statement. i don't see that leading it. but other people are leading. >> other people say the level of anger is unprecedented, but it's unprecedented for a form er president he to come out the way president he obama has. he came out on facebook, you may have seen it. he said your bill, mr. president, is a massive transfer of wealth that will harm americans. it's mean. what do you say to the former president. >> he use d my term mean. that was my term because i want to see, and i speak from the heart, that's what i want to see. i want to see a bill with heart. >> i don't know about you guys, we have "star wars" fans here? >> big. big. >> you just -- you didn't know exactly where barack obama went, but if you saw he went to the island where luke went, and he has come back with these extraordinary jedi mind tricks. because everybody -- the 17 intel agents, everybody has been

trying to get him to admit, every reporter in washington, that the russians meddled with our elections. >> trump . >> trump, right. and barack obama comes back and says the russians meddled with our elections and he writes a tweet. the russians meddled with our elections. and he says your health care plan is mean. my health care plan is mean! it's unbelievable. >> the force is strong within him. >> the force is strong with this one. obama. strong the force is with his family. >> the president he was. >> let's break this down, mark halperin, how many people have tried to get donald trump to admit the russians meddled with the 2016 elections? >> many, many. >> i have a precise number here. 924,321. >> and so all obabarack obama h to do is just come back on the scene in his jedi garb, right. >> he just forces the president to say things about this health

care bill that really could hurt it politically. really hamper its passage. that's something that president obama really has power. >> he does have power, and we have a clip of him right here doing this. and it's unbelievable. >> these aren't the droids you're looking for. >> these aren't the droids we're looking for. >> it's unbelievable. eddie, that is an amazing power. he can use it for good or for ill. >> i'm not a "star wars" guy -- >> you should be. >> is it the case the force works depending upon the intelligence level? >> yes, it does. >> i just wanted to make sure. >> the force worked, of course, as we all know, worked on guards but not on jaba himself. >> the hut was too smart. >> the hut was impervious for mind tricks. not this trump fellow. that is incredible. first of all republican senators

and house members fighting for their political lives trying to figure out what to do and just because donald trump is so, so crazy and so jealous of barack obama, he gets him to admit that the health care bill is mean. that's my word. i'm the one that said it was mean. i'm the one that said it would throw seniors out in the street. i'm the one who said young children with prehe existing conditions were going to die. that was me. >> don't you give credit to barack obama for saying it was mean. i said it first. >> i go with broadcast news over "star wars. "i say it here. it comes out there. >> but think about that. think how damaging this is. we joke about it but what is the impact of the president doubling down on the house bill where they had their party in the beer gardens and now he's saying it's mean. what's the impact? >> you would think the president has a lot of ability in a moment like this where every vote counts the president would go and exert his influence, twist

arms. >> right. >> in order to pull people across to take a tough vote. how it is he's going to go and say you must take this vote on this bill i have denounced as mean, i don't know how that works. it seems like a strange sales pitch. >> the same thing with the intel agencies not being able to convince the president to do anything but fight the fact that the russians influenced the 2016 election. now barack obama has re-emerged on the scene and he's tweeting that the russians meddled in the election. >> it's very bizarre because this information has been out this publicly for so long and has been reported. and then suddenly because barack obama says it's the law of the land, i don't understand the deny, the deny, the deny when it just would be so politically expedient to show an iota of concern about the russian meddling and move on. >> a long time ago he never did, of course. in fact, he never brought it up to comey.

he's never brought it up to anybody. >> it seems every time we encount they are kind of contradiction it's motivated by his own self-are interest. with "the washington post" reports something that's critical, it's fake news. if it reports something that benefits him, it's something that we should embrace. it's just driven by him. >> it's crazy. mika has the morning off. with us we have senior political analyst for nbc news and msnbc mark halperin, john heilemann, former aide to the george w. bush white house elise jordan, and chairman of the department of african-american studies at princeton, he heddie, and nbc n capitol hill reporter casey hunt. also with us from washington, and we might as well give you a quick swing at this, what do republicans on the hill think when you have the president who has them running around ignoring the russians meddling in our election side of it, instead let's just look at the leaks and on the other side the political fight possibly of some of their

lives on health care reform. they jump over a cliff or president trump and then president trump over the weekend says the bill they passed was mean. >> reporter: look, i think they would rather he maybe stay out f of it a little bit for a little while while they finish counting the votes. there are some people he could call that would help. i think there is a feeling he is not aware of the landscape and could potentially do more harm than good, shall we say, if he were to try to make changes to this. i think there's a sense he doesn't necessarily have his head around the policy that will lead to them getting 50 votes here. >> people on the hill want him to stay the hell away because he doesn't know what he's doing? >> reporter: well, i'm trying to be more polite than that, honestly. i think that, yeah, the white house, the vice president, the vice president's team, mark short, the legislative people,

they know where every vote is. they are talking to mitch mcconnell's office every day. but the president's unpredictable public comments, i think, have a very real chance of throwing the whole thing for a loop. >> if you're susan collins in maine, if you're dean heller in nevada, if you're -- especially these moderates, or kov/moderates, and the president is calling the health care bill is mean. we need to put more money in there. that makes your decision easy. they will get absolutely hammered not only by aarp but their opponents for saying you voted for a bill that even donald trump said was mean. >> there's a conservative case for a different kind of way to try to provide health insurance to the american people no one in the party is making it right now and the president is only making it more difficult for them to even try. you've got rand paul and then a bunch of more moderate republicans saying this bill is inadequate in lots of ways. and i don't know if it's for the

party to pass it because they're not becoming close to defending what they're trying to do which i'll just say is a partial repeal of the affordable care act. >> the problem, john heilemann, if i'm sitting in congress as a conservative voter, let's say i'm a conservative, this bill isn't conservative. >> no. >> let's say i'm a moderate. this bill is mean. so this is the worst of all worlds. you've got a bill that is neither conservative nor is it compassionate. you've got a mean, nonconservative bill. >> that doesn't repeal the affordable care act and on top of everything else the president previously when he used the word mean it was in a closed door session. it was reported but we'd never seen him on camera. we have him on camera giving every democrat who is going to run in any race in the country a beautiful piece of footage to put in an ad. so even if you're a republican worried about trump voters, you've now got the president saying the thing they're about to vote for if they vote for it is mean.

they have him on camera saying it. >> and, elise, again, he was bragging about it. it's mean. those are my words. >> well, he knows in his heart he has to know this is not a populous bill. it's influenced by the tax cuts they're giving for their big donors. he's just governing like yet another big government republican. >> that he is. all right. majority leader mitch mcconnell says he hopes it to pass thank you the vote on health care. at the moment five senate republicans have said they just can't back the bill. some conservatives are concerned it's not enough of a repeal of obamacare as we heard just a minute ago. but moderates also are not onboard like nevada's dean heller who is concerned about cuts to medicaid. heller is up for re-election in the state hillary clinton carried in the presidential election, and now the pro-trump

pac priorities -- it's funny when you watch somebody stumble into something they're just no good at it. they're just stupid, right? it's like a donkey are trying to work an iphone. they're going to launch a $7 million ad blitz. have you seen a donkey try to work an iphone? of course not, you're a yankee. >> in "shrek 7." >> exactly. but they're actually launching a seven-figure ad. trump. against republican senators. >> really constructive use of resources. >> and it sends a message to all the other republicans on capitol hill which is, you know, fine, okay. is that how you want to play cowboy? we'll play that way. bill clinton you could impeach him on a thursday and he would go golfing with you on friday. he knew he was always going to need your vote the next week. "the washington post" is also reporting that other groups have already been up in the air for a

very long time in nevada with ads like these. >> all right, let's get started. you're both over 50? >> yes. >> okay, that will cost you. >> why? >> the new health care bill in congress. if it you're over 50 insurance companies can charge you five times more. it's an age tax. >> senator heller, when this happens, she isn't thinking about the health care bill in congress. she isn't thinking that it will force her to choose between filling his prescriptions or paying their mortgage. she isn't thinking that when her premiums go up they'll lose their health insurance, and she shouldn't have to but you should, senator heller. >> i have to tell you, our party, if they pass this health care bill, they're going to get routed next year. we're going to see this around the clock. >> why do something that will

make premiums go up? i just don't get it. action for the sake of action even if it's action that is going to negatively impact your party? >> right. premiums will go up, i mean, everything, deductibles are worse, rates are worse, everything gets more difficult. again, for the very people that donald trump said he was going to help out. for the very people that in large part have been the core of a lot of these republicans' support. the core of my support. the, quote, wine and cheese republicans didn't vote for me. it was working class republicans. >> it goes back to an earlier point about the conflict between conservatives and moderate republicans and you say what's the bridge here? what's the bridge has -- the bridge has everything to do with tax cuts, the connection between the two constituencies here that are in conflict. in some ways -- >> the donor class -- >> if you look at its

particulars it's a tax cut bill, when we look at that the two various constituencies can come together. >> i haven't talked to a republican who said it's worth it. >> it's a model of clarity compared to this. >> a unified party about how the government, the federal government, should interact with the health care markets. i don't understand this piece of legislation, the conservative vision of lower coverage. no one is talking about a vision. the loudest voices say this is a bad idea. his defense is not honest about what it will be.

