following that grid pattern that the police were executing? >> well, you have to take into consideration, here in new york city, a city like new york city, the fire department is -- and i want to say -- i use the term paramedics because that's very loose -- that's the ems workers. they are one and the same. it's the same agency. therefore, it's common place for fdny or i want to say fire department members to enter and exit that hospital. like i said earlier this is a level one trauma center. what the fire department members they would be on site to provide that medical aid, but you will never see members of the fire department in the direct line of fire. so they have to maintain -- i refer to the inner and the outer perimeter. you will have an inner and an outer perimeter within this

hospital. and the inner perimeter is going -- is going to be solely police officers that have firepower. >> darren, hold that thought for a second. hold that fought for a second. it's the top of the hour. we have new viewers joining us. i want to reset the scene. you are looking at your screen, live pictures outside bronx-lebanon hospital in the bronx on the grand concourse. a major medical center, trauma unit in the bronx where there has been an active shooter situation. new york police department confirming now that the shooter is dead. the shooter has been shot. apparently a shooter with what people are describing as an ar-15 type gun, a long gun that's not typical of assaults seen in new york city because that type of gun is very, very hard to get in new york city. but there is a report of at least one person other than the shooter who has been shot at the hospital. and there are multiple

conflicting reports about whether others have been shot. we also have reports that there was a fire on the eighth floor of the hospital and that there was smoke coming out of the 16th floor. you've got a helicopter shot on the right side of your screen, which does not show any smoke. but we did see very large numbers of firefighters assemble moments ago outside the hospital. it is unclear whether they have gone in. we'll try to get that information in a moment. but you see a very, very large police presence around the bronx. this is a very busy area of the bronx. grand concourse is a major thoroughfare in the bronx and bronx-lebanon hospital a not for profit private hospital in the bronx is a major medical center in the bronx. i want to go to nbc news reporter adam reese who's on the scene for us now. he's joining me on the phone. adam, i think you were there moments ago when we got confirmation that the shooter is

dead. at that point, was there -- was there a change in activity outside the hospital with those police and firefighters who had been assembled out there? >> absolutely, ali, good afternoon. as that happened, a senior police official said to me it's over. you could see the dozens of police officers heavily armed police officers here breathe a sigh of relief. they were shaking hands, some of them were hugging. it is over. there is a huge, huge police presence here in the south bronx. as you know this hospital serves the south and central bronx. just to give our viewers across america a sense of where we are, we are blocks from yankee stadium in the south bronx. this happened just hours ago, conflicting reports as you suggested. a male black 6 feet tall we believe, wearing a white lab coat according to some reports had opened fire with an ar-15. one report indicated that maybe three doctors may have been

shot. it is according to one report that this shooter may have been a disgruntled former employee. at this time, ali, we don't see any fire or smoke coming from the hospital. there are still emergency vehicles en route. i can tell you there are emergency vehicles going north and south as far as the eye can see. there are emergency service units. there are heavily armed vehicles that have arrived here. just in case. as commissioner bratton said, in the last hour, no one can handle this better than the new york police department. they are here in force. they were able to handle this situation very quickly. efficiently. and as it appears the situation is over, we just don't know at this time how many people are injured inside the hospital. there were reports that during this situation they had locked down the hospital. you reported earlier there may have been smoke coming from either the eighth floor or the

16th floor, so there are fire units en route and arriving at this point. i can tell you that hundreds of residents here in this south bronx had come out on to this street to look at the situation. just a massive police presence, responding to this shooting today in the south bronx. >> adam, stand by. i have nbc news investigative reporter tom winter who is following the story. you have new reporting? >> sure. here's what we know, the latest from nypd officials of what is confirmed. right now, we're only hearing that there's been one person shot. that's what's been confirmed to us. there's a possibility of course that there could be more. there are numerous 911 calls that were received when this incident first happened. that's what kind of -- that's what got people interested and got people fired up this was an active shooter. at this point, it appears to be contained to the hospital at this point. at this point it appears to be an ex-employee. we're aware of the name of the

person, but we're awaiting confirmation and we want to be careful with that. right now the nypd believes they're dealing with a workplace violence incident and not a terrorist incident. again, it's very early in the investigation. the nypd as you heard in lester holt and you heard from former commissioner bratton and i can't think of two people who you'd rather from on this type of incident, but the police are charged with going in, pushing the fight. lester and i have been with some of the elite units over the last two weeks training with them. so this idea of a shooting in the workplace is something they're very well prepared for. at this time it appears that the gunman or at least a gunman is down. that's what the nypd has said officially and it appears that the incident is somewhat isolated. i have talked with fire department officials and senior new york city officials regarding the reports of a fire. those are reports of smoke that were coming at the time from 911 callers.

it's not clear yet there is an actual fire on these floors. i know from past active shooters in my experience in covering these that, you know, oftentimes people think there's smoke because of the smell, because of the gun fire smell. so we need to be a little bit careful with that at this point because the fire department hasn't had much of a chance to go in there. because this was an active shooter to look at the scene. so that's kind of where we stand at the moment. again, not believed to be terrorism at this time. does appear to be an ex-employee involved as the shooter and the incident absolutely appears to be contained to the hospital and the nypd's top armed units, the srg is inside the hospital. they're clearing it this time along with emergency services unit. that's the new york police department's version of s.w.a.t. they'll get a better handle of the information as the reports come back out to us. >> the nypd has said that the shooter is dead. that's short of an all clear.

