 that peaked then. now it's been about cut in half. as we close, are you concerned about the message this sends to law enforcement, even though we're talking federal law enforcement in the case of these drug sentences. but even local law enforcement, we just saw the philando castillo verdict come back when he was not guilty. and many are appalled by law enforcement officers. you worried that the sessions regime is sending this message to local law enforcement officers about themselves and how they should behave versus the system? >> i am very worried about this. the attorney general doesn't just have a say-so over federal law enforcement. he has a bully pulpit. he has funding dollars that go to state and local. and his rhetoric is taking us back to former policies undoing the police work so important. the good news is i think reform

is going to continue because people see the attorney general for the idealogue that he is. and we need to continue on this path to keep us safe. >> thank you for joining me. stay here on msnbc. wouldn't go . are you there? he's probably on mute. yeah... gary won't like it. why? because he's gary. (phone ringing) what? keep going! yeah... (laughs) (voice on phone) it's not millennial enough. there are a lot of ways to say no. thank you so much. thank you! so we're doing it. yes! start saying yes to your company's best ideas. let us help with money and know-how, so you can get business done. american express open. so you can get business done. the toothpaste that helps new parodontax. prevent bleeding gums. if you spit blood when you brush or floss you may have gum problems and could be on the journey to much worse. help stop the journey of gum disease. try new parodontax toothpaste. ♪

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good day, everyone. i'm alex witt here at msnbc headquarters in new york. it is high noon here on the east, 9:00 a.m. out west. and day 156 of the trump administration. and the president wrapping up his criticism of president obama following an explosive "washington post" report about the obama administration's efforts to thwart and punish russia for meddling in the u.s. election. here's president trump in an interview to air tomorrow on fox news. >> here today for the first time that obama knew about russia a long time before the election. and he did nothing about it. but nobody wants to talk about that. if he had the information,