>> you must not vote for the bill and we will not get supreme court justices in the future. no, that's just the opposite. if they pass these bills, hen nobody likes then they're going to lose the house and they're going to lose the senate. garland will be the next supreme court justice. >> think about everythinging mark said is true -- >> which is fine with most americans, by the way. >> on top of everything else, it's going to be all of that confusion, all of those arguments not being made set against some very stark, very large number that's going to not be materially different. could be worse maybe than the house number, which was pretty devastating. on top of all of that, this atom bomb will go off now with no positive arguments being made for the bill. it's brutal. >> yeah, kasie hunt, why? it's a question people are always coming up and asking me why do this now?

why force it through? why write it with no transparency and then try to jam it through the senate, a bill that's going to be wildly unpopular. >> reporter: the conventional wisdom coming out of mcconnell's office seems to be they feel like it's much more politically wise to do something than nothing. but i have to tell you, joe, i do think that there is something of a fundamental misunderstanding of what's going on in the electorate. we talked about this over and over again when president trump won and everybody was so surprised. not everybody on this show but a lot of people were very surprised. the democratic party is moving way to the left on this issue. way over towards single pair, way farther than where they were when they passed the affordable care act in the first place. and all these new republican voters that backed president trump, they're not looking for policies like this. and while, yes, trump ran on repealing obamacare, he also promised not the to touch

medicaid, not to touch medicare. that's what i don't understand completely the disconnect between what the president thinks of this and where republican leaders are. it just does not seem to me this is a bill that this president ran on in 2016. >> it's not. you can go down the list of the promises donald trump made, and it's just objectively you can line them up here and everything he promised to voters in wisconsin, michigan, ohio, and pennsylvania he's violated with these bills. and on top of that, eddie, only 14% of americans support these bills. and we don't even have the cbo numbers out on the senate bill. it's probably going to be even worse. >> and we look at the folks who will be devastated by it if it's passed. we think about half of america's children are on medicaid. we think about close to 40%. about 40% of the children are on medicaid. poor folk, particularly in the

south where we're from, are disproportionately on medicaid. >> if i'm a conservative on the floor and i'm going to go out and vote for my party's bill, it had better give me something i can go back to my district. listen, i know this is tough medicine and not everybody is going to be helped by this bill, but this is what the bill does. it's actually -- it brings in free market forces and most importantly it lowers the cost curve for our health care industry over the next 20 years and stops us from becoming bankrupt. this bill doesn't do that. it doesn't bring in free market forces, so even as a conservative where i might be willing to make some really tough calls on one side, if i get something back on the other, this bill doesn't even do that. it doesn't make the system better. we still careen towards bankruptcy. all it does is transfers wealth, about a trillion dollars in wealth from the poor to the

rich. >> and how disturbing is it that this is going to reorder a sixth of our nation's economy at a time when a lot of people are real willy struggling and they're doing it without any real debate and they just want to jam it -- get it done before the fourth of july. >> right. and we have kasie, we have so many quotes from republicans who are concerned about barack obama's administration not being transparent, about their health care bill. are you going to go back to '93 and have all the "wall street journal" editorials attacking hillary clinton and the clinton care commission for not being transparent and, my gosh, the complaints it in '93, the complaints again in 2009, and yet here this is the most secretive, closed process we've ever had for health care reform. there's not even a close second. and yet they push ahead.

>> reporter: look, i covered all of the markups for the affordable care act, all the hearings, i mean, hours and hours and hours, and at the end of the day, yes, they cracked the final deal behind closed doors in harry reid's office and as we know the story they pass ed it on christmas eve but it was after a year and change of debate and discussion and back and forth about the public option tax credits, this, that, the other thing. this is a very, very quick process that has involved a very small amount of people to the point where those of us who have covered this as a policy issue for years aren't even sure the right question to ask because we don't know what they're talking about and there are republican senators who are essentially saying the same thing about it. and i think that's the thing to watch this week, in my view. you heard ron johnson say it over the weekend that what they want to do here is delay this. if you start to get more republicans who are saying, look, i just don't want to do that this week, yeah, it'll be a

delay but it's potentially also a death knell for the bill because if they delay it this week -- and mcconnell knows that. that's part of the reason for this timetable. they're going to go home for the fourth of july recess, see all of these town halls, a lot of anger and a potential saping of the political will and then all of a sudden you're in august and september and we're back to governing by crisis. >> it doesn't work that way. the front of "the daily news," one of the papers the president reads, has the headline "are revolt." we're not quite there yet, are we, kasie? >> reporter: not yet. >> they're starting to move away from it, aren't they? >> reporter: i think you are seeing early signs there are people who at least feel like, okay, let's just take a breath. are let's slow this down. and if that starts to become the most predominant narrative i think there is a risk but lead er ship will have to put this off. if they do that it could have more far-reaching consequences. >> all right, and one more piece of information, the most recent kaiser poll is showing for the first time in 79 polls, more

jedi mind tricks, support for the affordable care act has passed 50%. just 30% of americans support replacement plans. look at that. again, so the jedi mind trick was not just specific to the president of the united states, he comes back and -- >> this republican bill is apparently not repealing or replacing obamacare, not pres t presenting a free market future for health care, not doing anything -- it is doing one thing, though. it's making obamacare more popular. >> great job. great job, republicans. >> strong with the force, this one is. still ahead on "morning joe" senator al franken joins us on set as republican colleagues push for a health care vote is late they are week. also, t"the new york times" trid to catalog every lie donald trump told since getting sworn in as president of the united states. and takes it up on an entire page.

we'll try to sort through that. but first here is bill karins with a check on the forecast. bill, what are we looking at? joe, we blew it. >> why? >> this is the week we should have been on vacation. the most gorgeous week of the summer. >> oh, wow. it's still really possible. >> it still is possible. it is still early. >> i have to go to -- i'll see you soon. what have we got? >> it's low humidity, sunny, beautiful especially considering all the humidity and the rain we had last week. there's not a lot of bad weather to be had. we have a line of thunderstorms in west texas and some dotted storms on the gulf. the only headline we have is the end of the heat wave in the southwest. remember, talking about those all last week with the record high temperatures, well, today 11 million people at risk of the excessive heat warning. this is it. after today we drop the temperature back down to where it should be. one more really hot day for our friends from phoenix to vegas. this is about as enjoyable as we get. new york city 79 degrees. low humidity, beautiful, cool, crisp morning through new

england. what's different about this, typically we don't get he the cool, dry air down into the southeast. it is nice all the way down through southern georgia. it's not until you get to florida we get the showers and storms. it's not just one day. it continues with us for numerous days. only 77 tomorrow in chicago, atlanta only 83. this is about as beautiful as you get even into wednesday for everyone pretty much east of the mississippi with the exception right on the gulf coast and in florida. get out there and enjoy what should be a beautiful morning and should be a gorgeous monday afternoon. top of the rock in new york city about three or four gorgeous days in a row heading your way, big apple. enjoy it. ray's always been different. last year, he said he was going to dig a hole to china. at&t is working with farmers to improve irrigation techniques. remote moisture sensors use a reliable network

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[ no[ laughing ] an ] it's driving me crazy come on. [ spitting from tongue ] time for my secret weapon. sports, movies, tv, ah, show me music to distract a minion. [ voice remote click ] oh! [ pharrell starts to play ] [ minion so happy to see screen ] ahh! i'm pretty smart. ahhh! [ lots of minions ] [ mooing sound ] show me unicorns. [ click noise for tv ] ahhh! that works too. find your awesome with the xfinity x1 voice remote. see despicable me 3. in theaters in june. i don't think anybody knows it was russia that broke into the dnc. she is saying russia, srussia, russia. maybe it was. it could be russia but it could

also be china, lots of other people. it could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds. anytime anything wrong happens they like to say the russians -- she doesn't know if it's the russians doing the hacking. maybe there is no hacking. hacking is very interesting. once they hack, if you don't catch them in the act, you're not going to catch them. they have no idea if it's russia, china, or somebody -- it could be somebody sitting in a bed some place. personally it could be srussia. i don't really think it is, but who knows? i don't know either. they don't know and i don't know. i think we ought to get on with our lives. i think the computers have complicated lives very greatly. the whole age of computer has made it where nobody knows exactly what's going on. >> the age of the computer. computers have made it all so very complicated. i guess it's one way to look at it. if you're from 1948. last year nbc news reported

president trump received his first intelligence briefing on august 17th about russia's efforts to meddle in our elections, but he continued to doubt their findings even after the intel community went public on october 7th. but now president trump is seemingly acknowledged russia's meddling in the 2016 election. it comes in response to "the washington post" report we first featured on our show friday about the obama administration's five-month debate over how they should respond to that meddling. "the post" reported president obama deliberated and had some options including cyber attacks on russian infrastructure, the release of intel that might embarrass putin. in the end the president did little to nothing. that came after the election on december 29th. in response to "the post" reporting friday, president trump tweeted, just out the obama administration knew far in advance of november about

election meddling by russia. let me say that again. they knew about the election meddling by srussia. did nothing about it. why? in all caps. saturday tweeted again. since the obama administration was told way before the 2016 elections the russians were m meddling, why not action? focus on them not t. yo, not t. just like mr. t. what's your favorite mr. t st y story? i've got one. do you have a favorite mr. t story? >> mine comes in episode four. >> mine is in real life. he moves into the swankiest neighborhood in chicago known for their beautiful trees. mr. t, he cuts down every tree in the neighborhood. >> why? why did he do that? >> because he doesn't like trees. he's mr. t. >> he didn't want to compete with another t word. >> i liked him best as clever lang. >> fantastic. speaking with fox news, president trump said "the washington post" report was the first time he had heard about any of this very bad news. >> i just heard 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. the cia gave him information on russia a long time before they even, you know, before the election. and i hardly see it. it's an amazing thing. in other words the question, if he had the information, why didn't he do something about it? he should have done something about it. but you don't read that. it's quite sad. >> again, and that is shot from "the fox and friend" bathroom cam. he's on there so much. he's on there nonstop. they have a different camera in it every room. they just press it. >> it's a good strategy, though. this press strategy of putting him in front of such a sycophant and letting him keep talking and digging deeper and deeper and deep er, this is more harmful than if he actually sat down and had a legitimate interview. >> i ask you the question -- >> it's not helpful.

>> i ask you the question -- >> yes? >> he consumes a lot of information. >> can we say for people watching, donald trump was briefed. when he said i did not know about this strange russia -- i am just an innocent caveman, he knew! they told caveman lawyer like six months ago. go ahead. >> that was going to be my question. he consumes -- he watches tv, he consumes a lot of media. do you think he's seriously claiming this is the first time he knew about it or that he -- he's just say that go for effect? >> i think he has issues. >> really? >> i'm not sure that's a fully responsive answer to my question. >> i think he has issues. i don't know if they're memory issues. i don't know if they are what they are. >> they called him a day trader. >> i called him day trader. >> he's just trying to get through the interview at that moment. but, you know, because the system has not made him pay a price for changing his position on things like this, big and

small, he keeps doing it. >> maybe he just doesn't consume a lot of intel. i guess the best source to figure this out for him might be head of the cia. let's hear what he says. >> i'm with the president nearly every day. we have 35 or 40 minutes on his schedule, it almost always runs long which is great, great questions. he is a serious consumer of the product the intelligence community delivers and i appreciate that. president obama consumed his intelligence in a different way. president trumdemanding of the intelligence community. counts on myself and other leaders to deliver those answers for him. >> okay, he does consume a lot of intelligence, so i am baffled because he was told a very long time ago that the russians were meddling in this election. >> that dove tails with the

report he just lies. he's telling a lie. he's telling a lie as he's trying to, in some ways, recruit news that in some ways he thinks recuperates himself. >> let's move it from donald trump to barack obama. a lot of people have been asking the question over the weekend, if barack obama knew they were meddling, why didn't he do something? why did he just sit back and let them keep doing it? because, yes, they were trying to undermine american democracy and once again barack obama just sort of sat back and let it run its course. >> joe, this is what frustrated republicans for eight years with his foreign policy. the reticence to ever take action, leading from behind, classic leading from behind in the runup to this election and sit around and talk about the russia problem but not actually do anything. >> but, again, though, mark, he knows that the russians are not only trying to influence the

