officers. >> and in louisiana senator bill cassidy will have a town hall. one earlier this year turned combustible. that does it for us. i'm yasmin vossoughian for louis burgdorf and ayman mohyeldin. >> i think the president is clear when he gets attacked, he's going to hit back. i think the american people elected somebody who is tough, who's smart and who's a fighter. that's donald trump. i don't think it's a surprise to anybody who fights fire with fire. he's not going to sit back and get attacked about media liberals and hollywood elightes. when he gets hit he fights back. >> joe and mika will be here

shortly to address what's taken place over the past 24 hours. here are the tweets from the president of the united states posted yesterday "i heard poorly rated "morning joe" speaks badly of me, don't watch anymore. then how could low i.q. crazy mika along with psycho joe came to mar-a-lago three nights in a row around new year's eve and insisted on joining me, she was bleeding badly from a face lift. i said no! >> they stayed home to lay lou and i called and asked them to come in this morning to address this, to talk about the tweets and the reaction to them so they agreed to do so. they will be here at the top of our 7:00 hour before they do go away for the holiday weekend. that's coming up in less than one hour. i asked mika to come in in

particular because she does not need me or anyone else here to defend her, trust me, as anyone who knows her knows. mika is smart, she's strong, she makes people in power uncomfortable and she fears absolutely no one. you'll be reminded of all that when mika and joe join us at the top of. hour. right now we've got donnie deutsche with us. >> i had a little work done and i just am a little self-conscious about it. >> what did you do, a little lift? >> just a little eye thing. i'm a little sensitive to it. >> washington anchor for bbc, katty kay. i don't know if the shade stay on the whole show. former white house aide -- our friend john meacham in nashville

and from "usa today," heidi pryzbyla. joe and heidi have posted an op-ed in "the washington post." people can read that in a few minutes. just your initial reaction from what you saw yesterday from the president. >> it's really hard to see this as anything other than sexist and vicious. he was incredibly personal. he used the office of the presidency to launch an attack against a television anchor who every morning does her job. and he did it in a way that was vindictive and bullying and it's very hard, even republicans i think would agree with exactly everything i've just said, most of them. it's very hard to conclude anything else because it shows us an awful lot about his temperament and the way he criticizes those who goes after people who he feels are critical

of him. >> you've been critical of a guy you've known for a long time in donald trump, now president trump. were you surprised by what you saw yesterday? >> no. first of all, he picked the wrong schoolyard to come into, i have to tell you this. i'm not an employee of nbc so i'm going to go thug here. i'm sorry. because a friend of ours, she's a good woman, she's a great mom and he's a pig. he's a vulgar pig. and i find what's eironic. michelle obama says when he goes low, we go high. you guys take the high road, i'll go local. his physically disgusting to look at. so beyond the fact he's obviously not well, the misogyny, the vulgarity, the stupidity, he's not mentally okay. this is what we have to stop paying attention to it and he's

disgusting to look at. >> it's irrelevant on so many levels. >> no, enough is enough with this disgusting, vulgar man. and to talk about women that way and the irony is that -- you physically look like you do beyond the stupidity of it, you're a pig, you are a bully and you are doing disgusting things to this country. >> but, donnie, doesn't it lower again the des course whiscourse said about his physical appearance? >> it absolutely does. maybe it's time we all stop tippy ttip y -- tippy towing -- toeing. he's disgusting to look at. i probably won't be on this show

again. >> put the shades back on. >> not much surprises me given his lack of integrity and inseemingly but to launch an attack like that on a woman just because you don't like what she's saying about you and there's something about smart, strong, substantive women that really gets under donald trump's skin. and to just make up this complete, strange lie which is quite creative. i sit by mika and if she's got i don't know wo-- gotten work, i want to know who her surgeon is because there was no indication whatsoever. >> the "new york post" writes, stop, just stop." trump faced widespread condemnation from his own party.

senator lisa murkowski tweeted just stop it. republican senator ben sasse he writes please just stop. this isn't normal and it's beneath the dignity of your office. it went on like this all day. >> congresswoman barbara comstock, the tweets went too far, please stop. >> the president of theins ought to be modelling the best of behavior, he should be an example for children, he should be an example pore all of us. >> this is maddening. it's maddeningly frustrating. this is beneath the dig fnity o the united states, at least it should be, and it's a distraction and it starts to undermine the president's ability to get his agenda done.

>> this is not about policy, it's about a person. i want to help him, tweets like this are inconsistent with the greatness of the country and the office. >> it's hard to figure. it's just -- i'm just embarrassed. i mean, embarrassed isn't the right word. i just regret it. it doesn't astonish me because it isn't the first time that he's attacked various people that he has disagreement with. but so i'm not surprised but i'm disappointed. >> obviously i don't see that as an appropriate comment. look, what we're trying to do around here is improve the tone and the civility of the debate and this obviously doesn't help do that. >> the reaction from democrats and republicans. you saw a lot of republicans in there alike. it was a swift rebuke of what he said.

you hear frustration in his voice. they're trying to get things done in health care. we're talking about the travel ban. there a lot of things happening in the world that deserve the attention of the president and this is not one of them. >> you wonder how his supporters will react and, donnie, i thought you were right. you're justified in your reaction. if you disagree with someone on television, then state the issue, lay out why you disagree, lay out the policy ju justifications but to go after somebody, i won't even dignify the words, everything donnie said, repulsive, unjustifiable, child-like and reprehensible. what have we become as a nation if he's not condemned by the

people who put him m officin of. it says more about us than it does about him if he's able to get away with this. i'm eager to see what the poll results may show. i'm interested to see how his supporters, be it networks, groups of people, how they respond to what he did yesterday. there are no words and i thought dony's physical reaction was more than justified this morning. >> john meecham, we've heard from some of the extremes anyways, support from some of those who said he had a right to hit back. you heard it from the white house that says he hits back when he's hit. sarah huckabee sanders saying

it was a threat, he hit back. >> you'd think that "morning joe" was a sovereign power. are we on a watch list? how does this work? to me what links this and what makes this significant beyond the sovereign power is the question of fear. he fears people who are intelligent and who don't approve of what he's doing. and mika brzezinski is one of the most fearless women i've ever encountered and he's one of the most fearful men i can think of in our public life. bullies are those who are insecure so he punches when he feels cornered, when he feels that the world, of his own construction, but when even the world of his own construction is not a congenial place for him, he punches and lashes out. and i think that that has important public implications.

this is someone who is going to be dealing with, with all respect to the work a lot of us do, you know, we don't have nuclear weapons and there are people out there who do. and if he is this fundamentally insecure that he would violate what was the few norms that were left for him to violate, i mean, it's kind of impressive there that he's managed to ten to go lower and lower, so there is a superlative involved, it's a worrisome thing. your question about whether his supporters will condemn it, no, they're not going to condemn it. they're going to see this network and this broadcast as part of the problem. and the key thing about a president, and i know willie was waiting for this, i was thinking about lyndon johnson last night, which i know willie was, too. >> we were thinking andrew

jackson but okay. >> but johnson said that the presidency makes a man however small bigger and a man however big is never big enough to meet the demands of the office. and on those two counts, on the first count, i don't think johnson quite anticipated trump. he's a small man who has not been made larger by the office and we need someone who is economies rat wi commensurate with the job. >> i'm not tacking about people who voted for him, i'm talking about republicans in washington who would have said enough is enough, i can't stand by this president. did you feel any change yesterday? we heard the sound bites and we we heard them before and it's been back to business a few days later. but we're in the middle of

health care but will it impact that? >> i just want to go back to the white house's explanation is that he is punching back ten times harder. well, so does my 6-year-old. that doesn't mean it's presidential or good for the country. joe and mika have been very critical of him and harsh on him sometimes in this show, but there are many presidents who have come under stinging and even unprecedented attack. think of what bill clinton suffered on fox news during the impeachment. by the way, by a couple of men who were having their own affairs at the time, or george bush who was mocked as stupid or barack obama and the whole birtherism at the time that sean hannity offered to fly the obamas back to kenya, if you remember that. none of them struck out even

remo remotely like this because they knew it would diminish the presidency. if we haven't been hit already, we'll be hit soon as a bench of media leads from an echo chamber. so i wanted to read something from a real person, who is my father. he's as far removed from d.c. as possible. he a retired mover and one-time police officer and he's been watching all of this and he knows that mika recently lost her father so as a father he wanted to me to read this. mika, why is it that trump is always commenting on how he sees women? maybe women need to start speaking out about what kind of a man they see in him because these attacks -- end quote. because these attacks really do seem to be especially harsh on women. joe and mika have been harsh on trump but why is the venom

always reserved for the woman? joe as a fellow republican, his remarks can be even more stinging and yet he went after mika. >> that's an interesting point because there is a trend we've noticed and our producers have noticed, joe will say something very critical to the president of the united states and the hit comes against mika. mika's critical, too, she said some things that obviously got under the president's skin. but we notice joe says something and it's mika who gets hit on it. >> he has a classic bully tactic. we knew it when we were dmids school. somebody who is in a position of power and who wants to attack the weakest member, will go after the person they perceive as being weaker. and i think in the president's mind sometimes that, is just all women, that somehow he sees women as being weaker than men and he goes after them particularly. we've all become arm chair

psychologists, which we never thought we would do under this presidency. does he fear women, does he fear strong women? he did the clearly the same thing against megyn kelly. he has something with women bleeding, some weird -- >> if you were winning a major corporation, you'd be fired. >> in the private sector, you'd never get away with it. >> we do not hold or president to the same standard as we hold grade school children. the president has so much time to tweet. if he was tweeting as much about policy as he was media, as he was spending as much time making the country great again as he focusing on his animus toward the media, mean he would have already -- >> meecham said one thing about lyndon johnson and how the presidency makes people bigger.