>> yes. that's definitely short of an all clear. that -- that's kind of their language for saying, hey, we have it contained to this spot. we don't believe there's anything else going on connected to this incident at this time. obviously they need to be extra careful, could he have left something somewhere that could be designed to hurt first responders as they clear the scene. yes, if they checked the closet, checked his person, made sure that's no explosives or a secondary device and double-checked there's not an additional shooter, statistics show most times these incidents are just a single shooter. then at that point they'd issue an all clear. at this point, they're saying, hey, we think we've got it. we've got the units here that are ready to -- that are ready to go, that are trained to go from room to room, floor to floor. and so that's just them at this point saying, you know, we know

what we're looking at and now we're going to be thorough and do our police work. >> tom, you made some distinctions. you talked about the srg. that is a strategic response group that was formed by bill bratton who we just talked to on the phone. back in 2015. it is a very, very large group of police. they don't -- they're not necessarily all there, but it's 800 new york police department officers who are trained for response. it was generally thought to be set up around terrorism, but they were involved in this response. >> well, one of the things about the srg that deafs from the crc, the critical response command, the srg is embedded within patrol. they may handle an incident like this that's workplace violence. they may respond to the shooting related to the specific call in a business. their idea is that for the officers that are on the street and patrol day to day, they don't have the long guns, they may not have the extra armor. they're kind of there to back up

the police and to assist them. so whereas the crc is more designed -- as a counterterrorism response and they're the units that you frequently see in front of say trump tower, down at the world trade center, in times square. other high profile spots in new york city. so the srg is in patrol. this is what they were designed and kind of brought to bear to respond to an incident just like this where there's reports of shots fired. multiple 911 calls and when responding to an active shooter the current thinking in policing is to confront that shooter as soon as possible. most incidents they only last 3 1/2 minutes. so you have to get there quickly and you have to confront the shooter quickly. that's what the srg is for. so they would have been out on the streets, they would have been in the area. they would have been in part of the patrol and that section of the bronx and they would have been there to handle it. >> all right. tom, thanks for the good reporting. stand by along with adam reese. i want to go back to bill

bratton. >> actually, ali, do i still have you? >> you do. >> okay. so at this point we have heard from multiple law enforcement officials and we are prepared to name the suspect. his name is henry bellow. that's multiple law enforcement sources in new york city, jonathan dienst and myself. henry bellow is the suspect. we may have a picture of him shortly but i wanted to break in and name the suspect and again that individual has been identified as deceased by the nypd. they have stated that publicly and we have now gotten that confirmed that that is the person who did the shooting today. >> you are led to understand that henry bellow is a former employee of the hospital? >> we have been told that bellow is in fact a former employee of the hospital and i'm not sure quite what his position is. that's been kind of batted around as far as what his title is. but that's the name that -- that's the name that we have been told by multiple law enforcement sources, both jonathan dienst and myself.

>> please let us know as soon as you've got more information. tom winter with nbc's investigative unit. back with me on the phone is bill bratton who gave us a lot of information that turned out to be very correct about this. commissioner, we have a name of a former employee of the hospital. apparently armed with a long rifle of sorts. people tend to say ar-15 because it's what they know but we don't know exactly what type of weapon it is. as you said, we saw numerous heavily armed police with long guns going into that hospital. part of them were members of the srg which i believe the strategic response group, i believe you were at the head of the formation of. >> let me give you a quick explanation of how the nypd is now structured and has been restructured over the last three years. every police officer in the city of new york is -- has either gone through active shooter

training or will shortly be going through active shooting trainer. so you know the two officers that respond the first officers in the radio car that you are trained to very quickly get in to confront the active shooter. the department has either completed or is in the process of equipping every one of those squad cars with ballistic helmets and heavier duty ballistic vests. heavier than what the officers would normally wear under their shirts. secondly, there is the emergency service unit which is correctly describe as a s.w.a.t. team, but its capabilities are far beyond that. 600 members who for many years were the elite that the patrol officers would rely on. but at any given time, it might be fewer than a hundred of them throughout the whole city. during my time as commissioner, we created a third and fourth