election but spes cifically tryg to hurt hillary clinton to help donald trump get elected president, and he does next to nothing. i mean, you had tom cotton back in the spring warn about this, complain, push, say do something about russia meddling in our affairs. they did nothing. >> adam schiff, one of the top house democrats on intelligence yesterday said he was concerned, and he pressed for action. i think in general this president's policy, and in lots of things, if there's no good options, no obvious option, err on the side of doing less. in this case part of why theyered on the side of doing less they did not want to play into donald trump's rhetoric the election was fixed. >> and in "the washington post" piece, one paraphrase of obama's attitude that president obama's attitude that mark just described is don't make a situation worse. and so, a, they assumed hillary

clinton was going to win the election. they thought if they did this -- >> actually, that was the error. >> if they put the thumb on the scale that trump would then claim this was another way they were rigging the election and on top of that they didn't know if they provoked russia by taking -- by making a bigger deal out of it what russia would do as a counter measure and they were concerned about that. i'm not saying that they were right but i think that was one of their fears was this could escalate and could become more damaging and more dangerous. >> the russians are trying to elect someone -- they know -- the obama administration knew they were trying to elect donald trump. that's where the president of the united states, the intel agencies and everybody jump in if you have a foreign power, some would say an enemy, trying to influence the outcome of your election, do something. >> it seems to me there was an overweight given to the politics

of the issue and then there was, in some ways, i think, a kind of reticence to be perceived as someone who is, in effect, handing the presidency to hillary clinton. this idea of paying attention to the politics and not -- and thinking the process itself was secure. that it wasn't undermined. >> this is an attack on the united states of america and our democracy. you don't sit back and have a college seminar at that point. >> they let politics supersede national security. >> not necessarily, though. again, not defending the actions they took or didn't take. >> they face the same decision jim comey faced. either decision is political in a way. acting and not acting are both political. comey's decision was i'm going to act because if i don't act i'm going to be seen as being political if it comes out after the election that, you know, we found these e-mails and thought about reopening the investigation. the obama administration's thought was if we act, hillary

clinton wins the election and donald trump says she won in a rigged way. and so i don't think it was any more or less political to act or not act, but in this case they let the russians do this without speaking out very much or taking any action. >> once again this comes down to the fact that everybody in the administration, most everybody in the media thought hillary clinton was going to win. so they made their faulty assumptions based on that, and the russians were allowed to influence the election. anyway, much more ahead including the must-read opinion pages. we're back in a moment. it's ok that everybody ignores me when i drive. it's fine. because i get a safe driving bonus check every six months i'm accident free. because i don't use my cellphone when i'm driving.

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with us at the table the director of domestic studies at stanford university and research fellow at the harvard institution, lonnie chen. thank you for being with us. our must read opinion pages and start with ross who writes for "the new york times." the senate bill does indeed improve upon the house bill in several important ways but that's not enough to make the new version an electoral winner for republicans. probably not. at best one might say it's political suicide attempt that is less likely to succeed.

republicans could pass this bill, flaws and all, and then use the projected cost savings for a tax reform that's actually organized around tax cuts, a larger earned income tax credit and other measures that would make up for the thinking of working class coverage with more cash in paychecks and bank accounts. if that happens i will recant my opposition to this bill, but i don't expect any such recantation to be required because the republican party remains what it is. lonnie, from the beginning of this health care debate when you would ask anybody on the hill, why are you starting with health care? this is a deathtrap. we have to do this first and do tax cuts later. it's almost like this bill which reorders one-sixth of the economy isn't really about the health care bill and pass iing .

it's about getting to the tax reform bill. >> part of the challenge is that they really underestimated the amount of opposition within the republican party. you think about medicaid reform, about the tax subsidies. there actually is significant disagreement between republicans about how to deal with these things. for seven years it was easy to say, look, i want to repeal and replace obamacare. you have to get into the substance. and that can be quite complicated. >> how does the administration administer a law they disagree with? >> i think their operative strategy so far has been to not tip their hand regarding whether they're going to go forward. there's this big debate about cost sharing subsidies. in addition to the tax credits that go to the very low-income folks who participate on the obamacare exchanges. are you going to pay them or not pay them? are you going to move forward with trying to make the sate exchanges work or not work.

we're going to try to get together with democrats and figure out what are things we might be able to do. >> we're trying to decipher what trump is thinking. i don't think donald trump, the president, even knows what he's thinking. when you hear him talk, this is a mean bill. i like to spend more money. it seems to me if these republican bills go down the president is in a place and could get democrats in and say what he's saying now. i want to spend more money not a mean bill. the way he seems to be governing, he puts his name on stuff and the content is trump, it's trump care. that's all that matters. who are the big winners and who

are the big losers here if this passes? i'm favorable because the sustainability of pedestrian cade do rely on some kind of reform. remember, this bill actually does increase spending on medicaid. we're going to spend more on medicaid in 2027 than we spend today. medicaid is growing faster than the u.s. economy. there are a lot of sympathetic cases here, the program as it exists today is not going to be sustainable. i would argue in this the long run this is a really important thing to be doing now. >> who will be the big winners and who will be the biggest losers? >> i this think a lot of middle class americans will be winners. under obamacare their premiums

have increased because the marketplace is not healthy. arizona, 116% increase in premiums year over year between 2016 and 2017. nationally between 2014 and today. not sustainable for the middle class. >> what about the working class? what about working class americans that actually benefited a great deal from being able to have obamacare? >> i think the house bill was problematic for them, no question about it. the senate bill does something clever, we're going to it adjust base d on income. taking it down to the poverty line, more people will be eligible for subsidies under the senate bill than under obamacare. that is true. it's not perfect. there are some things they have not been able to get right yet.

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kick off the final work of week before summer break. it's just justice anthony kennedy everyone is asking about whether he's going to announce his retirement this week. kennedy turns 81 next month and served for nearly 30 years has given no public sign he's going to step down. this year at a reunion he reportedly didn't talk about the

retirement leading some to speculate he'll stay on. this is a guessing game. >> there's the reporting mixed on this matter. genuine, i have no idea what's going on inside his head. there are a lot of these justices getting to the point where they are weighing out the calculations about when and whether to go. it doesn't seem to me justice kennedy is going to be in a hurry to leave the court. at the same time he may have health issues we don't know about. who knows? >> i have no idea. but tomorrow we'll spend three hours talking about this. >> casey hunt, if that is the case, then we could be lined up for quite another bruising battle if kennedy justice kennedy were to retire, many people would say that would be the fifth vote to overturn roev. wade and other cases and locusts would come down from the heavens and the earth would go dark for

eight days and it would be political warwarfare. >> well, when kneel gorsuch was appointed the liberal base and the democratic party essentially pushed chuck schumer so hard they changed the rules in the senate for how this happens, and there was less at stake from a political perspective. if anthony kennedy were to retire, i think the kind of war that would erupt -- i'm not even sure chuck schumer would know what to do and democrats who would have to carry the mabtl of trying to pose whoever president trump would appoint. there would be so much at stake, but the reality is there's not a lot they'll be able to do at this point. >> casey hunt, thank you. we'll see you hopefully tomorrow. coming up, the president acknowledge's russia's mettling but he won where else but on

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identification. >> we don't need to see his identification. >> these aren't the droids you're looking for. >> these aren't the droids you're looking for. >> he said it's a massive transfer of wealth. it's going to harm americans. it's mean. what do -- >> those are my terms. mean. >> very good. welcome back to "morning joe." this is our "star wars" mind tricks edition. it's monday, june 26th. mika has the morning off. she's watching the entire seven "star wars" episodes this morning including also "the force awakens, maybe one of the best. >> she's never watched "star wars." she refuses to watch any of it. >> she likes to keep her distance from american culture. >> i guess so. >> it keeps her pure. >> whatever. with us we have senior political analysts, mark helpon and

national affairs analyst, and contributor to "time" magazine with us. also with us political reporter robert costa. let's set up the big week, possibly bloody for republicans on the floor of the senate fighting to get this health care bill passed. if you look at the daily news, one of the papers the president is supposed to read or look at the pictures, the headline says revolt. i'm not sure we're there yet, but the president is juggling a lot of concerns from conservatives and also moderates . get us up to date. >> the president is juggling issues, but so is mitch mcconnell. they are trying to get moderates and conservatives to sign on the health care bill. a bill the president called mean.

and so there's mixed signals from the west wing in terms of there's a superpac that's pressuring moderate republican of nevada to vote for the bill at the same time the president says he doesn't want to cut medicaid. this bill phases out the expansion. mcconnell has a challenge. he wants the vote. if longer it lasts the more people could bolt from the bill. he's trying to move before july 4th. >> we hear conservatives complaining. isn't it moderates like dean heller and also susan collins in maine that are going to have the biggest problems with these medicaid cuts? >> they are. the medicaid expansion under the affordable care act is appealing to a lot of senators that have significant medicaid populations. and these senators are not just lone actors. they're getting pressure from the governor.

the poorer population, the costs politically for senators for going against medicaid the problem. it's an example of how the affordable cair act is not just being republicans can rally against. it's taking root in a lot of states and uprooting it has a kobs kwe consequence. the governor in nevada, extraordinarily popular. a republican. i'm sure when he's running for reelection, that's somebody dean heller would want on his side. susan collins, also popular. let's get susan collins up. this is what she had to say over the weekend. >> i'm very concerned about the cost of insurance for older people with serious chronic illnesses. and the impact of the medicaid cuts on our state governments, the most vulnerable people in our society, and health care

providers such as our rural hospitals and nursing home. most of whom are very dependent on the medicaid program. so threading that needle is going to be extremely difficult. >> and something that i'm sure bob costa, the senator from maine saw over the weekend, there's a study that said in portland, maine, a 60-year-old with a middle income with pay $290 more, that's a 208% increase. premiums will be 38% of income. certainly that's numbers people have been to be making. it seems like older less affluent seniors will take the hit here. >> there's another point to consider. if these moderates like dean heller in nevada, they have big donors in the big donor community who are leaning on them to vote for this bill to help out mcconnell, but one

thing i picked up on capitol hill is something interesting. moderates like senator collins, like senator johnson, he's more moderate in wisconsin, though she's conservative. senator heller, they don't like always being counted onto put the bills over the top. among the center right circles in the senate, they're saying to the leaders, look, maybe try to get the conservatives on this first. they always seem to be the ones who determine how these things play out. why is it always the moderates who have to be counted onto switch. >> you look right there, mckous can i, here are the republican no votes. in alaska, this is a tough vote. susan collins in maine, a tough vote for her. you look at west virginia, is there a state in america that depends more on medicate than west virginia? if there is, there can't be many more? >> no. and all the senators have