i think the real concern and the reaction to this has been huge around the world, everybody's been watching this the last 24 hours, is that it made the presidency smaller and -- >> made was office smaller. >> made the office of the presidency smaller. and not just that, he's making america smaller. and i -- with these tweets, the reaction has started to be not, oh, my god, this is all a joke but really sad. >> i was the dad of three daughters and i loved what heidi did. we also forgot that on top of this, mika lost her dad a few weeks ago. the women of america have to start taking some accountability here. you have daughters. if you are a trump supporter, how do you look at your daughter with a straight face and still say i believe in this man? it time -- you know, this is, as you said, if you're a dad, if you're a mom, there's a

cowardice, a misogyny, we say look in the mirror. >> but we've known this, it was the megyn kelly attacks, the "access hollywood" tapes and 53% of women still voted for donald trump. >> mika spoke at 4:00 and made a plea to the people working inside the white house. she was the former white house communication director for george w. bush. here's nicole yesterday. >> there's a single press strategy for this white house, it's called an apology. as a woman who was fortunate enough to work in the white house as a public servant, all the women collecting paycheck, you should all go on the record and condemn your boss's comments

and work behind the scenes to educate him about just how offensive they are. three, as someone who once probably called myself a republican, the party will be permanently associated with misogyny if leaders doesn't sta -- doesn don't stand up and demand an apology. at a mother of a son, i ask all women how they plan to raise good men if the most powerful man in the world gets away with this. >> that's my girl. >> women inside the white house in particular coming out and contract sizing the women publicly are about zero. >> we saw what sarah huckabee sands are said yesterday and it was more lies. she said on this show we disparage her and we disparage here lies and she stand at the podium when she's never incited violence when he's encouraged people to punch protesters. until this white house stops

lying, we're going to keep calling you out on it. >> he is doing this because he says he's being criticized. i remember being at the white house when president clinton was in office. it was a very tough time for him. he was on the front of the paper being vilified, whatever you think about it, and i walked up to him and i said how are you doing? he said i'm great, i wake up every day and i'm president of the country. it my job to protect this country. it says more of us about people today if we allow him to get away with this. he's made the presidency smaller. if we allow -- i thought nicole

said it best. if we allow him to get away with this as a country, as a nation, it doesn't say as much about him as it does the country how we are regarded around the globe. i cannot wait to hear the woman who was the greatest defender not only of herself but the things she cares about and believes in, mika do it. but who are we as a nation to allow this fella to get away with this. >> joe and mika will join us at the top of the hour, about 40 minutes from now. they posted a piece to "the washington post" that begins to explain the way they felt. heidi, i know you have to run. you want to give you the last word here. >> if there's any good that can possibly come of this, it is taking a magnifying class to the fact that this president is using the bully pulpit to fight

but it not to defend the country, it's being used for personal attacks. they are not to push agenda items that are going the lives of the american people or the forgotten man. >> joe and mika just showed that he's tough, he's smart and he's a fighter and that's what it american people voted for. >> joe and mika will join us live at the top of the hours, 7:00 eastern time, about less than 40 minutes from now with their reaction to all of this. also ahead this morning, republican congresswoman lynn jenkins who called out the president for himself tweets. andrea mitchell and wall street journal reporter with a bombshell report about michael

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. president trump today attacked msnbc "morning joe" host on twitter saying she came to mar-a-lago three nights in a row around new year's eve and insisted on joining me. she was bleeding badly from a facelift. i said no. this brings us to a new segment called "i can't." i mean -- i can't. >> this has been i can't. >> joining us now, president of the council on foreign relations, author of the book "a world in disarray," richard haas

and washington bureau of alcohol tobacco and firearms -- washington bureau chief. not just this tweet but what do our allies see when they read something like that? >> this is the 21st equivale equivalent -- century equivalent of a white house statement. these are in many cases friend and allies who have made the strategic decision to cast their lot with us, put their security in americans hands. he's made all sorts of public statements questioning alineslis and this makes them think once or twice and it gets them to

diversify their portfolio. this is creating a world where more and more countries will go their own way and that will be a less stable world. that will be a world much less respectful. >> that's exactly what angela merkel said we're going to have to go out on our own a little bit but that was more on policy. this is more on personal traits of the president that corn foreign leaders. you're right. it's not narrowly policy what happened in the last 24 hours. it's not just leaders, it's countries. this is how they're going to approach the world, side by side with the united states. the crisis is going to come. we haven't had any crises yet, all the crises have been small,

created by the administration. but a crisis is going to come. it could be something with north korea today, so within of these days it's a question of when and not if a real crisis hits the 45th president of the united states and a lot of these countries are not going to have the degree of must that we want. we want them to follow our lead. we want them to have confidence in our judgment, our decision making and this makes that less likely. >> a senior producer said to me just the other day, we had concerns about the white house operations and we look at mattis, mcmaster and tillerson and we feel there's a good team in place. the concern now is about the kau character of the president and this tweet undermines whether they can rely on the character of the president. >> what about impact on domestic

policy? this came yesterday, an all-encompassing story in the middle of a pitched health care battle where mitch mcconnell are trying to cobble together a coalition of republicans to pass this bill. does this have a real world impact on republicans and which way they may go here? >> even before this tweet republicans in washington were talking about missed opportunities with donald trump when it comes to the platform that he has. as president, you always have the bully pulpit. trump has this unique ability and command and capture the country's attention but he uses it for score settling, for going after people that have been critical of him instead of what a lot of republicans would prefer him to do, which is to sell a health care bill, to promote policy objectives and we see very little of that. and it's got i don't know to the point where republicans have actually now shifted and would

say, you know, maybe we actually don't want him to be talking about the policy because we can't be certain he's going to stay on message, we can't be certain he understand all of the details here. to the extent that this impacts the debate over health care, it will just make republicans even more reluctant to rely on the president as pitch man for their policies which puts them as a disadvantage. if you can't rely on the president to sell your policies, that's a pretty big weakness. >> do you think his temperament and personality are just baked in the cake at this point for a lot of republicans? in other words, he is who he is, we put that aside and the health care vote is something else entirely? >> no. i think what happened yesterday there's a different feeling. pop aren't articulating it as forcefully as richard did but i think it's come to the surface. donnie's point, you have a lot

men who have daughters saying how do i defend this? the white house said you should expect more from this because if you come after this, he's going to come after you. >> but we've been here before, the "access hollywood" tape, the miss universe -- >> he's 70, he's not changing. his mentor is roy cohen, who taught him even when you lose, you win, you lie, you double down, you triple down. i keep coming back to the women, sarah huckabee sanders, i'm sure is decent by how as a woman do you defend this but challenge back. she is a woman. i am a man and we are primally a certain way and i want to continue to challenge the women. forget that these are people. mika is this really nice mom.

>> i think i would challenge every man just as much as i would challenge every woman. every man needs to set the example and set the example to their children and show they don't behave like this. i don't think the onus is on women to throw president trump out of office or vote him out of office if that's what they decide to do and they clearly liked what he saw in him despite all of those "access hollywood" tapes. as an example to our kids, this is just as much an example of -- >> absolutely. >> john? >> it's been about 115 years since theodore roosevelt came into office and he said the one thing is you have the bully pulpit. we just got the bully part right now. to go to richard as point, apparently he's gotten wiser since he stopped shaving. i think we might want to talk about that some more.

because of the council you try to shave and have the softer food. but i think he's exactly right. character is destiny and there are critics of the way the presidency has evolved that we put too much weight on them, we are -- we made a fetish of the presidency, it's article i, the body in which harold served is the congress, not the presidency. all that's a fascinating academic argument but in the point of fact in the nuclear age, the president is the focus of the system, not on domestically but globally. i think the unreliability of the president is a significant national security issue. >> julie pace, do you suspect there will be any more reaction, any more response out of the white house or do they want to just keep moving forward and talk about health care? >> what's always interesting when this situation comes up, it tends to be the president

himself who keeps these stories going. a lot of aides in the white house would like to move on but the president, he doubles down. it really not surprising the reaction that we saw from the white house yesterday because there have been very few situations where even when you talk to aides privately and they say that want helpful, we really wish you wouldn't have done that, that's almost never the public facing message. i wouldn't be surprised if the president doubled down on it going forward. i don't think his party or advisers would be pleased if he did it because it creates such an enormous distraction. as donnie said, the president is 70 years old. he's not going to change who he is. >> we're going to get a licensed barber to come in. >> coming up, someone who gets targeted by trump for doing her job, that's katy turric.

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the white house message

yesterday was supposed to be about cracking done on crimes committed by undocumented immigrants. one of the president's signature campaign issues. we saw president trump stepping on his own narrative and it's far from the first time. on his inaugural weekend, trump sent his press secretary on a tirade with false claims about crowd sizes. after his joint address to congress, the president changed the conversation to his accusations of wiretapping, alleging a nixon or watergate conspiracy by a bad or sick guy. and after basketball practice, the president signalled reconciliation but hours later president trump declared he was the victim of a witch hunt and attacked some bad people and

attacked his own deputy general to deter an obstruction investigation into his conduct. and even during energy week, president trump could not stay on message. >> americans were told our nation could on solve this energy crisis by imposing dra conan restrictions on energy production. but we now now that was all a big, beautiful myth. it was fake. don't we love that term, fake. what we've learned about fake offer the last little while. fake news. cnn. fake. >> joinings now, nbc news correspondent katy tur and pulitzer prize winning columnist and associate editor of of "the washington post," eugene r robinson, who's piece this morning is titled "there trump goes again."

>> you saw and heard the frustration from republicans yesterday as you listened around capitol hill that they can't get this conversation going because he's always stepping in the way. >> yeah, and you laid out a pattern right there in that intro you made where donald trump will potentially have a good day or want to turn towards policy and he'll derail the entire conversation by tweeting something early in the morning. this has always been the way he's operated. this is nothing new. it's the same thing we saw on the campaign trail. ffs effe it was effective for him then because he was seen as a counterpuncher, a fighter and all that john mccain. this is not a candidate hitting back at an opponent or cable news, this is the president of the united states doing so. i've been having conversations with those close to the

president or this white house. i haven't spoken to anybody who thinks it's a bad thing yet. they think that he is under siege and donald trump needs a way to fight back against the media and they believe that this is wholly appropriate. they wish the republican senators wouldn't pile on. they think the republican senators have better things to do than pile on with this. a lot of people would say doesn't the president of the united states have better things to do than send out a tweet like this. but this is how they feel. they feel they're allowed to go after the media and they'll used as justification what just happened with cnn. not that cnn went out and fired the people who were involved in issuing or reporting something that was not true, which is an obvious sign that cnn is taking their news and the reporting very seriously, but they will say, look, this is them going after trump and his team in any way they can with false stories

and donald trump is allowed to fight back. >> and katy's reporting was on display in the white house briefing room, sarah huckabee sanders itemizing some of the things that mika and joe had said about president trump. the initial statement is when the president is hit, he hits back ten times harder. they dialed that back at the request of the first lady but this is what we do. >> this is just a breathtaking episode. in the lexicon of the day, what we have now is a fake president. we have a man occupying the t office of the president of the united states who is not fit to be president of the united states and is not capable of discharging the duties of the president of the united states and running an administration. and it is understandable that

people who work in the white house feel under siege, they are under siege. they need to be under siege because of what they're doing and not doing. and, you know, i thought that sarah huckabee sanders' press briefing yesterday was -- my jaw was just on the floor as i listened to her try to defend the literally indefensible. and this notion that somehow the white house advances its interests by acting in this unhinged way just shows how detached from what i think of as objective reality this white house has been. it's a very dangerous thing. >> and to viewers who are just waking up, just joining us this morning, joe and mika will be here with us in about 12 minutes to address everything that's happened since those tweets almost 24 hours ago. richard haas, i want to turn to

news with you. the newly elected south korean president and the president going to the g-20 where he's going to meet with vladimir putin next week in germany. >> it's a reminder that the world doesn't press the pause button while we go through our domestic, quote unquote, issues. it's arguably centering on the single most important security challenge donald trump will likely deal with. north korea is working on missiles that can reach the continental united states. what will that lead to? are we prepared to use military force? are we prepared to live with this? do we believe deterrence would work with kim jong un? can we bring china on board to use the leverage it says it doesn't have and we know it does and can we keep the south

koreans and the president of the united states on the same page? the leader of south korea has made decisions apart from the united states. can we convince the south koreans -- again, this is life and death for them. 12 million people in seoul are in range of north korea artillery. >> the president is tweeting this morning. he's tweeting if republicans senators are unable to pass what they're working on now, they should immediately repeal and then replace at a later date. he also is tweeting about chicago, the killings and crime have reached epic proportions. back to policy on twitter for him for now. >> we'll see. it's 6:49 in the morning. >> the fate of this health care bill, though, mitch mcconnell put some more opioid funding, came up to the level the west virginia senators were hoping for, rob portman as well.