level of response. the srg which you have been describing. strategic response group. broken down into a number of sub sectors throughout the city. at any given time there are several hundred of those officers equipped with long guns, with the extra ballistic vests, specialized training, more so than the officers in the patrol cars would have. in addition to those, approximately 800 srg officers -- oh, by the way, also the riot police that are trained to work with bicycles, et cetera, crowd control. then you have the critical response command which has been specifically formed to deal with terrorist related incidents. they receive a lot of intelligence, intelligence briefings. they also are equipped with the long guns. specialized vehicles. helmets. all of them are cross trained so that as you're seeing here, every one of those units is now at that hospital scene so that -- well, they can work

independently, they can work as they're doing here in collaboration. the city has geared up so that they can get 200 to 300 officers to any location within 10 or 15 minutes as you saw in this situation here. there's no city in america that has those resources. the mayor here is committed hundreds of millions of dollars over the last three years and when i was commissioner, now o'neill is commissioner, to this mission. training of officers constantly. the best equipment in america and constantly updating that equipment and the best intelligence in america. the nypd, counterterrorism division under commissioner miller. what you're seeing also is i think you will find when it's all said and done is the classic lone wolf active shooter situation that i know lester holt of nbc has been exposing as part of the preparations for a special. but the idea is the shootings, the victims oftentimes secured

within the first three to five minutes, and thus the need to get police in there as fast as possible. the individual often times will take their own life when confronted with police. we don't know the circumstances of this one yet. in this case it does appear to be a disgruntled former employee. the police had his -- kind of an identification within ten minutes that's why the sense was very quickly that this was an active shooter, workplace violence incident rather than a terrorist incident. this is all preliminary. that's what the investigation will determine. but what they're doing now in that hospital is searching every room for people who may be hiding out of fear. there's potentially another -- of a victim right now, they believe they have four to six. but they're looking to see if there are more. i would point out that this is a modern day hospital that would have modern state of the art smoke detectors, et cetera. sprinkler systems. so the issue about whether there

was a fire or not a fire, some of the fire suppression capabilities within the building apart from the fire department would be extensive in and of themselves. a lot more information to come out of this. >> there were others injured. nypd now is confirming several are injured. in this shooting. they're saying the shooter is deceased. several others are injured at bronx-lebanon hospital. commissioner, tell me what the process of events are. they're going through, they're looking for people who are hiding. looking for anybody who's injured. confirming that there's no one else involved in this shooting. but the scene doesn't get cleared until all that's done. >> well, that scene is not going to be cleared for quite some time, because it's an active crime scene spread over multiple floors. the victims in terms of the four to six -- >> commissioner, i'm going to interrupt you now. channel 4's got -- they're hearing from some people inside the hospital. let's listen in.

>> well -- >> he's nervous. >> okay. so it took you an hour to get out of the hospital? >> yeah. >> what's going through your mind knowing what happened inside of there? >> there's more people hurt inside of there. >> we were told five people were shot in there. >> i hope they're okay, basically, you know? i'm glad i wasn't one of those people or anything like that. so -- >> all right. thank you so much. what's your name? >> maya. >> thank you. again, we want to show you what it's like. police continue to respond to the shooting which took place before 3:00. you can see the sea of police officers and police officers outside at this hour. we spoke to someone in the emergency room at that time. it was chaotic as they tried to rush out. it took over an hour to get outside the hospital. now police are going room by room, making sure that the scene has been cleared. we've learned that the gunman is dead and at this point, police, fire department still here as

this investigation continues to unfold. we're live in the bronx right now. we'll send it back to you. >> all right. i want to bring commissioner bill bratton back into the conversation. you were hearing that -- commissioner, that was describing exactly what you have been telling us. that police are going to go through that hospital as you have been describing to us and we heard from someone else earlier. they know how to cover ground in a big building like that. >> that's correct. they have the resources to do it. a lot of smaller departments would have a s.w.a.t. team, smaller numbers of officers. but as you can see from the number of vehicles there, they easily have several hundred officers who can quickly be broken up into search teams that supervise four to six officers all appropriately equipped. so that's what is under way now. i would anticipate within -- it's 4:20 now. i'd be willing to bet within half an hour you'll be getting a

full blown press conference. the nypd usually tries -- along with the fire department try to get information out to you in terms of accuracy. right now you have an unfolding situation that has been stabilized. the apparent suspect gunman is down. he's deceased. and so the building is still in a semisecure state. until they get -- they go through every room there. >> commissioner, thanks for being with us on this. commissioner bratton, former commissioner, twice of the nypd and msnbc contributor and former fbi agent clint van zandt is on the phone. are you on the phone with us? >> i'm on the phone or camera. which -- >> we'll take camera. our control room is going to move between the pictures that we have got on screen and you. clint, you saw this going down. it does appear there are several people injured, the shooter is deceased. we do not know by whose means

he's deceased, but the shooter has been identified by the police as henry bellow, a former employee of the hospital. at this point, what we're hearing although no one said so because they have to know, is that this was a single incident with one person involved. we also know that others are involved, the atf had gotten involved in helping out the new york police on this. but at this point, does this now become an nypd only issue? >> well, it seems it will be nypd only. realize that the resources that new york police department throws at this are the local resources and they're one of the few cities in the nation capable of bringing that amount of investigative man power that quickly together. but atf will be there to assist concerning the tracing of the firearms. the fbi will be there to assist on the off chance this could have been terrorist related. look, any time in a major city