concerns that might be able to be addressed with side deals. we'll see that in the next couple hours and days. i think the only way they'll vote and pass it is if the senators are told seven years of promises are on the line. you have to vote for a bill that you don't like. that's the only way it's going to pass. they're not going to change the substance enough. >> that would usually work except for the fact that the president of the united states told all the house members this was the most important bill, what a great day. he smiled. they laughed. they had the celebration in the rose garden and then the president turned around and called it mean. not only in private meetings with senators but called it mean this past weekend when obama used his jed di mind trick on him. >> that's right. and waited eight or nine hours before he tweeted. he was tweeted about russia before that. the republicans, especially the administration, tried to discredit the cbo for the house

bill. we're expecting their report out today. one wonders how much pressure does it take? a lot to be seen out of this bill. >> you look at republicans in blue states that -- ron johnson in wisconsin, surprising he won this past time. you look in pennsylvania, republicans held on in pennsylvania's well. rob portman, in ohio. these are states that turned in part because you had same people voting for barack obama that voted for donald trump these times. these are the people impacted if this medicaid bill goes through. >> i would understand if the senators are willing to hitch their wagon with this big donor bill. you were hearing from robert said and how big donors are

leaning on undecided senators pressuring them to give them a huge tax cut. it really has crony capitalism at its worst. >> there are a lot of people out there, and people i respect a great deal, and been fans of through their political career, somebody like pat toomey. goes on a sunday show and says there are no cuts. that basically sounds like donald trump, and the facts do not line up with that. they don't even come close to lining up with that. how does pat toomey maintain support in the fiphilly suburbsf you go along with a bill that is this bad to a lot of your constituents? >> i think it will be difficult for him to do that. i think the -- we talk about this in a million different ways. the bill is incredibly -- the house bill is unpopular. it's just an incredibly

unpopular piece of legislation. there's nothing with broad support among the american republican. the senate bill is so much like the house bill, people are trying to find reasons to be for it because they spent eight years saying they were going to do this thing, and now they've been presented with a bill that is unpopular in almost every way. it defies logic. >> the health gop health care bill passed last month. 16% think it's a good idea. 48% think it's a bad idea. 35% no opinion. bob, there might be some people supportive of the trump administration thinking why are you guys being so negative about this health care bill? all we're doing is stating the fact that this will likely be a disaster for the republican party. i mean, democrats should hope this bill passes and gets signed, because they will control washington for quite some time. >> the question is does it get

defined as a medicaid bill? or does it get defined as a tax and health care bill? if it's medicaid, it's complicated. the one thing i'm paying attention to as a reporter is medicaid funding. how is medicaid actually going to be funded? i think the only way i'm told from the top sources near the white house and on capitol hill is this. moderates want to have assured medicaid funding. they're going to talk about medical consumer price index. if medical costs rise, they want to make sure the medicaid funding rises as well instead of freezing the funding levels like many republicans want to do. that's what i'm watching. >> bill? >> the only way this will be a political success for the party is if it's defined as a bill that actually improves the health care situation for americans. and they're not even making that case, and they're not even having to confront the massive tax cuts for the wealthy in this

bill. >> for republicans who are thinking oh, our base is going to love this, we're going to cut a trillion dollars in benefits from medicaid, working class people, and we're going to transfer it to the richest 1% of americans, maybe that's what they're saying so their senators and also to their congressman, but that's going to be deeply offensive even to the republican base. during hurricane katrina, we would go over and provide -- bring over water, our church, and water, and health care goods and diapers and whatever, sunscreen, whatever people in mississippi and louisiana needed at the time. there were a lot of people with bush bumper stickers on the back of their pickup trucks when we were going over there. after about the third or fourth day, they tore them off because they were embarrassed because the government was doing nothing.

there is no way that a lot of people in the evangelical base of this republican party are not going to be offended by taking a trillion dollars away from the poorest americans and giving it to the richest republican donors. >> and donald trump has this hands off approach, because he doesn't have the kind of policy team in place where he's dictating policy. he's outsourced it essentially to congress, and he's just disavowed the populism that brought him into office. this is the big government republicanism that the base rejected. they wanted donald trump was able to come in and take over the party because they wanted something different, and instead he's fallen into the same trap. >> and we have a health care bill about tax cuts if you talk to a lot of people on capitol hill who said from the beginning we have to do this health care bill first to get the ftax reform. your bill should probably be about one sixth of the economy.

anyway, "the new york times," i'm sure you saw this, tried to catalog every lie trump told publicly at president of the united states. their grand total? 99 lies. trump said something untrue every day for the first 40 days of his presidency. while they limited themselves to falsehoods, others started while he was still president-elect. remember carrier? word is their manufacturing plant in indianapolis are now bracing for layoffs next month despite being told by donald trump he had worked out a deal to save 1100 of their jobs. >> over 11100 jobs. that number is going to go up substantially as they expand this plant. the 1100 is going to be a minimum number. >> all right. so here we are seven months later. the 600 of those jobs are actually headed to the south of the border to mexico. this according to president, the local union who says the jobs

are still leaving. nothing has changed. carrier did receive $7 million in incentives from the state to keep the plant open and employ roughly 1,000 people. this comes a day after the ford motor company announced it's moving the production of the focus model to china. they cancelled the original plans to move the plant to mexico. they didn't move the plant to mexico. they moved it to china. >> and i doubt we'll hear the president talking about this. this speaks to the larger conundrum to this president. it's harder to find what he says is truth as opposed to exaggerating the obvious. the carrier deal was made before he came president but people said it's fine. take the win. he said this thing with regard to the europe as well, and the eu, and nato. oh, it's because i said

something they started contributing more. no, that happened bf tefore the fact. this becomes an issue, do we fact check him, and he hasn't paid a price for anything he's said. >> how do you sort through the story in the "times". >> >> we say he doesn't pay a price and he set a new standard for saying things that aren't true as president. big, medium and small on this jobs stuff early on people said, well, this is isn't a policy. they are just trying to create photo ops. it's not. you have to deal with the factors making it for employers irresistible to move jobs overseas. >> what impact is it having at the end of the day on donald trump? the lies? a lot of people think he's got this master plan, that he's going to numb americans by lying so much that pretty soon they

will accept anything him. this is just a genius master stroke. people who know him know he's not day trading. he's minute trading. >> you'd be surprised to think i don't think that's a correct assessment. undermining the credibility of the office, and at some point, we've seen it minorly, but at some point we'll see a time the president has to go in front of the american people and say a very bad thing has happened. you need to trust me as i tell you what's happened, and i'm going to ask you for sacrifice, and if the president lies long enough, people will say we don't believe you. at the same time some of the lies have fed into the some of the crises he's krcurrently facing. some of the lies he's told got him into the messes he faces. it doesn't seem like there's a great master plan going on here. >> i don't think there is.

and robert costa, i noticed the pace of the chaos has slowed down just a bit, because i now when i get breaking news alerts on my phone, a month ago, i isn't isn't suspect something bad happened in the west wing. now it's five summer tips on treating sunburn, or more news you can use than donald trump says he's going to blow up mars next week. they seem to be leveling out. i wonder if a lot of it has to do with the fact that he's finally surrounded himself be lawyers, and he has been told many of his tweets and many of his lies in the past now have actually put him in a sort of legal jeopardy where he needs to be a bit more cautious. are you hearing any of that out of the white house? >> a little bit. the president's twitter account, of course, is something he controls and he's getting

counsel to not weigh in to legal situations but he does. politically, in most respects this is the same team with him on inauguration day. michael flynn is gone. the brief communications director michael dubke began and ended. reince priebus, jared kushner, kellyanne conway, ivanka trump, this is the group. this is who orbits the president of the united states who continues to really govern by gut instinct more than anything else. >> any evidence that what the new york times reported yesterday, the trump lies, that the misinformation that seems to be coming from the white house, either by design or just by cluelessness, is that starting to have a significant impact on the hill where not only mitch mcconnell and paul ryan but also people that work under them, are starting to realize more and more that they're on their own if they're going to pass legislation, they're not going to be able to rely on donald

trump being a steady force on the other side of pennsylvania avenue? >> joe, credibility is always a key issue. and politicians on both sides of the aisle should have to be credible at this level of national politics. however, one thing republicans tell me including those in the white house is that the plitization of the media and it's been deliberate in many respects, has within effective in their eyes, this constant yelling of fake news so that the capital of the national news media has been diminished to a point that fact checking often does not connect with the voters and the readers people are trying to connect with because the media by many politicians, particularly republicans and also some democrats has been politicized to the point where it's seen as an enemy rather than the broker of facts. >> right. yep. well, we'll see how long that

lasts. robert costa, thank you so much for being with us. greatly appreciate it. i mean, that may be the case, but it's interesting all the media outlets, john, are doing better than they've done before. donald trump has declared war on the media, and in the eyes of the media, the media has won. >> sure. on two levels. first of all, it's an incredible spectacle they're witnessing so there's a greater interest in politics than there's been for a long time. on top of that, i think the challenge that trump has and some of the derogatory comments he's made about the prez has caused people in the business to rise to the challenge and say if you want to take us on, we have a constitutional responsibility. we always have it. we've always been serious about it, but if you want to start a schoolyard fight with us, we're going to take our job even more seriously than we would have under other circumstances, not do anything inappropriate but get in the ring with you.

>> and they have. look at some of the reporting pape papers, it's been extraordinary. >> still ahead, al franken joins the conversation. we'll be talking to mayor mitch landrieu of new orleans. in a moment we'll be joined by josh earnest and ask him about how president obama handled the concerns that russia was interfering with the 2016 elections. plus. >> how many people across ohio will be killed by open oids this year? >> we're estimating about 2,000 overdoses this year if it continues. that's about 10,000 for the state or that. >> how is that not a mass casualty event? >> it is a mass casualty event. >> we are joined with an extraordinary reporting on america's opioid crisis as cuts mean less money for addiction treatment. and it's also a story about people.