are they going to get this through before august? >> the house asked uld a vote, want able to get to that vote and the house members went page. pretty rapidly after that and came to a vote and passed this to send it to the senate. we're seeing the same thing with the senate. they wanted to schedule a vote. that vote never happened. senators went to the white house, and now they're working on it again. mitch mcconnell has a lot of wiggle room with the 300 billion in deficit cuts where he can't hand it out to wary republicans. but, and it's a really big but, the president is getting in the way of this. and i'll just point to the two people that he had next to him the other day in that white house meeting. he had senator murkowski and senator collins sits next to them. both of them were very against the health care bill because of how it affected their states. both of them were

extraordinarily critical of president trump for the distasteful tweet he sent out, and that's a friendly way of putting it saying please stop, this is completely unacceptable. this is beneath your office. if he's trying to get health care done and make a campaign promise, i guess, even though none of these bills fulfill any of the promises he made on the campaign trail, it's not a good idea to do something that two female senators find appalling. >> they already had problems to begin with. >> katie, thank you, eugene, thank you. we'll be reading your new piece in the washington post. ahead, a new report raising questions about collusion between russian hackers and a former member of the trump administration, specifically general michael flynn. we'll bring in the reporter who broke that story, and as promised, joe and mika will join the set in about eight minutes. stay with us on "morning joe."

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the president tweeted and i quote, i heard poorly rated "morning joe" speaks badly of me. don't watch anymore. >> then low iq crazy mika and crazy joe. >> she was bleeding badly from a facelift. >> i said no. >> there is a level of viciousness that i was not expecting. i was not expecting the intensity of this experience. some of the distractions and some of the ferocity i was blind sided by on a personal level. >> welcome back to "morning joe." it's friday, june 30th. donny and catty k and herald ford junior, richard hoss and

joe and mika. welcome to your own show. >> we're supposed to be on vacation, but we're here. >> i said it at the top of the show. you guys were on your way to vacation. you had tickets to the red sox game. david price was pitching. they beat the twins. you were going to bring your kids up there. there was going to be a circus and you didn't want to deal with it. >> instead, it was me, tmz on the streets. >> i appreciate you coming back. mika, what's been going on the last 24 hours? >> it's been fascinating and frightening and really sad for our country. i mean, i've been getting a lot of texts and hearing you all talking. thank you. i'm fine. my family brought me up really tough. this is absolutely nothing. but i think for me, personally, but i am very concerned as to what this once again reveals about the president of the united states. it's strange. >> yeah. i think so. we had so many people saying i

hope you're okay. i had calls and texts and e-mails. we're okay. the country is not. it's so funny. yesterday, i actually asked mia ka. it was 8:40 -- i know this shocks you but i said i'm tired. everybody came in and ran and showed me the tweets before she came downstairs and i looked at them. i was like this has to be a joke. the president of the united states as bad as he's been in the past, he hasn't really gone over the cliff. then, unfortunately, we learned what we've always learned. that is that he for some reason takes things so much more personally with women. he's so much more vicious with women. i never told the story, but a very well-known congressman who went over to the white house with 20 other members when the president was pitching house members to get through the house said that he went on this rant about "morning joe." in front of 20 members of

congress while he was trying to pitch the health care bill. and went on and on and on and sort of brushed me aside, he's a joke, he's a joke, but then this senior member that everybody knows, said i just -- i've never made a call like this. i've been in politics my whole life. i actually -- he scared me, because he was vicious when he turned from you to mika. his face was red. he started talking about blood coming out of her ears, out of her eyes. and this congressman said i've been in politics for decades, and never seen anything like this. he said i don't know why i'm calling you, but i was just scared. i was scared for you guys, and i wanted you to know. and for some reason, we've seen this time and time again with mika. i will insult him over the muslim ban or say he's a racist. i'll say he's a racist what what he said about david duke.

all these things through the year, and for some reason, he always goes after mika. and it's always personal with mika. and he packed about five lies into the tweets which very productive two tweets to pack five or six lies into two tweets, but yesterday was another example of how deeply personal he is. he attacks women, because he fears women. >> he has a fixation. we did a piece in the washington post that goes through everything that happened that we wrote together. i guess i'll say this now. big picture? my father just passed away. my mother had two heart attacks. my daughter just lost a friend. those are the things i'm really worried about. those are the things that really deeply impact me, and leave me thinking about at night, and hurting and worrying and thinking about the future. the president's tweets? whether they're personally aimed at me or aimed at me in some way, that doesn't bother me one

bit. it does worry me about the country, and i know we have richard hoss with us. he appears to have a fragile child like ego that we've seen over and over again, especially with women. it's like he can't take it. and i saw this happening yesterday in realtime. we were talking about the time magazine cover, the white house claims we attack him. no, we report on his lies. we are upset when he doesn't tell the truth and he bullies people. that is true. we sometimes mock him and have fun with things like we did with president obama with his bowling, and we were having fun with the "time" magazine cover because it was hilarious that anyone would have their country club put up fake covers of their boss. i thought it was hilarious. i still do. i stand by my joke. i knew in realtime that the president would be tweaked by that, and i wonders, oh, boy, i

feel there's going to be a response. think about it. it is unbelievably alarming that this president is so easily played. he's so easily played by a cable news host. now, what is that saying to our allies? what is that saying to our enemies? that this president is so easily played? >> well, you know, willie, we got, actually, a lot of texts, a lot of calls, actually, from ambassadors and leaders that we've known through the years across the world. just expressing shock. and that's when you go from going you know what? this is just donald. we've known donald for 12 years. when you're getting e-mails and calls and texts from people across the world saying we stand by you like we're a sovereign state, we stand by you, "morning joe," the republican "morning joe." >> we stand with mika. >> we stand by you. we stand by mika. we stand by the show. this is shocking.

we don't even know how to respond to this as a country. we don't know how to deal with this guy. and we have friends inside the white house that have told us over the past month they're getting more concerned about his emotional state. and also more concerned at the same time -- >> self-control. >> also more concerned about what's happening across the world. there are bad things brewing across the world, which we can't say on the air. they know it. the dod. but this is one of the most dangerous times in recent american history, and we have a president who is attacking a cable news host because she dared make a joke about a "time" magazine cover. the president of south korea is at the white house. could not be a more serious time

for our relationship with south korea given what's happening in north korea. when he arrives in washington, what he hears around him and sees on his tv, the story about tweets about mika brzezinski. what does that say to him about the seriousness of the president? as to the tweets themselves, and i normally wouldn't ask you these things on tv, but you wrote about them. >> it was amazing how many lies he packed into two tweets. we did not want to go to mar-a-lago. donald kept calling joe. joe went, and he stayed for about 30 minutes. and then he's like where's mika? he seemed to want me to go. >> for some reason he was more interested in mika being there than me. >> the next night we went. i think i was in jeans. we walked through this -- we thought let's try to get an interview, talk to melania, who i like very much. and we were like shuffled into a

side room. it was actually a bedroom, talked for 20 minutes, and we left through this party of people dressed to the nines. talk about facelifts. whoa, palm beach. okay? hello. >> we love our palm beach viewers. >> it was amazing, and speaking of my face, speaking of my face, while we're there, i had my chin tweaked, the chin under my skin. called nicole and all my friends, had a lot of fun with it. i'm pretty transparent about what i do, and i think it looks awesome. >> how do you do that? >> it's so easy. i'll talk to you about it. you need it. >> i don't care. ask all my friends. >> that's the thing, and this is what he does. he takes something small and contorts it. he tries to weaponize it, and again, this has been one of our great frustrations. he just ends up hurting himself, and you go through wisconsin.

you go through pennsylvania. you go through michigan. you go through ohio, and you go through those four people and you realize there are people there in iowa who voted for barack obama eight years ago, and they're so desperate for some help. >> yeah. >> that they voted for donald trump this time because they wanted somebody who would fight for them, and instead, willie, all they've gotten is somebody that will fight for himself and pick fights with people that don't matter. if you don't like our show, and if you care about what's good for america, turn us off. i wrote "the washington post" piece with mika and wrote it's better for america and the world if he just turns his 8 0-inch television set to "fox and friends" and keeps it there and stays calm, stay in the bubble. >> i'm worried. i think the sign here is that we might have a bigger problem.

i've said this before. i've been trying to drill this point home. i think we have a much bigger problem on our hands. i think members of the administration, members of the cabinet, members of congress, have a really big problem on their hands. >> and that's what -- that's also because we've known him so long. and i know, donny, you've known him for a long time. the guy in the white house now is not the guy we knew two years ago. the guy that's in the white house now is not even close. the donald trump we knew, for the better part of 10 or 12 years, was always in on the joke. >> yeah. >> he'd go here's trump water, and then or here's this. look at this, and always wink. kind of like, they loved that. they loved that. like they just come here and love seeing my name. it makes them feel like they're part of something. he was in on the joke. without getting into great detail, i will just say that somebody at the top of his campaign last summer said to me, we're all really worried about his emotional state.

>> but this is our analysis. >> no, this isn't our analysis. i'm telling you what somebody said. >> yeah. >> this guy is not even the same person he was a year ago. >> it's interesting. i always used to use those words he's in on the joke. i want everybody to read your washington post today. he's not well. i think the real net of all of this is beyond the obvious of what was all atrocious about the tweet. he's not of sound mind. that's somebody that clinically you look at and say, there's something wrong there, and i think, i don't know what the doctors in the white house situation is. but this is the man who has his hands on the code, and he's clearly not well. i'm not -- >> the question is, willie, when do you stop doing things that are in your best interest and start doing things that are obviously going to hurt you, bring harm to you, bring harm to people around you, and he's been acting that way for some time now.