in the united states -- any city, whether unfortunately it's a ballpark, where a congressman gets shot or a shooting in the hospital today, the first presumption is the possibility it's a larger situation than just the one lone wolf. now violence in the workplace, the vast majority statistically speaking are lone wolf. single individuals that do this. but you don't want to have to escalate one step at a time and bring those resources on board. you want to dump everything you have to the scene. what you need, you've got them right there. men, women, resources. what you don't need in a city of new york you put them back on patrol again and the federal agencies come in. they will help, they will assist, what they can do. but again as you were discussing with the former commissioner, this is a huge hospital. what 100,000 plus patients a year i'm sure. so this has got so many rooms,

bathrooms. examination rooms on the off chance there's a victim or on the off chance there's an associate of the shooter, they're going have to take that hospital room by room and realize there's two investigations going on. one is right there at the shooting scene. there are equal amount of resources being dedicated to the shooter's vehicle, to the shooter's home. and anybody related or associated with the shooter to make sure this is a single event. >> clint, stand by. i want to go back to darren porcher, retired nypd lieutenant who knows the area well. i don't know if you see the pictures i'm looking at, but there are police vehicles everywhere in the area. you talked about an outer perimeter. and an inner perimeter. the other question i want to ask you is the reporting on the type of gun. we know it's a long gun of some sort. some people have said ar-15. i think in new york it would be hard to know what an ar-15 is because you don't see them much around here. that's part of the issue.

you have experience with people with long guns, that's not typical of the people other than the police. darren? >> can you hear me? >> let me ask clint, clint, the issue -- we got darren back? >> hello, yes. can you hear me? >> talk to me about the long gun. the idea that this was -- some people are calling it an ar-15. i talked to commissioner bratton about this. you rarely hear of a shooting in new york city of a long gun. >> it's not a common occurrence but i'll tell you from a personal perspective, i worked in that area which is the 44th precinct and you have a lot of violence perpetuated in that neighborhood. this wouldn't be the first time i heard of anyone using an ar-15 in that particular area. we go back to the dinkins administration, that's when we had the assault ban that came into play for the new york city. and that said you cannot have an assault weapon in the city of

new york. so that long gun is definitely something that would be more of an aberration as opposed to the norm. >> darren, stand by for a second. i want to listen in to an eyewitness on wnbc. >> thank you so much for talking with us. actually, there are a lot of people -- there's a lot of people who were just here watching the scene. but we have spoken to many people who have friends, who have family inside the hospital. employees, patients. right now they're waiting for word. of course, though we have heard the situation is over. we have heard that five people have been shot. so we're trying to get word on the condition of those people, the identify of those people. so a lot of people have told us they're just waiting, they're calling their loved ones. just trying to get some information out here. so right now, that's the scene. we're live right now outside the hospital. michael george, news 4 new york. >> let's go to tom winter, nbc investigative reporter who has been getting more information on the shooter who he identified on our air as henry bellow, a former employee of the hospital.

do you have new information? >> i sure do. henry bellow, aged 45, former employee of the hospital. we're in the process of going through the new york state medical records and at this point it doesn't appear that he has any sort of outstanding discipline against him. that's one of the first things that we check in this. again, we're still going through in trying to get a little bit of a handle on who in person may have been and why this person was an ex-employee of the hospital. as i mentioned he's age 45. we also are trying to get a little bit of confirmation because it's still a little bit unclear and still top nypd officials are on their way to the hospital. but we're trying to find out whether or not he may have taken his own life and that's why there's some reports out there's one deceased or whether someone was killed by his actions. we know he's deceased. we have heard that on the record from the nypd.

but at this point we're trying to get a little bit of a better handle on exactly who may have been dead. we do know -- obviously we're extremely cautious in situations like this. but we have heard reports that there are -- as the nypd is going through the hospital at this time, people that barricaded themselves in rooms. right now those rooms are being searched. there are efforts to get folks out of those rooms. so the sweep is -- its appears to be still under way at the hospital and law enforcement -- the nypd is still active inside. they will be the primary investigative agency on this and we'll get a better sense on why this happened today. >> you're giving us good information. stay on it and as soon as you've got something else, let the producers know. i'll get you right back in here. nbc's stephanie gosk is on the scene. where are you, what are you seeing, what have you heard? >> hey, ali, we're a block away