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make sure we did not do the work of the leakers for them by raising more and more questions about the integrity of the election right before the election was taking place. in early september when i saw president putin in china, i felt that the most effective way to ensure that that didn't happen was to talk to him directly. and tell him to cut it out and there were going to be serious consequences if he didn't. and, in fact, we did not see further tampering of the election process. but the leaks through wikileaks had already occurred. so when i look back in terms of how we handled it, i think we handled it how it should have been handled. >> that's president obama responding to his response to russian hacking in the election.

a reporter says the question is what could obama have done differently. the answer is painfully obvious. he could have done what he did after the election but before the election. when obama make the attack public, the amount of panic and political dust turned up along with the criminal investigations proved debilitating for russian ambitions. all of that because of a 25-page intelligence report. it's not hard to imagine what things would have looked like had it been released in september. it would been far more effective than obama's telling putin on the sidelines to, quote, cut it out. putin knows when you mean it, and he knows when you don't. and julia joins us from washington. also with us, former white house press secretary to president obama and now an msnbc political

analyst, josh earnest. julia, talk about the impact september press conference would have had versus the december press conference. >> i think it would have started a process of investigation on the congressional side, the senate side, it may have made the fbi investigation public. it would have brought this out into the open air, and made people aware that this was happening as opposed to most american voters thinking everything was going on as normal, and that a lot of the stories, for example, they were seeing were just normal news stories as opposed to being generated by things like russia today which is entirely funded by the kremlin which is where that hillary has parkinson's story got started. the examples can go on and on. >> julia, would you agree that had the obama administration

started this conversation and really sort of laid out the evidence to the american public sooner, there could have been more pressure on vladimir putin on the sense that all the pressure he's seeing at home as well? you're seeing real economic plight for the majority of russians there. they have a lot of corruption charges. obviously we're seeing protests on a weekly basis there. would this not have been much worse for vladimir putin if obama had spoken out much sooner? >> well, this story isn't a factor for putin domestically, and the protests aren't nearly that frequent. and economic plight for russians, they kind of expect it when they have a boom in the economy, it's like vacation, and then when it ends, they think, we're going back to regular life. they're not like americans in that they expect the economy to be great and getting wetter all the -- better all the time. this is not a story for putin domestically.

i think it would have hampered him -- it would have hampered him geo politically as it has since the story broke. he's helped install this guy in the white house that's friendly to him, but he's tied down like a friend of the russian foreign might be center said, now trump is tied down. he can't make maneuvers toward russia toward reconciliation without everything being questioned and decried and scrutinized. >> josh, i don't know if you can go back in time and speak for your old boss or obama world, but how do you feel toward the post story second guessing the action of the latest president? >> this was an unprecedented situation. it's important to remember this is something that we were encountering for the fist ti time -- first time. it was a two-pronged attack. russians were scanning the websites and trying to expose

vulnerabilities across the country. and jeh johnson, the secretary of homeland security and others went to work to try to protect our election. >> should we have known that? again, not -- i know hindsight is 20 /20. i would think as somebody participating in the election, if somebody was invading the electoral process, i would have known to have known that in september. >> this is something we talked about in the fall. we did make a strategic decision to keep this below the radar. the reason was -- and below the radar, something we talked about publicly not not trying to trump it. the reason was we did not want it to be politicized in the midst of a presidential election. the first time that jeh johnson one to the election administrators and said we need to get serious, the republicans rebuffed them and said we're not going to let these democratic

officials from d.c. mess with our election system. we had to build bipartisan support in congress. and a tough question for mitch mcconnell is why did he refuse the support on the front end. the first time, he didn't have time to schedule time to talk about it. this is republicans did not take seriously, and that did hamstring our efforts to respond to this as effectively as we would have liked. >> here's jeh johnson. we have the former homeland security director on friday. >> with the benefit of almost a year's hindsight, do you wish the obama administration had done more, if this reporting is true, you didn't want to put your thumb on the scale and appear to be mettling on behalf of hillary clinton, do you think that was unwise? should you have done more? >> we did go public with what we knew. hindsight is brilliant. with the benefit of hindsight, i could cite about 12 things i should have done in national security. but that's the benefit of

hindsight. i know that in the fall we were very concerned about this. it was a front burner item. lots of very good discussion about what we needed to do, and at the end of the day, we took the unprecedented step of going public with the intelligence so we could tell the american people what was going on. >> do you think it had an impact on the outcome of the election, the russian mettling? >> that's for a pollster or social scientist to figure out. >> josh, i want to ask you to follow up on this line of questioning. one of the things the post story notes is that one of the factors you were weighing, the president was weighing, i know you weren't involved in the decisions because it was a national security decisions, but one of the factors he was weighing was if you took stronger action, it would feed into a narrative that donald trump was propagated about a rigged election. the notion was let's not look political. but, in fact, in some ways you

were taking politics into account, and the irony is you did a political thing while trying to avoid looking political. as you look back, do you appreciate the irony and now maybe see that as something that was maybe a consideration that should have been kept out of this and all that should have been focussed on was purely the national security questions? >> well, it's hard to factor in all the things that contributed to the decisions that were made. and i do feel confident the people in a position to make the decisions at the time in the summer and fall of 2016 were focussed on doing what was necessary to try to preserve public confidence and the ability of this country to conduct a presidential election, protect the basic election's infrastructure of the country, and try to get our arms around what this republicans hack and leek strategy was. we'd never seen it before. it was not easy to tell what

their intent was at first blush. these were the same kinds of questions that members of the media had to ask. how do we cover the leaked e-mails? it started out that wikileaks was this independent organization that was actually trying to make a virtue of transparency, but according to intelligence report released later, it was acting as an arm of russian intelligence. >> can i put in for a second? >> yeah. >> i do have to say that -- the russian approach was very ad hoc. they were trying different things. they ended up not pulling the trigger on certain things like mettling in our election infrastructure, like messing with the voter rolls, with the machinery, et cetera. i wonder if part of that was because the obama administration did zag in that direction. they were focussed mostly over the summer and fall, they weren't focussed on the fake news mill but on the integrity

of the voter infrastructure. i wonder if the russians were seeing that and said, okay, they're on this. let's try something else. >> julia is reporting about president trump looking forward to meeting with putin on the next overseas trip. i wondering what your sense is of how putin feels about meeting with president trump and whether the bet he made paid off for him? >> it has not paid off. the sanctions aren't lifted. if anything, they're going to be with us for a very, very long time, because now trying to lift them without getting anything in return which is what the trump administration was trying to do from the first days in office, is completely politically untenable. that said with this administration, who knows. that said, this personal meeting is putin's last ditch -- it's his last hope for getting anything done with this president. he knows quite well and correctly that donald trump responds really well to in

person meetings. so the kind of personal chemistry that develops in these meetings. look at how he did a 180 on the chinese premier on nato after meeting with these people one on one. so who knows what will happen when he meets with putin face to face and putin butters him up a little bit in person. i think that's all putin can bank on right now. >> what is the general impression in russia of everything that's been going on over the past year and a half? do they think we've lost our minds? >> yes. >> do they think we're engaging in fake news as a nation? what's the take? >> the thing is in russia nobody believes this story. not even people who hate putin and are opposed to him. they just -- they think that america is just blaming russia in order to avoid the hard work

of figuring out what the hell happened in 2016 and how somebody like donald trump could win the presidency of a country like the u.s. so nobody on any part of the russian political spectrum believes this actually happened, and they do think we've lost our minds, and that we're becoming as paranoid about the russians as the russians are about americans? >> okay. well, happy days in american, russian relations. greatly appreciate you being on. josh, stay with us if you will. still ahead, we'll bring in al franken. we're back in a moment. earning your cash back shouldn't be this complicated. yet some cards limit where you earn bonus cash back to a few places. and then, change those places every few months.

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the better care reconciliation act was released on thursday ahead of a likely vote next week. it was quickly denounced by democrats. we should be wary of any coverage this kind of tone. >> the hp senate health care bill is on life support. >> is the plan to repeal and replace obama care on life support? >> it would seem the republican version of the bill is dead on arrival. >> that's great. it's dead on arrival. then kick back and relax.

i haven't felt this confident about an outcome since tuesday, november 8th, 2016. >> up next, michael bloomberg knows about investing. it's of note he's giving $200 million directly to cities in america bypassing washington d.c. just ahead, we'll talk to the mayor of new orleans about how that money could change america. ♪

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the very, very rich. >> that's bernie sanders over the weekend. there's a krves in miami where michael bloomberg is announcing a $200 million program to help communities improve themselves. without any of the red tape of the federal government. with us now, the mayor of new orleans, mitch landrieu. maybe you'd like some of the money too? we're not getting it. it's going to the cities. how could cities use the money, first and foremost? >> well, first of all, this is a great opportunity for cities, as you know. in the last couple years cities have become the nation's laboratories of innovation in change, the laboratories in democracy. one of the things with the conference of mayors is this is a bipartisan conference that is focussed on finding answers to tough problems. this is going to help us innovate. we've been doing this across the country and sharing best

practices with each other. it's going to make it that much easier to do that. instead of waiting for washington to solve our problems, they're going to be stuck on issues. we're the ones who have to find the answers to difficult problems facing america. >> you come from a historic democratic family in the state of louisiana. what do democrats have to do to avoid the loss they suffered last tuesday. how do they foot a foothold across parts of the south that they're shut out of now? >> the truth of the matter is from a mayor's perspective, we're not ideologically based. we have republicans and democrats in this conference. what people like about local officials is we're thinking about solving problems and we're not necessarily thinking about lefter lefter left versus right. whether you're democrat or republican, at the end of the day the public deserves

something good. they have to have good opportunities for their family. and whoever runs for office whether on the federal, state, or local level, if you can focus on fixing the problem, you'll do better. that's a good message for the national republican party and the national democratic party as well. >> how are you? first, i wanted to ask this question about the it logical divide. there's a sense where the base is trying to push the party left to get it not to seem like it's simply a republican party in blue. what do you say to those folks really skeptical of the current democratic brand? what do you say to those folks who aren't excited about what the current democratic party stands for? >> i don't know if i'm the one to give advice to the national parties.

i can tell you what works for mayors. run to the fire. people want elected officials to stop talking and to get things done. aspirational. it's nice to be passionate. it's nice to get the country focused on the biggest of issues, but it faulsz on deaf ears if you can't actually make something happen. for example, in the health care debate, we can argue all we want idealogically. at the end of the day people have to have access to affordable health care so they and their families can have an opportunity for a good job. that's what americans are looking for. you know, what i hear people just loudly and clearing yelling about is get something done and figure out a way to help me give my kids what it is that i have, and i think as we have these battles within the party, you saw it years ago when the republicans got thrown out, the democrats this time, you have to get back to basics, and you have to get back to finding really good solutions to very good problems.

>> i want to stay on the local level because i want to get your reaction to what you are hearing in response from citizens, voters about reaction to russian meddling in the u.s. election. is this something that they prioritize? is this something that they're outraged about? i remember growing up as a kid who moved here from the soviet union being called a co mmi every single day, and the russians were public enemy number one. has the mood changed that americans don't care that russia tried to influence our election system? >> no, i don't think that that's correct. i think most americans are really concerned about it. whether they're republicans or democrats, they want to make sure that elections are open and fair and free. i think they're very concerned about the russian meddling, and they want to see this investigation go forward and be open. however, mayors on the ground have to do 50, 60, 70 things a day from filling potholes to fighting crime, from dealing with climate change and doing basic things like picking up

trash, and we live in real-time in reality. people who are just trying to get to, who, get to the little league with their kids, are focused on all of those things, plus the russia investigation. my guess is from watching tv, you guys and all the other networks, they hear a lot about that, and then they see health care stuck. or they hear a lot about that and they feel like we can't get an infrastructure plan done. that feels like they're going to go through another pothole or it's going to take them longer to get into -- those kinds of things. you know, folks are really just trying to get to work, but they want for see us get things done, which is why mayors have become really the engine for change in the country, and why we're working so hard to try to inyo innovate and make things happen across party lines. >> mayor, thank you for being with us. we greatly appreciate it. >> great. >> good luck down there. >> thank you. let's talk to you because, obviously, you wanted to talk about local issues, and he was very good. he could have had your job. he always brought it back to potholes. >> he is a great communicator.