>> well, the russia tweets have been a case study in that. every time he tweets about russia, he's made it exponentially worse for him. everything he's said and done publicly has made it worse. if he had restraint, he'd be helping himself. he contradicts his best interest. there's something you've talked about a lot. if you look at the former presidents, you need a thick skin. you have to to be president. we were talking about a story we've told many times about george w. bush and all the noise on cable noise and all the noise in the media when he was president about being impeached and he's hitler and everything else. and he goes in and he's told one night that keith olbermann had gone after him that night in a vicious way. >> this was a couple years into it, like 2007, 2008. >> yeah. he's told something was said serious about him and it's getting good pickup. and george w. bush look tatd

white house communications person and said why is he ta talking about me? i love that guy. he does sports center. you have to block out the noise and do your job. >> i was telling willie about a piece of video in jfk. he was hammered by the press. he said i had the most brutal time. the press is brutal to me, but thank god i have that because others don't have that kind of workout every day, and it's making my presidency better. what a night and day reaction to what it means to have a press that's free open and questioning to the president. >> richard, talk about the crises that are breaking out across the globe that -- and we're not even counting you trying to grow a beard for the fourth of july weekend. >> the fact that he can be played so easily that he lurches

as a morning show host, and since he's obsessed at a woman that makes him feel even more scathed when a woman mocks him, what does that say to our enemies, allies, and allegiances and developing relationships around the world. >> and could that be why he was so rude to angela merkel, a woman that many call the leader of the free world. >> words you want associated with the president are careful, disciplined, sober. you want someone of good juch judgment. this president is going to have to make decisions that will affect the lives of every person on the planet. you want the president to have that in the back of his mind before he says or does anything. but what worries me here in the foreign policy sense is i don't want a president who is susceptible to flattery, and this gets to the saudi visit, where i think the united states was way too much in the direction of saudis and others and this could drag us, i think, into an unwarranted conflict in

the middle east. and i don't want a president that's thin skinned to criticism. i want a president that can brush them both off. both will come at him day and in day out. you want someone who can remain calm when nobody else is. here we are in the south korean president at the white house. this will be the single most important national security set of decisions he's going to have to make, and literally, millions -- i'm not exaggerating here. millions of lives in that part of the world possibly in the united states will be affected by what it is the united states does and doesn't do and how it does it. so the stakes couldn't be larger. and here we are, quite honestly, having this conversation, and the juxtaposition between the stakes coming at us in the president's inbox and where we are in terms of this conversation as a country, the contrast between the two cannot make anybody in or out of this white house feel comfortable. >> no, and you think about him responding to my tweaking him

about the time magazine covers, you think about that spooky cabinet meeting where everybody went around the table and comply meanted him. this appears to be the man who requires his cabinet to speak at length about his greatness, especially in the middle of a presidency that appears to be struggling, low approval ratings, and very few accomplishments. he's not in reality. >> never been any question that he requires daily if not hourly affirmation. i want to ask you about something else you published in the washington post piece this morning. it's something we've talked about in private. you've never talked about it on television. i'm already getting a lot of questions about it. i want to give you the chance to explain. this year top white house staff members warned that the national inquirer was planning to publish a negative article about us unless we begged the president to have the story spiked. we ignored their desperate pleas. what exactly happened there to the extent you're comfortable

talking about it? >> i'm comfortable talking. i think we have to talk about it now, because it explains the relationship and his really strange obsession with this show and in particular, it's really disturbing obsession with mika. we got a call that, hey, the national inquirer is going to run a negative story against you guys. and it was donald is friends with the president's friends with the guy that runs the national inquirer. and they said, if you call the president up and you apologize for your coverage, then he will pick up the phone and basically spike this story. i had -- i will just say, three people at the very top of the administration calling me, and the response was like, are you kidding me? i don't know what they have.

run a story? i'm not going to do it. the calls kept coming. and kept coming. and they were like call. you need to call. please call. come on, joe. just pick up the phone and call him. >> it's blackmail. >> and let me explain what they were threatening. they were calling my children. they were calling close friends. >> you're talking about "the national inquirer". >> they were pinning the story on my ex-husband, i knew he would never do that. so i knew it was a lie and they had nothing. these calls persisted for quite some time, and then joe had the conversations that he had with the white house where they said oh, this could go away. >> i just want to be very clear here. >> the national inquirer is harassing your children, your daughters, two are teenagers? >> yeah. >> and then joe in turn is getting calls from the white house -- >> by the way, they're also -- i

was at mika's house for a few minutes, and came out, and there was a guy in a van that was just staked out there watching. it was clear that he was from a tabloid, and he started asking questions. and then after all this started to happen, that's when we started getting calls from the white house, saying if you call, you need to call the president -- >> and our response talking to my ex-husband and joe and my kids was screw it, let them run it. go ahead and run it. >> by the way, they ended up running something, and they interviewed a guy who is like yeah, i seen him there for about a year. he comes in. he buys about three six packs a week here in my store. hold on. i've never bought a beer. you can check it out. i'll be gary heart here. follow me around. i've never bought a beer in my life from a convenience store, from a bar. anywhere. >> i don't want to talk about

tweets anymore. what you just said is one of the most frightening things i've ever heard. >> this is what we got. >> basically that this story was going to run unless you grovel to the president, and then the president will kill the story. >> not just the story. we'll have national inquirer stop harassing your children if you grovel to the president of the united states. >> what makes it even worse for them is donald trump called me during the campaign and bragged about his friend who ran the national inquirer. and he'd say, have you seen the ben carson story? have you seen the ben carson story? have you seen the story in the inquirer, and then he'd talk about it. did they do the jfk story too? i don't know. but there were all these stories planted in the national inquirer for people that donald trump wanted to attack. and then he would talk about it on the campaign trail. so when we heard it, i said oh, so we've gone from campaign mode to now trying to attack us.

and, of course, go ahead. we were -- >> the ted cruz jfk story was the national inquirer, that his father was involved somehow. >> yeah. herald, i know you've held elected office. i know you've held town hall meetings. i know you've had people come up to you and grab you and say i need help. i need help. we're not able to make ends meet, we're not able to pay -- and there's some americans like that. and how do you explain to them what's happening in the white house when top white house aides are dealing with tweets or top white house aides are dealing with reporters trying to do whatever they were trying to do in the national inquirer? it's just horrifying. >> you don't. you can't deal with it. first of all, i thank you for coming on this morning and answering and responding to

this. it's a shame that you had to. that the president -- >> you're telling me i missed a good game last night at fenway. >> again, i come back to where he started. who are we as -- >> are you okay? >> i'll be okay. i'm not going to make this about me. there's. >> there's a seriousness about this. the president says i'll make something go away if you bow to me or kowtow to me. the fact that his response because he's upset about the why he's being criticized on health care, attacks on infrastructure and policy is to attack mika personally. we have to figure out as a country who are we? what have we become if we allow this to be a leader? >> i think more importantly, touching on -- >> it's a terrible proposition we find ourselves having to deal

with this morning. >> touching on this this morning, t not just we as a country. it's those of us who have called ourselves a conservative and called ourselves republicans for our entire life. when he's obsessed the way he is on the small things he's obsessed with, what happens to a health care agenda? you don't move health care agenda forward. you don't have conversations about how getting free enterprise and free markets in health care can drive down the cost. you don't talk about passing reform that makes americans more competitive with the rest of the world, or getting trillions back invested in the united states which would take working class people back to work. you don't get to talk about regulatory reform or get to talk about using that money for infrastructure and rebuilding

our country. and somebody coming back from russia saying their infrastructure is incredible, china's infrastructure is incredible. they said you should say the road and trains. they are rebuilding. china did the same thing five years ago. we're not doing this because we have a president that is obsessed with the smallest of things. >> everybody has lapses in judgment and they say terrible things or things they don't agree with. when you say them, you come back as someone to me the other day, good judgment at the end of the day is better late than never. and you would hope at some point when you say something crazy j you come back, i don't mean that. this president hasn't apologized. >> he never does. >> and a spokesperson came out and said this is what you voted for. i don't believe the country voted for this. i'm so curious. i want to see how we as a nation, the fabric and the texture of who we are respond to this. again, i'm hopeful and prayerful

that the answer is resembles the tone this morning and resembles, you are who you are, but i hope the country shows we won't stand for this. >> by the way, it's awful thing. we show no courage here. we get paid well. we've got the job of our dreams. we've got the best life. i mean, coming from where i came from, my dad was unemployed for two years, couldn't find a job. and i did coming from where i come from, i did just learn to read just a couple months ago. >> yeah. >> so we're extraordinarily lucky. there are people hurting out there. average wages have declined in realtime since 1974. health care costs are going up.

deductibles are going up. premiums are going up. their coverage is getting worse. our corporations that employ millions of people can't compete with other corporations across the world as effectively, because our tax rates are higher. our infrastructure is crumbling. our airports are a joke. our bridges are collapsing. that's what matters. and that's what's not getting done in an age where the partisanship is so harsh that steve scalise can get gunned down at a charity baseball practice and yet a week later, two weeks later, the president of the united states is amping things up. and making the political environment all the more dangerous. >> for years america has been ungovernable, richard spoke about the crisis facing us around the world. you pointed out the opportunities other countries are seizing. while america is standing still

in terms of infrastructure building, creating more jobs, getting the manufacturing industries going again, other countries are moving forward. they just are, and there have been some speculation that when the president came into office because of him saying that he's a deal-maker, and because he had the republicans in the senate and the republicans in the house, he would be able to break the gridlock, that this was the president, perhaps, who could get things moving because he had all the power in one party's hands and because he billed himself as a deal maker. instead his administration is caught up day after day in trying to clean up yet the latest tweet that is occupying everybody's interests and air time, and making it harder and harder for members of his own party to do business with him. >> and mika, i've got a -- i've got a 13-year-old daughter. you've got two daughters, and i'm concerned about the messages that are being sent from this

president, just like we've said it before on the show, both of us. we were concerned about the messages that were sent to boys and girls when bill clinton was in the white house. but now, especially, you have women that are constantly degraded. you are constantly degraded by the president of the united states whenever he attacks us. he doesn't attack me. he attacks you. you can look at we had katy tur on. you can look at what he did with the pageant queen that he fat shamed. you could look at what he did with megyn kelly. you can look at what he's done time and time again, and by the way, we're not even saying about what he said privately. this congressman saying that he went into a rage talking about you and blood to 20 congressmen that he was actually whipping on the health care bill in the white house. what does this say to young women and young girls, and what does it say about the women in the white house that won't step

up and speak out against this? >> in a phone call, he starts leering and smiling at an irish reporter who he finds attractive, this has brought us back, like, 30 years. i do think women in the white house need to know their value and step up and understand they need to set him straight. so do the men. >> i want to bring one name out. and i'm sorry to name one person, but i'm going to name her. because he's been around washington for a long time. he's been a friend, we know her, but elaine chow. he's be she's been there before. she'll be there again. somebody like elaine chow needs to speak out the next time this happens. she has a voice. it's not enough anymore to say he's new to the job. and that's what she said. that's what others have said. well, he's new to the job. >> i would not allow, i have