from the hospital. i know you have been going through the details here. looks like a former employee, it's not terrorist related at this point. i just want to comment just looking around here right now. how this city responds to an event like this. you have a massive show of force on the ground here and it really didn't happen all that long ago. and you are struck by the hundreds of law enforcement and fire department that are on the streets and it gives you kind of a reality check of what this city has to deal with and the threat level of all sorts of things. but, you know, when somebody hears active shooter the first instinct for a lot of people in this city is to think terror related. the law enforcement has to react to whatever the threat might be. they clearly have done that today. >> right. so people who are not from new york who are looking at this and they're seeing a massive police presence around that building, the first reports were gun fire and smoke and possibly a fire. so what bill bratton was telling

us is that they send out the cavalry and that's what you got there, stephanie. >> yeah, it absolutely is. you see how very quickly they get control of the scene. this grand concourse in the bronx is a major thoroughfare in the bronx. this is one of the biggest hospitals in the bronx. this is not an easy scene to get your arms around and they have in short order here. >> yeah. stephanie, we'll keep on top of the situation with you and with adam reese and tom winter and the others who have been joining us for this live coverage. what we do know is that the shooter is dead. we know one other person has been shot and several others have been injured. we are awaiting more news from the new york police department and we have been told we will be getting that shortly. meanwhile, our reporters are on the scene and our colleagues at wnbc continue to cover this story. that's it for me. i'm going to hand it over to my colleague, nicolle wallace, right now. nicolle?

we're going to continue to monitor that breaking news situation and when we get any update on the injured re'll bring it right to you. in washington, another big day for this white house. it was day two of the "morning joe" versus the leader of the free world twitter smack down. for their parts, scarborough and brzezinski. watched located "morning joe" for first time in a long time. fake news. he was responding to the account offered by mika brzezinski and scarborough on how the top white house aides that said they'd spike a story in "the national enquirer" if joe and mika covered the president more favorably. >> we got a call that "the national enquirer" is going to run a negative story against you guys. it was -- you know, donald is

friends with the president's friends with the guy that runs the "national enquirer." 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 the story. >> i was told yesterday by two sources close to the president that his feud with scarborough and brzezinski has been brewing for months. here's how mika responded to the harsh words for her. >> 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 just strange. the president's tweets whether that ire personally aimed at me or aimed at me in some way its doesn't bother me, but it does

worry me about the country. >> i want to get to the panel. juliana glover, paul butler, now a professor and an msnbc analyst. slate columnist michelle goldberg and my friday date, rev al, president of the national action network and with us from massachusetts the man with the best summer plans that i know, robert traynham, former adviser to the bush/cheney. thanks for being here. let me start with you and if you could just weigh in as a former -- well, a current communication strategist, but not inside the white house anymore. what goes through the minds of the professionals as we often call folks like hr mcmaster, dina powell, people who are there trying to protect the country when they see their boss, the president, on twitter down in the gutter and fighting with cable news hosts? >> i would not pretend to think what they're thinking right now.

>> but you have didn't -- just as a professional, what must its be like to have your boss -- >> i think they're focused on south korea right now. every syllable spoken about this hyper ventilating scenario around "morning joe" all that attention in a normal environment would have been focused on what's happening in north korea and south korea. you had the president -- >> i take your point they're focused on south korea but have they been able to get the president to focus on south korea while he's on twitter fighting with joe and mika? >> i think the professionals are focused on south korea. >> the information that joe and mika put out today there was an offer for a quid pro quo that one from the white house said, if you call the president and apologize for the way you cover him on your news program we'll kill a story for you in "the national enquirer" because we know them. is that -- i mean, it's shady in terms of the behavior and the

comportment. any laws that you're walking up to crossing? >> it's more than shady, it's a federal crime. u.s. code 1872 said if you use threats to obtain a ben it in you're guilty of a crime. look, the president, the people in the white house may have exposure for much more serious offenses like collusion, like obstruction of justice. but the point is that the president's tweets keep exposing him to legal jeopardy and there's this pattern of abuse of office. >> michelle, let me get you to weigh in. thank you, your first time on the show too. thank you for joining us. let me get you to weigh in just on the climate, on the political climate. we have -- i take juliana's point, there are people in the white house focused on the very real threat that north korea presents and other hot spots, but how does a white house compartmentalize the commander of the chief? >> on the one hand, you want

people who work in national security to keep their heads down and do their job. but i think it's a problem that the republican party has been able to not just compartmentalize but really hide this commander in chief and have this sort of poe tell kin presidency, that they pretend this is normal, that this president has a shred of dignity or decency. to me, the tweets are refreshing, this is who this president is. we knew this. it was clear before the campaign and there's something surreal about pretending he's something more than the person who tweets sexist insults at cable news hosts. so it's nice -- you all of a sudden have once again this reassertion of reality. this is a terrible situation. this is like a civic apocalypse that people need to start -- making contingency plans and

figuring -- this is not a sustainable situation. >> rev, you're my donald trump -- you're the one person who knows the man. i'm guessing there's nothing he's done in the last 24 hours, not the original taunts to mika brzezinski and not the revelation he was willing to trade the killing of a tabloid story for better coverage, but what do you make of the man who you have known for 30 years is the leader of the free world? >> it's something that's scary. it's reinforced every time you see a situation like this. i mean, i know he's thin skinned. you must remember, nicolle, that when i started politics and started attacking him on the birther issue he was raising about president obama saying that it was really an other than us racial implications there, he