>> very good. on friday you wrote a column for the washington post talking about what democrats needed to do to -- if they want to win nationally, they need to think locally. where do you go on this question that democrats seem to be bouncing back and forth on? do they become the progressive party, the party of hopes and emdroos, or do they become the party that tries to go local to take over again? >> look, there clearly is a rupture in the relationship between the national democratic party and main street america. there's just no denying that the democratic brand is tarnished and that too many people across the country don't have a good sense of what democrats have been fighting for. >> what happened? >> look, it's hard to say exactly what -- if i knew exactly what the answer to that was, i think we would be able to solve a lot of problems both in our party and in our country. i think there are a couple of things that have contributed to it.

clearly, some of the demographic changes in our country have left people on main street a little uneasy, and democrats have whole-heartedly embraced that -- the demographic changes. i think that's a good thing. over the long-term that's a smart play. it does leave some people who were anxious about those changes a little reluctant to embrace a party that seems to be so eager to move in that direction. but i also think that the challenge the democrats have run into, particularly in washington d.c., it's more complicated when you are trying to deliver a message that is focused on, for example, a health care bill or a specific proposal around taxes. republicans have had the benefit, the luxury of a cleaner message, which is to say no to obama for eight years. >> right. >> that was a unifying principle for them, and they were able to galvanize a lot of public support around that principle. now we are seeing the down side of that strategy. now that republicans do have

power in washington d.c., they control the white house and control the congress, control the supreme court. now they don't know what to do with that power. they haven't built enough public support to advance that agenda. i know eddie is going to want to respond. we're coming up on the top of the hour. we'll be right back with senator al franken. he will join the table. plus, the cbo report on the health care plan could come as early as today as mitch mcconnell is looking to ram through his plan this week. meanwhile, republican senator dean heller says he is not on board. now a pro-trump pact is going to launch a seven-figure ad. it's against this republican senator in a purple state. lots of luck with that, fellow. "morning joe" will be right back. in these turbulent times, do you focus on today's headwinds?

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>> he used my term mean. that was my term because i want to see -- i want to see -- i speak from the heart. that's what i want to see. i want to see a bill with heart. >> he went to the island, and he came back with jedi mind tricks because everybody -- the 17 intel agencies, everybody has been trying to get him to admit. every reporter in washington. that russia meddled with our elections. >> trump. >> trump, right. obama said -- he writes a tweet. the russians meddled with our elections. he says your health care plan is

mean. he says my health care plan is mean. it's unbelievable. >> the force is strong within him. >> the force is strong with this one. >> obama, strong the force is with his family. president he was. that's break this down. people tried to get donald trump to admit that the russians meddled with the 2016 elections. >> many. many. 924,321. >> all barack obama has to do is come back on the same jedi gash, right? >> he just forces the president to say things about this health care bill that really could hurt him politically. really hamper its package. that's something that president obama really has power. >> he does have power. we have a clip of him right here doing this. it's unbelievable. >> these aren't the droids you are looking for. >> these aren't the droids you are looking for. >> see, it's unbelievable.

>> that is an amazing power. he can use it for good or for ill. >> i'm not a star wars guy, but -- >> well, you should be. >> is it the case that the force works depending upon the intelligence level? >> yes, it does. >> i mean, the force worked, of course, as we you will know, worked on jaba's guards, but not on jaba himself. >> the hut was too smart for that. >> he was impervious to jedi mind tricks, but not this trump fellow. first of all, republican senators and house members fighting for their political life trying to figure out what it do, and just because donald trump is so, so crazy and so jealous of barack obama, he gets him to admit that the health care bill is mean, and he goes that's my word. i'm the one that said it was mean. i'm the one that said it was going to throw seniors out on the street.

i'm the one who said that young children with preexisting conditions were going to die and not get the -- that was me. >> don't you give credit to barack obama for saying it was mean. i said it first. >> i would go with broadcast news over "star wars." i say it here, it comes out there. >> but think about that. think how damaging this is. we squoek about it, but wh-- jo about it, but what is the impact of the president doubling down. they had their party in the beer garden, and now they're saying it's mean. >> you would think in a normal circumstance the president has a lot of ability to in a moment like this where every vote counts, the president would go and exert his influence, twist arms in order to pull people across to take a tough vote. how it is he is going to now go and say you must take this tough vote on this bill that i have denounced as mean, i don't know how that works. it seems like it would be a strange sales pitch. >> the same thing with the intel agencies not being able to

convince the president to do anything but fight the fact that the russians influenced the 2016 election. >> it's bizarre because the information has been out there publicly for so long and has been reported, and then suddenly because barack obama says it, it's, you know, the law of the land. i don't understand. the deny, the deny, the deny when it would just be so politically expedient for him to show an iota of concern about the russian meddling and move on. >> a long time ago, but never did, of course. in fact, he never brought it up to comey or to anybody. >> it seems to me that every time that we enkousht this kind of contradiction, it's motivated by his own self-interest, where.

>> former aide to the george w. bush white house, and chair of the department of african-american studies at princeton university. nbc news capitol hill reporter casey hunt also with us from washington. what do republicans on the hill think when you have the president who has got them running around ignoring the russian meddling in our election and instead just saying, well, let's just look at the leaks, and then on the other side right now the political fight possibly of some of the lives on health care reform. they jump over a cliff for president trump, and then president trump over the weekend says that the bill that they passed was mean. >> i think that they would rather he maybe stay out of it a little bit for a little while while they try to finish counting the votes.

i think there he is a feeling he is not as aware of the landscape and could potentially do more harm than good, shall we say, if he were to try to make changes to this. i think there's a sense that he doesn't necessarily have his head around the policy that will lead to the same 50 votes here. >> you are saying people on the hill want him to stay the hell away because he doesn't know what he is doing? >> i'm trying to be a little more polite than that. honestly. >> right. >>. >> the vice president, the vice president's team, mark short, the legislative people, they know where every vote is. they are talking to mitch mcconnell's office every day. the president's unpredictable public comments, i think, have a very real chance of showing the whole thing for a loop. >> if you are susan collins in maine, if you are dean heller in nevada, if you are -- especially these moderates or

conservative/moderates, and the president is calling the health care bills mean saying, hey, we need to put more money in there, that makes your decision easy. they will get absolutely hammered. not only by aarp, but by their opponents by saying you voted for a bill that even donald trump said was mean. have you rand paul and a bunch of more moderate republicans saying this bill is inadequate in lots of ways. i don't know if it's forcing the parties to pass it because they're not coming close to defending what they're trying to do. i'll just say, it's a partial repeal of the affordable care act. >> the problem john heilman, if i'm sitting in congress as a conservative voter on -- let's say i'm a conservative, this bill isn't conservative? >> no.

>> let's say i'm a moderate, this bill is mean. this is the worst of all worlds. you have a bill that is neither conservative, nor is it compassionate. you have a mean non-conservative bill. >> that doesn't repeal the affordable care act, and on top of everything else, the president previously when he had used the word "mean" it was in a closed-door session. it was reported, but we had never seen him on camera. we now have him on camera giving every democrat who is going to run in any race in the country a beautiful piece of footage to put in an ad. even if you are a republican who is worried about trump voters, you have now the president saying that the thing they're about to vote for if they vote for it, is mean. they have him on camera saying it. thank you. let 1,000 ads bloom. >> he was bragging about it. it's mean. those are my words rsh. >> this is a bill that he inherited from republicans, and it's influenced by the tax cuts that they're giving for their big donors.

he is just governing like yet another big government republican. >> yeah. that he is. all right. well, majority leader mitch mcconnell says he hopes to pass through the vote on health care by the end of the week, but for the moment at least five senate republicans have said they just can't back the bill. ? conservatives are concerned it's not enough of a repeal of obama care as we heard just a minute ago, but moderates also sht on board, like nevada's dean heller, who is concerned about the cuts to medicaid. heller is up for re-election in the state that hillary clinton carried in the presidential election, and now the pro-trump pact america first priorities is -- i just -- i'm sorry. i just -- it's so funny when you watch somebody stumble into something and they're just no good at it. they're just stupid. right? it's like a donkey trying to work an iphone. they're going to launch a seven-figure ad. have you ever seen a donkey try to actually work an iphone.

of course, you're not. you're a yankee. we see it all the time. >> in shrek 7. >>? shrek 7, exactly. >> they're actually launching a seven-figure ad. trump against the republican senator. >> really constructive use of resources. >> and it also sends a message to all the other republicans on capitol hill, which is, you know, fine, okay. is that how you want to play, cowboy? we'll play that way. bill clinton, you could impeach him on a thursday, and he would go golfing with you on friday. the washington post is also reporting, though, that other groups have been up in the air for a very long time in nevada with ads like these. >> let's get started. you're both over 50? >> yes. >> okay. that will cost you. >> why? >> the new health care bill in congress. if you are over 50, insurance companies can charge you five times more.

it's an age tax. [ wheezing ] >> senator heller, when this happens, she isn't thinking about the health care bill in congress. she isn't thinking that it will force her to choose between filling his prescriptions for pain or paying their mortgage. she isn't thinking that when her premiums go up, they'll lose their health insurance. she shouldn't have to. but you should, senator heller. >> i got to tell you, our party, if they pass this health care bill, if it passes, they're going to get routed next year. >> why would they want to do something -- >> they're going to do this around the clock. >> that will make premiums go up. i just don't get it. just action for the sake of action even if it's action that is going to negatively impact your party? >> still ahead on "morning joe" al franken will join us on set, and president obama admits that russia meddled in the u.s. election. in doing so, he shows the true definition of the word -- first,

here's bill karins with a check on the forecast. >> cooling off in the west. nice dry, beautiful in the east. we still dealt with a lot of fires over the past weekend. out was a hotspot. we had 1,500 people that had to evacuate. they had the baker fire, and the alpine fire in areas near salt lake city just south there. this is american fork, utah, and you can see the ho homes in the background. there were numerous blazes popping up. it was so hot and dry in the midwest. you knew the fire season would get going. we even had blazes in southern california. one was on the size of a road. you can see that near santa clarita there. that one is almost pretty much contained. this is the last day of our excessive heat warnings. this will go down as one of the longest duration heat waves in las vegas history. death valley, by the way, was 125.