four kids, i would not allow any of my children to behave this way, and if they did behave this way one time, i would take care of it. instead, a lot of these republicans and cabinet members are going, oh, it's disappointing. would you say that to your five-year-old if your five-year-old smacked or insulted somebody? no. >> if somebody said this about my daughter. i'm going to elevate the conversation. we're from queens. i'll meet you in the schoolyard, brother. i'm sorry. this is where this needs -- >> can we get the sub glasses back on? >> he's a coward. he's a coward. >> we want to take it out of the schoolyard. >> i don't want to. >> i do. i want to teach my children to treat people with respect, and to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. and stop the insanity. we're not going to get washington fixed as long as this continues and as long as republicans turn a blind eye to it. >> it's not about being new to

the presidency. you'd have to be new to humanity to know not to say something like that, not just to a woman, to another human being, and especially when you're the most famous person now on the face of the earth, donald trump. and most powerful. and everybody listens to every word you said and it sets the tone for people who believe in you and follow you. >> let's end it on this note. he's once again shown the world that he can be played. he can be tweaked. he can be goaded so easily that it's frightening. >> well. >> we'll leave it there. >> what does it mean for north korea or vladimir putin? >> that's what i'm worried about. i'm fine. >> one piece of bad news. >> what's that? >> the sox are in toronto now. >> i know. >> we're going to go on vacation now. >> where are you going? >> i don't think i'll be mentioning where we're going. tmz calls my two male dogs

bitches. i don't get it, but that's what happened. i went walking with my dogs. they're both boys, and it said bitches have her back. >> she has 14 dogs. 18 chickens, 12 rabbits. you want to do a story, that's the story. >> how's snunugget. >> awesome. >> you go low, mika goes to the chickens. >> go on vacation. >> thank you so much. >> happy fourth. >> we'll be right back on "morning joe." in the future, a nation's technology will determine its power. in its economy, in medicine, in science and in national security. one company designs and builds more supercomputers than any other. an american company. hewlett packard enterprise. leading the way to discover... to innovate...

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challenging the travel ban. it went partially into effect last night. the trump administration issued guidelines stating the travelers with close family in the u.s. still would be allowed to enter the country. the state department has narrowly defined that now as apparent or a child including inlaws, a sibling, or a spouse. officially fiances were not on the list, but the administration reversed that decision last night to include fiances. the guidelines for who is considered close family, though, do not include grandparents, aunts or uncles, nieces or nephe nephews, cousins, and brothers or sisters in law. hawaii's attorney general filed a motion last night asking a judge to decide whether the list of unqualified relatives violates a court order. the supreme court exempted travelers and refugees with a bone if ied relationship with a person or entity in the u.s. peter baker, a lot to sift

through. is this the travel ban the white house wanted at the end of the day. >> it's not what they wanted. it was something grander and sweeping. everything coming in from the six muslim countries who wasn't an american citizen, eventually american green card holder. the supreme court has already carved out a big swath of that group of people to say these people do have a right to still come here while we consider this case. now we're arguing about uncles and grandparents and that will continue to be litigated. the president wants to call this a big victory. it's not. it sort of demonstrates what would have happened had the administration drafted a more legally defensible issue in the first place. had they done in the first place, we'd be through the period they have for different parts of the executive order and

moved on, but that's not happened. >> nick, donald trump tweeted earlier last week when the supreme court voted to allow a partial travel ban that that was a great victory for the security of the country. it will be revisited in the new term coming in the fall for the supreme court. do you think they can reasonably declare victory on this? that this is maybe not exactly what they wanted but in some form they banned travel in the countries they wanted to ban travel from. >> beggars can't with choosers. look, if they had done this homework before, and not had some 25-year-olds writing executive order in a back office somewhere the first time, it could possibly have happened the first time. it seems now they have lawyers on board. they're trying to tailor it. as we know, the president has latitude, and it could be this is the final one or a version of the one that finally passes. >> do you think this holds up in the supreme court this fall?

>> i personally don't think so, but i'm not a legal scholar. i would say that there have been so many significant missteps from this administration, the sloppiness trying to put this order through with scratching it out on the back of a napkin instead of consulting the white house counsel and all the departments that should be involved in this type of decision, and then the president trying to shoot himself in the foot with the order by tweeting that yes, it was a travel ban after all. >> richard, is there evidence out there based on what you've seen now and what we know about who can and can't come that this will as president trump says, make america safer? >> no. this is arbitrary. it's also in the united states not clear that keeping people out, per se, is our real challenge. we've had very few people go to syria. the real challenge is we have 3 million muslim americans and policies like this are the most likely path to alienating them. that creates the sort of problem

we haven't had which is an internal problem. i'm not persuaded the court is going to support this given the history of the language about a muslim ban. to say it's okay to bring in sons-in-law but not grarndparens is bizarre. >> this is an administration that cares about sons-in-law. >> this is so arbitrary. you already had a 6-3 court decision temporarily on this including the chief justice. it's too soon to call this a victory. >> it doesn't affect many people. in 201560,000 people applied for visas from the countries. most of them were iranians. probably 15,000 people might be affected. but the problem is the message. america's done a far better job than any other westernized country in integrating the muslim population. it's less than 1% of the

country, but they feel american. they don't feel muslim and then american. that's very different from european countries. why would you want to get yourself into a position where you might up end that, and have a more radicalized position. that's when you lead to attacks on the homeland. that's the people already here. >> peter, let me swing to health care and ask you about the fate of this whole thing, the president tweeting today that if the health care bill fails congress should repeal obama care and replace it, quote, at a later date. i'm not sure exactly how that works or whether or not they could do those separately. >> he seemed to be reacting to ben sass who said we should repeal it now and instead of

deadline perhaps a year later replace it. that's either scrambled in politics. a lot of republican senators will be unhappy about the idea they're going to wipe it away without an adequate replacement. then you get a lot of the negative aspects of it without anything to point to as a successor program that would fulfill the president's promises to keep people covered and make sure costs are contained. so i don't see how that makes the politics of this any better. maybe more satisfying, perhaps, to opponents of obama program who think it's just a disaster and ought to be gotten rid of and perhaps the idea would be we get rid of it and then see how bad things get without anything so what we come back with will seem like an improvement over nothing. >> it was just a few days ago mitch mcconnell was hoping to have a vote on that today. that's not going to happen. they'll go away with the break without having done much on it. coming up next, a new report

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>> i will tell you this. russia, if you're listening, i hope you're able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing. i think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. let's see if that happens. >> that was a moment from the 2016 campaign last july when then candidate donald trump hoped russia would find the e-mails missing from clinton clinton's private server. "the wall street journal" now reports russian hackers did discuss how to obtain those e-mails and if found, how to hand them over the michael flynn, trump campaign advisor. joining us, the reporter who broke the story, shane harris. shane, good morning. good to have you with us on this huge story. who exactly was this gop

operative and what exactly was his connection to general flynn? >> right. his name was peter w. smith. he's a finance person from chicago who has a long history in opposition research going back to the early clinton days where he was responsible for helping to publicize a number of stories about bill clinton's personal life. and his connection to general flynn is they definitely knew each other. but what we found in our investigation is that over last summer into the fall peter smith was engage income this operation to try and find hacked e-mails and telling many of his associates that he was keeping mike flynn aware of what he was doing. he portrayed mike flynn as somebody who was a part of a small circle of people who were actually working on this and gave the impression that he was an allie in that. so it's our understanding they met at some time before this began. as things got going, that when smith started repeatedly invoking pete's name as somebody usually with him on this

project? >> a great story, show it on the front page. i saw it last night. my head exploded. i got to tell you, you say people in the u.s. investigators have seen reports from intelligence agencies that describe russian hackers how to obtain clinton e-mails and transfer them to mr. flynn. tell us more about that pizza. it seems leak the first evidence of collusion between russian hackers and members of the president's inner circle. >> i think it's a great piece of this story. what intelligence reports are describing is behavior consistent with the activity of peter smith and his associates said they were involved in. around this same time frame, after donald trump made that statement in florida we we heard earlier, u.s. spell jens is picking up these russian hackers discussing ways to try and get hillary clinton's e-mails from her server and then to transmany it that information somehow via an intermediary back to mike flynn. we don't know for certain if

that intermediary was peter smith. he was also working with other people, including an investigator in europe. so it's possible that his name wouldn't show up in this. but it is striking how the activities match up of the description of the mission if you will lines up and the time frame is similar. so it is at least possible that what we are seeing in those reports is the other end of this operation that we discover that peter smith said he was involved in. >> shane, alease jordan here. i want to go through the time line on this. it's clear you meticulously reported this. you interviewed peter smith at the beginning of may and then he died ten days later, now it's the end of junened you are running this story. there is a certain darkness to that. how did mr. smith die? >> it's a great question. i should say, we do not know how he died. we made multiple attempts both with family members an associates of his as well as government officials in the town

where he lived to try and determine his cause of death. we were unsuccessful in that. i should also say that peter smith actually reached out to me on this story. he became aware that i had been look nook this from some prior information and came forward and told this whole story and it was up with of these unexpected moments as a reporter one of the persons you are looking into suddenly called you. there were a number of questions after that first fairly extensive interview i have for him. of course, we didn't have a chance to follow up with it. at this point we know he was 81-years-old, there was no reason to suspect foul play in that. i want to be clear about. that he was extremely forthcoming in this interview that he did, really quite proud of the work, held out hope eventually these e-mails would surface. he did believe they found warp hillary clinton's e-mails. he felt he could not guarantee with 100% certainty they were genuine and could not be manipulated. he was afraid of putting them

out under his name given his previous negative association with the clinton family. he thought they would be dismissed essentially as a hit job. instead, he advised the hackers to give them to wiki leaks. there is no indication whether that happened or no. he really did feel eventually this information would come to light. even if he wasn't the one to bring it there. >> it is an extraordinary story. can you read theread rest of it. shane harris, thanks for being here, appreciate it. >> thanks, a lot, everybody. up next, if you missed joe and meika, their response to president trump's tweets against them. we will replay that in a few minutes. they have incredible revelations about their interactions with the president, things they've never said before publicly. stay with us for that conversation, just moments away. ♪

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"morning joe" speaks badly of me. don't watch anymore. then how come low iq crazy micah and psycho joe. came to mira lago. >> she was bleeding badly from a facelift. >> i said no. >> there is a level of viciousness that i was not expecting. i was not expecting the intensity of this experience. some of the distractions and some of the, the veracity was i was a little blindsided by on a personal level. ♪ >> welcome back to "morning joe." it's friday, june 30th. done my deutsche is with us. along with catty kay, harold ford, jr. the president on the council on foreign relations richard haase and as promised, joe and meika. welcome to your own show.