met with me to argue about that. i mean, he sits and reacts to this. so there was no way i thought because he laid his hand on the bible and became the 45th president that he had grown thick skinned. it is what he has as a real element of his personality. we all know that joe scarborough and mika don't make things up. joe and i used to fight and argue including about donald trump. he's brutally honest, mika -- come on. the kind of misogynist things he said about her and other women. the frightening thing he's sitting there with the president of south korea there, we're under a real questionable threat with north korea. and he's tweeting lies about mika? we're dealing with a health care bill where we're told by the cbo 22 million people can lose their health care. and he's fighting with mika and joe? that's what's frightening. i'm hearing at a festival -- at

the essence festival in new orleans, tens of thousands of people they can't believe it. with health care laying in abeyance, we don't know what the president is going to do with the president of south korea and he's making up stories on cable talk show hosts. that's what's frightening to me, nicolle. >> well, rev, let me ask you this. i think you hit on even what his friends and defenders will say about him. i didn't find anyone yesterday defending the behavior. but in the efforts to explain its to me, two of his friends and frequent defenders of the president said he's so especially wounded by people that he knew in his past life as a tv personality turning on him. he's so offended they won't promote the good things he thinks he doing. is he sort of wired for corruption? i mean, does he think that everything can be bought? >> i think that he's wired for self-indulgence and that also

exposes the possibilities easily for corruption. because it's all about what feeds me. whether it's flattery. whether it's making a deal. because you have got to deal with the mentality of someone that takes it so personal that he's the head of the free world and he will get on twitter and personally -- i'm not talking about using some surrogate. personally start defaming people that have impeccable reputations like mika brzezinski. when you're dealing with someone that's personal, that's driven, that throws any caution to the wind when you deal against their interests and their perception of themselves then you're dealing with somebody that is open to anything and is very dangerous. particularly at this time. the whole country should be talking about what the senators should be doing when they go home on health care.

you'd think he'd be working the phones, he's making up things about mika? i mean, this is unbelievable. >> all right. we'll keep talking about it. when we come back, more heart, no, let's repeal the whole darn thing. that's the president's latest position on health care and its isn't going to make the fourth of july picnics any easier on republican members of congress as they head home this weekend. count down to putin. as president trump gets ready for first face-to-face meeting with president putin we are keeping tabs on the agenda between the american president and the man who ordered attacks on our country's democracy. we're continuing to monitor the breaking news in new york. at least one person dead in the shooting at bronx-lebanon hospital. if we learn anymore we'll bring it to you.

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another tweet from the president this morning making waves this washington by offending senate republican strategy on health care. quote, if republican senators are unable to pass what they're working on they should immediately repeal and then replace later at a later date. that was an idea that had been ruled out by republicans early on. but it was recently revived by ben sasse who this morning on fox news appealed to the president. >> i'm writing a letter to the president urging him to call on us to separate them. every republican in the u.s. senate except for one has already voted for repeal in the past. let's do that first. we can't do them together, let's do as much repeal as we can and then let's have the president stay here to work on replace separate. >> kasie hunt is with us from capitol hill. whose job is to clean off the spaghetti they have thrown against the wall to see what

sticks? what's going on up there? >> this is a return to the way that republicans suggested they govern before they controlled the white house quite frankly. and senator sasse said that everyone has voted to repeal poem care in some form, that's true but it didn't happen when they had a president who could sign something into law. that's -- >> wait wait. let me stop you. because you just encapsulated why everybody hates washington. so they were for repealing obamacare when there was no chance that they would ever repeal obamacare. but now that a vote to repeal obamacare might actually result in them repealing obamacare they're not sure that's the right strategy? explain that to me. >> well, the cbo score that came out for the partial complete repeal of obamacare back in january showed that 32 some odd million americans would lose their health insurance. so yeah, all of a sudden, governing is harder as it turns

out than being the opposition party. that's why they have put repeal and replace together in all of they're messaging. you'll remember when we first started to talk about this, there was some discussion. maybe we should do a full repeal. people including tom cotton not exactly a liberal member of the republican caucus said, hello, guys, we have to put the two things together. we can repeal and replace, but we can't just break it and then not fix it. so this is kind of a full circle back to the idea that maybe they should try that. there's so many problems with that strategy. a lot of them relate to how the senate rules work. they can't do a full obamacare repeal with just the 52 votes they have in the senate. they would need 60. the policy gets very messy and remember the last time, nicolle, they said we'll do something now and force ourselves to do something later, because what happens, that was the sequester, remember, they cut money from discretionary programs and from the military. this will be so bad for both sides we'll find a deal.