five times already this month. let's get to the good news. today's forecast, this is about as good as it gets. if you chose vacations to the ocean, the beach, the lake, anywhere east of the mississippi, this is just gorgeous stuff today. it continues tomorrow. we will dodge the thunderstorms tuesday into wednesday, but we like a nice quiet weather map, and we're getting you today. the humidity levels this time of year in the southeast are amazingly low. i hope you can get out and enjoy some beautiful weather. new york city included in that gorgeous forecast. a lot of blue skies over the next couple of days. enjoy. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. there's nothing more important to me than my vacation. so when i need to book a hotel room, i want someone that makes it easy to find what i want. booking.com gets it. and with their price match, i know i'm getting the best price every time. now i can start relaxing even before the vacation begins. your summer vacation is very important. that's why booking.com

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arians -- she doesn't know if it's the russians doing the hacking. maybe there is no hacking. >> hacking is very interesting. it could be somebody sitting in a bed someplace. personally it could be russia. i don't really think it is, but who knows? i don't know either. they don't know, and i don't know. >> i think we ought to get on with our lives. i think the computers have complicated lives very greatly. the whole age of computer has made it where nobody knows exactly what's going on. >> the age of the computer. computers have made it all so very complicated. i guess that's one way to look at it. if you are from 1948. last year nbc news reported that president trump received his first intelligence briefing on august 17th about russia's efforts to meddle in our election. but he continued to doubt their

findings. even after the intel community went public on october 7th. now president trump has seemingly acknowledged russia's meddling in if the 2016 election. it comes in response to the wash wash post report that we first featured on our show friday about the obama administration's five-month debate over how they should respond to that meddling. the post reported that president obama liberated and had some options, including cyber attacks on russian infrastructure, the release of intel that might embarrass putin and sanctions that could crater the russian economy. in the end the president did little to nothing. president trump tweeted just out. the obama administration who far in advance of november 8th about election meddling about russia. let me say that again. they knew about the election meddling by russia and did nothing about it. why? in all caps.

on saturday tweeted again. since the obama administration was told way before the 2016 election that the russians were meddling, why no action. focus on them. not t. yo, not t. just like mr. t. what's your favorite -- >> president. >> i got one. >> do you have a favorite mr. t story? >> mine comes in episode four. >> he moves into the swankiest neighborhood in chicago. they just are known for the beautiful trees. mr. t, he cuts down every tree in the neighborhood. >> he said it was the first time he had heard about any of this. >> i just heard for the first time that obama knew about russia a long time before the

election. he did nothing about it. but nobody wants to talk about that. the cia gave him information on russia a long time before they even, you know -- before the election. if he had the information, why didn't he do something about it? he should have done something about it. it's quite sad. >> he is on there so much. he is on there nonstop. they have a different camera in every room. hey, can you talk? >> it's a strategy, though. this press strategy of putting him in front of supper a fan and letting him just keep talking and digging deeper and deeper and deeper. this is more harmful than if he actually sat down and had a legitimate interview.

>> can we just say that donald trump was briefed. he said i'm just an innocent caveman. he knew. they told caveman lawyer, like, six months ago. >> he consumes a lot of media. do you think he is seriously claiming that this is the first time he knew about it or that he -- he is just saying that for effect? >> i think he has issues. >> really? >> i'm not sure that's a full responsive answer to my question. >> i think he has issues. i don't know if they're -- i don't know exactly what they are, but fox -- >> fox and friends call him a day trader. in other words fox from friends, that was you. he is just trying to get through that interview. at that moment. >> at that particular moment. >> at that moment. but, you know, because the system has not made him pay a price for changing his position on things like this, big and small, he keeps doing it. >> coming up on "morning joe" but the total number of dollars that are going to be dedicated to medicaid, not enough.

i mean, it's not enough resources there. i have been very concerned here in my state about treating the mentally ill, the drug addicted, the chronically ill. particularly under medicaid expansion. >> ohio is one of the states most affected by the opioid abuse epidemic, and there are concerns that less money for medicaid in the long-term could actually make the situation worse. ahead, we're going to be talking to jacob soberoff. some outstanding reporting on the crisis. ♪ this is a story about mail and packages. and it's also a story about people. people who rely on us every day to deliver their dreams they're handing us more than mail they're handing us their business and while we make more e-commerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country, we never forget...

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big issues shaping the debate over the senate health care bill. it's how much money it's going to have for treating opioid addiction. jacob soberoff has been taking a look at the issue. what an incredibly important issue for us as a country, jacob. what did you find out? >> yeah, it sure is. overdoses are now killing more americans than ever before, and ohio is the ep why i center of that epidemic. it's on track for a staggering 10,000 deaths this year alone, according to local officials. as politicians back in washington debate the particulars of the health care bill on the ground there in ohio, the death toll continues to skyrocket daily because of a drug that is so powerful he could die just by touching it. >> reporter: in what local officials say is the overdose capital of america, montgomery

county sheriff phil plumber finds an unprecedented crisis on his hands. brought on by the synthetic open yoid fentanyl. it's used legally in chronic pain management, but now manufacturer, trafficked and sold illegally as a street drug. >> we're on ace to have 800 people die in our county. per capita we're number one in the nation on overdose deaths. our job market, people, i think they're des pressed. they're self-medicine indicating. >> reporter: in may the county almost passed last year's total number of deaths. officials estimate this year's total will be double that. >> the deputy said that there was a car accident, and it took 1% of the vehicle that had 1,000 yard say stare and was out of it.

>> he said i love you. zlo what did you say to him? >> i love him too. >> what's it like to go through this? >> hell. hell. every day it is hell. >> this is what you call the cooler. this is our cooler. >> our main cooler. >> when did the bodies that are all around us come in here? >> over the last probably 24 to 48 hours. >> every day -- these trays will mostly be full by tonight. >> what's the percentage of the bodies that are in here right now that are overdose deaths from heroin or fentanyl? >> we are averaging 60% to 70% of our cases now are overdoses. >> fentanyl's made in china and smuggled into the u.s. by mexican cartels who pass it to local gangs to sell.

>> can you explain to me why we have to put the masks on? >> it was a big low. nearly a pound of fentanyl. >> whoa. >> enough for thousands of deadly doses. another way to safe lives is to lock them up. in the county jail there's an entire wing of women in withdrawal. >> what were you using? >> fentanyl? >> fentanyl. you going through withdrawal right now? >> yep. pretty much so. >> can you describe for me how you feel right now? >> like crap. >> like crap. >> yes. >> do you know anybody that's died? >> yes. my boyfriend and my mom died in january. >> i'm sorry. if any of your family or your friends catches this on tv, what do you want them to know? >> that i love them, and i'm

sorry. >> local officials there in ohio say they need more help from the federal government, not less. get this. according to the los angeles times, over one-third of ohio's medicaid expansion recipients reported some type of addiction, which is obviously why the program and other treatment funding in this bill is critical for senators like ohio's portman and west virginia's capito and maine's collins. in those states and across the entire country right now, this crisis continues to play out every single day, joe. >> jacob, says what a sobering report. we have some questions for you. >> yes. >> this is heartbreaking on every level. >> these are coming in from mexico and china. they need to be tackled overseas and there in ohio. because things are so bad, they're putting addicts inside the skt jail. they immediate more beds in terms of treatment. it's the simplest answer i can give you. >> jacob, from an education

perspective, especially with young children, what is the approach that we're seeing schools take and administrators take, and when you think back to the drug and cigarette and alcohol abuse and issues. they talk about the dangerous he was of this new opioid addiction. >> they go into schools throughout montgomery county, but the real reason that they invited us there is because they want to scare people straight. things are worse than they ever have been before, and the death rate there, because of this drug fentanyl, synthetic heroin, has doubled over the last year, and so despite all the efforts, everything is getting worse. the reason that they invited us into the body room at the morgue, the reason they invited us into the jail to talk to those women so people can actually see from the vabtage point from the folks on the ground that have to deal with this every single day what's going on there. not only are they doing that for the viewers at home, but they're

doing that for the elected officials in washington d.c. and for the kids in the schools where. >> what a staggering insight that 75% of the people in the body room, 75% in the morgue, eddie, are from overdoses. >> overdoses. >>ist reaching into urban centers. what are you seeing on the ground there? >> that's what they are telling me as well. this montgomery county coroner basically represents only one-fifth of ohio, and there they say they're going to see perhaps 2,000 deaths this year, and i asked them, if you extrap lap what happens across the state, they're seeing this not just in montgomery county, and all across the state of ohio. this situation is playing out in maine and all across the country. fentanyl hasn't even touched places like where i am in los

angeles yet. it's yet to spread throughout the country, the full extent. they think it's going to get far worse before it gets better. >> jacob soberoff, thank you so much for being with us. thank you also for underlining what is at stake. up next senator al franken will join the table. simple question, what's taking the democrats so long? keep it here on "morning joe."

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>> this economic message platform will rez mate it. it's not going to be baby steps. it's going to be bold. we're coming out with it within a many. you will see it. democrats will try to pass it legislatively for a year and campaign on the 2018. it's what we were missing in 2016, and in the past. webb that. when we lose an election, you

don't blame other people. you blame yourself. >> congressman. >> here here. senate majority leader chuck schumer responding to recent criticism of the democratic leadership saying they are coming up with an economic platform for the party to run on. schumer says the agenda is emerging as he talked to snumus senators, including bernie sanders of vermont and democrat joe manchin of west virginia. the book is titled "al franken, giant of the senate." before we go there, let's go to our breaking news trump tweet desk. of course, the person always manning it 24 hours ago day live from hong kong. mark halperin. what do you got? >> two tweets this morning. one on health care. saying the democrats are obstructionists. then he just tweeted the analysis that was made earlier on this program. he said the reason president obama did nothing about russia after being notified by the cia of meddling is that he expected clinton would win.