>> well, we're supposed to be on vacation. >> well i said at the top of the show, you guys were on your way to vacation, you had tickets to the red sox game. >> it's going to be a big one. >> david price was pitching, you were going to bring your kids up there, it was going to be a circus, you don't want to deal is with it. >> not if it's me, tmz and my dogs on the streets. >> i asked you to come back. meika, what has been going on in the last 24 hours? >> you know what, i think it's been fascinating and frightening and really sad for our country. i have been getting a lot of texts and hearing you all talking. thank you, i'm fine. my family brought me up really tough. this is absolutely nothing. but i think for me, personally, but i am very concerned as to what this once again reveals about the president of the united states. it's strange. >> yeah, i think. so we had so many people saying hope you are okay, we had calls and texts and e-mails, we're okay. the country is not.

i mean, that was, when you know it's so funny yesterday i actually asked micah, it was like 8:45. i know this will shock you. i said, i'm really tired, can you do the last 15 minutes on the show? everybody came in and ran and showed me the tweets before she came upstairs. i looked at them, i was like this has to be a joke. the president of the united states is bad as he's been in the past. he has gone over the cliff. unfortunately we learned what we've always learned sthachlt is that he for some reason takes things so much more personally with women. he is so much more vicious with women. i never told the story, but a very well known congressman who went over to the white house with 20 other members when the president was pitching house members to get through the house, said he went on the rant about "morning joe" in front of 20 members of congress while he was trying to pitch the health care bill. he went on and on and on and

brushed me aside, he's a joke, he's a joke. then this senior member that everybody knows and we were, said, this is i never made a call like this. i have been in politics my whole life. i actually, he scared me. because he was vicious when he turned from micah, from you to meika, his face was red, he started talking about blood coming out of her ears, out of her eyes, and this congressman said, i have been in politics for decades and i've never seen anything leak this i don't even know why i'm calling you, but i was just scared. i was scared for you guys and i wanted you to know. and for some reason, we've seen this time and time again with meika. i will insult him over the muslim ban or say that he's a racist, i'm say he's a rate racist what he says about david duke. all of these things through the air, for some reason, he always goes after meika. it's always personal with meika,

and he packed about five lies into the tweets, which very productive tweets, in fact, five or six lie, but yesterday was just another example of how deeply personal he s. he attacks women. because he fears women. >> he has a fixation. there is, we did a piece in the washington post we wrote together that kind of goes through everything that happened. but i guess i'll say this now, big picture. my father just passed away. my mother had two heart attacks, my daughter just lost a friend. those are the things i'm really worried about. those are things that deeply impact me and you know leave me thinking about at night and hurting and worrying and thinking about the future t. president's tweets, whether they're personally aimed at me in some way, that doesn't bother me one bit. it does worry me about the country. and i know we have richard haase with us, he appears to have a

fragile impetuous child-like ego that we've seen over and over again, especially with women, it's like he can't take it. and i saw this happening yesterday in real time. we were talking about the "time" magazine cover the white house claims we attack him. no, we reported his lies, we are upset when he doesn't tell the truth and he bullies people. >> that is true. we sometimes mock him and have fun with things like we did to president obama with his bowling and we were having fun with the "time" magazine cover, because it was hilarious that anybody would have their country club put up fake "time" covers about your boss or maybe the employer felt they needed to do that. i thought it was hilarious, i still do. i stand by my joke. i knew in real time that the president would be tweaked by that. i wonder, boy, i feel there will be a response. i tell you that think about it, it is unbelievably alarming that this president is so easily

played. he's so easily played by a cable news host. now, what is that saying to our allies? what is that saying to our enemies that this president is so easily played. >> >> you know, willie, we got actually a lot of texts, a lot of calls from ambassadors and leaders that we've known through the years across the world. just expressing shock. that's when you go from -- you know, this is donald, we have known donald for 12 years, et cetera. when you get e-mails and calls and texts from people across the world saying we stand by you, we stand by you "morning joe" the republic of "morning joe" i think we stand by you, we stand by meika, we stand by this show. this is shocking. we don't even know how to respond to this as a country. we don't know how to deal with

this guy and we have friends inside the white house that have told us over the past month they're getting more concerned about his emotional state and also more concern is at the same time. >> lost control. >> about what's happening across the world. there are bad things brewing across the world, which we can't say on the air. they know it. the dod. but this is one of the most dangerous times in recent american history and we have a president who is attacking a cable news house because she dared make a joke about the "time" magazine cover. >> the president is in washington. there will be a meeting. there could not be a more serious time about a relationship with south korea, given what's happening in north korea. what he sees on his tv, what he

hears around him, his story about tweets about meika, what does that signal to him about the seriousness of the president? as to the tweets, themselves, i normally wouldn't say this on tv. you wrote about them in the washington post. >> go ahead. >> you pointed out a bunch of things that weren't true. >> well, it was amazing how many lies he packed into two tweets. we did not want to go to mira lago. donald kept calling joe. joe went and he stayed for about 30 minutes and then he's like, where's mika? he seemed for me to go. >> he wanted you to be there more than me. >> so the next night we went, i think in jeans, we walked through this, okay, let's try to get an interview, talked to melania, who i like very much. and we were, we were like shuffled into a side room, actually a bedroom, talked for 20 minutes and we left through

this party of people dressed to the 9s, talk about faceless roles, palm beach. okay. i know. >> all our palm beach viewers. >> we love new palm beach. >> amazing, speaking of my face while we're there. i had my chin tweaked, i bliev facetimed you. we talked about it. called nick comb, all my friends, i'm pretty transparent about what i do and i think it looks awesome. >> how do do you that? >> it's so easy, i'll talk to you about it. you need it. >> let me ask this question. >> i don't care. >> see that's the thing, though, this is what he does, he takes something small and he tries to wh weaponize it. again, this has been one of our great frustrations, he ends up hurting himself and you know, you go through wisconsin, you go through pennsylvania, you go through michigan, you go through ohio and you go through those four states, you realize, there

are people there that voted for barack obama eight years ago and they are so desperate for some help that they voted for donald trump this time because they wanted somebody who would fight for them and instead, willie, all they've gotten is somebody that will fight for himself and pick fights with people that don't patz. like, if you don't like our show, and if you care about what's good for america, turn us off. hey, i wrote in the washington post piece with mika. >> easy. >> that it's better for america and the world if he just turns his 80-inch television set to "fox and friends" and keeps it there. stay calm, stay in the bubble. and we'll be fine. >> i think the thing here is we might have a bigger problem. i said this before. i have been trying to drill this point home. i think we have a much bigger problem on our hands. i think members of the

administration, members of the cabinet, members of congress have a really big problem on their hands. >> that's also because we have known him so long. i know donny you have known him for a long time. the guy in the white house is not the buy the we knew two years ago t. guy in the white house now is not even close, the donald trump we knew for the better part of ten, 12 years, was always upset, here's trump water, here's there, hey, look at this and always winked, kind of like they love that. he'd say, they come here, they love seeing my name. it makes them feel like they're a part of something. he was us as into the joke. without getting into great detail, i will say that somebody at the top of this campaign last summer said to me, we're all really worried about his emotional state. >> but there is our anal zblis he can change. this isn't our analysis, i'm telling you what somebody said

this guy is not even the same person he was a year ago. >> it's interesting, i always used to use those words, he's in on the joke. i want everybody to really read the washington post piece the top of it is something we are talking about. he's not well. i think the real net, net, net of all this is beyond the obvious of what was all atrocious on tweets. he's not of sound mind. that's somebody that clinically you look at and say, there's something wrong there. and i think, i don't know what the doctors in the white house situation is, i don't know, this is a man who's got his hands on the code, he's clearly not well. >> and the question is, really. >> hess mentally ill. >> when do you stop doing things in your best interest and doing things that are obviously going to hurt you, bring harm to you, bring harm to people around you. and he's been acting that way for some time now. >> well the russia tweets have been a case study in that. every time he tweets about russia, he's made it

exponentially worse for him. everything he has said publicly has made it worse. if he had some restraint, he'd be helping himself. he contradicts his own best interest. i think there is something you talked about a lot. if you look at jp morgan w. bush or bill clinton and barack obama. you got to have a thick skin. you have to to be president. we were just talking about a story that we told many times and a friend of ours told us about george w. bush and all the noise on cable news and all the news in the media when he was president, he should be impeached. he is hitler and everything else. he goes in and is told one night keith oberman had gone after him in a pretty vicious way. >> a couple years into it. 2007, 2008. >> he is told keith oberman said something serious that's getting good pick up, we thought you should know. george w. bush and looked at this white house combhun indications person, keith oberman, why is he talking about me? he said he does sports center.

i love that guy. the point of the story being, you got to block out the noise and do your job and not worry about what's being said around you. >> it want to tell you, he is being hammered by the press. he says, i just had the most brutal time the press is terrible to me, abrasive, but thank god i have that, ku khrushchev doesn't have that, a night and day reaction what it means to have a press that is free opened and questioning the presidency. >> and richard, talk about the crises that are breaking out across the globe, that and we're not even counting you trying to grow a beard for the fourth of july weekend. >> no, but the fact that he can be played so easily that he lurchs at a morning cable news host and since he's obsessed with women in a way that makes him feel even more 68scathed wh

woman mocks him, what does that say about our developing relationships around the world? >>co you would that be why he was so rude to angela merkel, a woman many called the free woman of the world. >> the adjectives with the president are careful, discipline, sober, you want someone of good judgment. because this president is going to have to make decisions that literally will affect the lives of every person on the planet. sow almost want the president to have that in the back of his mind before he says or does anything. but what worries me here in the foreign policy sense is i don't want a president who is susceptible to flattery and this gets at the saudi visit where i think the united states was way, way too much in the direction of the saudis and others and this could drag us, i think, into an unwarranted conflict in the middle east and i don't want a president who is thin skinned to criticism. i want a president who can brush off both t. flattery and the

criticism. both are going to come at him fast and furious day in, day out. you want someone who can remain calm when nobody else is. that's what we need. here we are today with the south korean president at the white house. this will be the single most important national security set of decisions he's going to have to make and literally millions, i'm not exaggerating here, millions of lives in that part of the world, possibly in the united states will be affected by what it is the united states does and doesn't do and how it does it? so the stakes couldn't be larger. and here we are, quite honestly, having this conversation. the juxtaposition between the states come at us and the president's inbox and where we are in terms of this conversation as a country, the contrast between the two cannot make anybody in or out of this white house feel comfortable? >> no, you think about him responding to my tweaking him about the "time"' covers, you think about that spooky cabinet meeting, where everybody went

around the table and complimented him. this appears to be a man that cannot take the tiniest tweak from a woman on cable news but requires his cabinet to speak at length about his greatness, especially in the middle of a presidency that appears to be struggling, low approval rating and very few accomplishments. he's not in reality. >> there has never been any question that he requires daily if not hourly affirmation. i want to ask you about something else you published in the washington post piece this morning, something we talked about if private, either on television, i'm already getting a lot of questions about it. i want to give you a lot of questions to explain. this year, top white house staff members warn that the national enquirer wasplay planning to publish a negative article unless we begged the president to have the story spiked. we ignored their desperate pleas, what exactly happened there to the extent are you comfortable talking about it? >> i am comfortable talking. i think we have to talk about it now.