we will force ourselves to find a deal. here we are years later that sequester is still in place. the military is still screaming about it. i think there's a lot of reticence about hey, it will force us to do something later. because the track record isn't there. >> let's listen to how sarah huckabee sanders dealt with the questions and issues that kasie is raising. >> the president hasn't changed his thinking at all. i mean, he's campaigned on, talked about since he was elected. repealing and replacing obamacare. we're still fully committed to pushing through with the senate at this point. but we're -- you know, we're looking at every possible option of repealing an replacing obamacare. we are focussed on doing that. as i said earlier there is another large amount of counties that now have no obamacare provider and so we're continuing to work hard to repeal and replace obamacare and that hasn't changed. >> robert traynham, i want to

bring you into this conversation too. with kasie. because i tried to diagram all of the places on the ideological spectrum where trump has visited on his path to health care. he started out to the left of the house bill because he thought it was too mean. then the senate bill was a little bit to the left of the house bill. he went to the left of the senate bill because he thought it didn't have enough heart. he wanted more money. now, he is all the way over on the right for full repeal. which i think is the rand paul position who was described by many senate staffers as ungettable when the senate bill was first rolled out. so what does the republican party stand for when it comes to obamacare? >> that's a good question. its sounds like what the president did was turn on fox news after he watched mika and joe and just listened to the last person literally just listened to the last person who

said something in his mind rational about the affordable health care act and tweeted it out. this is consistent with the president he doesn't have any ideological beliefs. he doesn't know what what thinks when it comes to policy. as i'm -- as several have told me in the white house he confuses medicare and medicaid. he doesn't understand the nuances of the affordable care act. by the way, i hope someone asks him, mr. president, when is the last time the entitlement program was repealed and see what his response will be there. there's never been an appeal of an entitlement program. we don't have any true fighters in the republican party that will stand up and look in the mirror and put country first. put party second, but country first. this is not funny. this is serious. we have someone who's a former kgb over in the former soviet union that's undermining us and playing us like a fiddle. we have someone across the pond

in the oval office who is dancing to that fiddle, not only just to vladimir putin. but also it appears to tweets. we are in a dangerous point right now and it's ironic that we are 72 hours away from hours away from the birth of our independence when we declared independence from a dictator called king george iii. very ironic. >> joining our panel is brian mcguire, former chief of staff for mitch mock of mccon mcconne. respond to robert's comments and a point about what a dangerous place we're in.ock mcconnell. respond to robert's comments and a point about what a dangerous place we're in.ck mcconnell. respond to robert's comments and a point about what a dangerous place we're in.k mcconnell. respond to robert's comments and a point about what a dangerous place we're in. mcconnell. respond to robert's comments and a point about what a dangerous place we're in.mcconnell. respond to robert's comments and a point about what a dangerous place we're in. we've got someone clearly being played by vladimir putin, messing with your old boss on health care and sitting in his office tweeting away at cable news hosts. >> i think republicans in the senate are focused to getting legislation through. >> to what end? why? >> because the legislation that they believe is best for the

country the president actually supports. >> what does he support? what does the president support on health care? >> they are closely aligned on the objectives of health care. repealing and replacing obamacare. >> he said to sean hannity that we can't let people die in the streets. every impulse he's had on republican legislation has been to trash it. he called the house bill mean. he said that your old boss' bill needed more heart. what makes you think that he's for either pieces of legislation? >> i think ultimately he will sign what the republicans in the senate are able to get 50 votes for. >> so you don't think he cares what it is. so what he's for is whatever can get 50 votes? >> whatever they can get 50 votes for is repeal hand and re of obamacare. >> so why did it all fall apart this week? >> i think senators have an opportunity to look at the bill that was proposed and they have some ideas. >> and they hated it. >> no, you can get 10 senators to sign a letter supporting almost anything. what you can't get is 50

senators -- >> but your old boss rolled out a bill this week and they dropped like flies. every hour he lost another supporter. >> there are significant constraints starting with the fact that they start with 52 members, probably 51. >> what is the constraints when you control the house, senate the and white house? >>ady ver diverse caucus and you need 50 to pass anything. >> isn't the real constraints that just people hate this legislation, the american people like obamacare, they like it more now that obama is not office. there was a lot of people who liked affordable care act even if they thought obamacare was an abomination and people are outraged and terrified -- >> the latest poly saw showed that 11% of the public wants to keep obamacare as it is. so republicans are responding to that. >> but a lot of people want to make it more generous. there is no constituency for cutting medicaid. there is no constituency to m e

making deductibles more. >> approval rating for the republican bill is somewhere between 16% at its high water mark and 8% according to a few polls. i think one was a maris poll, one was another respected national poll. obamacare is at least, i don't know, seven times more popular than the republican bill. tell me what the politics are just as an observer of the other side of the aisle for this bill. tell me why it fell apart in your view. >> i think it fell apart because on one side you have republicans that are clearly concerned about increasing debt and dealing with the fact that the government would still have to make some investment, the federal government. and you have the others that are clearly dealing with the fact that you will put millions of people in a position of no health care. and the solution cannot be for