>> somebody doesn't just watch fox and friends. how are you doing today, senator? skbloog well, that was a good tweet. >> that was a good tweet. >> of course, actually, yeah. i think they do think hillary would win, and i think they didn't want to look like they were putting a thumb on the scale and that's why they didn't do more. i wish they had, obviously. what's interesting now is i think -- is this the first trump has acknowledged that russia -- >> yes. we've been -- you were talking about it earlier. you referenced cave man lawyer. we've also been talking about barack obama's extraordinary jedi mind tricks where he comes out of retirement and comes down from the jedi temple where luke was and all he has to do is just wave his hand and trump admits the health care bill is mean and admits that russia is medicine willing in the election. doesn't listen to the cia or the

other 15 -- >> not only that, but he has not -- we've gotten testimony that he didn't talk to comey about it. he hasn't talked to spicer about russia meddling. he hasn't talked to jeff sessions about it. we have to stop this from happening again. >> why didn't they stop it? it seems to me we have a right to know in september that the russians had invaded our country in a sense in a cyber war, and they were trying to influence our elections. i would have liked to know that in september. >> i actually think that the president thought that since trump was saying the election was rugged that he didn't want to seem like he was putting his thumb on the scale. >> but he was campaigner in chief. >> he didn't want to look like the thumber in chief. >> right. >> i think that was part of it. also, they were dealing with it, and they were weighing a lot of different options. cyber attack on that one. they obviously didn't play it

right. look where we are now. >> so let me ask you about what chuck schumer said over the weekend. the democrats are trying to figure out exactly what happened last tuesday. chuck schumer is talking about democrats needing an economic message. what is that economic message looking like in minnesota, a state that surprisingly donald trump only lost by one point. >> we got to be democrats. we got to be -- we got to talk about what we're for. that's what i talk about in my book. why i'm a democrat. i grew up in the 50s. my dad didn't graduate high school. i felt like the luckiest kid in the world. that's because i was. i was growing up at the height of the middle class in america. every kid, i think, felt they had -- they could do whatever they wanted. you could take -- you could take a gamble on yourself. i don't think kids feel that way anymore. my wife grew up very poor.

her father died when she was 18 months old. mom widowed at age 29 with five kids. they made it, and they made it because of social security survivor benefits, because of the gi bill. her husband had died and had been in the war. a pell grant then paid to 80% of a college education. you could work in the summer and pay for college. those mean a tremendous amount to americans. they want to know that they can have child care because both parents work. this bill, this health care bill, this is so anathetical. he said he was campaigning for these people. he said he would not cut medicaid. >> well -- >> this is not a health care bill. it's a tax bill. >> senator, i'm interested in hearing from you. obviously, the -- hillary

clinton won many inminimum in the presidential election. donald trump got surprisingly close. >> yeah. >> if part of our challenge is making sure that people -- i'm interested in your theory about why so many working class voters not just in minnesota but across the midwest see donald trump as their champion. he is a billion yon air from new york. what does he have in common with a kid in minnesota who is growing up in a two bedroom, one bathroom house? >> not a lot. >> why do they vote for him? we laugh about donald trump. this is really an indictment of hillary clinton and the democratic party. >> i think it's an indictment of 40 years of people remembering what it was like when i grew up. >> right. >> and i think it's 40 years of people seeing their opportunities squeezed and squeezed and squeezed. now, we have a different view of how that works. >> why -- >> why donald trump? going back to josh's question, what did they see in him?

>> in minnesota and wisconsin. >> it was the opposite of hillary. he was someone who was going to tear everything apart. they were so sick of the establishment democrats that were just the establishment. >> they didn't want to have a bush or clinton. >> remember, he beat 16 other republicans all who seemed like, you know, pretty conventional politicians. they wanted somebody different. when he said in south carolina that george w. bush lied us into the war. remember how shocked someone was that someone would say that in a republican debate? especially in south carolina military state. everyone said, yeah. >> how do you change the view that the democrats are just simply limousine democrats. that the party is in the hands of wall street. >> we got to stop riding in limousines. but there's a preshum shon, right? there's no different that makes

a difference here. that the corporate wing of the democratic party is no different than corporate republicans, right? >> how about the top 400 people in terms of tax cuts here. the amount of money that they'll get in tax cuts will pay -- would pay for medicaid for 750,000 people. the new england journal of medicine just put out a thing. they did a survey of all the research on this. one 1,000 to 2,000 people will die if you cut 750,000 people from medicaid. that means you are killing -- killing them. >> that's the kplund journal of medicine. >> yeah. yeah. they did a survey. basically people on medicaid

have better health care outcomes. you have access to a doctor. they don't have to have catastrophic costs. they don't go bankrupt. this works, and it saves lives, and this is the cruel -- this is mean. this is worse than mean. it is cruel. i tell you, i travel around minnesota and talk to those trump voters, and they know it. i do roundtables at rural hospitals and rural nursing homes and clinics. they know it. >> it's actually mark halperin, it's actually either of these bills passed in close to current form, people that would be devastated the most would be rural -- not just rural voters, rural hospitals, rural hospice centers. >> because the uncompensated care goes way up, and so as a hospital you either have to start laying off people at the hospital. >> they'll lay off people. >> or close. >> they'll have to shut off

wings. if somebody is in rural america and they think that they can escape these cuts, i am here to tell you, you will not escape these cuts. it will savage health care. >> it seems like the worst of both worlds. it's like a scaled down version of what we have now with less resources, but not a market oriented approach. it's not repealed. >> nothing conservative throughout this bill. >> within the realm of the feasible, what's your best case scenario for the congress the rest of the year. what would happen? >> my best case scenario is that we would defeat this and that we would actually have hearings on what we should do about health care in this country and what we need to do is address the exchanges and they have been sabotaged and undermined in every way possible by the republicans and by trump so we need to make them stronger. lamar alexander started this congress with hearings about shoring up the exchanges. we need -- i have a comprehensive bill on prescription drugs. prescription drug prices. you go around this country, you don't have to go to rural urban

suburban everyone is saying yes, these prescription drug prices are killing us. i have a comprehensive bill to address that. we would work with trump if he could reveal any kind of details at all about it, and it didn't just involve, you know, some private -- >> i can tell you right nowst it's going to be big, and it's going to be beautiful, and it's going to be the greatest infrastructure building you've ever seen in your life. >> wow. >> yeah. >> that's beautiful. >> all right. >> i would bike that. >> all right. very good. thank you very much, al franken. we're being told you have to run on. we appreciate you being here. >> glad to be here. >> giants must move. >> all right. very good. >> all right. turning now to business before

the bell, we have cnbc's dom. >> we have airbag maker takata that did file for bankruptcy protection from u.s. and japanese creditors. that's in the wake, of course, of the the biggest product recall in the history of the auto industry. takata could face billions of dollars in liabilities in connection with the lawsuits tied to faulty air bags. michigan-based key safety systems will buy the parts of takata that still operate. they'll pay about $1.5 billion for it. they plan to keep the bulk of the 60,000 employees in over 20 countries around the world. that's a good thing there. staying on the global theme, lots of eyes on india's prime minister, narendra modi. it will be president trump's first visit with him. a lot of discussion on things like immigration, trald, and possible defense-related deals. modi may look to highlight some of the value immigrants have brought to the country, perhaps look for deals for its military

to buy u.s. arms. big deals coming out of the indian meeting. >> dominic chu, thank you so much. coming up next, news organizations doubling down on political coverage, the eld or the of one publication says it's more important than ever to stay out of politics. he'll explain why hi held. when this bell rings... ...it starts a chain reaction... ...that's heard throughout the connected business world. at&t network security helps protect business, from the largest financial markets to the smallest transactions, by sensing cyber-attacks in near real time and automatically deploying countermeasures. keeping the world of business connected and protected. that's the power of and. (upbeat dance music)

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with us now, editor of "the paris view," lawrence, thanks for being with us. people show defiance in different ways. i have shown my defiance by actually going to church weekly and reading poetry and doing things that seem to beat against the current cultural tide. you all in your original manifesto in 1953 said we're staying out of the fevered swamps of politics. do you think in the age of trump that's still the wise move? shoo absolutely. in 1953 at the height of the cold war when our founders started the magazine they said that this was going to be a magazine for literature and literature only. they weren't apolitical guys at all. mathison was a spy for the cia, quit, became a member of the environmental movement. george plimpton took time off to campaign for robert kennedy. he was there when kennedy was

shot. he took the gun out of sierra hunt's hand. these were people deeply passionately concerned with politics. the only time that george or any other editor waded into politics in the review was to talk about free speech. and i think the idea there is that, you know, the arts give us a place to talk in ways that we can't talk politically about things that are very close to all our hearts. and it also creates a kind of fun challenge and obligation to be interesting when you're not talking about current events because news and gossip are inherently interesting but making up stories isn't. >> what was that litany? >> i beg your pardon? >> trump is a huge political figure but he's a huge cultural figure now. around your office, people talk a lot about donald trump. how do you avoid that as just a reality of what americans are thinking about and how art has to emanate from what people are thinking about? >> we don't try to keep it up.

our writers have always responded to the news of the day in their poetry and fiction. in the vietnam war, every other story was about the draft. trump comes up, we have an interview with the writer. >> it was evident even in the piece that i tweeted. >> yes. that's right. the poem that you tweeted. >> the poem. yeah. >> you closet poetry reader. now everyone knows. >> it comes out. >> more than body limericks. it does actually seep in there even though you all don't deliver manifestos. >> that's the power of it. if you stay out of politics nominally, you can open up to jack kerouac and david foster wallace and rich. it meant over the years the review was very early to publish openly gay poets, lou reed, we could publish leroy jones. all of these political poets

were coming and fiction writers coming from different places. often with political views. offbeat in the mar gyps. >> trump is very quick to take credit for ratings bumps a well. in your world you saw a subscription bump after sessions' testimony. an interesting tidbit. talk about that and why do you think the two correlated? >> i don't know there's a correlation. we were waiting for something positive in the news cycle to happen. and it doesn't happen. we launched our archive a week after election thinking everyone will be ready for us. that didn't happen. when we launched the last issue, it was during the sessions hearings. our web traffic dipped by 25%. we sold more subscriptions than ever in our history in one day.

>> who knew he would be the savior of free expression and artistry? >> what should we look at? what should we look at in this edition? what are you proudest of? >> our main mission is to discover new writers and we have a couple of new first time writers and one is a young writer named j.m. hoemsz and he's got a story about young african-american men constituenting around engaging in locker room talk that then becomes a very painful confession about one guy's experience of sex and race, an intimate experience of sex and race that has colored his whole feelings about being a man, being sexual. and that is a good example to me of the kind of truth you can tell when you have the license of making stuff up. that's not something any of us

would talk about easily in our own names. >> he does it all the time and it makes us uncomfortable. you do have the license to go other places. thank you so much for being with us. we greatly appreciate it. come back. >> i will. >> let's make this a monthly habit. that does it for us this morning. chris jansing picks up the coverage. thanks for watching. >> thank you, mr. scarborough. i am chris jansing in for stephanie ruhle. race against the clock. five days to get a health care bill done. can the republicans get the votes? >> there's no way we should be voting on this next week. >> and president trump criticizes president obama for stealing his word for the bill. >> actually used the term mean. that was my term. >> that's not all. the president blaming obama for the russian hacking as well. accusing him of collusion just moments ago. >> he had the information, why didn't he do something about it