it explains the relationship and his really strange obsession with this show and, in particular, it's really disturbing obsession with mika. we got a call that, hey the "national enquirer" is going to run a negative story against you guys, and it was, you know, donald is sfrendz with the president's friends with the guy that runs "the national enquirer" they said if you call the president up and you apologize for your coverage, then he will pick up the phone and basically spike the story. i had -- i will just say three people at the very top of the administration calling me and the response was like, are you kidding me? i don't know what they have run a story. i'm not sfwj to going to do it.

they were like calm, you need to call. please calm. c'mon, joe, just pick up the phone and call him. >> it's black paille. >> let me explain what they were threatening. they were calling my children. they were calling close friends of mine. >> can national enquirer. >> and they were pinning the story on my ex-husband, who would absolutely never do that, so i knew immediately it was a lie and they had nothing. and these calls persisted for quite some time and then joe had the conversations that he had with the white house where they said, oh, this could go away. >> so i just want to be very clear here. >> wow. >> the national enquirer is harassing your children, your daughters. >> right. >> who are teenagers? >> yeah. >> and then joe in turn is getting calls from the white house. >> by the way, also, i was at mika's house, for a few minutes and came out and there was a guy in a van that was just staked

out there, watching. it was clear that he was from a tabloid and he started asking questions and then after all the started to happen, that's when we started getting calls from the white house saying if you call, you need to call the president and -- >> and our response in talking to my ex-husband, talking to joe, to my kids was, screw it, let him run it. go ahead and run it. >> they ended up running something and they interviewed a guy who said, yeah, i seen him there about a year. he comes in, he buys about three six packs of beer here a week in my store. hold on, i've never bought a beer, you can check it out. i'll be gary hart here, follow me around. i've never bought a beer in my life from a convenience store from a bar. >> i don't want to talk about tweets anymore. what mika said is one of the most frightening things we we

heard. >> this is what we got. >> basically that the story is going to run unless you grovel to the president and the president will kill the story? >> if the story runs, we are harassing your children if you grovel to the president. >> what makes it even worse for them is donald trump called me during campaign and bragged about his friend, who ran the "national enquirer" he'd say, have you seen the ben carson story? have you seen that story and then he would talk about it. did they do the jfk story, too? but there were all these stories that were planted in the "national enquirer" for people that donald trump wanted to attack. and then he would talk about it on the campaign trail. so when we we heard it. oh, so we've gone from campaign mode to now trying to attack us. and, of course, go ahead. we were -- >> the tread cruz jfk story was

the "national enquirer" his father was involved somehow. >> harold, i know you held elected office. i know you've held town hall meetings. i know you've had people come up to you and like grab you and say, "i need help. i need help. we're not able to make ends meet. we're not able to pay our --" and there are so many americans like that. and how do you explain to them what's happening in the white house when top white house aides are dealing with tweets or top white house aides are dealing with reporters trying to do whatever they were trying to do in the "national enquirer"? it's just orfying. >> you don't. you can't deal with it. first of all, i thank you for coming on this morning an answering and responding to that. it's a shame that you had to, that the president of the -- >> you are telling me, i missed

a good red sox game at fenway. >> i come back to where we started. >> are you okay? >> i'll be okay. >> are you sure? >> i'm not going to make this about me. >> it's a wonderful thing. i think there is a serious inside to this. donny raised it again, the president to call somebody can make something go away in the peso if you cow me or cow tail to me t. fact that his response because he's upset about the way he has been criticized on health care infrastructure and foreign policy is to attack mika personally. we as a country, we got to figure out who are we? what have we become if we allow this to be the leader and the spokesperson and how we project ourselves as a nation. >> i think more importantly, a terrible proposition we found ourselves having to deal with this morning. >> touching on before, it's not just we as a country, it's those of us who called ourselves

conservatives for our entire life and those who call republicans for our entire life. when he's obsessedp the way he is on the small things, he's obsessed with, what happens to a health care agenda? you don't move a healthcare agenda forward. you don't have conversations about how, you know, getting free enterprise and free markets in health care can drive down the costs. you don't talk about passing tax reform that would make americans more competitive with the rest of the world. or get how many trillions that are offshore back invested in the united states, which would put working class people from wisconsin to pennsylvania back to work. you don't get to talk about regulatory reform. you don't get to talk about using a that money for infrastructure and rebuilding our country. i had somebody coming back from russia saying their infrastructure is incredible. china's infrastructure is

incredible. you should see the roads, you should see the trains. they are rebuilding. china did the same thing five years ago. we're not doing this because we have a president, harold, that is obsessed with the smallest of things. >> everybody has lapses in judgment and they say terrible things the things they don't agree with, when you say those things, you come back, if someone said to me, a great friend said to me the other day, good judgment at the end of the day is better late than never. you would hope when you say something crazy, you would say, i didn't mean that i got caught up in the moment this president has yet to apologize. >> he never does. >> his spokesperson says this is what you bargained for. i don't believe the country voted for this. i'm so curious. i want to see how we as a nation, the fabric and the texture of whom we are respond this, again, i'm hopeful and prayerful the answer is resell

h himb sellables the -- resembles the tone you are. i think the country shows, we won't stands for this. ? right away, it's an awful thing. we show absolutely no courage here. we get paid well. we've bought the the job of our dreams, we got the best life. i mean, coming from where i came from, my dad was unemployed for two years, couldn't find a job. >> months and months ago. >> i did come dprk where i come from, i did just learn to read just a couple of months ago. so, we're extraordinarily lucky, but, kathy. >> i'm really worried. >> i don't want to pound this into the ground too much, but there are people that are hurting out there, average wages for working class americans have declined in real time since 1974. their health care costs are going up, deductics are going up, premiums are going up. their coverage is getting worse.

our corporations that employ millions of people can't compete with other corporations across the world as effectively, because our tax rates are higher, our infrastructure is crumbleing, our airports are if joke. oyou are bridges are collapsing. that's what matters. and that's what's not getting done in an age where the partisanship is so harsh that steve scalise can get gunned down at a charity baseball practice. and yet a week later two, weeks later the president of the united states is amping things up and making the political environment all the more dangerous. >> he is, america has been ungovernable. richard spoke about the crisis facing us around the world, you also pointed out something else, which is the opportunities other countries are seizing. while america is standing still in terms of infrastructure building, creating more jobs, getting at the manufacturing

industries going again. other countries are moving forward. they just are, there have been some speculation, but when the president came into office because of him saying that he's a deal is-maker and because he has the republicans in the senate, the republicans in the house, he would actually be able break the gridlock that this was a president perhaps who could get things moving, because he had all the power in one hand and it could build himself as a deal is maker. instead his administration is caught up day after day if trying to clean up j et the lye the latest tweets occupying everybodys interests and air time and making it harder and harder for members of the growing baert to do business with him. >> mika, you have a 13-year-old daughter. you got two daughters. and i'm concerned about the messages that are being sent from this president. just like we've said it before on this show, both of us. we were concerned about the messages sent to boys and girls

when bill clinton was in the white house. but now especially you have women that are constantly degraded, you are constantly degraded by the president of the united states whenever he attacks us. he doesn't attack us, he doesn't attack me. he attacks you, can you look at katy tur on, you can look at what he did with the pageant that he fat shamed. you could look at what he did with megyn kelly. you can look at what he's done time and time again. by the way, we're not even saying about what he said privately. this congressman saying that he went into a rage talking about you and blood to 20 congressmen that he was actually whipping on the health care bill in the house. what does this say to young women and young girls and what does it say about the women in the white house? >> right. >> that won't step up and speak out against this horrid behavior. >> a phone call and he starts

learing and smiling at an irish reporter who he finds attractich. this has brought us back like 30 years and i do think women in the white house need to know their value and step up and understand they need to set him straight. so do the men. >> i got to say, also, i just want to bring one pan out. i'm sorry to name one person, but i'm going to name her. because she has been around walk for a long time. we know her, elaine chow. she's been there before. she will be there again. somebody like elaine chow needs to speak out the next time this happens. she has a voice. it's not enough anymore to say. >> now is the time. >> he's new to the job. that's what she said. that's what others have said. he's in you to the job. i would not allow, i got four kids, donny, i would not allow any of my children to behave this way. if they did belative this way one time, i would take care of

it. instead a lot of these republicans and cabinet members are going, oh, it's disappointing. would you say that to your five-year-old if he went out and smacked somebody? >> if somebody said this about my daughter, you know, once again, i'm going to elevate the conversation. donald, if you are watching, from queens, i'll meet you in the school yard, brother. this is -- >> no, no, no. >> we cower. >> we want to take it out of the school yard. >> i don't want to. >> well, i do. >> i'm worried. >> we want children to treat people with respect and did you and others as you would have them do unto you and just stop the insanity, willie, we're not going to get walk fixed as long as this continues and as long as republicans turn a blinds eye to it. >> it's not about being new to the presidency. have you to be new to humanity. >> well said. >> to know not to say something

like that to a woman or human being. especially when are you the most famous person now on the face of the earth and most powerful and everybody listens to every word you say, it sets the tone. >> let's send it on this note. he has once again shown the world that he can be played. he can be tweaked. he can be goated so easily that it's frightening. >> well, we'll leave it there. >> what does that mean for north korea? what does that mean nor vladimir putin? >> that's what i'm worried about. >> one piece of bad news. >> what's that? >> the sox are in toronto now. >> are you guys going? >> i can't help but mentioning. the dmv called my two male dogs bitches. i don't get it. >> she had the dogs. >> i went walking with the dogs, they're both boys.

it's a female dog. >> she's walking her two dogs, she actually has 14 dogs. >> my kids were very impressed. >> 18th schicken, 12 rabbits, you want to do a story, that itself story. >> it's good. a little bit traumatized. >> a week ago. >> go on vacation. >> all right. guys. bye. >> happy 4th. be right back. >> happy 4th america. in the future, a nation's technology will determine its power. in its economy, in medicine, in science and in national security. one company designs and builds more supercomputers than any other. an american company.

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>> welcome back to "morning joe" congress woman lynn jenkins, sfwood to see you this morning, thanks for joining ulgs. we will ask you about health care in just a moment. first you responded to president trump's tweets yesterday about jodi and mika writing quote this is not okay as a fema ill in politics, i am often criticized for my looks. we should be working to empower women. what about the tweets yesterday from the president of the united states, a member of your own party, we should point out did you find offensive? >> well, i just thought it was disappointing as a female who has been in elected office for

many years, i have been subjected to this for many years and it's not okay. and it's a huge distraction from the hard work that we have to do on capitol hill. american people are hurting. they're concerned about national security. we got a health care system that's falling apart on us. the goals in this economy is anemic. we need tax reform to get the economy moving, get people back to work. get more money in people's pockets. those are the kind of things we should be discussing this morning and this is just a distraction is there well the offensive content of the tweets that you have laid out there aside, i want to go to the point you just made about it being some kind of a distraction what is the impact in washington as you are trying to get business done on health care, in particular. the story like this, not just one, others created be i the president when he tweets?