the president or anyone else to say just repeal it which means that we will stop those millions of people from being served and we'll figure it out later. and i think that that is the most ludicrous solution when you should be sitting there trying to come out with mid ground. you have no excuse. what are you going to tell your constituents now, mr. president? you control the white house and the senate and the house. and now guess what, you can't come with a solution. it was easy when you could say, well, we're all going to repeal it because obama won't sign it. as understand earlier, nicolle. but now you're in the driver's seat. what is your experience ncuse n. you can't come up with something that 50 of you agree on, then why did you have everyone vote to put the republicans in the majority. save us from the abyss if you really didn't have a formula for salvation that you can get the majority of your people to go with. >> al, let me give our new

friend the last word on health care. >> republicans i'm confident will get to 50 because they are -- >> i'll write that down. i want to turn to something else. vladimir putin. this president will have his first face-to-face with someone that we now know i'm not sure he knows or accepts meddled in the 2016 election. what are the stakes for the white house with this first face-to-face with vladimir putin? >> i think the president has to show that he's going to stand up for national interests when he meets with putin and not in any way shape or form give an inch that will leave him to susceptible to criticisms that he may have colluded in any way, shape or form with the russian government during the election. >> susan, i want to ask you about something that donald trump tweeted in 2013. he said that i think we could be best friends. that was putin he was talking about. how do you take a president who spent his entire candidacy talking about what a model leader vladimir putin was, how

he was touch, how he was strong, how he might have been his new best friend. how do you now with all the information we have, everything we know that putin is trying to do to our address, to his neighbors who he would like to reassemble as a new soviet union, what does this president need to achieve in this face-to-face ebb councountrenco? >> if you ask can donald trump, he's never given up on his dream ever resetting the relationship on a much more favorable basis with vladimir putin. obviously he's had every opportunity. i think his staff disagrees with the president. i think if you look at his defense secretary jim mattis, even his secretary of state rex tillerson, there is clearly a division with the president trump himself. and i think that there has been a lot of internal fighting over what kind of a meeting to have with vladimir putin. i found it really extraordinary that the national security adviser hr mcmaster yesterday said, well, he confirmed that they will meet and he said there

is no real agenda for this meeting. they will just meet. that is pretty amazing when you think that we're six months after an election in which all of the apparatus of the u.s. government except for the president himself has said vladimir putin interfered in our election. how can we have no agenda in the first meeting between the president and putin? you would think that that would be on the agenda for example. you would think that the war in syria would be on the agenda. you would think that the ongoing presence of russian-backed militias and russian military in eastern ukraine would be on the agenda. so i think it's important to remember donald trump is headed out on his second international trip only of his president iscyt week and once again we're embroiled in controversy in washington. and i think next week is going to be another tough week for donald trump on the foreign policy front. >> susan laid out the foreign

policy sort of friction between the united states and russia. but lay over that for me the investigation. and i see in two parts. one is the investigation into whether or not donald trump's universe colluded with the russian, but the other is now an investigation into whether or not this white house or this president may have obstructed justice by firing the fbi director who was investigating ties to russia. >> and yesterday we had this bombshell report from the "wall street journal" before what we knew was that trump operatives had all these weird meetings with russians. >> that they got for got about, lied about or left off forms. >> and now we know that they are talking to russians about hacking, about collusion, about hillary clinton's e-mails. so if this -- >> let me put up that story you're talking about. a "wall street journal" report about a gop operative who sought clinton e-mails from hackers and talked about it. he has passed away. but he talked about having a

connection to mike flynn who was at the time a senior adviser to then candidate donald trump. keep going. i wanted to show our viewers that article. >> and this is the same mike flynn who president obama warned trump was dirty, who sally yates said this is a dirty guy. he hung into him for 18 days. finally was forced to fire him and then asked comey can you see your way through giving him a break. michael flynn knows something about donald trump that donald trump does not want the world to know. >> and that sort ever haof hang the backdrop for what he goes to russia. you were press adviser to a vice president whoed a l ahad lots o meetings at a critical time in our country's national security. what advice would you give the white house for this meeting? >> i'd try and have everything scripted as absolutely possible. ensure that there are no sort of separate tete-a-tete meetings as

we know when president trump pulled aside president xi and asked him to take a walk with him. you want no private conversations with putin. >> because even when the advisers are there, he called comey a nutjob and crazy. so good you for joining us. thank you to my panel. i'm sorry we were so short. that does it for this hour. "mtp daily" starts flights wiri with katy tur. >> good evening. i'm in for chuck todd. welcome to "mtp daily." we begin with some breaking news out of the bronx in new york. one person was killed and five more injured after a gunman dressed in a doctor's lab coat opened fire at are bronx-lebanon hospital amounts earlier today. the gunman identified as 45-year-old