>> well, again the only seductions that we're having on capitol hill yesterday were about a tweet that happened in the early morning when we should have been sitting down at the table having bipartisan discussions on how the senate can move forward on their health care plan and how house republicans are committed in particular on the house ways and means to get a tax bill written out of committee and into the house floor, to move the nation forward. >> yeah, i think you probably would have liked to focus on some of the illegal immigration laws, do things that were passed through the house yesterday, including kate's law. but let's focus on health care for a moment. you all got something through the house a few weeks ago. what do you think the prospects are in the senate right now, as you watch the process, you watch mitch mcconnell pull together two different pieces of the republican party, some say it doesn't go far enough in repealing obamacare, some like senators in west virginia and places worried that it doesn't do enough for people on medicaid

in their states? do you think this thing gets through the senate and kicks back over to you? >> i don't think we have a choice, quite honestly t. health system that's in place today is unraveling and folks are fleeing the marketplace and in a lot of places in the country there isn't anyone left to cover the american people or there's just one option. and so, failure is not an option here, the senate needs to come together and thread the needle, physical out where the common ground is and move forward. i'm not suggesting the house bill was perfect. i think everyone understands the process. the house sent them a bill to sfwin the process. now it's important they sit down in a bipartisan manner, come up with their solution so we can get something to the president that gets them relief to the american people. >> quickly, congress woman, you think it gets to the senate and comes back to you. >> again, i don't think we have

a choice the american people are hurting. it's up the us to get this done. >> congress woman lynn jenkins of kansas, thank you so much for being with us, joining us now in new york, we have from as ppen, colorado, andrea mitchell and couple yvette for and columnist for the daily beast market karlsson, andrea, let me begin with you on the topic joe and mika were talking about a few minutes azborks that was tago, m specifically about mika, what was your reaction when you read them? >> reporter: i was horrified frankly, because the president of the united states has so many more important things to do and the attacks at this personal level, especially against women, the sexism of it is just appalling. and i don't understand how women

in the administration in the white house are not speaking out and why officials who work for him are not as concerned as people around the country are concerned about this. certainly those of us in the media. i think have a responsibility to report on this, because it's an issue. it's concerning that the president of the united states is spending time in this fashion with personal attacks against anyone. it's beneath the dignitary of the presidency of the united states to be doing this during the campaign it was criticized but people took it for granted, that's trump, let trump be trump. i don't think even his most ardent supporters really would agree that this is what he should be focusing on, when people in ap laichia are waiting for him to dhifr on promises about jobs, health care are in a perilous state and when the few south korean president is if

town with the major crisis that he now faces in korea with the north koreans, with the chinese not delivering sanctions, also to this point around the world, this is so diminishing his stature as he heads into his first g-20. angela merkel speaking out against the tariffs that he supports against the opposition of his cabinet. so i think he as a foreign leader, a leader of the united states, facing foreign leaders i should say is really diminishing his stature and leverage. >> that hurts all of us. it hurts the country. >> andrea, like you, i hear from foreign leaders, they started saying weekly, actually, we had concerns about the foreign policy team, now we think that's okay, mcmaster, we feel the country on that side is in good hands, we increasingly have concerns about the character of the president. one of the things that nicole wallace said on her show yesterday, members of the female cabinet should now speak out.

they should condemn what president trump tweeted yesterday. i know you have been speaking to elaine chow, i wondered what she said on this. >> reporter: well, elaine chow was speaking at a panel and so we reported on what she said yesterday. and she repeated that he's new to the process, i don't have the exact quotes in front of me. but as joe was saying earlier on this program, elaine chow and others who have known him for years and know the president or in the cabinet, do need to speak out. we we heard from susan collins the victim, diane feinstein, we we heard from other senators republican as well as democratic women and men, the gender issue is really concerning and what nicole also said so people raebl on her programing yesterday -- memorably was she does not want her son to grow up with this as a role model. when you don't want the president of the united states as a role model for your son or

children, you don't want men in this country to be behaving this way. >> market, no disrespect to elaine chow, that is just so lame to say he is new to the presidency. as i said, this is new to the presidency, it's the kind of person you are, the character. >> it's about humanity and, in fact, this is not beneath the dignitary of a president. it's beneath the dignitary of any of us to speak is this way about anybody. i want to ask, is andrea still with us? >> yes. >> i want to ask. >> reporter: hi. >> hi, good morning, mika and joe where in their column they're not how sure the president is mentally unfit to watch their show. is he mentally fit enough to talk to vladimir putin given that vladimir putin is now responsible, he may blame putin for lot of his current troubles? >> reporter: i can't comment on. that i don't know him and i don't him other than this as a

journalist and observer. i'm certainly no doctor. but i'd worry about him not having acknowledged the depth of the russian hacking. we have 17 intelligence agencies all in accord, in a rare degree of agreement with a high consensus that he was vladimir putin who ordered this. and it was an attack on our democracy. and so for him not to being a imaging the real nature of it and for white house officials as recently on other networks to be they i saying this is a hoax and a fabrication, rather than waiting for it cob concluded is very surprising. >> will, you called elaine chow, lame, i think that's insulting to elaine's statements, he started running for president two years ago. okay. and he was the only guy who could fish washington. so now we're supposed to lay this off on naievete.

things that would get him slapped in a bar. he's not the novice. he's the president of the united states. he was elected last november. the idea that the normal rules of constraint don't apply to him because he has never been a politics or served in the military in this country, it's absurd. >> we we heard from one congress woman and many yesterday who are at best annoyed by this, because it completely gets in the waive of what they're trying to do. there is the ethical and moral problems people explain. yesterday they had the content of what he said. there is the political implication of we can't get stuff done because he's always stepping in our way with these off the cuff tweets. >> you know, they reduce it to a problem of tweeting. when it's, that's the means by which he does it. it's not -- it's that what comes into the president's mind is so outside the bounds of what he needs to be doing at this moment, saving the health care bill. it shouldn't be saved. >> that nonetheless is his task

to do. but he gets off task. i think, because the main task of governing is boring to our president. and he doesn't get into it with the same relish, obviously, that he gets into insulting people and he can never for a moment feel that he's not winning and so, his striking out is like a box score at a ball game. every inning he has to be winning. >> there's more than that. >> it's more than that. >> market carlson, thank you so mump. andrea mitchell, we will be watching andrea mitchell reports today at none and a smart aspen look you have rocking on the show. very nice. >> great. >> thanks so much. coming up on ""morning joe," as we head into this documentary alexander pelosi taking the look at the words our founding fathers used to shape america. seems important today.

alexander pelosi is our next guest. david. what's going on? oh hey! ♪ that's it? yeah. ♪ everybody two seconds! ♪ "dear sebastian, after careful consideration of your application, it is with great pleasure that we offer our congratulations on your acceptance..." through the tuition assistance program, every day mcdonald's helps more people go to college. it's part of our commitment to being america's best first job.

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we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. >> that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from consent of the governed. >> that was a clip from the new documentary film "the words that america built," an unabarraged reading of the authentic words of this country's founding fathers. it debuts on july the 4th on hbo. joining us, the film's director, alexandra pelosi. not many can say they're script writer with the founding fathers. >> hope they get an emmy for best writing. >> what made you think these

words are so great i want to have a bunch of american leaders read them? >> the day after the election i wept to see jimmy carter in georgia. i knew no matter who won the election half the country was going to be disappointed. i sat with sheila evans at hbo and said what can we do to unite. we're just trying to find something that everybody could agree on and the only thing we could come up with was the constitution. i went to washington. i have all the living presidents and vice presidents, r50 u.s. senators, and we kept saying we couldn't even get 50 senators to agree to read the menu in the senate cafeteria, but we brought out the constitution, it was the only thing that we could get everybody to line up and read. so that's what we did. the supreme court members, we got secretaries of state and defense, everybody would come together for the constitution because at a time especially on a day like today, it's good for fourth of july to remind the only thing we have left that unites us, because it does feel like this country is eating us up alive and at war with yourself.

>> i thought your documentary about george w. bush was wonderful and it showed what a decent human being he is and really showed his humanity. doing this documentary, did anyone surprise you with their knowledge of the constitution, of the founding documents? >> well, ted cruz could recruit the constitution from beginning to end. >> wow. >> when he was in high school he went around the country -- had like a debate club where he went around texas and would recruit the constitution from beginning to end on a saturday night. that was fun. all kinds of surprises with the different senators. but i have the bushes, both president h.w. and w. in this one so you'll be happy. they're great. >> spoil one surprise for us here. which line did the president read? >> president trump? chose to read about te electoral college. i guess that's his favorite part. >> this is a perfect time for this movie to come out because on this july 4th, and this may sound highfalutin, but we've got to take a look at who we think

we are and who we still want to be in this country. and the most uncivil period in this country since the civil war where the debate has gotten so course, maybe listening to these words will inspire people to remember us who we still aspire to be in this country. >> alexandra, did you get inspired listening to them? did you come away thinking maybe it's possible, maybe all of these people clearly love their country, love the founding fathers and the constitution, maybe we can work something out here? or is that -- >> i think all of these people that are elected public servants, i have great respect for all the institutions, presidentings, all these people that serve. so for me it was more about i think that the public has a responsibility to all this. they have an obligation to read the rule book of this democracy that's adored for 240 years. the declaration of independence is on display at the new york public library right now. we went to see it yesterday and there was not much of a line. we feel it's important for people to go back to the foundation so they know.

i'm not a big sports fan or watch a lot of football, but you want to know what are the rules, what do they have to do to get the ball in the end zone. don't throw out words like impeachment and thing like that unless you know what the rules are. it's your obligation as an american citizen to watch hbo on july 4th. >> even as a non-american citizen i'll be watching it. "the words that built america" july 4th on hbo. alexandra pelosi, thank you so much. that does it for "morning joe" this morning. still a ton of news out there that stephanie ruhle will pick up after this quick break.

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i'm stephanie ruhle and we are picking up where "morning joe" left off. mika and joe respond to the president's hideous tweets. >> i am very concerned as to what this once again reveals about the president of the united states. >> as the white house actually defends them. >> he's been very clear that when he gets attacked he's going to hit back. >> one-on-one. it's official. next week, president trump and putin will finally meet as a new report comes out that a republican operative tried to get hillary clinton's hacked e-mails to mike flynn of all people. we've got the latest. plus, a new plan, the president floating a new idea for health care. repeal obamacare right now and worry about replacing it later. we've got the latest.